Category: Religion

Surah al-Anfal, “The Spoils of War.” In name and content, this surah is about battle and victory. Although not named, multiple ayat indicated to me that this surah concerns the aftermath of the Battle of Badr, an event which we already heard some about in Surah al-‘Imran: there is a caravan in a valley, a surprise meeting of armed forces, and a stunning victory. Surah al-‘Imran, if you’ll remember, was about the battle lost at the foot of Mt. Uhud, and it referenced the first victory at Badr to indict the Muslims of their failure. Because of that, I wonder why al-Anfal is placed after and thus far away from al-‘Imran. For Muslims reading according to the traditional 30-day Juz’ schedule, the messages are separated by five days. If al-Anfal and al-‘Imran had been placed one after the other, historical order of events would have been preserved, and the cautionary messages here would have combined with the reprimands in al-‘Imran into a very poignant joint reading.

Despite being about a stunning victory, there are very few congratulations in Surah al-Anfal. Victory has brought loot, and loot has awakened divisions and a sense of entitlement amongst individuals. To employ an English turn of phrase, the spoils have spoiled things. Muslims are given permission to enjoy their victory, but always they are reminded that the victory belongs to God and to His Prophet. Authority is being reinforced, and the words “God” and “Messenger” appear in frequent parallel to drive home who has the authority.

Continue reading “Surah 8: The Spoils of War” →

It is hardly fair to compare the Torah’s and the Quran’s accounts of Moses and Aaron. The scale and significance is entirely different. Four whole books of the Torah’s five are devoted to the life, teachings, and ministry of Moses (and Aaron, but he’s secondary and mostly implied as a spokesperson), and it is all told as part of the epic founding of Israel as a nation favored by and bound to God. In Surah al-A’raaf, Moses serves mainly as an archetype with which to validate Muhammad. No biographical information or historical placement is necessary for this purpose. While Moses is still an important prophet –being one of the only four to receive a divine book– he bears the implicit shadow of failure. His ministry and teachings fell short of creating lasting change, necessitating the need for future prophets and ultimately the more perfect ministry of Muhammad.

Now, in some sense Christians have a similar attitude as Muslims concerning Moses’s ministry and the Torah books. We largely use them to prophesy our own religion, and struggle with whether and how to apply the substance of their teachings. Christians might reinterpret the meanings of Torah scriptures, but claim no prophetic right to retool the Jewish writings. Islam does claim such a right, however, and the Quran contradicts Torah accounts regularly. There is no known historical evidence for Moses, leaving no decisive way to argue the matter. In today’s post, I’m going to try and steer clear of pointing out contradictions between Surah al-A’raaf and Kitaab al-Kharouj (The Book of Exodus). The narrative importance traditionally ascribed to all the small details in Exodus are just too many to bog down this post with. Besides that, I need to brush up on my knowledge of Exodus and get my facts straight…

Continue reading “Surah 7: The Traditions, Part 2” →

The best titles are those that can have many meanings and nuances. We favor titling things with puns, quotations, and metaphors in order to load as much meaning into as few words as possible. It’s like an efficient story-before-the-story that primes the reader for the coming material. Suwar don’t come with official titles, so the naming process has fallen to the popular choice of its readership, and thus they can get multiple titles. Surah 7 of the Quran is called in English, “The Heights.” Now, I really like this title. It comes most explicitly from a parable within the surah, but applies in some more symbolic ways. Much of this surah will feature people falling from the heights of their egos, potential, or ideal conditions. It also suggests a high vantage point from which one can see clearly the differences between good and evil. While this title is very good, I am going to give deference to the Arabic one, since its connotations will perhaps be spread across the broader Islamic culture.

In Arabic the surah is al-a’raaf. This word alone has many translations. Google translates a’raaf as “Customs, Traditions, Norms, Mores, Conventions, Habits, Rules,” amongst other definitions. Which one to choose? This is my deductive process:

• A’raaf (أعراف) is plural of ‘araf (عرف)
• The roots ع ر ف (‘-r-f) carry meanings of knowledge and awareness. ‘arafa as a verb means “he knew” and ‘arrafa means “he informed.” In the area of nouns, ma’rifa means “information, lore, knowledge.”
• Because this surah is heavier in lore than law, I settled on “traditions,” since that word includes meanings of transmitted knowledge as well as behaviors.

There aren’t actually any direct prescriptions for Muslim customs and behaviors in these 206 ayat, so one thing I’d say the title doesn’t refer to is Islamic ritual tradition. While the usual requirements of prayer, tithe, and theological orthodoxy are here, the terms of what such things should look like or how they are to be done aren’t described. Instead, the surah lays out lore and knowledge for Muslims to build their conventional knowledge and behaviors upon. Through this lore we also get the sense that human cultures always trend towards disobedience and arrogance. Sinful beliefs and behaviors are described as traditions passed through generations of people and societies. So a title like “The Traditions” can be taken to mean “The Conventional Knowledge of Islam” or also “The [Degenerative] Norms of Humankind.”

