#ghafir

#سورة_غافر

Quran. Surah 40 Ghafir, verses 60 - 63.

Коран. Сура 40 Гъафир (Прощающий), аяты 60 - 63.

.

القارئ :#ياسر_الدوسري

Reciter : Yasser Al Dosari

.

.

So. Last time we read this, in reference to the evil pharaoh of the Exodus story.

Allah warded off from [Moses] the evils which they plotted, while a dreadful doom encompassed Pharaoh's folk, The Fire; they are exposed to it morning and evening; and on the day when the Hour upriseth (it is said): Cause Pharaoh's folk to enter the most awful doom.

The pharaoh and his underlings are currently being tortured, before the Day of Judgement, at which time they will... be tortured even more.

This is our first taste of the poorly-attested, barely-understood, but nonetheless mostly agreed-upon concept of adhab al-qabr, literally the “torment of the grave”. This is not a concept that is mentioned in the Quran, beyond the ayah above, but it is found in several ahadith.

You see, Islam has the same problem as Christianity with regards to the whole afterlife thing--the Day of Judgement is meant to sort people into heaven and hellbound categories, but there are stories within both religions indicating that people are punished or rewarded long before this day. Maybe early Muslims didn’t care much about this topic because they believed that the Day of Judgement was approaching fast. Mohammed enjoyed scaring his followers by indicating that the day was getting close, as we’ve seen in the Quran itself. But, uh, that didn’t happen. And so here we are around 1400 years later, and the question of what happens to people’s souls between their deaths and their resurrection at the end of the world has become increasingly pertinent.

Islamic tradition largely holds that this period takes place in a metaphysical realm, time, or just a condition called barzakh, meaning “barrier” (between life and the “actual” afterlife). The word comes from this line in surah 23:

behind them is a barrier until the day when they are raised

Now, tbh, this just says the barrier is behind them, meaning the dead can’t come back to life (Unless Allah Willeth, etc). As we’ve seen multiple times now, Mohammed said that on the Day of Judgement, the disbelievers will beg Allah for a second chance at life and he’ll tell them to fuck off into hell. It’s usually implied that this is their first conscious experience after death. In fact, throughout the Quran, we’re made to believe that people won’t even notice that any time has passed between their deaths and resurrection. The doomed disbelievers who are raised on the Day of Judgement say they were “sleeping” while in their graves, which is odd if they spent the entirety of their time there being tortured, either physically or spiritually (no one knows if the torture is meant to be inflicted upon their bodies or just their souls).

Regardless, the reason why barzakh is a thing is because both the Quran and the ahadith refer to people enduring torment before the end of the world, and scholars needed to come up with some sort of theological explanation for this. Barzakh was the nearest equivalent, so they went with that (though what “barzakh” actually meant varied within the first two centuries of Islam).

In the barzakh realm/time/whatever after death, people will be subjected to two fates: punishment and reward, similar to the Christian theological idea of “particular judgement” preceding the final judgement (which was also debated among different sects of Christians, with some saying that the dead were just unconscious until they were resurrected). The punishment is for wrongdoers, and is the adhab al-qabr in question. A hadith assures us that this is a real thing, and perhaps tells us where Mohammed got the concept from.

There came to me two old women from the old Jewesses of Medina [who] said: The people of the grave are tormented ... He (the Prophet) said: They told the truth; they would be tormented (so much) that the animals would listen to it. She ('A'isha) said: Never did I see him (the Holy Prophet) afterwards but seeking refuge from the torment of the grave in prayer.

The torment of the grave is clearly distinguished from the torment of hell in other very reputable ahadith--so there is a definite basis for the concept, despite its absence from the Quran itself. A variety of other ahadith flesh out the concept. First of all, that line about animals hearing it was apparently meant to be taken literally:

The Messenger of Allah went out after the sun had set, and heard a sound. He said '(It is) Jews being tormented in their graves.’

As for the disbeliever or the hypocrite, it is said to him (in his grave): 'What did you say about this man (Mohammed)?' He says: 'I do not know; I used to say what the people said (ie, he is an idiot moron).' It is said to him (by the angels): 'You did not understand and you did not follow those who had understanding.' Then he is dealt a blow between his ears and the man utters a scream which everything near him hears, except for the two races (humans and jinn).''

Even dead Jews bothered Mohammed. Christ.

Secondly, the “sins” that cause you to be tormented range in severity from disbelief all the way down to............. uh...

