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The Islamic Whale: Difference between revisions
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→The Qur'anic Cosmology vis-à-vis Modern Science
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There is thus attestation of Nun the whale in both the Sunni and Shi'ite tradition. | There is thus attestation of Nun the whale in both the Sunni and Shi'ite tradition. | ||
==The Qur'anic Cosmology vis-à-vis Modern Science == | ==The Qur'anic Cosmology vis-à-vis Modern Science== | ||
The world view evinced in the tasfir is one fundamentally at odds with the modern, scientific understanding of cosmology, earth sciences and geology. The authors of the tafsir tradition and the Qur'an seem to have been operating on the assumption that the earth that the human race inhabits is flat, and moreover it is only one of many different earths. The belief that the world is balanced on the back of a giant cosmological animal is not peculiar to Islam--witness the Hindu tradition of Akupāra (Sanskrit: अकूपार), also know as Kurma and Chukwa, the giant tortoise who supports the 16 elephants who hold up the world, or the myth of the sea turtle Ao whose sawed off legs prop up the world. The idea of a giant | The world view evinced in the tasfir is one fundamentally at odds with the modern, scientific understanding of cosmology, earth sciences and geology. The authors of the tafsir tradition and the Qur'an seem to have been operating on the assumption that the earth that the human race inhabits is flat, and moreover it is only one of many different earths. The belief that the world is balanced on the back of a giant cosmological animal is not peculiar to Islam--witness the Hindu tradition of Akupāra (Sanskrit: अकूपार), also know as Kurma and Chukwa, the giant tortoise who supports the 16 elephants who hold up the world, or the Chinese myth of the sea turtle Ao whose sawed off legs prop up the world. The idea of a giant animal holding up the world is a myth found in many pre-scientific | ||
==Other interpretations of Nun== | ==Other interpretations of Nun== | ||
Although | Although many traditional tafsir explain that Nun is the whale which carries the Earth(s) on its back, there are also non-whale interpretations of Nun. | ||
==="ن is a letter of the alphabet"=== | ==="ن is a letter of the alphabet"=== | ||
ن ("n") is a letter of the Arabic alphabet called نون (Nun). | ن ("n") is a letter of the Arabic alphabet called نون (Nun). Many suwar in the Qur'an actually start with mysterious letters that don't have any immediate meaning. This does beg the question of what these letters mean in the first place, and from the perspective of a believing Muslim why Allah would start his revelations out with random letters, but considering it does fall into an accepted Qur'anic pattern it does at least offer an explanation for its presense. Another point is the word following the Nun, "walqalami" "by the pen." The Arabic formation for oaths and swears is to add و "wa" a particle meaning generally "and" to a noun in the majruur (genetive) case, producing the swearing oath: "والله" "wallahi" "by God!" "والشمس" "washamsi" "by the sun!" etc. Since the word "qalam" or "pen" is in the genitive case, it should be understood to be a swear, and this seems likely. It should however be remembered that the original "rasm" or consonantal text for the Qur'an lacked the vowel markings which in this case marks the word as being in the genitive. The original text thus might not have had this word in the genitive case, in which case the meaning would simply be "and the pen." It is thus possible that in the original the "wa" functioned simply as an "and" and the original meaning was thus simply "(the letter) nun, and the pen, and what they write." | ||
==="N" in "Ar-Rahmaa'''n'''"=== | ==="N" in "Ar-Rahmaa'''n'''"=== | ||
The word الرحمن, Ar-Rahman, "the gracious" is one of the | The word الرحمن, Ar-Rahman, "the gracious" is one of the titles of Allah. The 13th sura starts with three letters الر, and a few suras start with the letters حم (see the comment on random letters at the beginning of suwar above). Putting these together produces الر + حم + ن= الرحمن "Ar-rahmaan." | ||
*The word Ar-Rahman is nowadays actually written as الرحمان, but in the old Uthmani script it was written without the ا (alif) before the ن. It was added later, to indicate the "aa" vowel. | *The word Ar-Rahman is nowadays actually written as الرحمان, but in the old Uthmani script it was written without the ا (alif) before the ن. It was added later, to indicate the "aa" vowel. | ||
*A lot of verses start on other [[Muqatta'at|letters]] and | *A lot of verses start on other [[Muqatta'at|letters]] however and no convincing argument can be made for producing relevant words from most of them. | ||
===Nun means "ink"=== | ===Nun means "ink"=== | ||
A proposed solution for this is that the nun here means "ink" in the nominative case, in which case 68:1 would mean "The ink and the pen and that which they write". This solution suffers from some issues: | |||
*The Qur'an used the word مِدَادًا (''midaadan'') for "ink" in the verse 18:109, while it used the word نون (''nun'') to mean "whale" in the verse 21:87. So it is more probable, that the meaning of nun here is "whale". | *The Qur'an used the word مِدَادًا (''midaadan'') for "ink" in the verse 18:109, while it used the word نون (''nun'') to mean "whale" in the verse 21:87. So it is more probable, that the meaning of nun here is "whale". | ||
*According to this interpretation, this refers to the ink with which the Qur'an was written. Which is not very fitting, since the primary form of the Qu'ran is recitation. The word "Qur'an" itself means "recitation". | *According to this interpretation, this refers to the ink with which the Qur'an was written. Which is not very fitting, since the primary form of the Qu'ran is recitation according to the traditional narrative. The word "Qur'an" itself means "recitation" in the traditional understanding. It should also be noted, however, that the word Qur'an may have a Syriac antecedent in the word "Qeryaanaa", meaning a lectionary, the book of scripture readings in traditional Christian masses. With this understanding the meaning of "ink" might make more sense. | ||
==="Allah knows best"=== | ==="Allah knows best"=== | ||
"[[Allah knows best]]", in other words "the author knows what he meant", is | "[[Allah knows best]]", in other words "the author knows what he meant", is an explanation offered by some Muslim commentators, indicating that even with the traditional narrative understanding this verse is difficult. | ||
== | ==Modern Muslim Scholarly and Apologetic Views== | ||
Some Muslims, who consider the whale hypothesis to be false <ref>https://islamqa.info/en/114861</ref> are embarrassed that this is a part of their religion and try to put forward arguments to prove that it is in fact not a part of their religion. | Some Muslims, who consider the whale hypothesis to be false <ref>https://islamqa.info/en/114861</ref> are embarrassed that this is a part of their religion and try to put forward arguments to prove that it is in fact not a part of their religion. | ||