the quran in plain english

Bismillāh ir Raḥmān ir Raḥīm

 

Migration of the Light and the Idols of Desire

 

There is so much wonderful material in the two sūratayn offered this week, that it is

impossible to do either one justice in this short space.  Should you choose to read these

new versions, please consider also reading the tafsīr or footnotes from an earlier scholar

such as Yusuf ‘Ali, Mevlana Muḥammad Ali (not the boxer), or your own favorite exegete.

There are a number of excellent ones to be discovered and read.

 

That said, this week two beautifully related sūratayn are presented, the 24th and 25th chapters

of the Qur’ān.  Sūrat al Furqān ~ Discrimination, or the Criterion, follows directly after

Sūrat an Nūr ~ the Light in sequence in the Qur’ān, but of the two, it was actually revealed earlier. 

Sūrat al Furqān is a late Makkan revelation that anticipates the hijra.  The last section of it was

revealed in Madīna, after the hijra.  And while an Nūr was revealed several years later, entirely in

Madina, it forms a continuum with al Furqān, thematically and historically, expanding upon and

illustrating the ideas presented in it in ways that are both concrete and subtle.

 

Most of the first half of Sūrat al Furqān concerns answering questions about the legitimacy of

the prophethood of the last messenger of God, Muḥammad, ṣallā llāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam,

and addresses the nature and authenticity of the Qur’ān itself.  The meaning of these verses is

reasonably self evident upon reading them.

 

Of particular note in the middle of the 25th sūrat are the following two verses:

 

Have you seen one who takes his craving as his god?                                   43

Then would you be a manager over him?

 

Or do you think that most of them hear or understand?                                 44

They are not except like cattle.

No, they are more astray from the way.

 

“Have you seen one who takes his craving [hawā ~ desire, longing, wants, fancy, wish, whim] as his god?”

It goes on to say such people are more astray than cattle.  This theme serves as much of the pith, the essence,

of almost all of the world’s wisdom literature, of whatever given religious affiliation or philosophical stripe

one might select, as it does for both sūratayn under discussion this week.  Indeed, it also prefigures the main

preoccupation of the law-giving embodied in the 24th sūrat, an Nūr, namely the self regulation of desire.

 

Sūrat al Furqān points to some of the signs of God in the natural world, interweaving exhortations to the kinds

of behaviors that tend to elevate humanity above animals.  Rules for such things are dealt with more explicitly

in Sūrat an Nūr.

 

The first two dozen ayāt of an Nūr embody the revealed response to the false accusations of infidelity that

were made against ‘Aisha, wife of the Prophet, ṣallā llāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam, as a result of her lost necklace.

This is a well discussed story which can be read about and studied from many sources.

 

Underlying that entire affair were the residual effects, indeed the entire cultural ethos of the time of

jāhiliyya [ignorance] among the Bedouins, which historically preceded the revelation of the Qur’ān.

It had been a period of rampant licentiousness, among other human flaws, when people commonly

“took their desire as their god.”  Not too different from modern culture in so many ways.  Hence the

emphasis on explicit rules for sexual behavior and the exposure of the human form which are contained

in this sūrah.

 

What’s in a word?

 

There is a word used to describe birds in verse 41 of an Nūr, ṣāffātin, which all other translators have rendered

as “with wings spread” or some variation to that effect.  This is despite the fact that each known form of the

root ṣff as listed in every existing Arabic lexicon has the meaning “to line up, be in a row, be aligned,” etc. 

There is no exception I have found.

The context in which this word appears in the Qur’ān is meant to show how signs of the prayer can be found

throughout nature.  The bending of shadows being akin to prostration is one common metaphor.  So, given that

the prayer is performed with people lined up in straight rows, and that migratory birds often fly in a straight line,

or a vee made of two straight lines, I have chosen to go against the existing convention and render “alṭayru ṣāffātin”

as “birds lined up in a row”.  It is completely consistent with the subtextual metaphor, as well as the text itself, ie.

it is what the words actually mean.  Such dilemmas arise fairly often in casting ayāt al Qur’ān in English. 

This one seemed straightforward and clear enough to merit mentioning here.

 

Not even the briefest discussion of Sūrat an Nūr could neglect to mention its namesake, the “light verse” Q 24:35. 

Embedded within the beautiful imagery of this gem is the line:  “Light upon light, God guides to His light whom He wills.”  

Not often mentioned is a companion to this well known verse in the same sūrah, which is in clear apposition to its imagery.

Q 24:40 describes different kinds of darkness, but ends with words which make the same point as the light verse,

only in the negative:  “And for whom God has not made a light, for him there is no light.”

 

May God, Allāh, the One, the Merciful Divine Creator, by whatever name we use to call, protect us from darkness,

guide us to, and maintain us in, that light which comes only from God.

 

~ Rasheed al Ḥajj abū Muṭahhar, 16 Shawwal 1442