#al araf

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So when Our messenger[-angels] come to them to take their souls, they shall say [to them]: Where are those that you used to call upon [in worship] apart from God?

Surah Al-A’Râf The Heights 7:37

In regards to the idols of my time: Where are those material possessions that you turn to in comfort? Where is the power that makes you feel so indestructible? Where are the saviors, the normal people you worship? Tell them to run, tell them to save you...

[quranreadalong]

THE BAD QURAN, PT 6: SURAH 7

Given that half this surah involved recounting various incidents of Allah committing genocide, it probably will not surprise you that we have far more bad ayat to cover than good ones. 55 more of them, in fact.

7:4-5 sets the tone for the surah, with Allah bragging about how many towns he’s terrorized and destroyed. Towns of disbelievers, of course. 7:9 (and 7:53) reminds us that the act of disbelieving destroys one’s soul; 7:27 and 7:30 later remind us that the disbelievers are friends with devils.

In case you hadn’t already gotten the message, 7:32-33 tell us yet again that only Muslims go to heaven, because people who “lie” about Allah are sinful. If that still wasn’t enough for you to get the message, Mohammed then launches into a long-ass diatribe about the disbelievers. Those who deny his revelations are going to hell (7:36). They will be made to testify against themselves before Allah (7:37). Generation after generation will be thrown into The Fire for their disbelief (7:38-39). They will never be allowed into heaven and will be forced onto the “bed of hell” (7:40-41). Believers will taunt the disbelievers from heaven (7:44-45). The disbelievers in hell will beg for water, which will be denied to them, because they denied Mohammed’s revelations (7:50-51).

What a happy start to the surah!!!

At this point, the surah transitions into Prophet Dodgeball mode, throwing a shitload of stories about prophets telling people to stop being disbelievers, them not listening, and then Allah killing them at you. Noah is first. Noah tells people that he fears Allah will punish them if they don’t stop disbelieving (7:59). But they don’t, so Allah drowns them all in 7:64.

The next story is of the prophet Hud. “Stop being disbelievers,” he tells his people, but they don’t stop, so Allah kills them in 7:72.

Following Hud is Saleh, the one with the magic camel sent by Allah. Saleh tells people not to touch the camel, but they, being disbelievers, don’t listen and kill the camel. So Allah kills them too in 7:78.

Next is Lot, the Sodom guy. In 7:80-81, Lot expresses great displeasure that the people of Sodom are gay. Allah then kills everyone in the city besides Lot and his family (but excluding his wife) with a rain of brimstone in 7:83-84.

After Lot comes Shuaib, who has the same story: people are disbelievers, Allah punishes them (in 7:91-92 he sends an earthquake to kill them because they did not believe Shuaib). 7:93 tells us that Shuaib doesn’t care, since they were disbelievers and all.

Allah then explains in 7:94 how, every time he sends people a prophet, he also sends them misery. Then he switches it up and sends down goodness instead of badness, and gets pissed off when the people refuse to thank him for these mind games, so he takes the goodness away as punishment for being disbelievers (7:95-96).

Allah’s punishment for the disbelievers can come at any time, states 7:97-98: while they’re sleeping or awake. Anyone who thinks that they’re safe from his wrath is doomed (7:99).

As we have seen several times before, Allah seals people’s hearts so they cannot heed prophets’ warnings (7:100). If you disbelieve once, Allah curses you to disbelieve forever (7:101). (This is repeated in 7:146.) Seems a bit dickish. It’s okay, though, because most of the doomed disbelievers were wrongdoers anyway, according to 7:102.

That was a 17-ayat-long rant, if you hadn’t noticed. But back to Allah committing collective punishment. 7:130 has him sending a famine to the Egyptians to punish the pharaoh, then 7:133 brings up the various plagues (locusts, etc). The story ends in 7:136, with Allah drowning the Egyptian army.

Later in Exodus Abridged, Allah says that the whole persecution thing was a trial from him (7:141) and Moses says that the wrongdoing Hebrews (7:148) who became idolatrous will be destroyed (7:139) by Allah’s wrath (7:152).

The works and deeds of people who disbelieve are pointless; they are hellbound no matter what, according to 7:147.

Two more tales from the Moses days: first, the Jews are told to enter a city and say a certain prayer. Some of them say something else instead. 7:162 informs us that Allah sends “punishment from the sky” for this transgression. Then Allah gives the Jews fish on the Sabbath (when they aren’t allowed to fish) and no fish on other days (when they are) in order to test them, in 7:163. Allah punishes those who don’t want to play his bullshit fishing minigames in 7:165, with 7:166 informing us that they were turned into apes.

 7:167 is a hilarious ayah that states the following:

And (remember) when thy Lord proclaimed that He would raise against them till the Day of Resurrection those who would lay on them a cruel torment. Lo! verily thy Lord is swift in prosecution and lo! verily He is Forgiving, Merciful. 

Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful for sending the Jews enemies forever because... their ancestors fished on a prohibited day and stuff.

In 7:168, we are told that Allah scattered the Jews and has tested them repeatedly to bring them back to loving him. Just for good measure, Mohammed’s contemporary Jews are called greedy in 7:169.

