An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 99: The Prophet: Orphaned Poet (The Morning Brightness (al-Duha))
The Morning Brightness (al-Duha)
The Prophet: Orphaned Poet.
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 Morning Brightness (al-Duha) 1-11
” By the morning brightness, by the night when it is calm!”
This surah is only eleven verses long, so I’m going to quote all of them, even though I’ll be chopping them up to comment. This will probably be the format from here-on since, apart from one of nineteen verses long, the rest are all very short. And note that the theme of swearing by celestial phenomena continues. I wonder if this is an Arabic traditional thing, so that the readers/listeners of the Qur’an would know that this is a very solemn yet familiar oath being made.
The surah continues with an address directly to the Prophet, assuring him that he’ll get heavenly rewards - “Your Lord has neither forsaken you nor is He displeased with you, and the Hereafter shall be better for you than the world. Soon your Lord will give you [that with which] you will be pleased”.
This kind of inclusion amuses me. Obviously I don’t think that the words are the report of a divine message anyway, but even if you assume that this is all a direct quote from a divine messenger, it’s kind of funny to include words to the effect “And then God told me I was doing a really good job and He was going to reward me for it”. It’s only the inclusion of the chapter “He Frowned”, where God tells the Prophet off for ignoring a beggar, that ameliorates some of the self-congratulatory tone.
God continues to enumerate the favours that He has done for the Prophet - “Did He not find you an orphan, and shelter you? Did He not find you astray, and guide you? Did He not find you needy, and enrich you?” How literal is “orphan”, I wonder. Was the Prophet actually an orphan, or is this a metaphorical reference to being a spiritual “orphan” without guidance? I suppose I should investigate what the tradition is among Islamic scholars. The same could be said, I guess, of “astray” (kind of obvious that one) and “needy”. Given that many times the Qur’an claims that physical riches are no protection against The Fire™, my guess is on spiritual riches. There’s a good cadence to this triple-question format, though, and it sounds quite similar to some Biblical verses.
The triple questions then get answered, or rather interpreted so as to indicate correct behaviour - “So, as for the orphan, do not oppress him; and as for the beggar, do not chide him; and as for your Lord’s blessing, proclaim it!” Okay, the topics don’t quite align, but again it’s an effective rhetorical device. This is noted as the eleventh chronological surah (eleventh with eleven verses), and it seems sometimes that the earlier surahs were a lot more poetic both in subject matter and better constructed in terms of the linguistic constructions used. I don’t know why this would be so, but perhaps here in the early days the Prophet is full of optimism and zeal concerning his revelations, and later on the weight of authority and fighting enemies within and without wore him down and knocked all the poetry out of him. Without a more systematic review, though, I could be wrong about my sense of the declining poetry. Coming up are the first and last surahs, which might show an interesting contrast. Or might not.
The Prophet: Orphaned Poet.
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 Morning Brightness (al-Duha) 1-11
” By the morning brightness, by the night when it is calm!”
This surah is only eleven verses long, so I’m going to quote all of them, even though I’ll be chopping them up to comment. This will probably be the format from here-on since, apart from one of nineteen verses long, the rest are all very short. And note that the theme of swearing by celestial phenomena continues. I wonder if this is an Arabic traditional thing, so that the readers/listeners of the Qur’an would know that this is a very solemn yet familiar oath being made.
The surah continues with an address directly to the Prophet, assuring him that he’ll get heavenly rewards - “Your Lord has neither forsaken you nor is He displeased with you, and the Hereafter shall be better for you than the world. Soon your Lord will give you [that with which] you will be pleased”.
This kind of inclusion amuses me. Obviously I don’t think that the words are the report of a divine message anyway, but even if you assume that this is all a direct quote from a divine messenger, it’s kind of funny to include words to the effect “And then God told me I was doing a really good job and He was going to reward me for it”. It’s only the inclusion of the chapter “He Frowned”, where God tells the Prophet off for ignoring a beggar, that ameliorates some of the self-congratulatory tone.
God continues to enumerate the favours that He has done for the Prophet - “Did He not find you an orphan, and shelter you? Did He not find you astray, and guide you? Did He not find you needy, and enrich you?” How literal is “orphan”, I wonder. Was the Prophet actually an orphan, or is this a metaphorical reference to being a spiritual “orphan” without guidance? I suppose I should investigate what the tradition is among Islamic scholars. The same could be said, I guess, of “astray” (kind of obvious that one) and “needy”. Given that many times the Qur’an claims that physical riches are no protection against The Fire™, my guess is on spiritual riches. There’s a good cadence to this triple-question format, though, and it sounds quite similar to some Biblical verses.
The triple questions then get answered, or rather interpreted so as to indicate correct behaviour - “So, as for the orphan, do not oppress him; and as for the beggar, do not chide him; and as for your Lord’s blessing, proclaim it!” Okay, the topics don’t quite align, but again it’s an effective rhetorical device. This is noted as the eleventh chronological surah (eleventh with eleven verses), and it seems sometimes that the earlier surahs were a lot more poetic both in subject matter and better constructed in terms of the linguistic constructions used. I don’t know why this would be so, but perhaps here in the early days the Prophet is full of optimism and zeal concerning his revelations, and later on the weight of authority and fighting enemies within and without wore him down and knocked all the poetry out of him. Without a more systematic review, though, I could be wrong about my sense of the declining poetry. Coming up are the first and last surahs, which might show an interesting contrast. Or might not.
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