Salamun Alaykum,
2:259 The similitude of this history is that someone passes by the ruins of a town and wonders if that town could ever come back to life again, and God causes him to die for a hundred years and then revives him. He thinks it was only a matter of a day or a part of it. He even finds his food, drink, and donkey standing beside him. God creates you in the wombs of your mothers, in bone and flesh. And when the matter became clear to him, he said, “I know now that God is Able to do all things. God is the all Powerful Designer of His Laws and He does all things in the Universe in duly appointed measure
2:259 seems to imply the simlitude with the (2:258)previous story of abraham's debate with another individual. If we make no referenc to the historical returning of israelites to jerusalem, and focus on just the quran's words, are there any explanations to connect 259 with 258?Also, 259 appears to mention a man is put to death and revived 100 years later, of course miracles and superstitions that defy the established laws are wrong interpretations. Is there an explanation for this phenomenon or does the arabic imply something that has been not clearly elucidated in the english rendition?THank you for your time brothers and sisters.
Regards,
Jai
Interpreting 2:259 with 2:258 in view and the unique story
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matinbhagat
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Interpreting 2:259 with 2:258 in view and the unique story
Inna lillahi,wa inna ilayhi ra'jiun
To God we belong,To Him is the return!
To God we belong,To Him is the return!
-
Arnold Yasin Mol
Interpreting 2:259 with 2:258 in view and the unique story
Salaam Jai,
When the current reading and understanding of the story shows a contradiction with the Natural Laws it means 2 things:
1. The story is allegorical as we are warned for in verse 3:7
2. We wrongly understadn the Arabic words used, as for example in Surah Feel which we discussed earlier.
In this case, it is n#1. The story is allegorical and gives an example of the rise and fall of nations, this is also why for example Muhammed Ali starts this section of the Quran in his translation as:
SECTION 35: How Dead Nations are Raised to Life
And his interresting commentary on the verses is a very good example how it can be understood:
258a. The words “because Allåh had given him kingdom†are taken by the majority
of commentators to refer to Abraham’s opponent whose name is given as Nimrod (Gen.
10:8, 9), but the view of the minority that the personal pronoun him in the above
quotation refers to Abraham is preferable.
It is corroborated by 4:54: “We have given to
Abraham’s children the Book and the Wisdom and We have given them a grand
kingdomâ€. Even in Genesis the promised land is spoken of as being given to Abraham:
“I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to
inherit it†(Gen. 15:7). The words åtå-hu-llåhu would in this case mean Allåh had promised to give him.
The Muslims are here told that just as a promise is given to them that they will be
raised to great eminence from the state of insignificance in which they were, which is
equivalent to raising the dead to life, a similar promise was given to Abraham, that
promise being in fact the basis of the present promise to the Prophet: see 124a.
258b. It is not stated what it was to which the giving of life or bringing of death
relates, but as the discussion arose out of the promise given to Abraham that his descendants
would be made a great nation, it is clear that the reference here is to the life and death of nations. It should be noted that the words √ayåt and maut, literally life and
death, are as well applicable to nations and places as to men, animals and vegetation.
Thus måtati-l-ar˙u signifies the land became destitute of vegetation and inhabitants
(LL). What is stated here is further illustrated in the verse that follows by the Divine
promise as to the rebuilding of Jerusalem, where the desolation of the sacred city is spoken
of as its death and its rebuilding is called its life.
258c. The disputant belonged to a race of sun-worshippers, and therefore when he
claimed that he could give life and cause death, Abraham advanced an argument which
quite confounded his adversary. If he could give life and cause death he could control
even his deity, the sun, for to give life and cause death were the work of the deity and
not of the devotee, and hence he could make it rise from the opposite direction.
The adversary was confounded, because he saw that he had made an assertion which was opposed to his own avowed belief.
259a. An illustration is afforded here from later Israelite history, as to how dead
nations are raised to life. By “the town which had fallen in upon its roofs†is meant
Jerusalem (Rz, AH), as it was left after its desolation by Nebuchadnezzar in 599 B.C.