One last Exodus-era story: there’s a prophet (traditionally Balaam, the guy whose tongue fell out) who Allah favored with revelations, but he turned to disbelief. 7:176 compares him to a dog and says that disbelievers are like him, as they are also evil (7:177). But also they are sent astray by Allah according to 7:178, so is it really their fault? (7:179 suggests the answer is yes, they’re going to hell!)

7:182-83:

And those who deny Our revelations - step by step We lead them on from whence they know not. I give them rein (for) lo! My scheme is strong.

Following that, 7:186 says that no one can help those Allah sends astray.

Finally, 7:202-03 says that evildoers (like those who ask Mohammed to prove he’s a prophet) are misled by devils.

So... that’s six separate incidents of Allah punishing specific groups of disbelievers, from Noah’s day to the days of Moses, not including the ones Allah will punish in Mohammed’s day.

SPECIAL BONUS SECTION: HALL OF SHAME!

The following ayat condemn disbelievers to hell and pinged our kuffar hell counter. They will be copied and pasted word-for-word. Given that Allah preferred to just murder disbelievers instead of waiting for them to die and then punishing them in this surah, this section is surprisingly short! It does, however, contain an enormous 6-ayat rant.

Say: Such, on the Day of Resurrection, will be only for those who believed during the life of the world. Thus do we detail Our revelations for people who have knowledge.

But they who deny Our revelations and scorn them - each are rightful owners of the Fire; they will abide therein. Who doeth greater wrong than he who inventeth a lie concerning Allah or denieth Our tokens. (For such) their appointed portion of the Book (of destiny) reacheth them till, when Our messengers come to gather them, they say: Where (now) is that to which ye cried beside Allah? They say: They have departed from us. And they testify against themselves that they were disbelievers. He saith: Enter into the Fire among nations of the jinn and humankind who passed away before you. Every time a nation entereth, it curseth its sister (nation) till, when they have all been made to follow one another thither, the last of them saith unto the first of them: Our Lord! These led us astray, so give them double torment of the Fire. He saith: For each one there is double (torment), but ye know not.  And the first of them saith unto the last of them: Ye were no whit better than us, so taste the doom for what ye used to earn. Lo! they who deny Our revelations and scorn them, for them the gates of heaven will nor be opened nor will they enter the Garden until the camel goeth through the needle's eye. Thus do We requite the guilty. Theirs will be a bed of hell, and over them coverings (of hell). Thus do We requite wrong-doers.

And the dwellers of the Fire cry out unto the dwellers of the Garden: Pour on us some water or some wherewith Allah hath provided you. They say: Lo! Allah hath forbidden both to disbelievers (in His guidance), Who took their religion for a sport and pastime, and whom the life of the world beguiled. So this day We have forgotten them even as they forgot the meeting of this their Day and as they used to deny Our tokens.

he whom Allah sendeth astray - they indeed are losers. Already have We urged unto hell many of the jinn and humankind, having hearts wherewith they understand not, and having eyes wherewith they see not, and having ears wherewith they hear not. These are as the cattle - nay, but they are worse! These are the neglectful. 

Well then.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the next surah is way shorter than this one, and also contains less genocide.

The bad news is that it’s called “The Spoils of War”, and yes, it means literal war booty!

Join us tomorrow for the rules of distributing shit you’ve grabbed from your vanquished foes!

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

[quranreadalong]

#53, Surah 7

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 53

We are finally at the end of the seventh surah. For some reason this one felt extra long to me... I think it’s because of how disjointed it was, and how many random stories were shoved into it. All of it required a lot of explanation regarding wtf Mohammed was going on about. But the good news is that we only needed to do that once. We’ll see our friends Saleh, Hud, et al later on and hopefully you’ll remember who they were and how their communities were destroyed by Allah for dumb reasons.

But this section is not about them. No, it is about the disbelievers.

Today we begin with 7:181-84.

And of those whom We created there is a nation who guide with the Truth and establish justice therewith. And those who deny Our revelations - step by step We lead them on from whence they know not. I give them rein (for) lo! My scheme is strong. Have they not bethought them (that) there is no madness in their comrade? He is but a plain warner. 

Lord, there is a lot to unpack here.

First of all... these are four successive ayat. What is going on with the pronouns here? Allah is We (with the verb suffixed -na) in 7:181 and 7:182. Then he’s I in 7:183. Earlier this surah he was He, like in 7:54-57. And inexplicably, Mohammed (who Allah assures us is not insane!) is now he, even though he was you at the beginning of the surah! Who is talking to whom here, exactly? Some apologists will tell you that this is some Arabian poetic tradition but fail to show even a single example of this kind of pronoun shifting outside of Mohammed’s xanga rants. Lo! It is a miracle of Islam, let us not question it.

Allah says that there is one good, favored nation that guides others towards the truth (meaning Muslims), while Allah guides the disbelieving peoples of the earth towards their doom. That Allah, such a schemer! 7:182-83 are bad, the other two will be put in the neutral pile, though 7:184 is mildly hilarious. For the record, I don’t think Mohammed was crazy. He was bullshitting but he was fully aware of what he was doing. Delusions of grandeur, sure, but he knew damn well where the “revelations” were really coming from imo.

Anyway, we are then reminded that Allah is god and then smacked with this:

Those whom Allah sendeth astray, there is no guide for them. He leaveth them to wander blindly on in their contumacy. 