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) happened to pass by two graves and said: They (their occupants) are being tormented, but they are not tormented for a grievous sin. One of them [gossiped] and the other did not keep himself safe from being defiled by urine. He then called for a fresh twig and split it into two parts, and planted them on each grave and then said: Perhaps, their punishment way be mitigated as long as these twigs remain fresh.

...not changing your nasty-ass urine-stained clothes. Nice of Mohammed to have pity on that guy, though. This indicates that some of the torment of the grave can be lessened by the actions of the living, though why putting an object on someone’s grave accomplishes this is A Mystery Of Allah.

Whether Muslims will be subjected to any of this torture is unclear. A hadith suggests they will not.

“Allah will keep firm those who believe, with the word that stands firm.” [14:27] This has been revealed concerning the torment of the grave. It will be said to him: ‘Who is your Lord?’ He will say: ‘My Lord is Allah, and my Prophet is Muhammad.’

(It’s said in less-reputable stories that angels named Munkar and Nakir are responsible for asking these questions, sometimes with a third angel named Ruman thrown in. They are generally depicted as very scary looking in order to frighten people.)

As for those Muslims who get to experience their pre-Day-of-Judgement rewards, it’s... also unclear what happens to them. Islamic scholars sometimes point to this verse from back in the third surah, following the Battle of Uhud, as a reference to barzakh:

And never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision, Rejoicing in what Allah has bestowed upon them of His bounty, and they receive good tidings about those [to be martyred] after them who have not yet joined them - that there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve.

And in a hadith, it’s said that these dead soldiers are turned into green birds who live in jannah... presumably temporarily, so they can enjoy their lady-lovin’ rewards later. But both the hadith and the Quran make it clear that Muslims who die while waging jihad (in addition to prophets etc) are given express tickets to heaven itself... they’re not in some in-between state. So this can’t be barzakh or the good equivalent of the torment of the grave. I mean, it can, if you want to connect the two badly enough, but it doesn’t make much sense.

So some Islamic scholars proposed more modest rewards. After satisfactorily answering the angels’ questions, they say, dead Muslims in their graves will get a sneak peek into jannah, filling them with hope and tiding them over until the Day of Judgement. The grave itself will be made spacious and well-lit for them, then they can sleep peacefully. (“Wow this is rly helpful!!!” - guy who has been dead for 800 years and is now a femur bone and some ashes.)

The sneak peek hadith linked above basically states that people will know whether they’re going to hell or heaven right after answering the questions, though, so why does the Quran show the disbelievers being shocked when they’re sentenced to hell? What’s even the point of the Day of Judgement when they’ve already received judgement? Why bother with the bridge thing and all the dramatics? Lo! It is a mystery. Then again, Allah judges everyone before they’re even born, so I guess it makes just as much sense as everything else in this religion, which is to say none at all.

At the end of the day, what we really have here is a disconnect between the Quran itself and the ahadith, which does happen every now and then. Nothing in the Quran beyond this one line clearly says that dead people will be doing or experiencing anything other than... being dead, with the exception of those granted Instant Jannah. But the ahadith make it abundantly clear that this is not the case. The ahadith referencing this are very strong and can’t be dismissed as later fabrications.

As for why this disconnect may have arisen in the first place, the hadith from Aisha perhaps suggests that Mohammed made adhab al-qabr a more central part of Islam only after he heard Jews in Medina talking about it a lot. Perhaps he himself didn’t fully understand how all of this was meant to work, since neither Jews nor Christians offered a solid, unified explanation for it, and he didn’t want to incorporate it into the Quran beyond this line. Or maybe he just needed to give his followers some extra motivation to keep following him--now they weren’t just risking torment in hell, but also torment before hell. I don’t know.

What I do know is that the concept of the torment of the grave, and a consciousness-after-death concept more broadly (even if only for a moment), has become an accepted part of Islam over the centuries despite its near-total absence from the Quran. Not everyone can agree on the exact nature of it all, since there really isn’t much material to base it upon, but most do agree that it is a thing. Somehow.

Anyway the real answer to this and many other theological mysteries is that Mohammed didn’t think all of this through clearly enough and so Islamic scholars had to try to fix his mistakes for several centuries. O well!

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 196

It’s ya boy Moses. Again. There are actually some new, never-before-seen details in this section--details that barely impact the outcome of the story at all. GET EXCITED!!

40:24 re-introduces some of the secondary characters we’ve seen in various versions of the Exodus story thus far: Moses was denied by the pharaoh, Haman, and Korah, who “said: A lying sorcerer!”.