The words “look at the bones, how We set them together, then clothe them with
fleshâ€, undoubtedly refer to Ezekiel’s vision as related in Ezekiel, ch. 37. The first part
of ch. 37 relates how Ezekiel was taken (in a vision) “in the midst of the valley which
was full of bones,†and asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?†After a Divine assurance,
Ezekiel is made to witness the scene which is narrated here in the words — Look at the bones, how We set them together: “The bones came together, bone to his bone,â€
and “the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above,†and
then “the breath came into them, and they lived†(Ezek. 37:1–10). That what is narrated
in Ezekiel, ch. 37, is a vision is clear from the introductory words of that chapter: “The
hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lordâ€.
What follows the incident makes it still more clear, for verse 11 (Ezekiel, ch. 37) goes on to say: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: Behold, they say, Our
bones are dried, and our hope is lostâ€; while verse 12 gives them the Divine promise,
“Behold, O My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your
graves, and bring you into the land of Israelâ€.
This shows conclusively that the bones were only a symbol of the fallen condition of the whole house of Israel. I lay stress upon the word whole in Ezekiel 37:11, because the actual bones were only of the very few among them who were put to the sword, by far the greater number being in captivity or held in a slavish condition in subjugation to the Babylonians.
The identical incident related in v. 259 is also a vision. The Qur’ån usually dispenses
with words showing an incident to be a vision when either the context or the nature of
the incident or a reference to earlier history makes it clear that it is a vision.
Compare the words in which Joseph narrated his vision to his father in 12:4: “O my father, I saw
eleven stars and the sun and the moon — I saw them making obeisance to me,†not
making any mention at all that he had seen this in a vision. In the verse under discussion,
however, it is not only its identity with Ezekiel 37:1–10 that shows the incident to be a
vision, but the insertion of a kåf, signifying likeness, before the whole is a further indication of the same.
If the incident had been a real one, as in the previous verse, the verse should have commenced with the words or him instead of or like him, the insertion of the kåf giving the incident the colour of a parable or a vision.
The causing the prophet to die for a hundred years is also an incident of the vision which, though not narrated in the Bible, is corroborated by facts, standing symbolically
for the death of the Jewish nation, a death of disgrace and sorrow, or the desolation of Jerusalem, which covered a period of almost a hundred years. Jerusalem was taken by
Nebuchadnezzar in 599 B.C. (2 Kings 24:10); Cyrus gave permission to rebuild the temple in 537 B.C. (Ezra 1:2), the house being eventually finished in 515 B.C. (Ezra 6:15).
The Bible does not give us the history of the period from 515 B.C., and even if we are not allowed to conjecture that another fifteen years may have been taken by the Israelites
to settle back in Jerusalem and to rebuild the city itself for their own habitation, the period from 599 to 515 B.C. covers almost fully the whole of the sixth century B.C., and
hence the hundred years of the prophet’s death in this vision represent the hundred years of the death of the Israelite nation.
The reference to the food and drink of the prophet, which did not show any influence of years, and to his ass, which was still standing by, only proves that the hundred
years’ death which the prophet underwent was only a vision. The mention of the bones has been taken by some commentators to refer to the ass, but this is an obvious
error, for the two statements are separated by a sentence: “And that We may make thee a sign to menâ€; and there is also a pause after the word ass, separating what follows from that which has preceded.
How was Ezekiel a sign to the people? Because the vision made him a symbol of the
whole Jewish nation, and his symbolic death for a hundred years represented the sorrows and afflictions of Israel for a similar period, after which they were once more to
be restored to life.
The word yatasannah (sanah, a year) means the thing underwent the lapse of years.
The word applied to food and drink carries a similar significance, meaning it became
altered (for the worse) by the lapse of years (LA, LL). Rz explains the lapse of years to be the real meaning of the word, for his explanation is the years did not pass over it.
This shows that actually there was no lapse of years, and it is simply a vision.