Yes, we’ve seen this before, both in the last surah (6:110) and in surah two (2:15). Get new material, man. The whole Allah dooms people to disbelief and then punishes them for it thing is still bad and dumb.

7:187 informs us that Mohammed, who is back to being “you”, doesn’t know when the Day of Judgement will arrive, so stop asking him, assholes. He is but a humble warner. Sure, fine, neutral.

Then we revisit the Adam and Eve story from earlier, with a reminder that Allah created humankind from one soul (Adam), and how Allah gave Adam a wife, who got pregnant; but then they (asterisk on this word) betrayed Allah by committing shirk, or polytheism. Er... who are we talking about here? “They” as in Adam and Eve? Or...? When did this happen? Al-Wahidi offers this, quoting one of the scholars of the second generation of Islam:

Initially, all the children of Adam and Eve died in their infancy. And so, Satan whispered to them: 'If a boy is born to you, call him 'Abd al-Harith [the slave of al-Harith]'. The name of Satan was, prior to that, al-Harith. 

Well, fuck me. I thought his name was Iblis! Apparently it was both. This strange little story has a deeply uncertain origin (it is not Biblical) but it was apparently well-known in the past, as many of the tafsir authors and “historians” like al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir mention it (they say that Shaytan’s name was at first Azazel, then al-Harith, then Iblis, then Shaytan). The link to Azazel is obviously from late Jewish and Christian writings concerning him as a fallen angel. Idk where “al-Harith” comes from, but that was actually an Arabic name used at the time, so maybe it’s conflating a myth about a particular jinni with a fallen angel and linking both to Shaytan??

Regardless, according to this story, after the tree incident, Adam and Eve’s kids kept dying. So Shaytan/al-Harith told them to name their next kid after him to save the baby, and they did, thus displeasing Allah. The baby presumably did not survive, and Allah must have forgiven Adam and Eve, due to the existence of Cain/Abel and assorted sister-wives... anyway, it’s not at all certain that this story was what Mohammed was talking about up there. It’s just one possibility, one that was commonly related in the past; big names like Imam Ahmad, the Jalals, al-Tirmidhi, and Ibn Saad repeated the same story. But others frowned upon the tale and its evident moral message. Shirk is supposed to be the worst possible sin, after all.

So other authors ignore the whole strange affair mentioned above and say the two ayat are about later generations falling into polytheism, even though 7:189-90 seems to refer to two people in particular (Adam and Eve) rather than multiple people. They say this is just a poetic device or something, which is scholars’ go-to excuse for confusing grammar in the Quran.

Some say it refers to polytheists in the distant past, others Jews and Christians contemporary to Mohammed. No one really knows, though the interpretations where this isn’t about Adam and Eve are the more common ones in the modern era. Regardless, the moral of the story is that polytheism is bad. Polytheists don’t listen to prophets like Mohammed. Mohammed then taunts the polytheists, telling them to pray to their gods, because they should be able to answer all their prayers if they’re real. Hey, maybe the lack of response is just the polytheistic gods testing their followers like Allah does to his! Rude, but I’ll put this down as neutral so far.

Allah is god etc, unlike the polytheists’ gods, but polytheists refuse to listen (and/or are prevented from listening by Allah, I suppose).

Hey, we have a rare good one towards the end of the surah!!!

Keep to forgiveness (O Muhammad), and enjoin kindness, and turn away from the ignorant.

I feared that we’d end this section without seeing any good ones. Thank Allah. Speaking of whom, if Shaytan whispers in your ear, turn to Allah to ward him off. The (human) devilish people, naturally, try to drag believers back the other way. This includes saying things like “so if you’re a prophet, why can’t you perform miracles?”. The Quran is the true miracle, of course, so listen to it because Allah is god etc (the little symbol ۩ in that ayah indicates you’re supposed to prostrate yourself when it is recited. There are 15 ayat with that symbol. Most of them either directly say “prostrate yourself” or are Allah is god etc ayat. The reason why you have to prostrate at these particular points is because Mohammed himself did it. Don’t worry about it!).

We are finally done with this slog. You know what, the whole questioners-are-devils thing is pretty bad but I am just going to put all the above shit besides that under neutral and call it a day.

The Quran Read-Along: Day 53

Ayat: 26

Good: 1 (7:199)

Neutral: 20 (7:181, 7:184-85, 7:187-98, 7:200-1, 7:204-6)

Bad: 5 (7:182-3, 7:186, 7:202-3)

Kuffar hell counter: 0

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

[quranreadalong]

#52, Surah 7

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 52

It’s time for some more Moses, and this time a lot of it is copied and pasted from the second surah, with the same Jews Suck commentary. Try to contain your excitement.

When we left our Hebrew Heroes, we had just finished the Ten Commandments/Idol Calf incident. There is still some tension in HebrewLand as our story resumes in 7:159. Some of Moses’ people are fine, and Allah divides them into twelve tribes and Moses does the twelve springs from a rock thing that we saw in surah 2 already. Mohammed seems to have conflated two separate incidents here, one the water-from-a-rock miracle and two the twelve regular, non-miraculous springs. But anyway, Allah lets the Jews stay in a town to rest up if they say a prayer, again as we’ve already seen. Sure, neutral. But then the dastardly Jews have to spit in Allah’s face by...! By...?

