Koran, Volume 2

Over the last few days I’ve been working through the “back half” of the Koran. Last time I’d tried to “read the whole thing” I started at the front and didn’t finish. I’m not sure exactly where I left off, as I started skipping around at somewhere near the 1/2 way point. So I’d “sampled” some of these suras and verses; but not read them all. Now I have.

This posting will be some notes on “Volume 2” of the Koran, and my reactions to it.

Koran, Quran, القرآن‎ al-qurʾān, Qur’an, Al-Coran, Coran, Kuran, and Al-Qur’an, “the recitation”

All of those are “correct”. Don’t sweat it. In Arabic, the word for “the” is “al”, so “al”-Coran is just “THE Recitation”. As English can have a “K sound” for any of “k”, “c”, or “qu”, any of those can be used for the first sound of the Arabic word for “recitation”. It is pronounced the same whichever orthography you use. The Arabic sound is not exactly the same as any “k” sound in English, so some variation is heard in the various speakers, but saying “core Ann” or “coor on” with a slightly ‘trilled’ R is about right. (Heck, there are dozens of dialects of Arabic that are all pronounced somewhat differently, with Koranic Arabic being a particular dialect of its own.)

So why am I using Koran if you see Qur’an more commonly now? Well, the -‘- letter is intended to indicate the glottal sound in Arabic at that point in the word. As most every English speaker will not know that sound, and can’t do a decent job of making that sound anyway (unless an Arabic or related language speaker already) I don’t see much reason to put that sound marker in place. The use of “Q” is not all that common in English. It has several possible sounds, from a “k” sound to a “kw”, “ku”, “koo” and “kwe” sorts. While “K” is just “K”. In normal English (that is, not trying to import alien phonemes from Arabic pronunciation) the closest sound you will get is correctly represented by Koran, pronounced with the most common and obvious English sounds. Finally, and in some ways most importantly, the word “Koran” is used in the title of the translation I’m reading, so using that form indicates the era and translation in some small way.

All Translation Transforms

A couple of times I’ve mentioned the point that many Muslims will assert that the Koran can not be translated. In some ways (some of them quite important) that is true.

It is true of ALL languages and especially of ALL poetry; and especially ethnocentric motivational speeches. So take a look at a film of Hitler giving a speech. The crowd is just “loving it”. The emotional flute he plays is very strong and you can see the gleam of ‘thrall’ in the eyes of the audience. Yet, translate that speech out of German, and it loses that power. Some of it just looks silly. Other parts mean or evil. Or Mussolini. To an American audience, some of his speeches made him look like a buffoon. The particular language and cultural norms of facial expression that were effective in Italian, failed to an American audience, and the words lost their power taken out of their native home of Italian. So it is with all powerful speakers in their native tongue.

But there is even more for Arabic and especially for the Koran. Arabic did not traditionally mark the vowels in words. An experienced speaker is expected to just know what vowels belong. The structure of Hamitic / Semitic languages centers around groups of three consonants. That defines a word group. Changes of the vowels give a ‘fine tuning’. So, as a hypothetical example, one might have the same core for “book” and for “publication” and perhaps even “school”, but shifts of vowels and context would tell you which meaning was intended. This can be a problem…

I’m going to paste a link here, but not make it a ‘live link’. (Why? Because I’m saying things about the Koran, and Muslims can be cranky about that, and this is a Muslim site link. I’m not interested in waving a flag under a sensitive nose.) If you wish to check it, do a ‘copy paste’.

{http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=140018)

Fatwa Date : Shawwaal 12, 1431 / 21-9-2010
Question

Assalam Alaikum, Would you please enlighten me as to who invented “Fathha, Kasra and Damma” and introduced them into Quranic (Arabic)?? Awaiting your valued answer – ASAP

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allaah exalt his mention ) is His slave and Messenger.

The historians agreed that the Arabs at their first era did not know any dots or short vowel markings on the letters and words, let alone using them. That is because they had no need for it as they were well-versed in the Arabic language. However, when other nations embraced Islam while not knowing the Arabic language, mistakes in pronunciation started to occur. Rather, when Abul-Aswad Ad-Du’ali heard someone reciting the verse of Allaah {أَنَّ اللَّهَ بَرِيءٌ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ وَرَسُولُهُ} (which means): {Allaah is disassociated from the disbelievers, and [so is] His Messenger.}[Quran 9:3], but instead of putting a Dhammah (the short vowel [U] on the top of the letter ل of the word رسوله; he put a Kasrah (the short vowel [I] below the letter ل , making the word mean that “Allaah is disassociated from the disbelievers and from His Messenger.”, then he said to the man: “Glory be to Allaah above being disassociated from His Prophet.” [Meaning that Allaah will never be disassociated from His Prophet]. Therefore, he endeavored to put some short vowel markings on the letters and words of the Quranic text, so he put the “Fat’hah” [the short vowel A] as a dot on top of the letter, and the “Kasrah” [the short vowel I] as a dot below the letter, and the “Dhammah” [the short vowel U] as a dot beside the letter, and he made the “Sukoon” [a marking indicating that the consonant is not followed by a vowel] as two dots.