260a. This verse is a natural sequel to v. 258, which speaks of the manifestation of Allåh’s power in the life and death of nations. Verse 259, as already noted, has been
interposed to afford a proof of the assertion made in v. 258. In Gen. 15:8 Abraham is
made to say, after receiving a promise of the land of Canaan: “Lord God, whereby shall
I know that I shall inherit it?†The Quranic parallel to this is: “My Lord, show me how Thou givest life to the dead.†He believed in the Divine promise, and was so sure of it
that he had even contended with and overcome an adversary on this point.
But was it not strange that out of his seed should arise a nation that should supplant the powerful
nations that ruled the land? The sign given to Abraham according to Gen. 15:9–11 is
quite meaningless, not making it clear how Abraham’s seed was to inherit the land. He
is told to take “a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of
three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeonâ€; he “divided them in the midst.â€
“And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abraham drove them away.†How
this was a sign of Abraham inheriting the land of Canaan is a mystery. It only shows that
the text here has been tampered with.
The answer to Abraham’s how as given in the Qur’ån is a perfectly intelligible parable. If he should take four birds and tame them, they would obey his call and fly to
him even from the distant mountains. If the birds, then, obey his call, he being neither their master nor the author of their existence, would not nations submit to the call of
their Divine Master and the Author of their existence? Or if the birds, being only tamed for a short time by a man who had otherwise no control over them, become so obedient
to their tamer, has not Allåh the power to control all those causes which govern the life and death of nations? Whenever He wishes to destroy a people He brings about the causes of their decline and evil fortune overtakes them; and when He wishes to make a people prosperous He brings about causes which result in their rise and progress.
That the word Δå’ir (plural Δair is used here) which signifies a bird, also signifies the cause of good and evil, or misery or happiness (T, LL), in which sense the word is used in 7:131 and elsewhere in the Holy Qur’ån, is a further indication of the significance of the parable of the birds, through which Abraham is made to realize how the Almighty
controls the fortunes of nations. It is an error to suppose that Abraham actually took four birds and tamed them. The Qur’ån does not say so.
It only makes Abraham realize the wonderful manifestation of Divine power by a parable.
The lexicologists are all agreed that the word ©ur, used here, is the imperative form of ©åra, wich means he made it to incline (LL), and ©ur-hunna ilaika means amil-hunna, or
make them incline, wa ajmi‘-hunna, and gather them to thee (LA). It is only in this sense that the word is followed by ilå as here. Cutting into pieces is not the significance of these words.
Further, the words place a part (juz‘) of them can only mean one each of the four birds. The commentators who introduce the story of cutting the birds into pieces, not
traceable to any reliable authority, assert that the words thumma qaΔΔi‘-hunna (then cut them into pieces) are omitted here after ©ur hunna or tame them which is absurd on the face of it.
When the current reading and understanding of the story shows a contradiction with the Natural Laws it means 2 things:
1. The story is allegorical as we are warned for in verse 3:7
2. We wrongly understadn the Arabic words used, as for example in Surah Feel which we discussed earlier.
In this case, it is n#1. The story is allegorical and gives an example of the rise and fall of nations, this is also why for example Muhammed Ali starts this section of the Quran in his translation as:
SECTION 35: How Dead Nations are Raised to Life
And his interresting commentary on the verses is a very good example how it can be understood:
258a. The words “because Allåh had given him kingdom†are taken by the majority
of commentators to refer to Abraham’s opponent whose name is given as Nimrod (Gen.
10:8, 9), but the view of the minority that the personal pronoun him in the above
quotation refers to Abraham is preferable.
It is corroborated by 4:54: “We have given to
Abraham’s children the Book and the Wisdom and We have given them a grand
kingdomâ€. Even in Genesis the promised land is spoken of as being given to Abraham:
“I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to
inherit it†(Gen. 15:7). The words åtå-hu-llåhu would in this case mean Allåh had promised to give him.
The Muslims are here told that just as a promise is given to them that they will be
raised to great eminence from the state of insignificance in which they were, which is
equivalent to raising the dead to life, a similar promise was given to Abraham, that
promise being in fact the basis of the present promise to the Prophet: see 124a.