But those of them who did wrong changed the word which had been told them for another saying, and We sent down upon them wrath from heaven for their wrongdoing.

By... uh, saying the prayer wrong (involving wordplay shenanigans, apparently).

they were commanded to say “hittah” [there is no deity except Allah; or as in the other meaning: forgive our sins] but instead said “hintah” [wheat]

That’s just one explanation for what’s going on here; others have them saying “hibba” (seed) or something else. All the stories come down to the same theme, though, which is that the Jews made a game of it instead of praising Allah. So he smote them. Bad. Always recite your prayers properly, kids! I can’t find this in any Jewish or Christian sources, so idk if it’s from a lost text or if Mohammed made it up himself. It very well might be the latter, since he did accuse (Arab) Jews of wordplay games more than once.

Then Allah pulls some more bullshit, reminiscent of the whole sending furry animals to people on pilgrimage in Mecca thing. This starts in 7:163 and is the backstory of the “Jews turned into apes/pigs” thing that we’ve seen many times thus far. It is even dumber than you are imagining. (This whole part seems to assume that Jews are listening to him talk, which has prompted some scholars to say these verses came from the Medina days, and they were just stuck here because they naturally followed the other Wrongdoing Jewz story.)

While the Jews are in the seaside town, Allah sends fish right to the top of the water on the Sabbath day, when they can’t fish. Then on the other days, when they can fish, he takes the fish away.

Ask them (O Muhammad) of the township that was by the sea, how they did break the Sabbath, how their big fish came unto them visibly upon their Sabbath day and on a day when they did not keep Sabbath came they not unto them. Thus did We try them for that they were evil-livers.

Lo! Starvation is indeed a trial from your Lord. Stop being a bad dick, Allah. (Again, this is not in any Jewish sources I can find. It may have been some tradition lost to history, or something Mohammed pulled out of his ass.)

The Jews, tired of Allah’s weird-ass mind games, fish on the Sabbath. They are warned by the more pious Jews that Allah will now destroy them. A third group of Jews asks the pious ones what the point of this is, exactly: “Why preach ye to a folk whom Allah is about to destroy or punish with an awful doom”?

The answer was “to make ourselves feel less guilty bout the ass whoopin they bout to get LOL”, apparently. Is this... neutral? I have no idea. But 7:165 is bad and concludes this little vignette:

We rescued those who forbade wrong, and visited those who did wrong with dreadful punishment because they were evil-livers. So when they took pride in that which they had been forbidden, We said unto them: Be ye apes despised and loathed!

The Sabbath-breaking Jews are turned into apes. Again, this is meant literally. What happened to the poor things is a matter of debate; some tafsir authors say they lived for three days, unable to eat or drink, before perishing. Jesus. Others say they survived and had kids, so modern-day Jews are descended from animals. Pretty fucking terrible either way!

Then we get the following curious ayah, which is also bad but hmm-esque:

And (remember) when thy Lord proclaimed that He would raise against them till the Day of Resurrection those who would lay on them a cruel torment. Lo! verily thy Lord is swift in prosecution and lo! verily He is Forgiving, Merciful. 

Allah will send people to torment the Jews forever because some Hebrews fished on a Saturday. Lo! How forgiving of him. Hey, if this part is from the Medina days, I wonder if Mohammed considered himself one such tormentor. (His followers did.)

Moving on! In 7:168, Allah talks about how he scattered the twelve tribes of Israel, some of which were good and some of which are not, and “tried them with good things and evil things that haply they might return” to the true religion (Islam). But they didn’t; in fact, the descendants of the scattered Jews were mostly greedy and bad people, though there were some good ones who kept to the Torah.

All that besides the last one is bad. I will do a very long post about this topic in surah nine, but please remember for now that after leaving Mecca, Mohammed was genuinely shocked by the Jews of Medina refusing to convert to Islam. Cannot imagine why they weren’t impressed by his revelations!

Back to the Biblical stories. Allah picks up a mountain and sticks it over the heads of the Jews. They are understandably terrified of being crushed to death, but Allah is just doing it to demonstrate a point and doesn’t actually kill them so it’s neutral I guess. That Allah, such a joker.

Then we have this in 7:172:

And (remember) when thy Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their reins, their seed, and made them testify of themselves, (saying): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily. We testify. (That was) lest ye should say at the Day of Resurrection: Lo! of this we were unaware

Mohammed elaborated upon this in a hadith:

Allah created Adam, then passed His right hand over his back, and brought forth from it his offspring, saying: I have these for Paradise and these will do the deeds of those who go to Paradise. He then passed His hand over his back and brought forth from it his offspring, saying: I have created these for Hell, and they will do the deeds of those who go to Hell. ... When Allah creates a servant for Paradise, He employs him in doing the deeds of those who will go to Paradise, so that his final action before death is one of the deeds of those who go to Paradise, for which He will bring him into Paradise. But when He creates a servant for Hell, He employs him in doing the deeds of those who will go to Hell, so that his final action before death is one of the deeds of those who go to Hell, for which He will bring him into Hell.