Then people started to develop and change these markings until ‘Abdul Malik Ibn Marwaan came and put the short vowel markings (Fathah, Kasrah and Dhammah) instead of the dots, and this was easier for people. No doubt, putting these marks has protected the Quran against incorrect pronunciation and this was among Allaah preserving His Book as Allaah Says (what means): {Indeed, it is We who sent down the message [i.e. the Quran] and indeed, We will be its guardian.}[Quran 15:9]

So you can see in this story that even some of the early Muslims had issues with vowels and the vowel marking we have today was added at a later date.

Now, add in the fact that the particular “meaning” of a word in Arabic may have several different choices in English (and the reader may “hear” any or all of them) and it gets even harder. Make things “poetic”, and it’s sometimes impossible.

Take Shakespeare’s “I’ll mar that young clerk’s pen“. It has a ‘top meaning’ of doing damage to the writing instrument of a clerk. It has a poetic implied meaning of abusing his sexual prowess. It can take paragraphs to cover those kinds of levels of meaning, and even then the “impact” is lost.

So how much does this matter?

In some ways, not so very much. We have a very large number of texts, many of the ancient Greek classics, recovered from the Arabic. Clearly being “washed” through Arabic didn’t prevent the information from being preserved. Every day, thousands, perhaps millions, of pages of many languages get translated into and out of Arabic. So we can get a pretty good idea what is written in the Koran without needing to learn Arabic and spend a few years of study on it.

Yet “all translation transforms”… It will not be the same. Close enough to get the sense of it? Certainly. Feel the poetry of it? Not at all. Be “moved by it” in the same way? Certainly not.

The Koran, Interpreted

The particular volume I’ve chosen to use is “The Koran, Interpreted” A Translation by A.J. Arberry.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Koran-Interpreted-A-Translation/dp/0684825074

First off, it’s from copyright 1955. From before “P.C.” took over things and before “Political Islam” was rampant in the world. I’ve got some trust that it has not been “scrubbed” though those filters.

Secondly, the author spent many years in Arabic countries (again, prior to the Political Islam of today) and is well versed in Arabic. From the back cover: “Arther John Arberry, as Head of the Department of Classics at Cairo University, acquired a first hand knowledge of literary and social conditions in the Islamic Middle East.”

There is simply no way I, or most other folks, could ever hope to get close to the ability to detect and convey “nuance of meaning” in the Arabic as someone who has spoken it for years in Cairo while being up to their eyeballs in “Classics”.

It goes on to say: “Between 1947 and 1969 he served as Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University.”

My point? If ANYONE can get the vowel markings right, pick up the mulitlayered meanings, sense the poetry, and put it all into some semblance of correctness in English, it is just such a person.

In an earlier comment (somewhere) I’d said I thought he was a Believer. The wiki says otherwise: ” His translation of the Qur’an into English, The Koran Interpreted, is one of the most prominent written by a non-Muslim scholar, and widely respected amongst academics.” That’s a bit of a ‘mixed message’ in that while it means I can no longer assert a Muslim translator would not make it look deliberately bad; I can now assert he is unlikely to have ‘dressed it up’. Oh well. ( I suggest comparing one of each and looking for differences. There are plenty of Muslim translated versions on line.)

Finally, note that the title says “interpreted”. There is a subtle difference between a direct translation and an interpretation. The first tries to stay close to the original in form and structure. The second tries to be closer in meaning and intent. In this case, Arberry goes out of his way to use such devices as sentence formatting and line breaks to preserve some of the sense of poetry in some verses. To use those words that tell an English speaker what is going on more effectively; even if those words are a bit different from a direct translation. It “transforms” more, but with a better result in understanding and sometimes in emotional engagement.

So in Spanish the idiom for “speak like a native speaker” is “speak like a parrot”. A translation would say “I speak Spanish like a parrot” while an interpretation would say “I speak Spanish like a native.” On the one hand, for the interpretation, we don’t think the person is making squawking noises, on the other hand we lose the imagery. (Sometimes an interpretation can lose some poetry as well… a lot depends on the interpreter. They could have said “I speak Spanish like a native, exactly matching sounds as though parroting the words.” Longer, lumpier, but keeping the imagery a bit more.)

Why say all this?

