#az zumar

[quranreadalong]

THE BAD QURAN, PT 38: SURAH 39

A commendable 28% (21/75) of Az-Zumar was bad, which isn’t the worst surah thus far, but it is certainly up there. This surah gave us ample material for the kuffar hell counter.

The first such line is in 39:8, in which we’re told that polytheists are “the owners of the Fire”. Those who worship gods other than Allah will be lost on the Day of Resurrection, 39:15 tells us, with 39:16 adding that they will be covered by fire. The hits just keep coming after that, with 39:23 being your typical “Allah sends people astray into disbelief” thing, repeated in 39:36, then your typical “Allah dooms people (39:24) to hell for disbelieving (39:25) anyway” thing. 39:26 says that Allah punishes disbelievers both in this world and the next.

There is no one worse than someone who denies Allah’s revelations. It’s the worst possible sin, according to 39:32. Lo! Allah haveth strange priorities.

On the Day of Judgement, the wrongdoers (disbelievers) will be surrounded by everything they believed would never happen (39:47), and they will be surrounded by the fire they refused to believe in (39:48).

An extremely long section in which Mohammed condemns disbelievers to hell starts in 39:56 and is copied in the special bonus section below. On the Day of Judgement, the disbelievers will regret mocking Mohammed, says 39:56, and will wish that Allah had guided them to Islam (39:57, and valid point tbh?). They’ll beg for a second chance, according to 39:58, but it will be too late, because they denied Mohammed’s revelations (39:59). Therefore they will go to hell (39:60).

More mild whining about disbelievers follows that, with 39:63 telling us they are losers, 39:64 declaring them foolish and ignorant, and 39:65 again calling them losers, with the implication that this means hellbound.

Finally, we are told that disbelievers will be driven to the gates of hell in 39:71, and 39:72 says they’ll be thrown inside. 

I’m.... craving barbecue for some reason.

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 when some hurt toucheth man, he crieth unto his Lord, turning unto Him (repentant). Then, when He granteth him a boon from Him he forgetteth that for which he cried unto Him before, and setteth up rivals to Allah that he may beguile (men) from his way. Say (O Muhammad, unto such an one): Take pleasure in thy disbelief a while. Lo! thou art of the owners of the Fire.

Then worship what ye will beside Him. Say: The losers will be those who lose themselves and their housefolk on the Day of Resurrection. Ah, that will be the manifest loss! They have an awning of fire above them and beneath them a dais (of fire). With this doth Allah appal His bondmen. O My bondmen, therefor fear Me!

And it will be said unto the wrong-doers: Taste what ye used to earn. Those before them denied, and so the doom came on them whence they knew not. Thus Allah made them taste humiliation in the life of the world, and verily the doom of the Hereafter will be greater if they did but know. 

And who doth greater wrong than he who telleth a lie against Allah, and denieth the truth when it reacheth him? Will not the home of disbelievers be in hell?

there will appear unto them, from their Lord, that wherewith they never reckoned.   And the evils that they earned will appear unto them, and that whereat they used to scoff will surround them.

Turn unto your Lord repentant, and surrender unto Him, before there come unto you the doom, when ye cannot be helped.  And follow the better (guidance) of that which is revealed unto you from your Lord, before the doom cometh on you suddenly when ye know not, Lest any soul should say: Alas, my grief that I was unmindful of Allah, and I was indeed among the scoffers! Or should say: If Allah had but guided me I should have been among the dutiful! Or should say, when it seeth the doom: Oh, that I had but a second chance that I might be among the righteous!   (But now the answer will be): Nay, for My revelations came unto thee, but thou didst deny them and wast scornful and wast among the disbelievers. And on the Day of Resurrection thou (Muhammad) seest those who lied concerning Allah with their faces blackened. Is not the home of the scorners in hell?

And those who disbelieve are driven unto hell in troops till, when they reach it and the gates thereof are opened, and the warders thereof say unto them: Came there not unto you messengers of your own, reciting unto you the revelations of your Lord and warning you of the meeting of this your Day? they say: Yea, verily. But the word of doom of disbelievers is fulfilled. It is said (unto them): Enter ye the gates of hell to dwell therein. Thus hapless is the journey's end of the scorners.

You know, when I was really little, I was taught (and sincerely believed) the Quran was the most beautiful book that ever existed. My young self was a lil dumb, but at least she grew up fine.

