#ar rum

[formyummah]

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[iamhammadnasir]

Qur'an 30:21

وَمِنْ ءَايَٰتِهِۦٓ أَنْ خَلَقَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَٰجًا لِّتَسْكُنُوٓا۟ إِلَيْهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُم مَّوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةًۚ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَءَايَٰتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ

And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.

[quranreadalong]

THE BAD QURAN, PT 29: SURAH 30

A respectable 11/60 (18%) of the thirtieth surah is bad.

As per usual with suwar from the Mecca days, a mention of Allah’s Genocide Tour is included in that count: 30:9 asks disbelievers to travel the land and see the consequences (ie, ruined civilizations, also in 30:42) of disbelief, or rather denying the revelations of prophets (30:10).

We also have a standard mention of the Day of Judgement, when the guilty will despair (30:12). 30:13 clarifies that this refers to polytheists (30:34 repeats that, with the more ominous “ye will come to know” phrasing) . Then 30:16 expands that to all disbelievers, stating that all people who disbelieve Mohammed’s revelations will be “brought to doom”. This is called the consequence of disbelief in 30:44.

30:29 informs us that Allah sends some people astray into disbelief, and no one can help such people. And 30:59 says that he seals their hearts to prevent them from absorbing the Quran’s wisdom. Why doom them to hell, then? Lo! Allah worketh in mysterious ways. He also inflicts misery upon some people to punish them and to make them return to Islam, according to 30:41.

I dunno, maybe Allah is just bored and this is his version of playing board games or something.

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. Enjoy… the doom!

And in the day when the Hour riseth the unrighteous will despair. There will be none to intercede for them of those whom they made equal with Allah. And they will reject their partners (whom they ascribed unto Him).

But as for those who disbelieved and denied Our revelations, and denied the meeting of the Hereafter, such will be brought to doom.

This surah was particularly heavy in implied kuffar hell counter hits, but as always, it can’t actually go in the list unless it specifically mentions disbelievers or polytheists. Not just “the guilty” or “the liars” or something vague (but obviously meant to refer to disbelievers) like that.

Anyway, this surah at least had some interesting history behind it. The next one does, too, but less actual history and more mythology. Remember our fun adventures trying to figure out who the hell Idris, al-Khidr, etc are supposed to be? Get ready to meet another prophet and/or Mysterious Guy who has never been mentioned before!

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[quranreadalong]

THE GOOD QURAN, PT 29: SURAH 30

There were 4/60 (~7%) good ayat this time around, but obviously the real good part of this surah was learning all that Middle Eastern history, right? ...Just go along with me here, ppl.

We’ve got our customary “good Muslims go to jannah” ayah in 30:15. Then there’s a genuinely nice one in 30:21, in which Allah says he “ordained between you (husbands and wives) love and mercy”. Lo! Why can’t you be like that all the time instead of talking about wife-beating and shit, Allah? You can be romantic when you want to be!

Finally, 30:38 is a brief mention of charitable giving, and 30:39 says that Allah approves of this practice.

Not too bad, all in all, by the Quran’s standards. Now let’s see what’s on the other end.

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[quranreadalong]

#158, Surah 30

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 158

Let’s sprint through the end of the surah and then dive into the epilogue of the Sassanid-Byzantine war.

30:47 has Allah informing us that he sent prophets to various past civilizations and “took vengeance upon those who were guilty”. That’s a kuffar hell counter hit in theory, but it doesn’t specify what they were guilty of (disbelief), so I’ll let it slide.

Allah sends the rain etc and can revive the dead, both in terms of dead vegetation and in terms of dead people. Despite that, whenever Allah does something to piss people off for no real reason--like ruining people’s crops--they have the nerve to go and be disbelievers again. Imagine that! Neutral, but come on, Allah, your lack of self-awareness is just grating at this point.

Disbelievers are compared to deaf and blind people after that, and Allah assures Mohammed that he can’t make them Muslim (so he shouldn’t feel bad about the fact that most Meccans think he’s a lunatic). Rude, but I guess still neutral?

30:54 informs us that Allah controls the aging cycle, turning babies into grown adults and adults into elderly people. Sure!

The next ayah, like 30:47, ominously declares that “the guilty” will learn the errors of their ways on the Day of Judgement, and they will be corrected by “those to whom knowledge and faith are given”. “This is the Day of Resurrection, but ye used not to know,” the believers will tell them, smugly. Weeeeeeell... I dunno, kind of hard to keep up that neutral designation here purely because the wrongdoers are not explicitly stated to be disbelievers, even though we know they are. Wrongdoers will be unable to make amends or save themselves on that day, we are told.

Sigh. Even when the Quran is only implicitly bad, it’s still garbage. Let’s finish up the surah:

if thou camest unto them with a miracle, those who disbelieve would verily exclaim: Ye are but tricksters! Thus doth Allah seal the hearts of those who know not.   So have patience (O Muhammad)! 