Continue reading “Surah 7: The Traditions, Part 1” →

The Book of Job is, I think, very underrated in Christian estimation. It is written as a work of poetry, and as such it is difficult to read casually. For most of my life, I only knew of Job through the paraphrased versions taught in Sunday school, which only drew from the first and last chapters and skipped all the heavy stuff in the middle. Job, I was taught, is all about understanding suffering as a test of faith, and that those who pass such tests are rewarded. What those lessons did not teach was the middle section of Job, which is heavy poetry with questions about whether God is good and/or just. Now, Job is a whole book, and so the quickest option I can offer you for purposes of my blog is this video or these excellent SparkNotes, which paraphrase Job in a more complete fashion.

I mention the Book of Job because there were passages in Surah al-An’am that used very similar language to describe God. They cite things like astronomy, plants and terrain, the patterns of the weather, and other forces that mankind cannot control but is dependent upon as evidence with which to judge the character of God. While Job and al-An’am are written to serve different purposes and narratives, they do show similar understandings of God.

Continue reading “Surah 6: The Cattle, Part 2” →

Surah al-An’am translates two ways: Chapter of the Cattle, Chapter of the Gifts. Considering the value of cattle, it is easy to see how an’am could evolve to communicate “gifts,” “assets,” or “boon.” Muslims would regard the messages in this surah as such things. However, “The Cattle” seems to be the more traditional way that the Muslim community reads it, ostensibly named after a discourse on some livestock practices of the pagans. Personally, I am reminded more of Al-Baqarah 171, in which ministering to unbelievers is likened to shouting at cattle and sheep. Much of the coming content will be about the pagan Arabs’ resistance to Muhammad’s messages, and the futility of his efforts on their behalf.

This is our first Meccan surah of any real size. Our only other Meccan surah was “The Introduction,” which was a seven-verse prayer. Al-An’am is a whopping 165 ayat, and tradition states that it was revealed all at once (whereas the previous big ones were put together from several sources or revealed gradually). A really good introduction to this surah and general Meccan revelations can be found here. I’d encourage you to read the opening section of that link, as it sets up the ways that scholars date each surah, and also Muhammad’s likely situation and state of mind as he was reciting this one in particular. Despite coming from a different time period than the Medinian suwar, the nature of today’s surah is very similar to prior material: denouncing those who do not agree with Muhammad and declaring their fate in Hell. The target people are polytheists (and general unbelievers), with only one tiny jab at the Jews. I think that the arguments leveled at the polytheists and atheists are a bit more revealing about the Muslim view of God. Some of the passages are very powerful and paint a picture of God that Christians, despite being in agreement with, are not used to contemplating.

Continue reading “Surah 6: The Cattle, Part 1” →

Christian scriptures contain two versions of Jesus’s parable of the Great Banquet. Matthew‘s version is a lot more elaborate and hyperbolic, while Luke‘s is simpler and more generalized. I prefer the simplicity of Luke’s version. In it, a man prepares a great feast and invites many people. Those who he invites decline one by one, and so the host redirects his invitation to the social rejects and foreigners, aiming to leave not one seat unfilled. Matthew’s version spreads the analogy thinner by adding grander details, going out of its way to include a condemnation of Israelite history, and putting caveats on those accepted at the table. This parable was clearly in my mind as I read Surah al-Ma’idah, or “The Feast.” The resemblance is not something the surah explicitly words in itself, but the title and some of the content suggested it to me, particularly of Matthew’s version. Al-Ma’idah takes time to set up an image of the literal and metaphorical feast of Islam, denounce those who failed to come or refused to listen, and set expectations and rules for those who do come.

Last week I wrote about the parts of the surah targeted towards Muslims: the foods they are welcome to, some of the guidelines for how they are to handle justice in their society, and their responsibility to only convey the existence and message of the Quran. This week I’m going to focus on the messages within Surah al-Ma’idah concerning Jews and Christians about their failure to respond to God’s invitations.

Continue reading “Surah 5: The Feast, Part 2” →

My translation “The Feast” is a little interpretive leap from the literal title of today’s surah, al-Maa’ida (“the table”). The understood meaning is a “table spread with food,” and honestly that is quite a wonderful title for this chapter. In the most literal sense, part of the Surah’s objective is to spell out what kinds of foods Muslims are allowed to eat. There is also a story of God sending a feast from heaven to validate Jesus’s ministry. Lastly, the surah reminds me a little of Jesus’s parable of the Great Banquet, where the original guests declined coming to the celebration and so other people were invited instead. This surah indeed spends much of its time decrying the Jews and Christians who have failed their faiths, and are to be supplanted by Muslims, although this week we will look mostly at the laws and codes that are being laid out to define Islam as its own religion.

Continue reading “Surah 5: The Feast, Part 1” →

The Quran is understood to be the infallible, divinely protected, decisive word of God. It establishes the personal beliefs of Muslim individuals and sets the principles on how their society is to be administered. It formed the original Islamic State, a theocracy in which God ruled by speaking through Muhammad. Yet while the Quran speaks on many subjects and gives much guidance, it is not comprehensive.

When Muhammad was alive, the Muslims could take any confusion over interpretation or application to him and receive God’s answer. In fact, the Quran directly refers Muslims toward the prophet Muhammad for such guidance. Once Muhammad died, the religion went on, but it’s practitioners had to adapt substitutes for their living prophet.

Continue reading “A Muhammad-Shaped Hole” →