Welcome Friends: Ahlan wa sahlan!
The last few pages held important concepts which we discuss for the first time, which is why our daily readings are divided the way they are!
COMMENTS:
1. Yesterday’s Reading ended with a statement (addressed directly to Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, and indirectly to us all) showing that, if ‘you’ were to follow them, most people on earth will lead ‘you’ astray; all they follow is Conjecture, and all they can do is guess. We continue today with verse 117, which forms an important CONCLUSION to that statement, indicating that, despite that Reality of theirs, God Alone Knows Best those who stray (verb) and those who are the Guided (title).
2. The following verses might seem surprising:
“Then consume of that upon which God’s name has been mentioned, if you indeed have faith (and trust) in his Signs!” (118)
Asad explains in his note, “the reason why these two verses have been placed in the midst of a discourse on God’s transcendental unity and the ways of man’s faith…”
The reason for these two verses being mentioned here, is so that those who have Faith and Trust in His signs would NOT make the observance of God’s commandments, an end in itself. In other words, we should keep our priorities straight: the ritual is NOT the goal.
Also, as Yusuf Ali explains (his translation of the meanings of Verse 119 and his note below), we should not raise fresh scruples about this issue!
“Why should ye not eat of (meats) on which God’s name hath been pronounced, when He hath explained to you in detail what is forbidden to you – except under compulsion of necessity? But many do mislead (men) by their appetites unchecked by knowledge. Thy Lord knoweth best those who transgress.” (119)
We read in Ali’s note: “When a clear law has explained what is lawful and unlawful in food, it is wrong to raise fresh scruples and mislead the ignorant.”
Although the term he used, ‘appetites’ (for ‘ahwaa, the plural of hawa هوى’) seems to paint a fitting picture here -since we’re talking about food- I still prefer the literal interpretation of ‘plummeting desires.’ As we said before, ‘hawa’ is plummeting desire which leads to emptiness, an explanation quite appropriate here for one that ‘fills’ oneself with emptiness.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The ending of this verse warns us against aggression/transgression in matters of what we call ‘Halaal or Haraam’ (the ‘unbound/open’ versus the ‘inviolable’), from which we understand that our prohibiting what is unbound/Halaal is just as wrong as permitting what is inviolable/Haraam: Both acts are Udwaan, the opposite of Taqwa, and any who do that (making inviolable what is unbound) would earn the title ‘al Mu3tadeen/The Transgressors.’
This reminds us of a previous verse (Day 61) HQ 5:87,[1] which clearly FORBIDS Those Who Attained Faith from considering Haraam what God has made Halaal, and then again FORBIDS Udwaan/Aggression, adding that ‘VERILY, GOD DOES NOT LOVE THE AGGRESSORS!”
3. Verse 120 shows us that deeds of Hindrance, ‘ithm’ إثم– are two kinds: the ‘external’ or overt, and the ‘internal,’ or covert – ظاهر# باطن. The verse COMMANDS us all to ‘drop/discard/let go of’ BOTH (for more on ‘Hindrance/ Ithm’ put the words in ‘search’).
Verse 121 relates to not eating of something upon which God’s name was not mentioned. Commentators say this means that we should ALWAYS mention God’s name when we eat, and that we should NOT eat of anything upon which we know was mentioned any name OTHER THAN GOD’S. Such a thing to be consumed -when a name other than God’s has been invoked upon it, is in itself a ‘fisq’فسق -as Verse 6:145 would later tell us.
FISQ:
We did mention earlier that fisq[2] is about withdrawal from a state of obedience, and that Arabs say: The date has ‘fasaqat’ when it slides out of its skin. However, when this word appeared in HQ5:3 we did not draw attention to it (‘fisq’ was the name given to the consumption of certain inviolable meats and to the divination by arrows).
