Tag: quran and science

Surah 45: The Kneeling

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Surah 45, Al-Jaathiyah, “The Kneeling,” doesn’t have much by way of distict attributes. The word for “kneeling” is unique here, thus its use for a title, but a related word appears twice in Surah 19 for the same visual scene of mankind on their knees before judgement. The surah opens with the mysterious letters Haa Miim, and thus gets traditionally dated to be in chronological sequence with the previous four suwar that start with the same letter set…

…And that’s as much comment as my commentaries provided on this surah as a whole. And I, being consumed in this season with home renovations and also a little fatigued with the Quran’s general habit of repetition, couldn’t decide on anything to talk about. So I invited my readers to pick topics for me, and lo! A comment came with a series of three questions, and I’ll so my post today will be answering them. My thanks to my reader “Copperwalls” for the engagement!

It’s a short 37 ayat, take a read…

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Surah 41: It Detailed

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Here’s something new: this surah is named with a verb! There’s one other surah ahead with such distinction, and it’s fascinating that there are these two exceptions to the conventional naming scheme of proper nouns (even last surah’s “Forgiver” was used as a proper noun.) I like the idea of something being titled for what it is doing; it communicates that the text is alive in a way. The verb in question is “fuṣṣilat,” which is a finnicky word to translate into English. Let’s parse this: the roots f-ṣ-l connote parting; the morphology of doubling the middle consonant into f-ṣṣ-l makes the verb causative and/or intensive, thus “made parted,” or “parted further”; the -at at the end signifies the past tense and indicates that the one doing is feminine/neutral, as all Arabic verbs build in pronouns to connect them to that which is doing. So in English we could translate this idea as “it parsed, subdivided, dissected,” and keep the etymological root of separation and parting, though unfortunately those verbs often are confined to some technical area like linguistics, math, or anatomy. “Distinguish” could be a great fit etymologically, except that it doubles to mean the elevation of something and that’s not meant here. The usual translations of this title is “explained in detail” but I’m going to take issue with that option. It looks like an adjectival phrase and not a verbal one. We need to include the pronoun to preserve the verbal nature of it. The verb “detail” is… okay for the purposes of translation. It comes to English through French and derives from the idea of cutting things into pieces, so not terribly different in base concept from “parting.” So “detail”…meh. Fine, it’ll do.

So what does Surah Fuṣṣilat detail?

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Surah 37: The Ranks, Part 2

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Last week I grouped together those elements of Surah 37, “The Ranks,” which I thought were meant to appeal to the poetic side of the culture to which Muhammad was originally preaching. This week I’m going to group together the remaining material, which approaches the people from a more argumentative side. It still is pretty artistic, having several recurring turns of phrase and literary patterns, but in purpose it is much more interested in using the right information to get the right response.

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Surah 36: Y. S., Part 1

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Let it be known that my family now gifts me Qurans. I’m not complaining, they’re incredibly useful and rather beautiful books to have on my shelves. For my birthday, my husband found for me a Yusuf Ali translation of the Quran. For just because, my in-laws bought for me Muhammad Asad’s translation of the Quran.

These are really nice resources, rooted in Islamic scholarship, but I’ve been on the fence about how to use them with this blog. They are more than just translations, they are commentaries (or tafsir, in Arabic). The text within is heavily footnoted to explain, supplement, and interpret the Quran’s content. Sometimes the explanations are to do with choices of translation, but oftentimes they are done to direct the readers’ exegesis of the text. This can prime the reader to conclusions or assumptions that aren’t inherently communicated in the text, which is something I want to avoid. Then again, I’m creating something similar with this blog, aren’t I? My own process of processing the Quran has primed me to see certain things and come to certain conclusions about the text. You can’t say that after two years of being into this thing I don’t have any conclusions at play in my interpretation. So is it time to add these commentaries into the mix?

I’m going to write this post twice, once by myself with my own takeaways, and then once again having read through the commentaries. Today’s surah, yaa siin, “Y. S.,” is 83 ayat long, and the ayat are of shorter length. Before being primed with my opinions, take a look at it yourself and see what strikes you.