Surah 40 is up next. It’s likely but not certain that we’ll pass day 200 while reading it. At least it’s a nice round number.

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[quranreadalong]

THE GOOD QURAN, PT 38: SURAH 39

I kinda padded this surah with some filler because I had so little to talk about, given that it’s all just a “STOPPPP BEING POLYTHEISTS” rant. But we got it done in four days, which isn’t too bad. 4/75 (5%) of the surah was good.

All of them are “good Muslims go to heaven” ayat. 39:10 promises that those Muslims who do good will be rewarded in the afterlife, as does 39:34. 39:35 adds that Allah will forgive even the worst sins of Muslims..... honestly idk if this is actually good if taken to its logical extreme, but whatever. 39:53 likewise says that Allah forgives all the sins of Muslims. That precedes a long rant about how he does not forgive disbelief, which leads us to the Good Quran’s counterpart...

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[quranreadalong]

#194, Surah 39

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 194

I think we’re gonna finish the surah today. Fair warning: this is very doom-heavy. It’s not gonna be the most enlightening section.

39:52 tells us that Allah gives stuff to some people and takes it away from others. Sure. Allah will forgive all the sins of Muslims (that’s relatively good), so people should repent before The Doom arrives when they least expect it. If they don’t, they’re gonna regret scoffing at Allah’s revelations and neglecting their duty towards him. That’s.... less good, and it continues in 39:58:

Or should say, when it seeth the doom: Oh, that I had but a second chance that I might be among the righteous! (But now the answer will be): Nay, for My revelations came unto thee, but thou didst deny them and wast scornful and wast among the disbelievers. And on the Day of Resurrection thou (Muhammad) seest those who lied concerning Allah with their faces blackened. Is not the home of the scorners in hell?

O........ well. Huh. That is one hell of a long kuffar hell counter (1) hit. And it’s all bad, obviously. I always appreciate it when Mohammed goes on about the “evildoers” or “unrighteous” etc being doomed, because taken literally that’s not innately bad, but then he clarifies that they’re awful people because they are disbelievers. Makes my job a lot easier. (Pious Muslims, naturally, don’t have to fear any of the above.)

Allah is god etc. Disbelievers are losers and fools and failures. (Bad.) Humans must worship Allah alone. Again, I’d like to remind everyone that he said this shit, every day, to the long-suffering polytheists of Mecca for a decade. 39:67 is vaguely interesting and at least a change of pace:

And they esteem not Allah as He hath the right to be esteemed, when the whole earth is His handful on the Day of Resurrection, and the heavens are rolled in His right hand.

At the end of the world, Allah will literally be holding the earth in his hand, with the heavens all rolled up like rolls of parchment paper in his other hand. A hadith says this was something said by a Jewish rabbi, so presumably this is some Jewish tradition. The scroll-heaven thing is in the Bible, anyway. If you’re wondering where people will be standing in this case, given that the heavens and earth are indisposed for the moment, the answer is apparently the narrow bridge over jahannam, traditionally called sirat (meaning “path”). Those who get to go to jannah will make it over the bridge, while those who do not will fall into the fires below. The speed at which Muslims will cross the bridge will vary (based on how faithful they are or how few sins they have accumulated). Evidently various groups of people in the Middle East were fond of this bridge idea, since it’s present in Zoroastrianism too. The Muslim version is just particularly ridiculous.

Anyway, in other end-of-the-world news, we have another reference to the whole angel trumpet thing that Mo yanked from the Book of Revelation. One trumpet blast will kill everyone “save him whom Allah willeth”, while another will signal the resurrection and impending judgement. Questionable, but I guess neutral. After this happens, Allah will read from “the Book”--presumably the record of everything that has ever happened/everything everyone has ever done, more on that later--and bring out the prophets as witnesses for or against people (why does he need them for this, again?). Everyone will be judged and get what’s coming to them.

The disbelievers, we are reminded yet again in 39:71, will be sent to hell for denying Allah’s revelations. Kuffar hell counter: 2! Those who were dutiful to Allah will instead be congratulated in jannah for reaching this happy end, and they will rejoice. Also angels will surround Allah’s throne and sing his praises.

...whatever.

