An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 109: Seize The Day, and Do Righteous Things (Time (al-‘Asr))
Time (al-‘Asr)
Seize The Day, and Do Righteous Things.
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
Time (al-‘Asr) 1-3
“By Time!
Indeed man is in loss,
Except those who have faith and do righteous deeds, and enjoin one another to [follow] the truth, and enjoin one another to patience.”
“wa-l-ʿaṣr
ʾinna l-ʾinsāna la-fī khusr
ʾillā lladhīna ʾāmanū wa-ʿamilū ṣ-ṣāliḥāti wa-tawāṣaw bi-l-ḥaqqi wa-tawāṣaw bi-ṣ-ṣabr”
I’ll admit here that this is such a short surah I was at a loss to anything to say about it, so I went and did a little research. First, my untouched thoughts were that it’s overall pretty straightforward – unless one has faith, does righteous deeds, enjoins others to follow “the truth” and has patience, then one is “at a loss”, by which I’d assume (based on the rest of the Qur’an), means a good burning. It works on an immanent level as well, if by “in loss” the surah means something like bereft of purpose, or morally adrift.
One problem with such brevity is that what constitutes “righteous deeds” or “the truth” is open to interpretation. One could probably be persuaded, for example, that a “righteous deed” would be to fly a plane into a building just as much as to give to charity. No, to be fair, I say “just as much” but this is false equivalency. Maybe if 0.01% of people could be persuaded that righteous deeds involve righteous killing, that’s still enough to matter.
It’s not my thesis here to try and show that Islam is violent, though. This kind of verse is no different to some vague verses in the Bible, so in that respect I think the fault lies in religion meeting politics if things turn ugly.
The opening oath, much shorter than anything before, is in interesting one. By swearing by “time”, the surah suggests either that man is at a loss eventually, then his time is up, or that time is short in which to do righteous deeds enough to count. Or possibly both meaning at once.
So, those were my thoughts. More experienced Islamic exegetes than me (i.e. everyone) argue that this chapter forms a kind of synecdoche for the Qur’an as a whole, and I can see that; it does pretty much summarise the arguments of most of the previous chapters, I guess. Also some claim that the Companions of the Prophet would always recite this to each other when they parted company. In that sense it’s a little akin to the Lord’s Prayer of Christianity – a brief declaration that summaries the faith. Others say what I noted, that it carries the idea of making the most of time. The summary idea is quite nice in that it sidesteps the incompleteness I complained of earlier. Anyone reciting or hearing it would know the real intent behind “righteous deeds”, just as anyone reciting or hearing the Lord’s Prayer would know that any references to “daily bread” don’t specifically refer to baked goods and only baked goods.
If you’re interested in how Islamic scholars can pick over every word and taste it for different meanings, have a look at the Wikipedia page for this surah to see some more esoteric interpretations that I’m not going to go into here.
Seize The Day, and Do Righteous Things.
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
Time (al-‘Asr) 1-3
“By Time!
Indeed man is in loss,
Except those who have faith and do righteous deeds, and enjoin one another to [follow] the truth, and enjoin one another to patience.”
“wa-l-ʿaṣr
ʾinna l-ʾinsāna la-fī khusr
ʾillā lladhīna ʾāmanū wa-ʿamilū ṣ-ṣāliḥāti wa-tawāṣaw bi-l-ḥaqqi wa-tawāṣaw bi-ṣ-ṣabr”
I’ll admit here that this is such a short surah I was at a loss to anything to say about it, so I went and did a little research. First, my untouched thoughts were that it’s overall pretty straightforward – unless one has faith, does righteous deeds, enjoins others to follow “the truth” and has patience, then one is “at a loss”, by which I’d assume (based on the rest of the Qur’an), means a good burning. It works on an immanent level as well, if by “in loss” the surah means something like bereft of purpose, or morally adrift.
One problem with such brevity is that what constitutes “righteous deeds” or “the truth” is open to interpretation. One could probably be persuaded, for example, that a “righteous deed” would be to fly a plane into a building just as much as to give to charity. No, to be fair, I say “just as much” but this is false equivalency. Maybe if 0.01% of people could be persuaded that righteous deeds involve righteous killing, that’s still enough to matter.
It’s not my thesis here to try and show that Islam is violent, though. This kind of verse is no different to some vague verses in the Bible, so in that respect I think the fault lies in religion meeting politics if things turn ugly.
The opening oath, much shorter than anything before, is in interesting one. By swearing by “time”, the surah suggests either that man is at a loss eventually, then his time is up, or that time is short in which to do righteous deeds enough to count. Or possibly both meaning at once.
So, those were my thoughts. More experienced Islamic exegetes than me (i.e. everyone) argue that this chapter forms a kind of synecdoche for the Qur’an as a whole, and I can see that; it does pretty much summarise the arguments of most of the previous chapters, I guess. Also some claim that the Companions of the Prophet would always recite this to each other when they parted company. In that sense it’s a little akin to the Lord’s Prayer of Christianity – a brief declaration that summaries the faith. Others say what I noted, that it carries the idea of making the most of time. The summary idea is quite nice in that it sidesteps the incompleteness I complained of earlier. Anyone reciting or hearing it would know the real intent behind “righteous deeds”, just as anyone reciting or hearing the Lord’s Prayer would know that any references to “daily bread” don’t specifically refer to baked goods and only baked goods.
If you’re interested in how Islamic scholars can pick over every word and taste it for different meanings, have a look at the Wikipedia page for this surah to see some more esoteric interpretations that I’m not going to go into here.
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