We got an excuse for why Mohammed is incapable of miracles (neutral), one of those Allah-seals-hearts lines (bad), and Mohammed talking to himself (neutral). Whatever. Let’s talk about history some more.

When we left off, we were about halfway through the Byzantine-Sassanid war, around the year 615. Things weren’t looking so hot for Team Rome. After the cities of the Levant and much of Anatolia had fallen to the Sassanids, Khosrow’s forces made their way south, into Egypt. This was bad news--Egypt was very rarely involved in warfare, due its location (ie, really far away from Persia). The fact that the Persians even got there meant that Byzantine defenses had totally collapsed. By 619, the capital city of Alexandria had fallen. Oh, and to make matters worse, some tribes from past the empire’s northern border were taking advantage of the chaos and raiding cities, and some Arabs were doing the same in the south, evidently managing to make it as far north as Palestine in quick raids. (Arabs knew their way around the region already both due to trading and raiding, keep that in mind for later!)

So things were grim, and all Byzantine pleas for peace were rejected by Khosrow; he came here to conquer, not to play games. But Heraclius wasn’t going out without a fight. He put the whole empire on an austerity diet, gathered volunteers to serve in his armies, and decided it was time to strike back. In the year 622, that’s what he did. To Mohammed’s credit, it wasn’t certain at the time that he’d be successful--the entire Byzantine Empire being turned into a Persian client state was probably an impossible goal from the outset, but it did seem like the empire would at least get heavily fragmented for a while there.

But what happened instead is that the Byzantine forces managed to push the Persians out of Anatolia, reclaiming the heartland for Team Rome. It gave the capital (Constantinople) some breathing room, too, and made people stop panicking about their impending doom. Heraclius then made a move that could have gone very wrong, but ultimately didn’t: rather than attempt to shove the Sassanid army out of every place they’d conquered, he took the fight to the Persians, marching straight into their territory with his allies (Arabs, Armenians, and Georgians).

A tug-of-war between the two armies followed, with the Byzantines gradually pushing through the region and the Persians pushing them back. But Heraclius managed to push through. In what must’ve felt like a “fuck yeah” moment, thinking all the way back to Mark Antony’s dumb moves, he managed to rout the Persians at one important battle by separating them from their supply and baggage train.

Well, now the Persians were getting a bit worried. They’d been kicking ass for a decade and now the tables had turned. “Well, invading the heart of my territory worked for them, so I’ll do the same,” Khosrow thought, instructing his forces to besiege Constantinople. “And Heraclius’ army had foreigners, so I’ll have some in my army, too. Hey, how about those northern tribes who are busy raiding shit? What do you say, lads, wanna raid the biggest city around?”

Evidently they did, because in 626 AD, the siege began. The besiegers attempted to cut the Byzantines off from the outside world (and supplies), but the Byzantine navy pulled through and prevented that from happening. The city’s walls did their job (as they had done, and would continue to do, for hundreds of years) and prevented an outright invasion. Around 10,000 men were also within the city, ready to protect it. So that battle plan didn’t work out.

Back to the Byzantine army playing offense. They need some help attacking the Persian heartland, now that they’re far away from home and don’t have any way to get back quickly. “Hey, there are people to the north who the Persians have pissed off recently,” Heraclius observed. “What do you call yourselves, guys? Turks? Well, Turkish friends, wanna help us beat their asses in?”

“Sure, let’s be bros!”, the Turks said. What a helpful bunch! Bet we’ll never see them again!

Within a year, the Persian defenses had collapsed, and before the Byzantine army could get anywhere close to Ctesiphon (the capital), the Persian army decided to kill Khosrow and tell the Byzantines to just kindly forget about the whole affair and please go home now thank you. And so they did, and in the year 628 AD, peace was declared. With both empires fucked up to all hell.

That surely won’t be a problem in the near future, though. Since both empires are at peace and dealing with rebuilding their societies, neither can attack the other! The only thing either of them will have to worry about is some minor raiding from the north or south, and they can handle that just fine. What’s the worst that could happen--some cult leader forces the entire population of Arabia to convert to his religion and tells them that God wants them to conquer the whole region? Pfft.

The Quran Read-Along: Day 158

Ayat: 14

Good: 0

Neutral: 13 (30:47-58, 30:60)

Bad: 1 (30:59)

Kuffar hell counter: 0

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[quranreadalong]

#157, Surah 30

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 157

We’re in the downhill section of the surah now. Tomorrow will be the last day of it, and I’ll put an epilogue for our history lesson at the end. Now let’s see...

30:33. Polytheists pray to Allah when they’re distressed, but then they go and pray to other gods when he answers their prayers. Assholes!! They will “come to know” of what awaits them for their polytheism (ie, hell). Yeah, that’s bad, stop tryna be cute and dance around the kuffar hell counter, Mo.