First off, to make it clear that what is presented as ‘text from the Koran’ is not exactly the same as the original Arabic, but is close enough to know what’s going on. Often, Muslims will defend the Koran against questioners by asserting that the translation is garbage and it does not say what is asserted. IMHO that is typically just a propaganda ploy. Where it says ~”Off with his head!”, it really does say something to the effect of cut the damn head off. Sure, some of the poetic emotional justification for it may be “lost in translation”, but the basic meaning is pretty much going to be right.

Second, just to make it clear that the guy doing this work was no light weight. I would go so far as to assert that his understanding of the Arabic in the Koran will be better than that of most native speakers (as globally most of them have not had a lot of school time in any language).

So just be aware that if you talk to Muslims about a passage from a translated Koran that has any negative connotations you are likely to get the “Koran can not be translated” line and an assertion that it doesn’t really say that. I had that experience several times. It was why I picked the best translation I could find and then read it. To see as close to ‘for myself’ as I could get.

Finally, be aware that many of the translations prior to this one did some pretty extreme things in the process. Several attempted to put things back in chronological order, so the suras are all reordered. Some (most?) made no attempt at all to preserve any poetic structure or sense. In short, some of them are pretty bad. The Preface to the first Volume of “The Koran Interpreted” sites several of these and gives examples. Given that, there is some grounds for the assertion by Muslims that the interpretations are lousy. Many were.

Books, Volumes, Chapters, Verses

The Koran is technically supposed to be spoken. It is a ‘recitation’. So to call a chapter a chapter is a bit off. While it has been collected into a book, and the book (as opposed to The Book that is the Bible as known to Mohammed) is divided into two Volumes by Arberry ( I don’t know if others do this); the individual chapters are called “Suras”.

Traditionally these are arranged more or less in size order from largest to smallest. Some, such as CXII (112 if I can still do Roman counting right ;-) are a single sentence once you get past the obligatory entrance line. Most suras start with an honorific line to god in some way. For CXII it is”In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” So it is a bit hard to think of one sentence as a ‘chapter’ in the usual sense. Thus the use of sura.

Some of the Suras have long stories. Some short bits of stories. Some are ‘legislative’. Others are poetic. Some are just a sentence or two. The “recitation” was only collected and written down some time after Mohammed died. There’s a body of work of the history of it that I won’t go into here, but it is a known recorded history. A non-believer might assert that there was plenty of opportunity for creative editing, accidental loss of verses, and outright rewriting, but the believers assert that the Koran is a perfect transmission from God, so can not be corrupted in that process. In any case, the suras are in size order.

For some Suras, the chapter is the verse. For others, their may be several things that look to western eyes like small chapters in one Sura. Some verses look more like large paragraphs to me.

As a sample, here is Sura CXII in its entirety:

CXII

SINCERE RELIGION

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Say: ‘He is God, One,
God, the Everlasting Refuge,
Who has also begotten, and has not been begotten,
and equal to Him is not any one.’

The Arberry version is center aligned, being ‘ragged’ to both sides. I’m too lazy to figure out how to do that in WordPress right now; but just realize that this is supposed to be formatted symmetrically about the center of each line. I don’t know how the Arabic is presented, and frankly, don’t think it matters too much for ether case.)

So here we see a typical structure for most suras. A number and name identification. An honorific (mostly to God) exaltation. Then the verses. In this case, just one verse, telling you to say a particular thing.

The message is the typical “one god, all powerful” that pervades much of Christianity.

Volume 2 Overview

My first observation is just that the overall impression of all of Volume 2 is that of a “Fire and Brimstone Bible Beater”.

I grew up in the Baptist Church (much of the time) and I’m very familiar with that tone and verbiage. This is in the same mode. God is the all powerful, all knowing and God’s gonna getchya if you do wrong. Often with the typical alternation between “Hellfire and Damnation” and the pleasing attributes of Heaven.

Frankly, if it were only Volume 2 that was the Koran, the religion would be hard to distinguish from a dozen other preachers doing the Hellfire And Damnation thing, IMHO. (But it isn’t just Volume 2… when we get to Volume 1 in a couple of weeks, it has many things that are quite different.)

In general, I found it much more “doable” to read the thing back to front. First off, the smaller suras are an easier bite to swallow, so getting started is easier. Secondly, when you polish off a half dozen suras in 5 minutes or less, that there are 114 of them is less intimidating. Going from the other direction, reading the longest first, then thinking “113 more to go?!”, well, it’s harder ;-)

But more importantly, there was something in the Preface to Volume 2 that helped to clarify why this might be:

It is in the short Suras placed at the end of the Koran that we must look for evidence of Muhammad’s prophetic gift. ‘These are the earliest of all; in these the flame of inspiration burns purely and its natural force is not abated.’ This was the verdict of a great scholar justly renowned for his fairmindedness;

He then goes on to lament a certain tone deafness to the poetic aspects in that evaluation. Yet, here was a clue.