So Allah dragged people out of Adam, decided their fates, and made them declare him god. But who, exactly, is Allah forcing to declare him their god? Adam and Eve’s kids... before they were born? All human beings to ever exist, briefly granted form/consciousness solely for this reason before being put back in the Soul Box in the sky? The latter interpretation is the most common one, believe it or not. Mainstream Islamic thought teaches that all people declared their belief in Allah and Islam at this point, so everyone is already Muslim the second they’re born, which is why converts to Islam are called “reverts”. Yeah.......

I’ll say it’s neutral just due to the vagueness of it all, but from a legal point of view, “you said you believed in the right religion when you didn’t even exist yet, so you have no excuse to be a disbeliever, even if you were just following your ancestors’ religions!” does not seem like a strong argument. There are also serious free will issues in that hadith, but o well...

The next ayah is similarly mysterious and no one knows who Mohammed was talking about. Take your pick of any of the people mentioned in that tafsir. But the most common version is that Allah gave a non-Jewish guy in Moses’ time named Balaam some prophetic knowledge, but he was a disbeliever anyway. The Quran doesn’t actually mention this Balaam individual, but the “histories” say he cursed Moses and the Hebrews, so Allah made his tongue fall out. This ayah gets a bad label due to the last two sentences:

Therefore his likeness is as the likeness of a dog: if thou attackest him he panteth with his tongue out, and if thou leavest him he panteth with his tongue out. Such is the likeness of the people who deny Our revelations. Evil as an example are the folk who denied Our revelations, and were wont to wrong themselves.

That isn’t a Biblical story, by the way, and al-Tabari offers several different versions of Balaam’s fate. All end with his tongue falling out, though.

We end the day with some oldies but bad goodies: Allah leads people astray and created disbelieving people (who are like cows...?) so they could go to hell. Hey, there’s our first kuffar hell counter (1) entry in a long-ass while! Also, don’t sit near people who are blaspheming. Allah will deal with them later. I’ll put that one as neutral just to be nice.

Lots of weird stories this section, but we’re almost done.

NEXT TIME: Surah seven ends, praise Allah.

The Quran Read-Along: Day 52

Ayat: 22

Good: 0

Neutral: 11 (7:159-61, 7:164, 7:170-75, 7:180)

Bad: 11 (7:162-63, 7:165-69, 7:176-79)

Kuffar hell counter: 1 (7:178-79)

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

[quranreadalong]

#51, Surah 7

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 51

It’s ya girl @urfavmurtad back at it with another Prince of Egypt recap session.

Allah has sent various collective punishments unto the Egyptians, but the Hebrews are still being prevented from leaving. What’s a god to do?

I’m really glad I saved this cliffhanger for this section. 7:136:

Therefore We took retribution from them; therefore We drowned them in the sea: because they denied Our revelations and were heedless of them. 

O...oh. Y’all, uh, y’all didn’t punish them for the whole slavery thing? Or the... the infanticide? No? It was for denying Moses’ revelations? Well, I guess it’s gotta go into the bad pile then. Damn it, Allah, you could’ve just lied about your motivations!

So the whole drowning thing has happened and now Moses and friends are on their way to Israel. While on their trek, they come across some idolators, and the Hebrews think their statues are pretty cool and ask Moses if they can make one too. Moses replies that this is not a good idea, because:

their way will be destroyed and all that they are doing is in vain.

The idolators are minding their own damn business, but alas they are disbelievers and thus must be destroyed. Cool. Bad.

Moses tells his followers that Allah’s the best god anyway so there’s no reason for them to make idols to worship. After all, Allah is the one who... uh... caused the Egyptians to slaughter their children, prior to rescuing them?

We did deliver you from Pharaoh's folk who were afflicting you with dreadful torment, slaughtering your sons and sparing your women. That was a tremendous trial from your Lord.

I mean, can we really judge the Hebrews for wanting another god here?

7:142 continues the story, with Moses appointing his brother Aaron as his spokesman, as in Exodus. Then Moses goes up to the mountain to see Allah, and... this happens.

He said: Thou wilt not see Me, but gaze upon the mountain! If it stand still in its place, then thou wilt see Me. And when his Lord revealed (His) glory to the mountain He sent it crashing down. And Moses fell down senseless. And when he woke he said: Glory unto Thee! I turn unto Thee repentant, and I am the first of (true) believers. 

If this is phrased too weirdly for you: Allah says he’ll show himself to the mountain, and the mountain “falls” due to Allah’s glory, showing why no mortal can behold Allah (except maybe Mohammed, but that's for another day). I don’t think this happens in Exodus?? There is the whole Moses’ sees YHWH’s ass thing but the mountain doesn’t fall down. Regardless... neutral.

When Moses wakes up and praises Allah, Allah tells him that he has chosen Moses above all mankind to be his messenger. Then Allah writes the Ten Commandments, and says that he will turn those who rejected Moses’ revelations from the path of true religion. Again with this weird “you disbelieved so I’ll make you disbelieve!” thing. 7:147 states:

Those who deny Our revelations and the meeting of the Hereafter, their works are fruitless.

Those last two are pretty bad, I’d say. If you were arrogant and made the mistake of being a disbeliever, Allah will ensure you remain one forever, and will the disregard all your good works (and sentence you to hell). Although, continuing a recurrent theme for the past few sections, the threat of hell is only implied. The hell counter remains empty.

