This blog continues the series of studies looking at references to the Garden(s) of Paradise, as depicted in the Qur’an. Our last blog on this matter was on May 4.
The next relevant passage is from Surah 42:7-9 (Yusuf Ali):
7: Thus have We sent by inspiration to thee an Arabic Qur’an: that thou mayest warn the Mother of Cities and all around her,- and warn (them) of the Day of Assembly, of which there is no doubt: (when) some will be in the Garden, and some in the Blazing Fire.
8: If Allah had so willed, He could have made them a single people; but He admits whom He will to His Mercy; and the Wrong-doers will have no protector nor helper.
9: What! Have they taken (for worship) protectors besides Him? But it is Allah,- He is the Protector, and it is He Who gives life to the dead: It is He Who has power over all things,
This passage targets Mecca, “the Mother of Cities”, evidently at a time when Muhammad was being spurned by many of its inhabitants. Syed Maududi comments:
He will see that in that Surah the Quraish chiefs had been taken to tack for their deaf and blind opposition so that anyone in Makkah and in its out-skirts, who had any sense of morality and nobility left in him, should know how unreasonably the chiefs of the people were opposing Muhammad (upon whom be Allah’s peace), and as against them, how serious he was in everything he said, how rational was his standpoint and how noble his character and conduct.
In this particular passage, however, there is no evidence of a rational stance being adopted but rather recourse is made to blatant threats. Muhammad insists the Arabic Qur’an was given to him by Allah and that through it Allah is telling the Meccans that if they don’t follow him (Muhammad) then they will end up in hell. Muhammad is presenting himself as the leader for “a single people”, a united community. However, this is conditional upon accepting Islam, the religion being promoted by Muhammad with his insistence upon Allah as the only god and the need to repudiate all other deities. Muhammad stresses the omnipotence of Allah while also expressing belief in the resurrection of the dead.
We find some correspondence here with the way Jesus lamented the opposition he experienced from the people of Jerusalem:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:37-39).
Jesus too presents himself as Jerusalem’s rightful leader but presents himself as the protector of its people. Further, Jesus links opposition to himself with the prior killing of the prophets and the stoning of those sent to them. Muhammad brought before the people of Mecca a new purported revelation, the Arabic Qur’an, which many Meccans rejected. By contrast, as the preceding context of Matthew 23 makes clear, Jesus sets the established Scriptures both he and the Jews accept as God’s revelation against the Scripture-undermining traditions developed by the religious leaders.
Posted May 22, 2011
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