Not always can we draw special attention to such words in our explanation. In our Reading of the Arabi Qur’an however we have -and we will- encounter many variations of this word. Arabic Readers would have noted the words ‘Faasiqeen/Faasiqoon/فاسقين/فاسقون’ (about ‘pledge-breaking’ or ‘deserting’ people) appearing many times in the Qur’an so far.
‘Fusooq’ is another noun-form from the verb ‘fasaqa,’ which appeared in HQ2:197.
The act/state of ‘fusooq’ -although serious- seems to be of a lesser degree than the act/state of ‘kufr’ as a Prophetic Saying narrated by Bukhari[3] indicates:
“Cursing/Maligning a Muslim is Fusooq, and battling/fighting him is Kufr.’
WAHI:
It is interesting to note how the word ‘waHa/وحى’ is used in the next part of the verse; note that is not always about ‘Divine revelation,’ although that’s how most Muslims understand it.
‘SheyaTeen’ here are probably human deviants. Certainly, there are many such persons who would argue to convince us to do things different from what God has instructed, and if we obeyed them, we would be Shirkers.
(Ali explained ‘ShayaTeen’ here as ‘pagans;’ but it could be anyone. Asad explained it here as ‘evil impulses,’ pointing to the tendency to transgress in each of us.)
Verse 122 quite strikingly seems to indicate that a person without an enlightened purpose in life, is virtually DEAD…!!
Read Ali’s note ; Asad’s note.
4. Verse 123 is a statement on the Nature of Human Society:
It is always so, that in any township, its most scheming citizens would be the highest-ranking Mujrims/‘Evil-Earners,’ among them, those who would ‘cut off’ for themselves, or extract, the rights of others. But they only connive against their own selves without perceiving it! ‘Mujrim,’ literally means ‘someone who cut off something, or drew it out of another’[4] (we encountered this word earlier; Blog Post Day 54).
The following verse 124 ends by specifying that those ‘akaabir’ أكابر- High-ranking folk, who committed such acts will be hit by ‘smallness’صغار- Degradation AND Severe Suffering because of their conniving.
Degradation, humiliation, and suffering to those of ‘high’ rank who made others suffer. Justice!
5. Verse 125 holds so many beautiful concepts:
“So, whomever God wills to guide, He expands his chest/head ‘sadr’ to Al- Islam (Pure Reverence and Accountability) and whomever He wills to let stray, He renders his chest/head ‘sadr’ constricted in distress as if he were laboriously scaling into the sky. That is how God brings about Turmoil[5] upon those who do not believe.”
Readers may have guessed that there is scientific fact here, unknown during the time of Revelation, which is that the higher the altitude, the lower the barometric pressure, the less oxygen we can obtain per breath.. until… breathing becomes impossible once we start ‘scaling into the sky.’ But that is not what the verse is about!
It’s about people with open hearts/minds, versus people with closed hearts/minds. It was God’s ‘design’ when He created us, that those of us who open our hearts/minds will feel elated when introduced to Islam (Pure Reverence to Him and Accountability), while those of us who have closed our hearts/minds, will only feel uneasy, and wish to get ‘back down,’ so as to breathe freely again.
Dear Reader:
Both you and I know that we cannot label people who are uneasy about Islam today as being ‘closed-minded,’ not after OUR version of Islam has transmuted from what it once was! Today ‘Islam’, to many, has become a label that often holds unattractive and indeed, unworthy, components.
It is the duty of educated and dedicated Muslims to spare no effort in attempting to become worthy of this Pure Standard of Accountability دين /Deen.
‘Islam’ إسلام has been interpreted in some earlier postings as Pure Reverence, and its slightly amended in English today to reflect it also being about ‘accountability;’ Islam is, after all, The Deen, THE Accountability Standard.
God does say that The Deen/Accountability Standard (how He holds us all accountable) is Islam/ إِنَّ الدِّينَ عِندَ اللَّـهِ الْإِسْلَامُ” in reference to HIS pure, flawless standard, see Day 26 for definitions of Islam.
