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Dhul-Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring - Part One: Difference between revisions
Dhul-Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring - Part One (view source)
Revision as of 18:44, 3 May 2020
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In verses 19:16; 24:35 and 28:44, gharb (from the same root as maghrib) is used in an adjectival form to mean western or of the west and sharq (from the same root as mashriq) is used in an adjectival form to mean eastern or of the east. | In verses 19:16; 24:35 and 28:44, gharb (from the same root as maghrib) is used in an adjectival form to mean western or of the west and sharq (from the same root as mashriq) is used in an adjectival form to mean eastern or of the east. | ||
Now we shall see that there are at least | Now we shall see that there are at least 5 serious problems with the claim that maghriba a'''l'''shshamsi in 18:86 means the west and matliAAa a'''l'''shshamsi in 18:90 means the east. | ||
===Was alshshams ever used with al maghrib to mean the west?=== | ===Was alshshams ever used with al maghrib to mean the west?=== | ||
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Better still, these verses would be worded completely differently. Even if one argues that there is some poetic reason to describe the west and east using the words we have in 18:86 and 18:90, it would be an extraordinarily poor choice of words since people reasonably understood them to be about the literal setting and rising places of the sun, as we shall see. How would we know what anything in the Qur’an means if it uses words that commonly (and when the context suggests) mean a particular thing when it really means a different concept, for which it uses a different word everywhere else? | Better still, these verses would be worded completely differently. Even if one argues that there is some poetic reason to describe the west and east using the words we have in 18:86 and 18:90, it would be an extraordinarily poor choice of words since people reasonably understood them to be about the literal setting and rising places of the sun, as we shall see. How would we know what anything in the Qur’an means if it uses words that commonly (and when the context suggests) mean a particular thing when it really means a different concept, for which it uses a different word everywhere else? | ||
===An extraordinary coincidence=== | |||
The simplest and perhaps greatest problem for the west-east interpretation is the striking combination of the two key elements in each of verses 18:86 and 18:90. Not only did Dhu’l Qarnayn reach “the setting place of the sun”, but there also he found the sun setting in a certain place. Not only did he reach “the rising place of the sun”, but there he found the sun rising in a certain way. | |||
Thus, an extraordinary coincidence is required. Under this interpretation, it just so happens that straight after the verses inform us that Dhu’l Qarnayn reached places that merely mean the west and east, but are distinctively and literally worded as the setting and rising places of the sun, we are told of the sun’s behaviour. | |||
===Commentators use knowledge unknown to 7th century Arabs=== | ===Commentators use knowledge unknown to 7th century Arabs=== | ||
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Incidentally, at the beginning of the same work in a section about pre-Islamic traditions<ref>Guillaume op. cit. p.12</ref>, Ibn Ishaq quotes some lines of verse by a Yemeni king called Tubba’ who says that Dhu’l Qarnayn witnessed the sun setting in its resting place into a muddy pool. See section 6.5.1 below for a quote by al-Tabari of these same lines. | Incidentally, at the beginning of the same work in a section about pre-Islamic traditions<ref>Guillaume op. cit. p.12</ref>, Ibn Ishaq quotes some lines of verse by a Yemeni king called Tubba’ who says that Dhu’l Qarnayn witnessed the sun setting in its resting place into a muddy pool. See section 6.5.1 below for a quote by al-Tabari of these same lines. | ||
Given all of the problems detailed above (especially that a'''l'''shshamsi is never used when the meaning is merely east or west | Given all of the problems detailed above (especially the extraordinary coincidence required by the two elements in each verse; that a'''l'''shshamsi is never used when the meaning is merely east or west; that matliAA is never used in a phrase that means the east; and the problem of what wajadaha refers to in the next phrases), it is clear that the west/east idiom interpretation of 18:86 and 18:90 cannot be correct. | ||
==Second interpretation: He reached [a place at] the time of sunset and sunrise or he reached those times== | ==Second interpretation: He reached [a place at] the time of sunset and sunrise or he reached those times== | ||