The Quran Read-Along: Day 194

Ayat: 24

Good: 1 (39:53)

Neutral: 13 (39:52, 39:54-55, 39:61-62, 39:66-70, 39:73-75)

Bad: 10 (39:56-60, 39:63-65, 39:71-72)

Kuffar hell counter: 2 (39:54-60, 39:71-72)

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[quranreadalong]

#193, Surah 39

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 193

The theme of this section is Allah leading people astray and then dooming them for going astray.

39:36 is where we’re picking it back up. Allah is the only god Muslims need, but polytheists try to convince them to worship other gods, too. They do this because they are hopelessly astray, and “He whom Allah sendeth astray, for him there is no guide”. Typical bad predestination bullshit. (Conversely, those who have been guided by Allah can never be led astray.)

We have another line stating that polytheists viewed Allah as a creator-deity in 39:38:

if thou shouldst ask them: Who created the heavens and the earth? they will say: Allah.

The real problem, Mohammed says, is that they pray to other gods in addition to Allah, like some kind of assholes. They will come to know of the everlasting doom. Funnily enough, that ayah doesn’t specify that the disbelievers are the ones who will be caught in The Doom, even though it is really, really heavily implied. So it’s gotta stay neutral. Look how generous I am, tbh.

Moving on, Allah revealed the Quran to Mohammed to tell people The Truth. 39:42 is mildly interesting, and it leads to a whole grab-bag of assorted topics...

Allah receiveth (men's) souls at the time of their death, and that (soul) which dieth not (yet) in its sleep. He keepeth that (soul) for which He hath ordained death and dismisseth the rest till an appointed term.

We saw this concept before all the way back in surah 6 (6:60). We also kinda saw it in that Seven Sleepers story in surah 18, in which Allah puts the guys to sleep for like 300 years and then wakes them up, which was originally a Christian metaphor for resurrection. The topic is mentioned in some ahadith, in which Mohammed forgives people for oversleeping since “Allah captured your souls when He willed, and returned them when He willed”. So Allah grabs your soul during sleep, checks on what you’ve done during the day (according to 6:60), then returns it to your body. Ibn Kathir calls sleeping “the little death”, which is cute.

The word for “soul” here is nafs. If you recall, way back in surah 17, we saw another word for soul: ruh. Mohammed was asked what the ruh was and had no real answer. So whether the nafs and ruh are the same “soul” or different things is unclear. Ibn Kathir records various opinions, one of which is that the ruh becomes the nafs when it is put into a person’s body--they’re the same essence, just in different contexts. That works with the hadith I mentioned above, which says that Allah takes a person’s ruh while sleeping, equating the two.

Nonetheless, others say that people possess both a ruh and nafs at the same time, and they are therefore different things; in this interpretation, the ruh is what makes you alive, while the nafs is your mind/ego/whatever. That has less textual support, but it’s still a fairly common view. In that case, the nafs is the thing taken by Allah when you sleep, while the ruh remains, regardless of that hadith. There has never been a unanimous consensus on this, and the fact that Mohammed never even defined what he meant by ruh doesn’t help.

Interestingly, the Jewish Bible also uses two related terms to refer to a soul--ruach and nephesh, which surely must be etymologically related to ruh and nafs. From what I can tell, there was likewise a debate on whether those terms differed or not by rabbis. And in Christian theology there has also been disagreement over whether the psyche (ego/mind) and pneuma (essence of life) are different or the same. None of the three Abrahamic religions know wtf is happening with the core of their own goddamn theology.

That unexpected linguistics discussion was grab-bag topic #1. The second one is a sleep-related side note. I just wanna mention that according to the ahadith, Allah sends visions of the future to people as they dream, while Shaytan can also inhabit dreams in order to scare or mislead people. This concept is, of course, not unique to Islam--remember the Joseph story?--and pre-Islamic people in Arabia believed the gods could communicate visions to them in dreams too. (The term for a priestess in the South Arabian language literally meant “dreamer”.) Presumably Allah sends the dreams to you after he’s stuck your soul back in your body.

Finally, Allah doesn’t like it when you sleep on your stomach. Sleep on your side--specifically your right side, like Mohammed--or your back. Do not ask me why Allah has favored sleeping positions. Lo! His mind is unknowable.

Alright, let’s get back on track here. 39:43 reminds us the disbelievers’ gods are fake because Allah is the only god. Allah’s name brings joy to believers and gloom to disbelievers. In conclusion, Allah is god etc.

Right. Well. Virtually the entire rest of the surah, from here onwards, could be included on the kuffar hell counter, but I’ll try to use it sparingly. We’ll start this part today and finish it up tomorrow.

