An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 105: Arabic Poetic Structure and Theories of Altruism (The Quake (al-Zalzalah))
The Quake (al-Zalzalah)
Arabic Poetic Structure and Theories of Altruism.
Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0
For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com
The Quake (al-Zalzalah) 1-8
“When the earth is rocked with a terrible quake
and the earth discharges her burdens,
and man says, ‘What is the matter with her?’
On that day she will relate her chronicles
for her Lord will have inspired her.
On that day, mankind will issue forth in various groups to be shown their deeds.
So whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it,
and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.”
You could almost fit these words to the tune of REM’s “Man on the Moon”. I think it’s because the first line, “When the earth is rocked with a terrible quake” reminds me in language and rhythm of “Egypt was troubled by the horrible asp (yeah yeah yeah yeah)”. You’d need to add the “yeah yeah yeah yeah”s to the end of each line, but it almost works. Try for yourself.
The other thing that struck me is what a great euphonious word “zalzalah” is. And that made me look carefully at the transliteration, which I don’t often do, and I noticed the alliteration in the first two lines ““ʾidhā zulzilati l-ʾarḍu zilzālahā / wa-ʾakhrajati l-ʾarḍu ʾathqālahā”, with “zulzilati/ zilzālahā” matched with “ʾakhrajati/ʾathqālahā”. Looking at the surah as a whole in transliteration shows some other motifs as well.
“ʾidhā zulzilati l-ʾarḍu zilzālahā
wa-ʾakhrajati l-ʾarḍu ʾathqālahā
wa-qāla l-ʾinsānu mā lahā
yawmaʾidhin tuḥaddithu ʾakhbārahā
bi-ʾanna rabbaka ʾawḥā lahā
yawmaʾidhin yaṣduru n-nāsu ʾashtātan li-yuraw ʾaʿmālahum
fa-man yaʿmal mithqāla dharratin khayran yarahū
wa-man yaʿmal mithqāla dharratin sharran yarahū”
Note the rhyming endings – zilzālahā, ʾathqālahā, mā lahā, with the pseudo-rhymes “ʾakhbārahā” and “ʾaʿmālahum” leading into the last two verses with “yarahū”. I think with the longer surahs I hadn’t really looked into the poetry in the original Arabic. Possibly, without knowing more, the –laha ending could be merely a grammatical indicator and so it’s no surprise that words at the end of a sentence have it, I don’t know. Something else to look into. The other thing that’s more noticeable in the Arabic is the coupling in the last two verses where the words translated as “good” and “evil” share a lot more in the way of sounds – “khayran” and “sharran” not only scan better but are also pseudo-rhymes.
That’s the mechanical construction of the surah. Content-wise it relates the End Days again, this time specifically with an earthquake. It was interesting that quran.info chooses to refer to the Earth as “her”, whereas quran.com goes with a neutral “it”. I think “her” actually sounds better, giving the earth more personification. People divide into two groups – one assumes this refers to the good and the evil, based on the final couplet. And here it’s made plain that it doesn’t matter how much you’ve done, even an “atom’s weight” is enough to put you in one camp or the other.
I’d presume here that this means the final balance, since most people are a mix of both. You just need, in the final analysis, to have done slightly more good than you did bad. Because if not, that means that there’s no point in repenting or converting, since if you’re already damned for any minor infraction you committed in the past, this will never be wiped out. On the other hand, it also indicates that the system can be gamed. Do a good act for every bad one that you do. Kick an orphan, donate to charity. It’s like jetting around the world and planting trees.
I’d assume that the reply to this would be that Allah would know that your good acts are done in a spirit of self-preservation. But does that make the good act impure? If the net effect is the same, does the intent behind the action really matter? This is like behavioural theories behind altruism. One is that we feel distress ourselves on seeing the distress of others, and so any attempt to alleviate the distress of the other is only really driven by the need to get rid of our own distress. Another is that we are altruistic in the expectations that the recipient will at some point in the future will reciprocate. Both of which are true, neither of which are necessarily the only motive behind altruism (human minds being an over-complicated mess), but also neither of which means that the net result isn’t that the recipient doesn’t get help.