7:148 repeats the story about the Jews worshiping the calf yet again and says they were evildoers for their idolatry. Then suddenly they remembered that this was very haram and begged Allah for forgiveness.

Moses comes back from his mountain-collapsing adventure to see the whole pitiful scene. He is furious, of course, and drags his poor brother Aaron by the hair like Sharkeisha. Aaron says “bro, it wasn’t me, it was them!” (actually it was Aaron in the Exodus version, Mohammed changed it for some reason), so Moses asks Allah not to punish either Aaron or himself. Then he says:

Those who chose the calf (for worship), terror from their Lord and humiliation will come upon them in the life of the world. Thus do We requite those who invent a lie. 

Damn man, it was just a fake cow made of ppl’s earrings and shit! Bad. The stuff before this I will put down as neutral, tho honestly Moses has an attitude problem. But after that outburst, he seems to feel better, because he assures everyone that Allah will forgive them if they return to the proper faith. Then he shows everyone the Ten Commandments and asks Allah not to destroy their whole group for the actions of the idolators. After all, as Moses correctly points out, Allah is the one who sends people astray in the first place, so how is it their fault?

In 7:156, Allah replies, saying that he punishes those he wants to, but will have mercy upon those who believe Moses’ revelations and pay zakat. As per usual, by the Quran’s low standards, “Muslims who are good go to heaven” gets classified as good.

We then come out of the whole Moses story for a moment to bring it back to Mohammed. People who believe in Mohammed’s revelations and help him (“the prophet who can neither read nor write”) will be successful and led down the path of true religion.

Just one note about this part. It’s widely believed that Mohammed was illiterate, based on the Quran calling him an “umiya” (or “ummi”) prophet, typically translated as “unlettered”. Certain ahadith suggest he wasn’t totally illiterate (in the sense of someone who can’t read or write anything at all), and it would have been pretty strange for a merchant to be completely unable to read or write. So it seems the word is used in some other way--perhaps more in the context of someone who can’t read or write a long/complex book like the Quran itself. But this issue is controversial because there’s debate over whether Mohammed ever said he was illiterate in the first place.

The Quran uses this word six times. The two verses in this section use it in reference to Mohammed himself, as an “ummi” prophet. Once was back in the second surah, concerning Jews who haven’t read the Torah. Another is in surah 62, in which Mohammed declares himself a prophet sent to the “ummi” people. The other two verses were in the third surah. Both of them seem to use the term to describe polytheistic Arabs in general, or rather Arabs of polytheistic ancestry: it distinguishes “those who have received the Scripture”--the Jews--from the "ummi” people.

We could take that as a reference to the Jews being literate and the polytheists being illiterate, but we know that there were literate people among the polytheistic Arabs, and the verse in Al-Baqara says there were “ummi” people among the Jews. Because of this, some modern-day scholars interpret “ummi” in a different sense. Instead of “unlettered”, they take it to mean “scriptureless”, ie someone who does not know Allah’s divine scriptures. According to them, Mohammed wasn’t claiming to be illiterate by using this word to refer to himself. He was just saying that he was a prophet from/for a group that was ignorant of all “divine scriptures” and had never read any of them.

It’s hard to tell which interpretation is correct just from the Quran. That one verse in the second surah does suggest “ummi” can mean, at the very least, someone who hasn’t read a divine scripture like the Torah and is therefore ignorant of its contents. But the verses in suwar 3 and 62 do clearly equate “ummi” with Arabs of polytheistic origin, in contrast to Jews (and Christians). So the verses in which Mohammed declares himself such a person could really be taken either way.

If we look at the ahadith, the word is used to refer to Arabs as a whole and defined as a group that doesn’t write. I use the word “doesn’t” instead of “can’t” because that’s how the word seems to be used here, where Arabs are “umiyun” who don’t write as part of their overall culture. There were literate people in both Mecca and Medina, including Mohammed’s own scribes. Some could write. But as a community, they didn’t, because they prioritized oral tradition over writing long and complex works. Short notes, rock inscriptions, letters, documents, we have records of all of those things. We don’t have records of them writing lengthy books.

All that leads back to the question of what Mohammed meant when he used the word to refer to himself, though, and there will be more on this subject much later on. Tbh I don’t think it matters as much as either Muslim or non-Muslim scholars think it does, but that’s just me. Keep it in mind, we’ll get back to it.

NEXT TIME: We get back to more Moses. But the good news is we’re two sections away from the end of this mess.

The Quran Read-Along: Day 51

Ayat: 23

Good: 1 (7:156)

Neutral: 15 (7:137-38, 7:140, 7:142-45, 7:149-51, 7:153-55, 7:157-58)

Bad: 7 (7:136, 7:139, 7:141, 7:146-48, 7:152)

Kuffar hell counter: 0

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[quranreadalong]

#49, Surah 7

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 49

Last time, Allah destroyed disbelieving civilizations in various ways, from floods to earthquakes, for many stupid reasons. This continues in this section, where we will see more non-Biblical stories, actual Biblical stories, and more!

Can you believe we’re around a thousand ayat into the Quran and we haven’t heard any condemnations of The Homos yet? It’s pretty surprising because the Quran mentions it many times. But today’s first ayah, 7:80, begins the story of Lot, or Lut, who does not like The Homos much at all. You remember him, from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?