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Surah 35: Originator

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The times when the Quran most appeals to me are its moments of taking stock of the natural world. I am always in awe of nature, and so when the Quran likewise takes in the natural world with awe, I am drawn sympathetically to it. Today’s surah looks at the natural world and draws from it praises for God. As such, it is fitting that the opening ayah names God Faatir, “Originator,” and that this name is taken for the surah’s title. So please, take some time to read the brief 45 ayat of today’s surah, and then compare your impressions with mine below.

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Surah 30: The Romans

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With the significance of the rise of Islam and my focused examination on its inciting document, it’s easy to lose view of the fact that Muhammad’s ministry was for a long time just a tiny remote squabble on the fringes of civilization. Indeed, news of Muhammad’s activity hardly rippled into the broader world as far as we can see in surviving records. It wasn’t until Muhammad’s state erupted from the Arabian Penninsula after Muhammad’s death that chroniclers were forced to take notice. Though the rise of Islam would have the most significance in hindsight, the real battle of the fates as thought at the time was between the (Eastern) Romans and (Sasanid) Persians.

Though Mecca was a remote oasis location, it still was connected to the bigger world through trade and felt the ripples of those politics. In today’s surah, Ar-Rum, “The Romans,” we’re going to see fleeting peek of the world politics surrounding the Quran. Yet still, the Quran’s fight was with Mecca primarily, all the more so because today’s surah was still revealed in relation to Meccan conflicts. While the surah starts with this glimpse of larger politics, its substance promptly returns to Meccan fare.

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Surah 25: The Criterion

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Surah al-Furqaan, “The Criterion,” introduces itself by praising God for sending down to his slave the furqaan with which to warn the world. That word, furqaan, means “distinction” or “differentiation” and has likewise been used to describe the Torah and Gospel. Though the word gets treated as a singular item I would speculate from the –aan ending (which when applied as a suffix to nouns often indicates a dual plural) that a suitable translation would be something along the lines of “the dichotomy.” Mercy and damnation. Believers and concealers. The Quran is a book of extremes and contrasts with which to sort mankind. However harsh and scornful the Quran is of Muhammad’s opposition, it becomes soft as velvet where concerns it’s followers.

This dichotomy was easier for the Quran to paint in its Meccan era, such as what we’re reading today. In Mecca, there was no fear that hypocrites were entering the faith for purposes of financial speculation or security in the face of a growing military coalition. In Mecca, being pagan was the easy way, the advantageous way, the ostensibly intellectual way. In Surah al-Furqaan we’ll see the Quran contrast the current order of Meccan society to the promised order of the Judgement.

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Surah 22: The Pilgrimage, Part 2

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The thing I find most rewarding about this series is taking journeys down the rabbit holes. If I was just doing a straight reading of the Quran, I would pass by these moments with only fleeting thought and probably leave my reading with just a dismissive, “whatever,” as I have seen in the reactions of many other people who have read the Quran. But by writing a post I am forced –or rather, encouraged– to stop, look, and put some effort into understanding the material. There are a number of great resources available for reading the Quran, resources that help interpret the language and tradition, and in consulting these resources I enjoy getting to sit in another culture and trace its puzzles and eccentricities. Within Surah al-Hajj there were a lot of little moments where I read something, paused and went, “…huh,” before reading forward further. I noted these things down, but then didn’t find a place to include them in my last post.

So today is going to be my inventory of all the little things that made me go, “…huh.”

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Surah 13: The Thunder

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Imagine when thunder was the most mysterious, impressive, ear-splitting sound humankind knew? It is hard for us to imagine a world in which there is as much silence or quietness as there was in ancient times. It is hard for me to imagine how ancient peoples understood thunder. I’ve always grown up being taught to link thunder with lightning, but how early was it when that link became assumed? Lightning is sometimes too far away for its thunder to be heard, and oftentimes I miss the sight of distant lightning even when I hear its thunder. How would and ancient mind, without knowledge of speeds of light and sound, process their observations?

Thunder alone is not the only thing mysterious to the ancient mind, and Surah al-Ra’d (43 ayat) is going to point to many other at-that-time mysterious things and see the presence of God in them. In material this comes closer to the materials of some of the Psalms (I’m thinking particularly Psalm 19). Argument and didactic intent are still very clear in the ayat, but the surah does approach a more purely worshipful tone as it marvels at the world to find God.

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