I was, in fact, reading things a bit more in the order of how they were given / created by Muhammad.

More time is also spent in the Preface taking about the rhythmic qualities of the Arabic, and how those are important and tend to be lost in translation. It reminded me of Gregorian Chants and the fact that the spouse belonged to a church that did a certain amount of rhythmic chanting. On the one hand, it is a loss to not have that emotional loading and bypassing of the critical mind. (It is a technique used in many things from hypnosis to brainwashing to national anthems and more). On the other hand, lacking the rhythm enables better critical evaluation of the message riding on that repetitive line.

As the Suras get longer, you get more “stories”. The overall impression I got for the longer ones was a favorite sermon, delivered with variations, being reported by different sources (from different presentations) with some variations. So we get the story of Moses coming around in abbreviated form and with variations. Like the echo of the Biblical story you get when a pastor says “Remember Moses and how his staff was turned to a serpent!”. Not the whole story, just a memory key to the longer story we are all expected to know. Then a bit of launching into the particular issues to be presented with that story in that sermon.

As Mohammad started out preaching from a Christian Bible, this all makes perfect sense to me.

Sidebar on Biblical Bans: So why is the Bible banned if Mohammed taught that The Book was gospel and true? I asked a Muslim that once. The answer was that the Western Bible had become corrupted and that the Bible of Mohammed had been lost, so no valid Bible exists. There is some truth in that. Most likely, the Bible of Mohammed was either the Gnostic Bible, one based on the Peshitta Text, or perhaps even based on the Nag Hamadi text. It most certainly was not what was approved by the Roman Emperor at Nicea.

Heck, even the Protestants and the Catholics have had wars over what was the ‘correct’ Bible (thankfully they have now mostly agreed). We still have variations in the Coptic and Eastern Orthodox too. Not to mention the Ethiopian Bible that has somewhat different books in it. Given that the Catholics were doing their best to exterminate the Gnostic Bible (focused as it is on ‘self being sufficient and valid to discover truth’ and not on “Roman Authority”…) IF Mohammad had a Gnostic leaning Bible, that would be a very valid interpretation of events. But since it isn’t known what Bible was used, it is not possible to chose between the Bibles of today. It does look like the original Jewish Torah is still accepted as accurate, however. Though I’ve not looked too deeply into any caveats on that.

What is NOT true is the idea of Islam as some kind of “Christianity Lite”. With the same stories in it as The Bible. That idea is presented by many Muslims. (I’ve had it from several. But a couple of them were agents of their own countries TLA’s so my sample might have been, um, biased…) Yes, there is a ‘story of Mary’ and several copies of the ‘story of Moses’. But these are mere echos of the biblical texts. Furthermore, giant chunks of The Bible are nowhere to be seen in ‘the recitation’. The Koran is more of an ‘echo of Christianity’, but through warping reflective surfaces. The initial source may be the same, but the result is far removed. (Not all that surprising when you read about the history of early Christianity. WE are seen through “warping reflective surfaces” too in that comparison).

An Angry God and An Angry Aspect

One thing that only ‘sunk in’ after stepping away from it, was that having read the 354 pages of Volume 2, I was “grumpy”. I don’t know how better to put it. Snippy with folks. Short fused. Even without the poetry and rhythm of the Arabic, something still comes through. Perhaps it is just all the absolutism of it. The whole “We’re going to prevail and they can / will all go to Hell.” repeated and drummed in, that results in a general acceptance of a “you go to hell” attitude.

There is no doubt that the God of Abraham is often an Angry God. The God of Mohammed picks that up, but in some way even more so. Despite all the “God the Merciful” and “God the Compassionate”, those seem similar in effect to the cult leader who promises to beat you with whips and burn you with hot pokers, but will be “forgiving” if you just do what they demand, lay down, and ‘take it’.

On the one hand, I’ve seen that abusive pattern up close and personal. (It’s a long story involving a club where ‘to join’ you had to walk barefoot over broken glass. I declined, and thus began a decade long series of various sorts of attacks on me. He died at 18, BTW, rejected by the local Neo Nazis and KKK who rejected him for ‘giving them a bad name’… It’s not clear who “did him in”, but most of the town was OK with it.) So I’ve “got issues” with abusive power structures and with the coercion of “my way or pain”. Yet much of the Old Testament God is that way, and it is reflected in the God of Mohammed. Then further reflected in the Suras. Or maybe I’m just overly sensitive to it.