Will ye commit abomination such as no creature ever did before you? Lo! ye come with lust unto men instead of women. Nay, but ye are wanton folk.

The men of Sodom are gay. Very gay. Carly Rae Jepsen stans, in fact. Lot is displeased. (Homophobia: bad.) The people of Sodom are annoyed because he’s such a prude and say he should leave. Allah has better plans, namely, as per usual, killing everyone. Including Lot’s wife, who is not gay but does think that E·MO·TION was one of the best pop albums of the past decade:

And We rescued him and his household, save his wife, who was of those who stayed behind.  And We rained a rain upon them. See now the nature of the consequence of evil-doers!

Another civilization ruined! Well done, Allah! We will see the story of Lot many more times, as with all the stories of prophets in this section. But that’s the abbreviated version. Rocks fall, gays die. An uplifting bad tale for the holiday season.

Now then... since this is the theme of this section and the last section, we have yet another non-Biblical prophet’s story. Meet Shuaib, or Shu'eyb. He’s from the Midian people of northern Arabia and is introduced in 7:85, which is a rare good ayah in which he commands his people to “wrong not mankind in their goods” (and also stop being polytheists, of course). He is yet another prophet sent to an ancient Arab group to tell them to stop turning people away from the straight path of Allah. He says that if people don’t believe him, just wait. Wait for what, you ask? We shall see. But hey, it’s neutral so far.

As per usual, the leaders of the civilization are evildoing disbelievers and tell Shuaib to go away because they don’t believe him. Shuaib says that Allah will determine who is being truthful. You already know it’s bout to be lit boyeeee!

So the earthquake seized them and morning found them prostrate in their dwelling-place.

Hey, Mohammed, that’s cheating! You can’t have the same ending to two stories, we already did the earthquake kills everyone while they’re sleeping thing! Ah well, for yet another incident of genocide Allah gets a bad sticker.

Anyway, no trace of the disbelievers’ existence remained because they were losers, 7:92 informs us. Shuaib doesn’t feel bad because they rejected his message. Surah seven is just a lovely bedtime story, all in all. Bad.

Shuaib’s supposed location is less clear than Saleh’s, but many believe that it was this place called Al Uyaynah (today known as Al-Bad) near Tabouk in Saudi Arabia. It shares some similarities with Hegra/Madain Saleh and it’s not that far from it, so there’s at least a link there. Again, the structures are Nabataean (tombs).

Others put him in the land of Maan (which is where the city of Petra is, in Jordan). The best we can do is say that he’s definitely meant to live somewhere north of the Hijaz. None of the early Islamic scholars agreed on anything about him other than that.

One last note about Shuaib: some people think he’s the same person as Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, because they’re from the same group (the people of Midian) and also because Jethro is associated with a guy named “Hobab”, who may or may not be the same guy. For the record, nothing in the Quran connects Shuaib either to Jethro or Moses, or even implies he’s living in the same time as Moses. He’s usually put closer to Abraham’s era.

Anyway, sometimes you get the feeling that Allah just doesn’t understand why people don’t like him. He’s very yandere. Take 7:94, for instance.

And We sent no prophet unto any township but We did afflict its folk with tribulation and adversity that haply they might grow humble.

Allah keeps sending prophets to places and ruining people’s lives to make them humble, which is, of course, bad. Then suddenly he changes tactics and gives people happiness and wealth, but the silly disbelievers don’t understand that this is all a test from Allah. “Past generations also went through periods of boom and bust, such is life,” they say. So they don’t believe the prophets when they come warning of doom, and Allah gets pissy and punishes them. He makes it known that this can happen at any time in 7:97:

Are the people of the townships then secure from the coming of Our wrath upon them as a night-raid while they sleep? Or are the people of the townships then secure from the coming of Our wrath upon them in the daytime while they play?

(The answer is no! You’re never safe from Allah’s punishment, disbelievers! Bad!)

Mohammed sums up the moral of the entire surah thus far around the halfway mark in 7:100.

Is it not an indication to those who inherit the land after its people (who thus reaped the consequence of evil-doing) that, if We will, We can smite them for their sins and print upon their hearts so that they hear not?

Yeah, we get it, bro. Thanks. And again we have the whole Allah preventing the disbelievers from hearing the warnings of the prophets thing. He really likes doing that, but then gets mad when people... don’t listen to the warnings of the prophets. Oh Allah.

7:102 reminds us that most disbelievers are bad people, anyway, so who even cares if Allah’s... sort of... repeatedly wiped out entire towns of them?

On that happy note, we’re done here for today. Tomorrow brings more tales of disbelievers being wiped out. But at least we’re halfway done with this damn surah.

NEXT TIME: Moses makes his grand re-entry!!!

The Quran Read-Along: Day 49

Ayat: 22

Good: 1 (7:85)

Neutral: 5 (7:82, 7:86-89)

Bad: 16 (7:80-81, 7:83-84, 7:91-102)

Kuffar hell counter: 0

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[quranreadalong]

#47, Surah 7

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 47

The disbelievers, they are garbage. As we have established. Shall we see what fate awaits them in hell?