The wrongdoers will try to save themselves on the Day of Judgement, which they did not believe would happen--but “that whereat they used to scoff will surround them”. That’s bad and counts as a hit on the counter (1).

Sometimes Allah inflicts “tests” upon people--they suffer, they pray to Allah, then he relieves them of their suffering. But they wrongly attribute their increased fortunes to dumb shit like “I used my brain to get me out of that” instead of praising Allah. Ingrates! They should remember what happened to the wrongdoers of olden times: they were “smote” by Allah. Technically not a kuffar hell counter hit, so I’ll let that one slide. We’ll pick it back up there next time.

NEXT TIME: Zzzzz doom zzzzz

The Quran Read-Along: Day 193

Ayat: 16

Good: 0

Neutral: 13 (39:37-46, 39:49-51)

Bad: 3 (39:36, 39:47-48)

Kuffar hell counter: 1 (39:47-48)

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[quranreadalong]

#192, Surah 39

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 192

Let’s get the kuffar hell counter fired up (get it), lads.

39:15 is where we left off. Allah declares, in regards to those who worship other gods, that “the losers” will lose themselves and their families on the Day of Resurrection. Fire will engulf them from above and below. This is meant to cause people to fear Allah and his punishment. Those who turn against their false gods and convert to Islam have nothing to fear, of course, because they have been guided by Allah to the correct path. Two bad ayat followed by two neutral ones, and kuffar hell counter: 1!

The baffling predestination thing comes up again in 39:19, in which we are told that Mohammed cannot save those whom Allah has decided are hellbound. I mean, fine, but then what’s the fuckin point of all these repetitive Meccan suwar, man? Just say your piece and go, the ppl Allah’s decided will become Muslims will listen to the first one and the rest are going to hell anyway!

Whatever... people who remain dutiful towards Allah will be rewarded in jannah, Allah sends rain and makes crops grow, etc etc etc. Then we swing back to the topic we were just discussing: Allah declares woe unto those who refuse to follow Mohammed, who are “in plain error”--while emphasizing that he is the one who sends people hopelessly astray. I mean... I’ve asked this before, but I’m not insane here, right? This is bad and makes no sense at all, right? Right??

Ignoring Allah’s personality disorder for the moment, let’s talk about the Day of Judgement itself. The doomed ones will be told to “Taste what ye used to earn” on that day. We are needlessly told how they “earned” this fate in 39:25-26:

Those before them denied, and so the doom came on them whence they knew not. Thus Allah made them taste humiliation in the life of the world, and verily the doom of the Hereafter will be greater if they did but know.

Kuffar hell counter: 2! Denying a prophet results in both misery in this world and the next one, except for those times that Allah said he was letting the Quraysh live in wealth and happiness because Mohammed wasn’t able to battle them yet he was leading them even further astray. Sure!

Next topic. The Quran is a revelation from Allah, in Arabic. It contains many incredible allegories, such as...

Allah coineth a similitude: A man in relation to whom are several part-owners, quarrelling, and a man belonging wholly to one man. Are the two equal in similitude? Praise be to Allah! But most of them know not. 

...r-right! Sick burn, Allah! (This is supposed to mean a slave belonging to several masters with differing personalities and desires--polytheists--is worse than one who belongs to only one master--Muslims.)

Let’s end with this next bit. Everyone will die and be brought before Allah on the Day of Judgement. They will all dispute with one another then, and the disbelievers will be sent to hell (kuffar hell counter: 3! And we haven’t even hit 20 ayat in this section yet. Impressive, tbh) while Muslims will go to jannah. Besides that one bad line, all of that is neutral.

I rarely end sections on a good note, so let me do that today, with a couple of ayat about how Allah will reward good Muslims by forgiving their sins. According to a hadith, every person who sincerely believes in Islam will go to jannah, even if they committed sins, and we’ll see later in this surah that this means all sins of Muslims.

Granted, there are some ayat and ahadith that state that other things will get you sent to hell--intentionally killing a Muslim and/or someone who Mohammed has specifically guaranteed protection to, for example. A verse back in surah 4 says that murdering a Muslim (outside the context of war or “retributive justice” etc) gets you sent to hell, with no exceptions or unless... qualifiers mentioned. But most Muslim scholars think the “Allah forgives everything except shirk” lines overrule those other ones, and the only thing that will guarantee your ass a spot in hell is dying as a disbeliever.