When Islam is preceded by a possessive pronoun, as in ‘their/ your’ Islam,[6] it would indicate that party’s ‘Islam,’ their particular way of following -or failing to follow- God’s standard, whether inwardly or outwardly.
This leads to an important realization:
If the reality is that each Muslim is portraying his/her Islam, then no one professing Islam should be taken as an example of Islam (the only two examples God gave us to emulate were Prophet Abraham and our beloved Messenger, peace upon them both, in 33:21; 60:4)!
That is because Islam is an ideal accountability standard, and people -whose reality is subject to change- cannot exemplify it. Having said that, let us also understand that each of us can and must exert ourselves to exemplify the ideal Muslim!
Do we have ideal Muslims around us? Indeed we do! But let’s not place anyone high up on a pedestal. Islam is about the inner Pure Reverence (which no one knows) and the outer Accountability (which everyone sees), and whenever personalities we’ve been looking up to ‘suddenly’ fall, we understand that it was because of incongruence, either between the inner and the outer or within them. We also understand that it is God Who judges, and God Who forgives, and God Who helps us learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others.
6. Verse 126 presents the Messenger with his Lord-Sustainer’s Straightened Path.
It is here, for him and for us, in these detailed verses/signs for people who ‘receive admonition/take them to heart’ (Ali/Asad).
In Verse 127, persons who receive admonition and pursue the Straightened Path, are promised ‘Darul-salam’ the Abode Of Peace’ with their Lord, and He is their Protector/Intimate as a result of the deeds they were doing (in Life).
(Feel free dear Reader- no matter what ‘faith’ you belong to- to think or say: “Lord, grant ME to be among them!”)
The verse first addresses a (single) community of ‘Jinn,’ regarding what had been going on in life between them and certain persons of ‘Inss,’ when these two groups of ‘wrong-doers’ ظالمين /Thaalimeen[7] were ‘making lengthy use’ of each other/ مَتَعَ /mataع’a[8].
In Verse 130 the verse addresses a (single) community of ‘Inss’إنس and ‘Jinn’ جن – and asks, were not Messengers from ‘yourselves’ (plural) sent to you (plural) to warn of this day?
Now before we continue, let us make a conscious realization that we may have to ‘reframe our mind’ according to what the Qur’an says. We are not negating the existence of unseen beings called Jinn, but we are distancing ourselves from preconception so as to do ‘tadabbur’ of the Qur’an by following each word (as closely as possible) to its original intent.
Just read on.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
We have seen how the question was posed to them as one community, in the plural- NOT in the dual- مثنّى .
This may indicate what most exegetes have said, that it applies to both communities. There has been speculation however on whether ‘jinn’ being descriptive of anyone or anything hidden could indicate humans as well (humans who were ‘incognito’ in life, living in the shadow of others and had not, in fact, sought to be seen or heard), seeing that Inss is from ‘anasa’[9] to see, hear, find comfort, companionship and homogeneity.
In Arabic, the root-verb Janna/ [10]جن standsfor many human references such as ‘the human heart/mind-‘qalb’ -janaan,’ ‘the human fetus -janeen,’ what is hidden in the ‘human mind -junoon,’ also the person ‘buried in the grave- janeen,’ AND as seen below in our 1000 year-old lexicon, the term ‘janaan’ used to stand for the ‘vast majority’ of persons:
وجَنَان النّاس مُعْظمُهم ويسمَّى السَّوَاد
Dear Reader:
This does NOT negate the ‘Jaan’ which God created from fire:
The Qur’an mentions ‘Jaan’ twice in the Qur’an as created from fire in (HQ15:27; 55:15), and twice shows us Iblees himself saying that he is created from fire (HQ7:12; 38:76).