What was unexpected by me, was that despite my background, that “Grumpy Gus My Way Or I’m Gonna Get Angry” had, to some small extent, soaked into my brain. I can only imagine what the effect would be with chants and rhythm and repetition repetition repetition. No particular suras of Volume 2 stand out in that respect. It has more to do with the overall structure and the persistent message of damnation, salvation, resistance to outsiders, and dominance of will.

So I suggest not reading it all in one go. ;-)

Other points?

At times the mind wanders. It is repetitive and sometimes I found I’d “read” a few paragraphs but not actually paid attention. I’d stop, come back later, and start that block over. Once or twice I thought I was doing that, but found that really was was paying attention, but the ‘next’ sura also started with “the Moses story”; but only part way in was really different. It is hard to keep ‘critical thinking and evaluation’ on line and focused with that much repetition. So again, breaking it up into chunks helps to stay focused on what is being said.

Overall, this part of the Koran is not big in the ‘legislative’ department. Mostly it’s just trying to get the message pounded home that there’s only one God, folks who believe will be the winners, everyone else roasts in hell, and that’s fine. There are also some small bits of ‘legislation’, and various ‘echoes of stories’ woven in. I’m sure that a devote Imam would find all sorts of hidden or deep meanings in some of it, though. For example, a frequent phrase is ‘That which your right hand possesses’. This seems to mean “your slaves”.

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100624234129AAyvjp5

Best Answer – Chosen by Voters
Normally I don’t copy paste but this is an excellent explanation on the subject;

Asad in his commentary has accepted, subject to possible meanings of the Quranic verse, very rational explanations. In this connection we can mention the issue of marriage of ‘slave girl’ and ‘hur’. He has translated Ayat 24 of Sura Nisa as follows (part):

‘And (forbidden to you are) all married women other than those whom you rightfully possess [through wedlock]. …’

On this he has given note no.26 of Sura Nisa as follows:

According to almost all the authorities, almuhsanat denotes in the above context ‘married women’. As for the expression ‘ma malakat aymanukum’ (“those whom your right hands possess”, i.e. “those whom you rightfully possess”), it is often taken to mean female slaves captured in a war in God’s cause (see in this connection 8:67 and corresponding note). The commentators who choose this meaning hold that such slave girls can be taken in marriage irrespective of whether they have husbands in the country of origin or not. However, quite apart from the fundamental differences of opinion, even among the companion of the Prophet, regarding the legality of such a marriage, some of the outstanding commentators hold the view that ‘ma malakat aimanukum’ denotes here “women whom you rightfully possess through wedlock”; thus Razi in his commentary on the verse and Tabari in one of the alternative explanations (going back to Abdullah Ibn Abbas, Mujahid and others). Razi, in particular, points out that the reference to ‘all’ married women (al-muhsanat min an-nisa) coming as it does after enumeration of prohibited degrees of relationship, is meant to stress the prohibition of sexual relations with any woman other than one’s lawful wife.

It goes on to bicker some more with one person asserting that if you take other Koranic verses as context it can’t mean slaves but must mean ‘legal spouses’. Frankly, I’m not buying that one, as these verses were around BEFORE there was full “Koranic context” to change them.

So two ‘take aways’ here.

1) There’s a whole lot of ‘angels and pins’ thinking in all religions, even Islam, with Clerics creating all sort of complicated circumlocutions to explain away inconvenient things.

2) It’s pretty clear that the Koran is Just Fine with multiple wives, having slaves taken from infidels, and having sex with your slaves. One verse even goes into some depth about what to do if an Infidel Slave converts. (At that point you are supposed to make the slave an official wife, with some limited rights).

The point? There’s likely dozens such phrases with ‘inside meanings’ that I’m not catching. I’m just getting the ‘top meaning’ and whatever Arberry illustrates. And, as with most things religious and ‘angels and pins’ filtered, you can spend your entire life haggling details of some of those points. Me? I figure most stuff at that depth wasn’t really there when the guys living in tents in the desert wrote things down. (For The Bible AND the Koran). So I start with the “top meaning” and maybe go ‘one or two down’, but if it takes 2 paragraphs to explain a word, it isn’t likely correct. IMHO. Especially if it lets you wiggle out of an historic embarrassment.

Volume 2, Some Suras

First off, as an example of how “size matters”, the two volumes are about the same page count. About 350 something each. The Suras in Volume 1 are from 1 to 20. So 20 total. That leaves 94 in Volume 2 (for 114 total). This means that I’ve read 94/114 ths of the Koran, by Sura count, in this one volume. 82%. Though only 50% of the word volume. (On other occasions I’ve read most of the Suras in Volume 1. IIRC, I’ve read all of them, but it was a while ago, so I’m up for a repeat. In a couple of weeks…)

Second, there’s no way I can address all those Suras, individually, in one posting. (Thus the ‘summary’ just above). Especially since some of them are just a few sentences anyway. I’d end up with more than 350 pages… So folks wanting to see the bulk of them will need to get their own copy of the Koran and look them up. For specifics to back up my broad brush above, you have to go looking for yourself. (Something I encourage anyway).