The disbelievers act lewdly (fahisha) and then say Allah doesn’t mind it. Well, Allah does mind it, thank you very much. Don’t be extra. (This is apparently about how, in pre-Islamic times, the hajj was performed in a state of near-nakedness for both men and women. Allah doesn’t want to see it, people! Put some clothes on, FREAKS!) Also, Mohammed adds, polytheism is wrong and you should worship Allah only. Neutral enough.

7:30 tells us that those who worship gods other than/in addition to Allah are, as we saw in the last section, really behaving as friends to the evil devils. And in case you needed a reminder, the disbelievers don’t get to go to heaven because Allah forbids polytheism. (In that last ayah, polytheism is listed alongside “oppression” or rather rebellion and sexual immorality as a terrible sin.) There’s our first kuffar hell counter (1) entry.

7:34 has Mohammed reminding us that every nation will end eventually. Such is life. Now, back to the disbelievers. Where were we, again? Oh, right, Muslims go to heaven, and also:

they who deny Our revelations and scorn them - each are rightful owners of the Fire; they will abide therein.

Here we go. Kuffar hell counter: 2. Sigh. Go ahead, Mohammed, get it out of your system. Bad.

7:37 repeats the whole thing from surah six where, when their souls are being judged, the disbelievers will be taunted and asked where the other gods are, then they will have to testify against themselves. Then Allah will say the following:

Enter into the Fire among nations of the jinn and humankind who passed away before you. Every time a nation entereth, it curseth its sister (nation) till, when they have all been made to follow one another thither, the last of them saith unto the first of them: Our Lord! These led us astray, so give them double torment of the Fire. He saith: For each one there is double (torment), but ye know not.

I suppose it goes without saying that this is bad. Essentially what’s happening here is that one community of polytheists passes on their polytheism to later generations. The later generations, in hell, curse their ancestors for going astray. They tell Allah that it’s unfair for him to punish them equally, as they were not the ones who went astray, the earlier generations were. But then the first generation will say that they’re all guilty of the same sin (polytheism) and deserve the same punishment, and Allah agrees with this.

This rant just keeps going after that. 7:40 has Mohammed quoting Jesus and repeating that the disbelievers are doomed, in case you missed it:

they who deny Our revelations and scorn them, for them the gates of  heaven will nor be opened nor will they enter the Garden until the camel goeth through the needle's eye.

(Of course, the Jesus version was in reference to rich people). I’m gonna have to quote this entire damn section when we get to the Kuffar Hell Counter part of the Bad Quran for this surah. “Theirs will be a bed of hell,” Mohammed continues. Yeah, we get it, man.

The next ayah says that Muslims who do good works will go to jannah, which I have put down as good before and will do so again. Yes, we’ve seen Mohammed’s peculiar definitions of good and bad, and saying “if you’re good and follow me you go to heaven!!!” isn’t really much of a moral message, but look... we have low standards here. It’s a grim surah. 7:43 just describes rivers in jannah (which is a garden, and we’ll see more descriptions of it later) and how happy Muslims will be there. Neutral.

Well, you know what that means. We’ve had a good ayah, so it’s time for a fucking terrible one. 7:44 says that Muslims in jannah will taunt those in hell, asking them if they’ve found the truth yet. The miserable disbelievers burning in the fire will say yes. Then the Muslims will cry out that the curse of Allah is upon the disbelievers who try to make the straight path of Allah crooked. The Quran is genuinely depressing sometimes. Bad!

In 7:46, we are told that a veil/barrier separates heaven from hell. Along the top (the heights, thus the name) of the barrier will be some people looking down, recognizing those in heaven from those in hell by their faces (white faces=heaven, black faces=hell, if you recall from surah three). The people along the heights will greet those in heaven, hoping to enter it themselves. This is a weird Islamic version of purgatory or a sort of in-between state for people whose “scales” were equal and neither doomed to hell nor granted entry to heaven. (Apparently some Shia sects believe this refers to the imams, though in the Quran the guys along the heights aren’t said to have any ability to impact who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, they can just identify one side from the other by their physical appearances. But just so you’re aware of that interpretation...)

These people look into hell and beg Allah not to place them there, and they’ll taunt the inhabitants of hell. Allah then lets the fence-sitters into heaven. Uhhh. Neutral? It’s kind of humorous how Allah only decides that these people are alright once they start taunting the disbelievers, l-lol....

Anyway, we’ll end with this happy bad thought:

And the dwellers of the Fire cry out unto the dwellers of the Garden: Pour on us some water or some wherewith Allah hath provided you. They say: Lo! Allah hath forbidden both to disbelievers (in His guidance) Who took their religion for a sport and pastime, and whom the life of the world beguiled. So this day We have forgotten them even as they forgot the meeting of this their Day and as they used to deny Our tokens.

Kuffar hell counter: 3. Allah is such a merciful god.

NEXT TIME: Noah’s Ark!!!

The Quran Read-Along: Day 47

Ayat: 24

Good: 1 (7:42)

Neutral: 10 (7:28-29, 7:31, 7:34-35, 7:43, 7:46-49)

Bad: 13 (7:30, 7:32-33, 7:36-41, 7:44-45, 7:50-51)

Kuffar hell counter: 3 (7:32, 7:36-41, 7:50-51)

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