I like how Allah complains about people being sad when bad things befall them in 30:36:

And when We cause mankind to taste of mercy they rejoice therein; but if an evil thing befall them as the consequence of their own deeds, lo! they are in despair! 

Lo! People despairing when bad things happen to them! What a strange concept!

Anyway Allah gives gifts to some people and denies them to others, resulting in some people being rich and others being poor. A bit dickish, but Allah says that people should give the poor money in order to rectify this, as charity pleases Allah, which is good. I mean, Allah could just do that himself, but... you know... he doeth what he will, and all that.

Back to the complaints. Allah created all life, therefore polytheists’ gods are fake. He has allowed evil to spread throughout the earth to punish humans for their wrongdoing, in the hopes that this will make people turn to him in repentance. Bad. “Travel in the land, and see the nature of the consequence for those who were before you! Most of them were idolaters” blah blah blah, still bad.

People should follow Islam because humanity will be divided into believers and disbelievers on the Day of Judgement, and the disbelievers will face the consequences of their disbelief. Hmm... that’s clearly an implied kuffar hell counter hit, but I’ll let it slide since it doesn’t explicitly state that the consequences = burning in hell. It’s still bad, though. The next one is neutral by virtue of its good and bad halves cancelling each other out: Allah loveth Muslims who do good works, and Allah does not loveth disbelievers.

Mohammed’s weird ship obsession rears its head in 30:46, which says that Allah sends wind to help ships sail so that sailors will be thankful and praise him. And that’s a fine place to end it for today.

NEXT TIME: The ominous conclusion to Rome vs Persia!!

The Quran Read-Along: Day 157

Ayat: 14

Good: 2 (30:38-39)

Neutral: 8 (30:33, 30:35-37, 30:40, 30:43, 30:45-46)

Bad: 4 (30:34, 30:41-42, 30:44)

Kuffar hell counter: 0

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[quranreadalong]

#156, Surah 30

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 156

Right. Well, this section is going to be the same old shit, no interesting history or anything, sorry. 30:12 is where we’re starting off. The guilty will despair on the Day of Judgement, we are told. Who are the guilty? (That was rhetorical!! You don’t get any points for guessing the answer at this point!)

There will be none to intercede for them of those whom they made equal with Allah. And they will reject their partners (whom they ascribed unto Him).

Yeah, the polytheists. Fuck them, for the ten thousandth time. Kuffar hell counter: 1, and bad! The disbelievers will be separated from the good Muslims that day; the latter will go to jannah (which is good), while the former...

But as for those who disbelieved and denied Our revelations, and denied the meeting of the Hereafter, such will be brought to doom.

You just said that, like, two lines ago, man! Focus! Kuffar hell counter: 2, and bad, again.

Anyway... Muslims should pray to Allah at sunrise and sundown and midday. That’s a reference to the five daily prayers, which are called fajr (sunrise), zuhr (noon), asr (afternoon), maghreb (sundown), and isha (night), in order. Fajr is usually between 4 and 6 AM. Lo! Why doth Allah requireth praise at such an ungodly hour? Perhaps he is just bored and all that's on TV in heaven is a ShamWow! infomercial. Try Netflix, Allah! Neutral.

Allah created humans from dust and can resurrect people and stuff so praise him etc.

Hey, look, a good ayah that’s not just “good Muslims go to heaven” in 30:21!

And of His signs is this: He created for you helpmeets from yourselves that ye might find rest in them, and He ordained between you love and mercy.

I dunno wtf “helpmeets” is, but the word means mates, or wives in this case. Allah made women for men and ordained between them “love and mercy”. That’s surprisingly pleasant by Allah’s standards!

Allah created everything, from the heavens themselves to the different languages of humanity to the nighttime (so people can sleep) to rain. Fair enough. “The heavens and the earth stand fast by His command, and afterward, when He calleth you, lo! from the earth ye will emerge,” Mohammed concludes. Everything obeys Allah. Sure!

We’re reminded yet again in 30:27 that Allah is the creator, then we come across one of the similtudes that Allah coineth: are your slaves as wealthy and respected as you are? No. Therefore polytheism is wrong. Lo! Allah already coineth this similtude in an earlier surah and it’s still dumb. “Who is able to guide him whom Allah hath sent astray? For such there are no helpers”, Allah continues in 30:29, and that predeterminism is as bad and nonsensical as ever.

The day ends with a reminder that Islam is the only true religion, so people should worship Allah and stop being polytheists (or “of those who split up their religion and became schismatics”, i.e. Jews/Christians) and that puts us over halfway through the surah.