There are lots of downloadable versions ( I don’t know how much they vary from Arberry) so easy to get.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=download+koran

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=download+quran

Realize the exact text will not match Arberry. For example, here’s Sura 112 in a different form:

http://www.alislam.org/quran/search2/

 

[112:1] In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful.
[112:2] Say, ‘He is Allah, the One;
[112:3] ‘Allah, the Independent and Besought of all.
[112:4] ‘He begets not, nor is He begotten;
[112:5] ‘And there is none like unto Him.’

Compare Arberry from above:

CXII

SINCERE RELIGION

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Say: ‘He is God, One,
God, the Everlasting Refuge,
Who has also begotten, and has not been begotten,
and equal to Him is not any one.’

Clearly the ‘sense of it’ is the same, yet there is some significant ‘slippage’ of detail meaning between the two…

OK, while reading Volume 2, I stuck some yellow sickies on some particularly interesting verses. There isn’t a whole lot of particular focus or meaning to this selection. I was not directed by any ‘agenda’ nor any particular thing. Just what was interesting to me. So, for example, you find no references to the (several) suras with the Moses Story in them. Why? We’ve all heard the Moses Story rather a lot. Staff turns to a snake. Pharaoh is surprised. Stuff happens. I’ve described my impressions of them up above. Details you can get on your own.

My purpose here is more to ‘take notes’ of some interesting bits that I saw, so I don’t have to read all 354 pages again to try and find where that bit was. Hopefully you will find them interesting too. If not, well, there’s a link up above with 114 Suras for you to fish in… ;-)

Sura L

QAF

The “L” is Roman Numerals for 50. Yes, that means that 64 Suras went by without my putting a sticky in. Most of them are of a few repeating patterns. “God is great, believe and be reborn or do not believe and roast in hell”. A bunch that talk about ways ‘non-believers’ will assert that it’s all just crazy talk. (Actually kind of humorous to read, realizing that he’s grousing about his experiences as itinerant preacher underappreciated at the time ;-) So you get some saying things like “they will say ‘what, will you follow a man? Does he not eat?’ and ‘where is there not an angel sent down with him?’ and other protestations, some including questioning his sanity; then followed typically by an exhortation to ignore them, as you get your reward in heaven and they roast in hell. There’s also some “God is omnipotent” stuff in many variations, and descriptions of the ‘garden under which rivers flow’ awaiting the believers.

That ‘rivers’ line always threw me. “Everyone knows” rivers are on top of the land… Now I know that in many parts of Africa and Arabia, the big water is in aquifers under the land… so he’s saying “where you have an endless well”, in a way.

As lots of it are that way, stick a toe in any random Sura and you get something close to it with not too much looking around. So these notes are particular sentences plucked out of that surround.

And listen thou for the day
when the caller shall call from a near place.
On the day they hear
the Cry in truth, that is the day of coming forth.
It is We who give life, and make to die,
and to Us is the homecomming.

Upon the day when the earth is split asunder from about them as they hasten forth; that is a mustering easy for Us.

We know very well what they say;
thou art not a tyrant over them.
Therefor remind by the Koran him
who fears My threat.

Arberry uses the convention of inset text with line breaks for poetic bits, and free running text (like the middle line) for the non-poetic parts. Not quite as effective in ‘ragged right’ as in ‘centered’, but that’s the idea.

Here we see the typical fixation on death and dying. Eternal damnation vs hope and eternal life. One thing I didn’t mark, but ought to have done, were the several times Suras said that God had no son. It just didn’t sink into my pea brain until near done that this was an assertion directed at the Catholic Holy Trinity. It is repeating, for emphasis, that Jesus was just a prophet and a man, NOT a “son of God”. I suspect that would give a clue as to what Bible was being used by Mohammed, as it must be one that doesn’t talk about Jesus as “son of God”. (Either that, or he lost those pages ;-) On my ‘someday list’ is to see if the Gnostic Bible omits “Jesus as Son of God”, or not. Or look up what scripture the Catholics point to for their justification of the Trinity.

One other point here: I’d sometimes wondered how you could have a line like “remind him by the Koran” when we know the Koran was only assembled after Mohammed died. IMHO the answer is that Koran is just ‘recitation’; so this is saying to “remind him by the recitation” and not being self-referential to the book in hand.

The other thing to note in this verse (near the end of the Sura) is the apocalyptic sense of it. “When the earth is split asunder”. Just like many Biblical sects, they are pining for the End Of Days and the apocalyptic end, when all the good stuff shows up. That theme comes around a few times too. ~’Yeah, it can be bad now, but when the end comes, we will get our rewards and they roast in hell’. No surprise many Muslim sects wish to accelerate the ‘end times’.