Well… for a short chapter that springboarded off to some complex ideas so, er, well done to the Qur’an for provoking thought, I guess.
Arabic Poetic Structure and Theories of Altruism.
Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0
For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com
The Quake (al-Zalzalah) 1-8
“When the earth is rocked with a terrible quake
and the earth discharges her burdens,
and man says, ‘What is the matter with her?’
On that day she will relate her chronicles
for her Lord will have inspired her.
On that day, mankind will issue forth in various groups to be shown their deeds.
So whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it,
and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.”
You could almost fit these words to the tune of REM’s “Man on the Moon”. I think it’s because the first line, “When the earth is rocked with a terrible quake” reminds me in language and rhythm of “Egypt was troubled by the horrible asp (yeah yeah yeah yeah)”. You’d need to add the “yeah yeah yeah yeah”s to the end of each line, but it almost works. Try for yourself.
The other thing that struck me is what a great euphonious word “zalzalah” is. And that made me look carefully at the transliteration, which I don’t often do, and I noticed the alliteration in the first two lines ““ʾidhā zulzilati l-ʾarḍu zilzālahā / wa-ʾakhrajati l-ʾarḍu ʾathqālahā”, with “zulzilati/ zilzālahā” matched with “ʾakhrajati/ʾathqālahā”. Looking at the surah as a whole in transliteration shows some other motifs as well.
“ʾidhā zulzilati l-ʾarḍu zilzālahā
wa-ʾakhrajati l-ʾarḍu ʾathqālahā
wa-qāla l-ʾinsānu mā lahā
yawmaʾidhin tuḥaddithu ʾakhbārahā
bi-ʾanna rabbaka ʾawḥā lahā
yawmaʾidhin yaṣduru n-nāsu ʾashtātan li-yuraw ʾaʿmālahum
fa-man yaʿmal mithqāla dharratin khayran yarahū
wa-man yaʿmal mithqāla dharratin sharran yarahū”
Note the rhyming endings – zilzālahā, ʾathqālahā, mā lahā, with the pseudo-rhymes “ʾakhbārahā” and “ʾaʿmālahum” leading into the last two verses with “yarahū”. I think with the longer surahs I hadn’t really looked into the poetry in the original Arabic. Possibly, without knowing more, the –laha ending could be merely a grammatical indicator and so it’s no surprise that words at the end of a sentence have it, I don’t know. Something else to look into. The other thing that’s more noticeable in the Arabic is the coupling in the last two verses where the words translated as “good” and “evil” share a lot more in the way of sounds – “khayran” and “sharran” not only scan better but are also pseudo-rhymes.
That’s the mechanical construction of the surah. Content-wise it relates the End Days again, this time specifically with an earthquake. It was interesting that quran.info chooses to refer to the Earth as “her”, whereas quran.com goes with a neutral “it”. I think “her” actually sounds better, giving the earth more personification. People divide into two groups – one assumes this refers to the good and the evil, based on the final couplet. And here it’s made plain that it doesn’t matter how much you’ve done, even an “atom’s weight” is enough to put you in one camp or the other.
I’d presume here that this means the final balance, since most people are a mix of both. You just need, in the final analysis, to have done slightly more good than you did bad. Because if not, that means that there’s no point in repenting or converting, since if you’re already damned for any minor infraction you committed in the past, this will never be wiped out. On the other hand, it also indicates that the system can be gamed. Do a good act for every bad one that you do. Kick an orphan, donate to charity. It’s like jetting around the world and planting trees.
I’d assume that the reply to this would be that Allah would know that your good acts are done in a spirit of self-preservation. But does that make the good act impure? If the net effect is the same, does the intent behind the action really matter? This is like behavioural theories behind altruism. One is that we feel distress ourselves on seeing the distress of others, and so any attempt to alleviate the distress of the other is only really driven by the need to get rid of our own distress. Another is that we are altruistic in the expectations that the recipient will at some point in the future will reciprocate. Both of which are true, neither of which are necessarily the only motive behind altruism (human minds being an over-complicated mess), but also neither of which means that the net result isn’t that the recipient doesn’t get help.
Well… for a short chapter that springboarded off to some complex ideas so, er, well done to the Qur’an for provoking thought, I guess.
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