Y’all remember the pharaoh, obviously, and hopefully you remember Haman, the evil advisor accidentally transplanted from the Book of Esther into the Quranic Exodus. Korah is a Hebrew guy from that one story in surah 28 where he was greedy and Allah made the earth swallow him up. He was called a disbeliever in that story, but I think this is the first time we’ve been told that he accused Moses of being a liar. Hey, a new detail!

Another new detail is this:

And when he brought them the Truth from Our presence, they said: Slay the sons of those who believe with him, and spare their women. But the plot of disbelievers is in naught but error.

(I’m ignoring that last sentence because I want to talk about something else rn, DAMN IT MOHAMMED!)

When Moses starts his prophet gig, the pharaoh declares that Hebrew boys will be put to death. But the Exodus story (in the Bible and the Quran) starts with the pharaoh killing Hebrew boys, which is why Moses’ mother sends him away. From surah 28:

Pharaoh exalted himself in the land and made its people into factions, oppressing a sector among them, slaughtering their [newborn] sons and keeping their females alive. Indeed, he was of the corrupters. And We wanted to confer favor upon those who were oppressed in the land and make them leaders and make them inheritors And establish them in the land and show Pharaoh and [his minister] Haman and their soldiers through them that which they had feared. And We inspired to the mother of Moses, "Suckle him; but when you fear for him, cast him into the river and do not fear and do not grieve. Indeed, We will return him to you and will make him [one] of the messengers."

So this seems to be a second incident of Hebrew-boy-killing, taking place when Moses is an adult. (Pharaoh and Haman have been around for quite a while, evidently.) This part is not in the Bible, nor in any other suwar, and I can’t find any basis for it in Jewish or Christian texts. None of the tafsirs have much to say about it, beyond noting that it happened. So I have two theories for what happened here:

1) Mohammed just fucked up and accidentally changed the chronology in this surah--there was supposed to be only one kid-killing incident, at the intro to the Moses story.

2) Mohammed either misunderstood the “death of the firstborn” incident from the Bible (where YHWH kills all the Egyptians’ firstborn sons) or did understand it, but disliked it and therefore changed it so that the Egyptians were the ones killing kids.

The plagues that Allah/YHWH sends upon Egypt are mentioned in an ayah back in surah 7. Locusts, (water turning into) blood, lice, and frogs are all named, as in the Bible. One additional plague is mentioned--tufana, which seems to mean “flood”. There isn’t any flood mentioned in the Exodus version, but there is an enormous storm with lightning, thunder, and hail, and it’s probably supposed to refer to that. The Passover incident involving the deaths of the firstborn sons (and four other plagues preceding it: darkness, boils, diseased livestock, and a swarm of deadly animals) is not mentioned in the Quran.

So all we can say is that the Passover story was completely left out of Islam, but we can’t really conclude why that might be. Allah doesn’t have a problem killing kids who he knows will grow up to be disbelievers (see: the al-Khidr story), so it’s not like the story violated some tenet of Islam. Perhaps Mo was still uncomfortable with it, though, and thought the unfortunate genocide would work better as a plot point if the Egyptians were the ones doing it. Mohammed did have a tendency to make the various disbelieving civilizations cartoonishly evil in some suwar, whereas they come across as just skeptical or apathetic in other suwar (see: the variants of the Saleh story). So adding a line about the Egyptians killing kids twice just to make them seem extra dickish wouldn’t be unprecedented.

This question is similar to the whole thing with the Samaritan building the golden calf--sometimes it’s hard to tell if Mohammed intentionally fucked up the story because he disliked its message, or if he just did it accidentally because he got confused by similar wording or repeated themes. We’ll never know. But in this particular case, my money is on the latter.

Regardless, the pharaoh also wants to kill Moses himself because he’s afraid that Moses will “cause confusion in the land” with his religious preaching. Moses prays for Allah to protect him from the pharaoh and all other disbelievers.

In 40:28, we have yet another new addition to the story.

a believing man of Pharaoh's family (*other translations: “of Pharaoh’s folk”), who hid his faith, said: Would ye kill a man because he saith: My Lord is Allah, and hath brought you clear proofs from your Lord? 

I guess we’re just forgetting the part where the pharaoh was initially mad at Moses for killing some Egyptian guy in cold blood. Remember that? I guess that got retconned, and the pharaoh is just mad at Moses because he dislikes The True Religion in this version of the story. Hmm.