Sura XLVII

MUHAMMAD

(About verse 4)

When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks,
then, when you have made wide slaughter among them,
tie fast the bonds;
then set them free, either by grace or ransom.,
till the war lays down its loads.
So it shall be; and if God had willed,
He would have avenged Himself upon them;
but that He may try some of you by means of others.
And those who are slain in the way of God, He
will not send their works astray,
He will guide them, and dispose of their minds aright,
and He will admit them to Paradise,
that He has made known to them.

So it is a holy duty to slay ‘unbelievers’ and make “wide slaughter” among them. Take prisoners, and let some go if you feel like it, or if you can get enough ransom for them. (Forget the Geneva Convention, this is the word of God we’re talking about here, and when the big guy says it’s OK to slaughter and demand ransom, well, that’s the last word…)

We also get the admonition that dying for the cause is a ticket to paradise, and the idea that God is testing some of you by seeing how many you can kill off in the name of God. Yeah, he could just kill them all, but maybe he’s going to ‘try’ you and see if you really deserve that spot in heaven…

Sura XXXIII

The Confederates

This one is interesting as it is one of the first ones where The Prophet is given ‘special rules’. Hey “It’s good to be The King!” (A quote from a Mel Brooks movie, BTW).

There is part of it that admonishes the wives of The Prophet that they are not like other women, then tells them specifics of what that means for them. (Seems The Prophet gets more leeway…) There is one bit that looks like a bit of an apologetic for something done involving a particular person named “Zaid”, but I’ve not had time to chase that down.

So when Zaid had accomplished what he would of her, then We gave her in marriage to thee, so that there should not be any fault in the believers, touching the wives of their adopted sons, when they have accomplished what they would of them; and God’s commandments must be performed.

So it kind of implies that Zaid was an adopted son, and wasn’t getting the old lady knocked up enough, so The Prophet took a shot at it? All in the name of that “be fruitful and multiply” commandment, one presumes… I’m sure I’ve got it wrong somehow, but it is an interesting verse to find, and puzzle over.

Then, down near verse 44 or so, The Prophet gets some extra latitude on which wives he can have.

Oh Prophet, We have made lawful for thee
any wives whom thou has given their wages
and what thy right hand owns, spoils of war
that God has given thee, and the daughters of thy
uncles paternal and aunts paternal, thy
uncles maternal and aunts maternal, who
have emigrated with thee, and any woman
believer, if she give herself to the Prophet
and if the Prophet desire to take her in
marriage, for thee exclusively, apart
from the believers–

Remember that a Muslim man can divorce a wife just by repeating “I divorce thee” enough times. The “taking as a wife” is not a heavy burden (though there are some specific property rights – what I think ‘wages’ refers to.) So this is saying The Prophet can have any wives he pays for, any women taken as slaves / spoils of war, his First Cousins, and any believing woman if she says she’s interested and he wants her. ONLY for him, these rules not for the general “believers” population. Yes, it sure is good to be The prophet… But it goes on:

We know what we have imposed upon them
touching their wives and what their right hands own–
that there may be no fault in thee; God is
All-forgiving, All-compassionate.

Direct from God: He knows it’s a trial for the believers that The Prophet gets to ‘touch’ their wives and slaves, but that’s not Mohammed’s fault…

Thou mayest put off who thou wilt of them,
and whom thou wilt thou mayest take to thee;
and if thou seekest any thou hast set aside
there is no fault in thee. So it is likelier
they will be comforted, and not sorrow,
and every one of them will be well-pleased
and what thou givest her, God knows what
is in your hearts; God is All-knowing,
All-clement.
Thereafter, women are not lawful to thee,
neither for thee to take other wives in exchange
for them, though their beauty please thee, except
what thy right hand owns; God is watchful
over everything.

That last paragraph makes it look like a ‘limited time offer’. A bit of wife shopping and swapping, then back to only those you can take as slaves. Or I could have it all wrong. It would be interesting to see what some Believer sites state this says. The bit about “spoils of war” seems to make it pretty clear that ‘right hand owns’ means slaves and concubines. Still, it’s got to be one heck of a song and dance show explaining it away…

Sura XXV

SALVATION

Just a small sample out of this fairly large one ( 7 1/2 pages). It is an example of the “expect resistance” verses. About verse 62:

But when they are told, ‘Bow yourselves
to the All-merciful,’ they say, ‘And what
is the All-merciful? Shall we bow ourselves
to what thou biddest us?” And it increases
them in aversion.

There are verses like this specifically mentioning folks challenging Mohammed as just being some guy; some giving advice on how to handle it.

