An Atheist Explores the Qu'ran Part 116: Victory vs. Conquest (Nothing About Dodgy Chocolate Pie) (The Help (al-Nasr))

The Help (al-Nasr)
Victory vs. Conquest (Nothing About Dodgy Chocolate Pie).

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 Help (al-Nasr 1-3)
“When Allah’s help comes with victory,
and you see the people entering Allah’s religion in throngs,
then celebrate the praise of your Lord, and plead to Him for forgiveness. Indeed He is all-clement.”
- Quran.Info

“When the victory of Allah has come and the conquest,
And you see the people entering into the religion of Allah in multitudes,
Then exalt [Him] with praise of your Lord and ask forgiveness of Him. Indeed, He is ever Accepting of repentance.”
-Quran.Com

This is the last (chronological) surah in the Qur’an, the 114th and a Medinan one tucked away down at the end among much earlier Meccan ones. It is a promise of victory to the Prophet as he prepares to take Mecca from the polytheists (one assumes his erstwhile fellow Quraysh). The Prophet will prevail and win lots of converts, it says. And when that happens, thank God for making it happen. I wonder what forgiveness is needed for, if this is for something specific that is to do with battle, or just in general because mankind is a bunch of worthless sinners.

Although it pertains to a specific event, this surah is vague enough to be applied to pretty much any venture, I think, particularly the al-Quran.info translation, since “victory” could be anything from conquering Meccan to passing exams to having a polite theological discussion with a non-believer. The Quran.com version, however, using “conquest”, has a much less avoidable militaristic tone to it. This, I think, highlights the problems of translation and interpretation of ambiguous language. And given that the original intent of this surah was to support military action, the Quran.com version is one that can be used in support of fighting in the name of Allah, whereas the al-Quran.infor version carries that somewhat softer tone.

Something I also wonder about the interpretation of the Qur’an – this verse is addressed specifically to the Prophet (the al-Quran.info version makes that more clear with its convention of using italicized words). So how often are these to be taken as general words that are also meant for all Muslims under other circumstances, and not just the Prophet under specific circumstances?

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