Jaan is considered singular. The plural ‘Jinn’ does not appear at all with regard to creation, because anything and anyone could be ‘janna/جنَّ’… and as a plural they could be ‘jinn,’ a description of anything or anyone hitherto hidden or indiscernible, such as HQ6:76 which was describing Abraham being concealed by the ‘blanket of night,’ as well as other examples we’ll see below. This also reminds us of our Blog Post Day 71, where we quoted an early 12th century lexicon, which said quite clearly: “Therefore all Angels are jinn (indiscernible), but not all the jinn (the indiscernible) are Angels…”
In CONFIRMATION of the above we find the oldest exegetes saying that the word ‘Jaan’ points to Iblees himself.[11]
FINALLY:
Whatever the Qur’an mentions of Gheyb (Unseen) IS a Reality, but it is one which we can only attempt to understand without being able to prove or disprove. But if we had a true will to understand the Qur’an, we should peel off all the preconceptions we have and take each word back to its origin AND study the context in which it appears.
Interestingly, ‘janna,’ is not the only opposite to ‘anasa;’ many might not realize that there is another opposite which is ‘waHasha.’ Whereas ‘anasa’ denotes finding comfort in someone, the verb ‘wahasha وَحَشَ’ denotes the opposite: Apprehension.
(We still use the word to mean ‘beast.’ Its plural ‘wuhoosh’ is mentioned once in HQ81:5).
Let us take our time to reread the above verses, using what we now KNOW of the origin of these Arabic words. Perhaps if we of think ‘Hidden’ from now on whenever we come across words with the root verb ’janna’ we would draw closer to what it really means.
We conclude with Verse 131:
After the previous verses narrated the exchange that takes place in the Hereafter when everyone on earth is assembled, and one community is addressed, ‘Were not Messengers from yourselves sent to warn you of this day..?’ Verse 131 concludes in that the sending of Messengers took place because our Lord-Sustainer would not bring about the ‘halaak/break-down/expiry/death’ of wrong-doing townships while their people are as yet unaware (having not been cautioned).
This last verse is worth stopping at if only to think of our towns and ourselves, and aim to do better because we know better.
Enough said!
Our next Reading is from HQ6:132-142
Peace unto all!
[1] يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تُحَرِّمُوا طَيِّبَاتِ مَا أَحَلَّ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ وَلَا تَعْتَدُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ الْمُعْتَدِينَ ﴿المائدة: ٨٧﴾
[2] فَسَقَ: الْفِسْقُ َهُوَ الْخُرُوجُ عَنِ الطَّاعَةِ. تَقُولُ الْعَرَبُ: فَسَقَتِ الرُّطَبَةُ عَنْ قِشْرِهَا: إِذَا خَرَجَتْ.
[3] قَالَ عَبْدُ اللَّهِ قَالَ النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم ” سِبَابُ الْمُسْلِمِ فُسُوقٌ، وَقِتَالُهُ كُفْرٌ ”.
[4] The root verb ‘jarama’ is still in use by Arabs today; we use it to mean ‘cut or chop up’ especially when asking butchers to slice up the meat ‘laHm/لحم’ into ‘majroomمجروم/’ which are pieces, so small, it would take a couple of hundred pieces to make a kilo! This is the origin of the measure جرام- English measure ‘gram,’ but again, as we see, Etymology does NOT show that:
“1790–1800; < F gramme < LL gramma a small weight < Gk grámma something drawn, a small weight.”
[5] رجس: يدلُّ على اختلاطٍ. يقال هُمْ في مَرْجُوسَةٍ مِن أمرِهم، أي اختِلاط. والرَّجْس: صوت الرَّعد، وذلك أنه يتردَّد. ومن الباب الرِّجْس: القَذَر؛ لأنّه لَطْخٌ وخَلْط.
[6] ‘Your Islam/ إِسْلَامكُم’ HQ.49:17; or ‘their Islam/إسلامهُم ’ HQ.9:74
[7] In previous posts we noted that the word ‘Thulm’ carries far more meaning than the English ‘wrongdoing.’
