Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 18 (“Jonah”)
I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. If you had to go to work today, then you can at least comfort yourself with the knowledge that I’ve waded through 109 verses to bring you this commentary on Surah 10:
Surah 10 – “Jonah” (Yunus)
The opening few pages of this chapter are pretty standard stuff:
- Muhammad’s critics object that Allah’s revelation would come through a man.
- Allah’s role as creator is emphasized and the natural world (the sun and moon in particular) are held up as signs pointing the people to God.
- We have the usual statements about the disbelievers heading to the Fire and the believers going to “Gardens of Pleasure”.
- Several times man’s fickle and forgetful nature is lamented and that Allah saves him from affliction, but yet he continues his path unaltered.
Some of Muhammad’s critics ask him to either bring a different Qur’an or to change the one which he has delivered which, of course, Muhammad rejects.
Muhammad rejects all other gods whom his interlocuctors regard as “intercessors with Allah”. We are told that mankind was once “one community [united in religion]” but now many stray from Isalm.
There is a verse which says that those who have “done good is the best [reward] – and extra”. The footnote says that, “in addition to the pleasure of Paradise, [the righteous] will be able to see Allah”. We’ve come across this claim before in Surah 75 (“Resurrection”), but I’m still surprised that Muslims believe that a God as transcendent as Allah could possibly be “seen”.
Those who associated with Allah in their earthly life are interrogated with the standard set of questions (whether any of their “partners” created the world, or who guides into truth).
It is again asserted that only Allah could have produced the Qur’an. We are told that it is “a confirmation of what was before it and a detailed explanation of the [former] scripture”. This, once again, assumes preservation of the former scriptures, the Torah and Injil. Describing the Qur’an as “a detailed explanation” seems very odd to me, since the Qur’an doesn’t really provide a detailed explanation of anything. The narratives of Biblical stories are brief and fragmentary and I can’t think of anywhere thus far where we find deep theology articulated.
In response to Muhmmad’s critics who claim that he invented the Qur’an, the challenge is issued to “bring forth a surah like it”. This really doesn’t seem like a difficult challenge to me.
We then encounter a direct rejection of Christian doctrine: “They have said, ‘Allah has taken a son’… You have no authority/evidence for this [claim]. Do you say about Allah that which you do not know?… Indeed, those who invent falsehood about Allah will not succeed…We will make them taste the severe punishment”. Of course, this doesn’t very actuately represent the Christian belief in the deity of Christ, since we belive that the Son has eternally existed with the Father, rather than taking place in time. The Deity of Christ we know because Son Himself revealed it in the Scriptures which the Qur’an has (thus far) endorsed.
The story of Noah is briefly recounted.
After that, we are told about Moses and Aaron. There are a couple of interesting details given in this account:
- Allah commands Moses to “Settle your people in Egypt in houses and make your houses [facing the] quiblah”, which my footnote says is “in order that they might pray therein unseen by their enemy”. This seems like an odd command to give an enslaved people. There’s no command like this in the Biblical account, with the initial conflict with Pharaoh surround the need for Israel to go out into the desert to worship for a short period.
- With his dying breath, Pharaoh declares faith in Allah and claims to be a Muslim. I wonder if this means that Muslims regard Pharaoh as being in Paradise?
There is then a startling command given to Muhammad by Allah: “…if you are in doubt, [O Muhammad], about that which We have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you”. Given the proceeding verses, I assume this is a reference to the Jews, but it might also refer to the Christians. I see no way of claiming that the (Jewish) scriptures are corrupted without making a nonsense of this command of Allah.
We now finally come to the subject of this chapter’s title, Jonah and the reptenence of Ninevah. The question is asked: “Then has there not been a [single] city that believed so its faith benefited it except the people of Jonah?”. I’m not exactly sure why this passing reference in a single verse became of the title of this chapter.
There is then an interesting note regarding free will and forced belief. Muhammad is told that “had your Lord willed, those on earth would have believed”. Since Allah did not do this, Muhammad is rhetorically asked “would you compel the people in order that they become believers?”. It will be interesting to see whether this attitude is maintained by the Qur’an in future chapters.
The chapter ends with a call to Islamic monotheism, a rejection of polytheism and an affirmation of Allah’s soverignty and justice.
Q1. In what sense is the Qur’an “a detailed explanation of the [former] Scipture”, as described by ayah 37?
Q2. The challenge is made in ayah 38 to bring forth a single chapter of anything like the Qur’an. Why is this difficult? Why wouldn’t Psalm 117 or the poetry of Kahlil Gibran fulfil this challenge? Why are these inferior to, say, Surah 113?
Q3. Is it assumed that Pharaoh is now in Paradise, given his dying confession? Is ayah 92 addressed to Pharaoh? Does it mean that his body isn’t going to be lost to the water?
Q4. If the Jewish scriptures have been corrupted, why would Muhammad be told to confer with the Jews in ayah 24?
Q5. What is the answer to the rhetorical question about Ninevah in ayah 98?
When I have finished my own reading of the Qur’an, I will produce an abridged version of the Islamic text. My goal is to allow Christians (and others) to “read the Qur’an” in an hour or so, hitting the highlights and get a feel for the style and content of the Qur’an.
Today’s chapter was long and contained lots of familiar Qur’anic material. I’m sure that portions of this scripture will make an appearance in my abridged version.