NEXT TIME: STOP 👏 BEING 👏 POLYTHEISTS 👏 

The Quran Read-Along: Day 156

Ayat: 21

Good: 2 (30:15, 30:21)

Neutral: 15 (30:14, 30:17-20, 30:22-28, 30:30-32)

Bad: 4 (30:12-13, 30:16, 30:29)

Kuffar hell counter: 2 (30:12-13, 30:16)

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[quranreadalong]

ROMAN VS PERSIAN PISSING CONTESTS: A HISTORY (PART 8: THE BIG FINALE)

This is it--the last stop of our whirlwind tour of pre-Islamic Middle Eastern warfare. It’s the 7th century now, Mohammed and all his bros are adults and working as merchants. Let’s check in on our favorite empires and see what they’ve been up to in the past decade.

Khosrow II, his throne saved thanks to Byzantine help, is still alive and kicking. The guy who helped him, emperor Maurice of Byzantium, is not so kicking. Actually he is quite dead, killed by his own troops in the year 602 AD. See, there was this minor issue of some tribal people called the Avars raiding into Byzantine lands. They had managed to capture a bunch of soldiers and demanded money for their safe return. But Maurice refused to pay, owing to the treasury being empty thanks to the previous emperor being an excessive spender. So the Avars killed them all.

This proved unpopular and triggered a revolt among other soldiers, ending with Maurice and his family dead. O well!! The new emperor was his murderer, a soldier named Phocas. Phocas soon learned that killing the emperor and replacing him isn’t easy, as various Byzantine governors rebelled against his rule. One such governor was in charge of Mesopotamia (all those long-suffering cities in modern-day southern Turkey), and he turned to Maurice’s old pal Khosrow for help. “Sure I’ll help [conquer Mesopotamia and also let’s get back Armenia, for the hell of it]!!!”, Khosrow said. The governor of Mesopotamia ended up also dead as fuck, but the Persians gained a foothold in the territory anyway. The last Byzantine-Sassanid war was on.

Phocas' situation really hadn’t improved since the day he killed Maurice. He was unpopular, inexperienced with governance, and now in way over his head with this war. His officials began grumbling louder and louder, and before long, a bunch of noblemen had hatched a plot to get rid of him. This brings us to Heraclius, who will be the Byzantine emperor at the time of the Islamic conquests, and his dad (Heraclius Senior, in charge of Byzantium’s North African provinces). The two launched a revolt, with violence breaking out in Syria and Egypt before it finally reached the capital city of Constantinople. Allow me to quote Charles Oman’s The History of Byzantine Empire: 328-1453 for the next part:

Phocas was seized in the palace by an official whom he had cruelly wronged, and brought aboard the galley of the conqueror. "Is it thus," said Heraclius, "that you have governed the empire?"

"Will you govern it any better?" sneered the desperate usurper. Heraclius spurned him away with his foot, and the sailors hewed him to pieces on the deck.

The answer to Phocas’ question would be “no”, but he wasn’t around to gloat about that, since he had been chopped to pieces and all. It was the year 610 AD--the year of Islam’s birth.

So that’s the chaotic situation in Byzantium. How’s Persia doing? Well, there is a minor issue of Khosrow killing the Lakhmid leader and now the tribe hates him, mirroring the issues between the Ghassanids and the Byzantines, but that’s not a big deal. Arabia’s been quiet for like two centuries by now, so the fact that both empires’ Arab allies are pissed off at them surely isn’t a major problem.

Anyway the Persians are still conquering cities throughout Armenia and southern Turkey, so I guess they’re doing pretty good! In fact, by the time of Phocas’ death, they’ve damn near made it into Anatolia (central Turkey). So when Heraclius asked them to kindly stop invading his territory and restore peace with Byzantium, given that Phocas--whose actions supposedly triggered all this--was dead, Khosrow laughed in his face and told him: “hell no, boy, why would I give up when I’m kicking your ass?”

And kick his ass, he did. The Sassanid army pushed all the way into Byzantine Syria and invaded the enormous city of Antioch (now on the western Turkey-Syria border). The Byzantine army couldn’t stand up to them, and so the Persians managed to cut Anatolia--the Byzantine heartland--off from the rest of the empire. The situation was dire and getting worse by the day, as large cities throughout Syria continued to fall to the invaders. This was very likely the worst situation the Byzantines had ever found themselves in. Oh, and just to connect this back to our Israelite history lesson, poor Jerusalem was besieged, again! The siege saw the city’s Jewish residents side with the Persians and the Christian residents try to hold the city for the Byzantines, and everything descended into an orgy of violence, resulting in a massacre of Christians (that did not endear Khosrow’s own Christian subjects to him). It all ended with Palestine in Persian hands and massive sectarian issues that also surely won’t be a problem later.

This is the news that reached Mecca around the time that the first ayat of surah 30 were “revealed”. And so we rejoin our old friend Mohammed for the rest of the tale...

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