The root-verb ‘thalama’ has two connotations, darkness on one hand, and disposing something unjustly on the other. Perhaps it reflects both the state in which wrongdoers place themselves, as well as what they perpetrate against others.
ظلَمَ: أَصْلَانِ صَحِيحَانِ، أَحَدُهُمَا خِلَافُ الضِّيَاءِ وَالنُّورِ، وَالْآخَرُ وَضْعُ الشَّيْءِ غَيْرَ مَوْضِعِهِ تَعَدِّيًا.
[8] متع: يدلُّ على منفعة وامتدادِ مُدّةٍ في خيرٍ. منه استمتعت بالشَّيء. والمُتْعة والمَتَاع: المنفعة في قوله تعالى: {بُيُوتاً غَيْرَ مَسْكُونَةٍ فيها مَتَاعٌ لَكُمْ} [النور 29].، ومتَّعت المطلَّقة بالشَّيء، لأنَّها تنتفع به. ويقال أمْتَعْتُ بمالِي، بمعنى تمتَّعت. ويقولون: حبل ماتِعٌ: جيِّد، ومعناهُ أنَّ المدّة تمتدّ به. ويقولون: مَتَع النَّهارُ: طال. ومَتَع النباتُ مُتُوعاً. ومَتَع السّرابُ: طالَ في أوَّل النهار مُتوعاً* أيضاً. والمتاع من أمتعة البيت: ما يستمتع به الإنسانُ في حوائجه. ومتَّع الله به فلاناً تمتيعاً، وأمتَعَه به إمتاعاً بمعنىً واحد، أي أبقاه ليستمتع به فيما أحب من السرور والمنافع.
[9] أنس: هو ظهورُ الشيء، وكلُّ شيءٍ خالَفَ طريقة التوحُّش. قالوا: الإنْس خلاف الجِنّ، وسُمُّوا لظهورهم. يقال آنسْتُ الشيء إذا رأيتَه. قال الله تعالى: {فَإنْ آنَسْتُمْ مِنْهُمْ رُشْداً} [النساء 6]. ويقال: آنَسْتُ الشيءَ إذا سمعتَه. وهذا مستعارٌ من الأوّل
[10] جن: اهو السَّتْر والتستُّر. والجَنّة البستان، وهو ذاك لأنّ الشجر بِوَرَقه يَستُر. وناسٌ يقولون: الجَنّة عند العرب النَّخْل الطِّوَال، والجنين: الولد في بطن أُمّه. والجَنَان: القَلْب. والمِجَنُّ: الترسُ. وكلُّ ما استُتر به من السِّلاح فهو جُنَّة. والجِنّة: الجنون؛ وذلك أنّه يغطِّي العقل. وجَنَانُ الليل: سوادُه وسَتْرُه الأشياءَ.
وجَنَان النّاس مُعْظمُهم، ويسمَّى السَّوَادَ. والمَجَنّة الجنون. فأمّا الحيّة الذي يسمَّى الجانَّ فهو تشبيهٌ له بالواحد من الجانّ. والجنُّ سُمُّوا بذلك لأنهم متستِّرون عن أعيُنِ الخَلْق. قال الله تعالى: {إِنَّهُ يَرَاكُمْ هُوَ وَقَبِيلُهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لا تَرَوْنَهُمْ} [الأعراف 27]. والجناجنِ: عظام الصَّدْر.
[11] On HQ15:27 Al Tabari and most others say ‘The Jaan here refers to Iblees, the ‘father of Jinn,’ while Al Zamakhshari says, ‘Jaan is to Jinn what Adam is to Humans, and it is said that it is Iblees.’
الطبري: “وعُنـي بـالـجانّ هاهنا: إبلـيس أبـا الـجنّ. يقول تعالـى ذكره: وإبلـيس خـلقناه من قبل الإنسان من نار السموم”
الزمخشري: { وَٱلْجَآنَّ } للجن كآدم للناس. وقيل هو إبليس.