But who is this Muslim Egyptian fellow? The Jalals suggest it was the pharaoh’s unnamed cousin, though I’ve also seen him described as the pharaoh’s treasurer. A small minority read the grammar here, tortuously, as “a believing man--who hid his faith from Pharaoh’s family--said”, meaning he may not have been Egyptian at all. No one seems to know who he was, and again there aren’t any Jewish or Christian traditions I can find that contain this scene. The cousin interpretation is the most popular one in tafsir works, so let’s call him the pharaoh’s cousin.

This gentleman tells the pharaoh that no one can stop the wrath of Allah (in reference to the punishments brought upon the people of Hud, Saleh, etc, incidentally putting all of those pre-Moses in the chronology), though the pharaoh dismisses his concerns. But the cousin continues his rant, saying that he also fears that Allah will doom them in the afterlife.

I’ve been generous by designating all of the above as neutral, given the circumstances, but his rant does contain a couple of bad lines: the typical “he whom Allah sendeth astray, for him there is no guide” in 40:33 and a line stating that these astray people, who are hated by Allah, are those who doubt prophets. That ayah contains a line stating that the Egyptians doubted the revelations of Joseph many generations ago, and this is why Allah has made them go astray. But... um... did they? Wasn’t he made the chief advisor or something at the end of surah 12, because they did believe him? I mean, yeah, they didn’t become Muslims. But as far as I recall, the only people Joseph told to become Muslims were those guys in jail. Not the population in general. Right? Whatever.

The pharaoh stares at his cousin blankly for a couple of minutes and decides to ignore everything he just said, instead turning to Haman and telling him to build the pseudo-Tower of Babel. He wants to reach the "roads of the heavens" so he can see Allah (if he exists). Allah makes the pharaoh think this is a good idea, but then makes the plan end in ruin. Questionable free will violation there, but whatever.

NEXT TIME: The pharaoh’s cousin makes a return appearance for some kuffar dooming fun times!!!

The Quran Read-Along: Day 196

Ayat: 15

Good: 0

Neutral: 12 (40:23-32, 40:36-37)

Bad: 3 (40:33-40:35)

Kuffar hell counter: 0

#سورة_غافر

Surah 40 Ghafir, verses 1 - 3.

Коран. Сура 40 Гъафир (Прощающий), аяты 1 - 3.

. القارئ: #عبدالمجيد_الاركاني . . The reader: Abdul Majeed Al-Arkani __________

________________

@r20_otb

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 198

We’ll finish this up today, meaning we didn’t make it to #200 in this surah after all. That’ll be in surah 41, then. O well, the next surah is more of this same disbelievers-are-doomed shit, so it doesn’t rly matter tbh!

40:61 is our starting point. Allah made the night so people could sleep, and also made everything in general, so everyone should worship him and believe Mohammed’s revelations. Those who do not are delusional liars. (Bad!)

Allah also made the earth a dwelling-place for humans, made the sky a ceiling for the earth (hmm), and created humans themselves. Therefore, everyone should worship him. Yes, that’s exactly what he just said three lines ago. Lo! Allah loveth repeating himself.

Again Mohammed is commanded to proclaim that Allah is the only god and he is a prophet. We get a repeat of the whole human-creation-cycle that we’ve seen multiple times now: the first human was created from dust/clay, then Adam’s children were created from a drop of semen and became “clots” in the womb of Eve, then they were born, grew into adults, and began to decline in old age. Allah is in control of all of that. Fair enough, neutral.

Back to bitching about those who disbelieve in Mohammed’s revelations, though. 40:70 begins a long kuffar hell counter (1) hit:

Those who deny the Scripture and that wherewith We send Our messengers. But they will come to know, When carcans are about their necks and chains. They are dragged Through boiling waters; then they are thrust into the Fire.

Ahh yes, the disbelievers-in-chains imagery. A bit stale at this point, really. As is the description of the scene where Allah taunts the disbelievers and asks them where their fake gods are, the statement that Allah is the one who sends disbelievers astray, and another ayah about how disbelievers are insolent and hellbound. Just gets a tad boring after seeing it so many times, I’m afraid. Still bad, though.

Aight, we’re finally at the end of the surah. Let’s see if Mo can pull it together and give us something worthwhile here. Hm... everyone will be brought before Allah after they die. Eh. Allah’s punishment will come upon the liars eventually. Questionable and basically a threat, but still eh. Allah gave various animals to humanity for food and transport purposes, and shows humans “tokens” of his grandeur. Zzz.