258b. It is not stated what it was to which the giving of life or bringing of death
relates, but as the discussion arose out of the promise given to Abraham that his descendants
would be made a great nation, it is clear that the reference here is to the life and death of nations. It should be noted that the words √ayåt and maut, literally life and
death, are as well applicable to nations and places as to men, animals and vegetation.
Thus måtati-l-ar˙u signifies the land became destitute of vegetation and inhabitants
(LL). What is stated here is further illustrated in the verse that follows by the Divine
promise as to the rebuilding of Jerusalem, where the desolation of the sacred city is spoken
of as its death and its rebuilding is called its life.
258c. The disputant belonged to a race of sun-worshippers, and therefore when he
claimed that he could give life and cause death, Abraham advanced an argument which
quite confounded his adversary. If he could give life and cause death he could control
even his deity, the sun, for to give life and cause death were the work of the deity and
not of the devotee, and hence he could make it rise from the opposite direction.
The adversary was confounded, because he saw that he had made an assertion which was opposed to his own avowed belief.
259a. An illustration is afforded here from later Israelite history, as to how dead
nations are raised to life. By “the town which had fallen in upon its roofs†is meant
Jerusalem (Rz, AH), as it was left after its desolation by Nebuchadnezzar in 599 B.C.
The words “look at the bones, how We set them together, then clothe them with
fleshâ€, undoubtedly refer to Ezekiel’s vision as related in Ezekiel, ch. 37. The first part
of ch. 37 relates how Ezekiel was taken (in a vision) “in the midst of the valley which
was full of bones,†and asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?†After a Divine assurance,
Ezekiel is made to witness the scene which is narrated here in the words — Look at the bones, how We set them together: “The bones came together, bone to his bone,â€
and “the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above,†and
then “the breath came into them, and they lived†(Ezek. 37:1–10). That what is narrated
in Ezekiel, ch. 37, is a vision is clear from the introductory words of that chapter: “The
hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lordâ€.
What follows the incident makes it still more clear, for verse 11 (Ezekiel, ch. 37) goes on to say: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: Behold, they say, Our
bones are dried, and our hope is lostâ€; while verse 12 gives them the Divine promise,
“Behold, O My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your
graves, and bring you into the land of Israelâ€.
This shows conclusively that the bones were only a symbol of the fallen condition of the whole house of Israel. I lay stress upon the word whole in Ezekiel 37:11, because the actual bones were only of the very few among them who were put to the sword, by far the greater number being in captivity or held in a slavish condition in subjugation to the Babylonians.
The identical incident related in v. 259 is also a vision. The Qur’ån usually dispenses
with words showing an incident to be a vision when either the context or the nature of
the incident or a reference to earlier history makes it clear that it is a vision.
Compare the words in which Joseph narrated his vision to his father in 12:4: “O my father, I saw
eleven stars and the sun and the moon — I saw them making obeisance to me,†not
making any mention at all that he had seen this in a vision. In the verse under discussion,
however, it is not only its identity with Ezekiel 37:1–10 that shows the incident to be a
vision, but the insertion of a kåf, signifying likeness, before the whole is a further indication of the same.
If the incident had been a real one, as in the previous verse, the verse should have commenced with the words or him instead of or like him, the insertion of the kåf giving the incident the colour of a parable or a vision.
The causing the prophet to die for a hundred years is also an incident of the vision which, though not narrated in the Bible, is corroborated by facts, standing symbolically
for the death of the Jewish nation, a death of disgrace and sorrow, or the desolation of Jerusalem, which covered a period of almost a hundred years. Jerusalem was taken by
Nebuchadnezzar in 599 B.C. (2 Kings 24:10); Cyrus gave permission to rebuild the temple in 537 B.C. (Ezra 1:2), the house being eventually finished in 515 B.C. (Ezra 6:15).