Uh.... that was supposed to be a happy ending...

NEXT TIME: Allah guideth, Allah leadeth astray.

The Quran Read-Along: Day 192

Ayat: 21

Good: 2 (39:34-35)

Neutral: 12 (39:17-22, 39:27-31, 39:33)

Bad: 7 (39:15-16, 39:23-26, 39:32)

Kuffar hell counter: 3 (39:15-16, 39:24-26, 39:32)

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[quranreadalong]

#191, Surah 39

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 191

I’m curious to see where we’ll be at day #200. Inshallah, it will be a surah better than this one. Surah 39 is called Az-Zumar (“The Groups” or “The Companies”... of disbelievers being driven into hell), it comes from the mid-Mecca days and it is a skippable surah in the sense that there ain’t anything in here we haven’t seen before. The entire thing is one long kuffar hell counter hit.

Well.... let’s do this. Again.

The Quran is from Allah, and it was sent to Mohammed so he could tell everyone the “truth”. The truth in question is that Allah is the only god, and Allah will judge those liars who believe otherwise at the end of the world. Riveting.

This surah might be a bit light on the commentary, given how much of it is just repeated material. Let’s see if we have anything to work with here... 39:4:

If Allah had willed to choose a son, He could have chosen what He would of that which He hath created.

Allah could have made someone his son, but he didn’t, because he didn’t want to share his Netflix account with any family members. We’ve seen this reference to Allah’s non-son before. Sometimes it’s in reference to Christians (Jesus), and in Mohammed’s delusional mind it could also be a reference to Jews (remember the Ezra thing from surah 9?). But this is a Meccan surah, directed at polytheists... and the Quran implies that the polytheists believed Allah only had daughters, not sons. So who is the son of Allah that Mohammed is ranting about here?

If you remember surah 6, which is also a Meccan surah but may have some ayat from Medina stuck in it, we came across this:

Yet they ascribe as partners unto Him the jinn, although He did create them, and impute falsely, without knowledge, sons and daughters unto Him.

Who ascribes sons and daughters to Allah? Disbelievers in general, including Christians and Jews? It doesn’t give the identity of the evildoers in question, so we don’t know. Like I said in surah 37, the relationships between all the gods of the pre-Islamic pantheon remain obscure because of how little was written down--the Quran tells us that Allah+Allat+Manat+al-Uzza were a family, but nothing beyond that. A later verse in the Quran implies that the polytheists believed Allah had a wife or multiple wives, the mothers of his daughters, and their identities are also unknown. So it’s possible Allah was believed to have a son, or multiple sons, maybe including Hubal or one of the other gods popular in the area. Or the verse is just complaining about Christians and Jews. We dunno!

Moving on, Allah made the heavens and earth and night and day etc. He also created humanity and... eight types of farm animals. (Ibn Kathir says this means “a pair of sheep, a pair of goats, a pair of camels and a pair of oxen”). Some people are nonetheless insufficiently thankful towards Allah, and this displeases him. Allah is especially displeased by people who only pray to Allah in bad times, and pray to other gods in good times. Our first kuffar hell counter (1) hit follows that:

Take pleasure in thy disbelief a while. Lo! thou art of the owners of the Fire.

Bad, the rest so far is neutral. Allah also reminds us that those who pray to him are not equal to those who do not, which is his typical nonsense, but then adds that good Muslims will be rewarded with jannah, which is good.

Mohammed finishes up today’s section in 39:11 by informing us for the seven thousandth time that Allah has commanded him to be a Muslim--the Muslim--not a polytheist. Allah will punish him with The Doom if he disobeys this order, so he must obey and worship Allah alone. Mohammed’s dramatic ass pretending to threaten himself is neutral.

NEXT TIME: Doom, fire, woe, hell, etc.

The Quran Read-Along: Day 191

Ayat: 14

Good: 1 (39:10)

Neutral: 12 (39:1-7, 39:9, 39:11-14)

Bad: 1 (39:8)

Kuffar hell counter: 1 (39:8)

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[antipanditia]

[someguidance]

(V. 39:42) - Sleep

It is Allah Who takes away the souls at the time of their death, and those that die not during their sleep. He keeps those (souls) for which He has ordained death and sends the rest for a term appointed. Verily, in this are signs for a people who think deeply.