Well, this is the end of the surah. Let’s see what we got. It’s... another “travel the land and see the consequences!!” for denying prophets (meaning doom unto disbelievers) ayah. Joy! We’re done here.

The Quran Read-Along: Day 198

Ayat: 25

Good: 0

Neutral: 13 (40:61-62, 40:64-69, 40:77-81)

Bad: 12 (40:63, 40:70-76, 40:82-85)

Kuffar hell counter: 1 (40:69-76)

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 197

The pharaoh has tried and failed to build The Stairway To Heaven and now his maybe-cousin has more hot takes to share. We rejoin our heroes in 40:38.

Maybe-cousin tells people to listen to him, because he will tell them how to behave properly. This life, he tells them, is only a temporary “enjoyment”--the afterlife is what will go on forever. Therefore, they should focus on getting to jannah.

That prompts a good ayah of the good-Muslims-go-to-heaven variety:

whoso doeth right, whether male or female, and is a believer, (all) such will enter the Garden

...naturally followed immediately by a kuffar hell counter (1) hit:

And, O my people! What aileth me that I call you unto deliverance when ye call me unto the Fire? Ye call me to disbelieve in Allah and ascribe unto Him as partners that whereof I have no knowledge, while I call you unto the Mighty, the Forgiver. Assuredly that whereunto ye call me hath no claim in the world or in the Hereafter, and our return will be unto Allah, and the prodigals will be owners of the Fire.

Now even nameless secondary characters are repeating Mohammed’s stale-ass rants, this is gettin out of control tbh! But okay... telling people to be polytheists is the same as calling them unto the Fire (bad), disbelievers’ gods are fake, and those who transgress Allah’s limits are going to hell. Right. Well. On its own, I’ll leave that last one as neutral because it doesn’t specify who the “transgressors” are, even though in context it’s obvious what it means.

The guy concludes his speech by saying that Allah sees all, and then we’re back to Mohammed’s narrations in 40:45. The pharaoh’s people were punished with The Fire--they are “exposed to it morning and evening”, and will be punished even further on the Day of Judgement. Keep this in mind for tomorrow, we’re gonna have a whole fun special bonus section about it.

We have the typical scene of the peasant-disbelievers asking the leader-disbelievers in hell if they can lessen their torment, since the former were just following the lead of the latter. The leader-disbelievers will say they can’t do anything to help, but will ask the “guards of hell” for some relief. (As we saw back in the section on Mohammed’s “journey to heaven”, the angel Malik is in charge of hell and keeping its fires lit; the other "guards” serve beneath him). Alas, the guards respond in 40:50:

They say: Came not your messengers unto you with clear proofs? They say: Yea, verily. They say: Then do ye pray, although the prayer of disbelievers is in vain.

Kuffar hell counter: 2! And bad. We’ll see Malik mentioned by name in a later surah, so look forward to that. The word means “master” or “owner” (of The Fire presumably), and it is typically interpreted as the angel’s name rather than just a title, though there was some debate over that by early Islamic scholars.

Anyway... Allah helps Muslims and prophets in both life (when he isn’t inflicting “tests” upon them like Uhud, eh?) and on the Day of Judgement--a day when the wrongdoers will be cursed. Whatever. We have one last mention of how Allah gave the Torah, “a reminder for men of understanding”, to Moses to cap off that whole Exodus section, and now we’re in the last third of the surah.

Allah commands Mohammed to pray to him and ignore those who “wrangle concerning the revelations of Allah”, because those disbelievers are just prideful and wrong. They refuse to recognize that Allah’s creation of the heavens and earth (which the disbelievers do believe in) was a greater task than his creation of humanity. Ibn Kathir says this is meant to emphasize that the disbelievers’ refusal to believe in the resurrection is therefore dumb, since if creating humanity was easy for Allah, then re-creating people’s bodies would be, too. That is... not why they didn’t believe in resurrection, but sure!!

We’ll end today’s section with a typical rant about how “the blind man and the seer are not equal”, meaning Muslims and disbelievers are not equal. The latter should know that the hour of judgement is coming (NARRATOR: It wasn’t.), and on that day those who refuse to serve Allah will be sent into hell. What a cute lil kuffar hell counter (3) hit to cap off the day.

NEXT TIME: We finish the surah!

The Quran Read-Along: Day 197

Ayat: 22

Good: 1 (40:40)

Neutral: 14 (40:38-39, 40:43-45, 40:51-59)

Bad: 7 (40:41-42, 40:47-50, 40:60)

Kuffar hell counter: 3 (40:41-43, 40:47-50, 40:60)