The Bible does not give us the history of the period from 515 B.C., and even if we are not allowed to conjecture that another fifteen years may have been taken by the Israelites
to settle back in Jerusalem and to rebuild the city itself for their own habitation, the period from 599 to 515 B.C. covers almost fully the whole of the sixth century B.C., and
hence the hundred years of the prophet’s death in this vision represent the hundred years of the death of the Israelite nation.
The reference to the food and drink of the prophet, which did not show any influence of years, and to his ass, which was still standing by, only proves that the hundred
years’ death which the prophet underwent was only a vision. The mention of the bones has been taken by some commentators to refer to the ass, but this is an obvious
error, for the two statements are separated by a sentence: “And that We may make thee a sign to menâ€; and there is also a pause after the word ass, separating what follows from that which has preceded.
How was Ezekiel a sign to the people? Because the vision made him a symbol of the
whole Jewish nation, and his symbolic death for a hundred years represented the sorrows and afflictions of Israel for a similar period, after which they were once more to
be restored to life.
The word yatasannah (sanah, a year) means the thing underwent the lapse of years.
The word applied to food and drink carries a similar significance, meaning it became
altered (for the worse) by the lapse of years (LA, LL). Rz explains the lapse of years to be the real meaning of the word, for his explanation is the years did not pass over it.
This shows that actually there was no lapse of years, and it is simply a vision.
260a. This verse is a natural sequel to v. 258, which speaks of the manifestation of Allåh’s power in the life and death of nations. Verse 259, as already noted, has been
interposed to afford a proof of the assertion made in v. 258. In Gen. 15:8 Abraham is
made to say, after receiving a promise of the land of Canaan: “Lord God, whereby shall
I know that I shall inherit it?†The Quranic parallel to this is: “My Lord, show me how Thou givest life to the dead.†He believed in the Divine promise, and was so sure of it
that he had even contended with and overcome an adversary on this point.
But was it not strange that out of his seed should arise a nation that should supplant the powerful
nations that ruled the land? The sign given to Abraham according to Gen. 15:9–11 is
quite meaningless, not making it clear how Abraham’s seed was to inherit the land. He
is told to take “a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of
three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeonâ€; he “divided them in the midst.â€
“And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abraham drove them away.†How
this was a sign of Abraham inheriting the land of Canaan is a mystery. It only shows that
the text here has been tampered with.
The answer to Abraham’s how as given in the Qur’ån is a perfectly intelligible parable. If he should take four birds and tame them, they would obey his call and fly to
him even from the distant mountains. If the birds, then, obey his call, he being neither their master nor the author of their existence, would not nations submit to the call of
their Divine Master and the Author of their existence? Or if the birds, being only tamed for a short time by a man who had otherwise no control over them, become so obedient
to their tamer, has not Allåh the power to control all those causes which govern the life and death of nations? Whenever He wishes to destroy a people He brings about the causes of their decline and evil fortune overtakes them; and when He wishes to make a people prosperous He brings about causes which result in their rise and progress.
That the word Δå’ir (plural Δair is used here) which signifies a bird, also signifies the cause of good and evil, or misery or happiness (T, LL), in which sense the word is used in 7:131 and elsewhere in the Holy Qur’ån, is a further indication of the significance of the parable of the birds, through which Abraham is made to realize how the Almighty
controls the fortunes of nations. It is an error to suppose that Abraham actually took four birds and tamed them. The Qur’ån does not say so.
It only makes Abraham realize the wonderful manifestation of Divine power by a parable.
The lexicologists are all agreed that the word ©ur, used here, is the imperative form of ©åra, wich means he made it to incline (LL), and ©ur-hunna ilaika means amil-hunna, or
make them incline, wa ajmi‘-hunna, and gather them to thee (LA). It is only in this sense that the word is followed by ilå as here. Cutting into pieces is not the significance of these words.
Further, the words place a part (juz‘) of them can only mean one each of the four birds. The commentators who introduce the story of cutting the birds into pieces, not
traceable to any reliable authority, assert that the words thumma qaΔΔi‘-hunna (then cut them into pieces) are omitted here after ©ur hunna or tame them which is absurd on the face of it.