Sura XXIV

LIGHT

This one is rather interesting. About verse 35?

Marry the spouseless among you, and your
slaves and handmaidens that are righteous;
if they are poor, God will enrich them
of His bounty; God is All-embracing,
All-knowing.
And let those who find not the means to
marry be abstinent till God enriches them
of His bounty. Those your right hands own
who seek emancipation, contract with
them accordingly, if you know some good
in them; and give them of the wealth of God
that He has given you. And constrain not
your slavegirls to prostitution, if they
desire to live in chastity, that you may
seek the change of goods in the present life.
Whosoever constrains them, surely God,
after their being constrained, is All-forgiving,
All-compassionate.

Back in 700 AD it was likely very good and moral to pick up as spare spouses those women who had not been claimed. Further, if you have a bunch of slaves and servants and some of them are poor, but good looking, well, what the heck.

Otherwise you have a fair number of men dying in battle, so accumulate excess unmarried women. Not as ‘productive’ of the next generation that way; better to bring them in the tent…

Those who can’t support a wife, stay single until you go get some land or herds (or, one presumes, do in some unbelievers and get their stuff and some slaves…)

Those slaves that become believers and ‘have good in them’ can be freed. Nice touch. (IIRC somewhere else it said you can take them as wives. I think that is what the ‘contract with them’ means here. So a slave can ‘upgrade’ to a wife if they become a devout Muslim. Or so it looks to me.)

But what particularly caught my eye was the next line. It looks like it says that it’s A-OK to run a brothel. Just dump some slaves in it and collect the cash, other than slaves that want to ‘live in chastity’. (It is not clear to me if this means virgins ought not be forced into prostitution of if any woman can decide to be chaste). But putting ‘unchaste’ slaves into a brothel as prostitutes looks to be approved. Who knew? Clearly some investigation into what ‘chastity’ means in the Muslim / Arabic context is needed to find the exact bounds on who can be forced into prostitution…

It also looks like the final line says “but if you do ‘constrain’ them, well, God will forgive you”. So there may be a ‘blanket out’ if you do choose to shove your slaves into prostition.

In Conclusion

There are also many verses admonishing to heed God, do what God and The Prophet say to do, and “pay the alms”. (I’m not sure if that’s the typical Biblical Tithe thing, or some other alms; but it frequently says to be obedient and pay the alms.)

Yes, I’ve picked out the more unusual verses. There are many many more that say “God the merciful” and ‘do good things’ and the like. But as they are unclear in the specifics as to what is ‘good’, I find the verses that have specific actions listed in them more enlightening.

Realize, too, that I’m not picking these verses out for any particular agenda. I’m neither pro, nor anti, polygamy nor wife swapping. (Not my thing, but someone else wants to do it, not my business). Mostly I just find the “rules” being laid out rather interesting. Yes, some of them are very antithetical to Western Law or practices. Like the brothels one. Then again, Nevada has brothels, so clearly some parts of the USA and Christendom are “OK with that”.

Overall, the amount of “fire and brimstone” is more than in The Bible, and some of the phrasing is far more sharp. I don’t know if that’s an Arabic thing, or a translation artifact, or what. Yet The Bible is pretty full of that kind of thing too. Heck, I’ve heard talk as strong in a First Southern Baptist church (other than the ‘off with their heads’ and multiple wives things…). They, the Baptists, BTW, also are iconoclasts and not keen on the way Catholics put statues (‘icons’) of Mary and Jesus at the front of the church. No ‘icons’ in a Baptist church… no sirree.. So noticing that ‘style’ is not denigrating it. “It is what it is.” Nothing more. The Baptists also think alcohol sinful, so we used Welch’s Grape Juice for the communion. (That’s where Welch’s came from, BTW…) Part of what I find interesting about looking at Islam is the degree to which it is similar to the more edgy Protestant Sects compared to the Catholic Church. Then on other things, very different.

OK, with this, I’m going to take a break from reading the Koran (and let the ‘edgy’ settle out). Some week or two from now, I’ll start in on Volume 1. For it, I’ll likely do postings for single Suras, or groups of them. It’s too big to do all in one posting, and the different Suras, frankly, have more ‘meat’ in them. They can not be generalized as much, and more of them are ‘legislative’ so directly drive the behaviour of Muslims and Islamic states.

The major ‘take away’ I have is that Volume 2, while emotive and poetic, really doesn’t have much in it that is antithetical to western values or to Christianity. Some things, yes, like slavery. Then again, in the 1700s our Christian forebearers where quite happy to use similar evidence for slavery in The Bible to justify their slavery. So folks looking for “interesting parts” would likely do better to read Volume 1. Those looking to understand emotive issues and motivations ought to start with Volume 2.

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