7. THE ISRĀ’ĪLIYYĀT IN THE COMMENTARY OF THE QUR’ĀN
AND THE ḤĀDĪTH (3)
AND THE ḤĀDĪTH (3)
There is no doubt that the spread of the Jewish legends
containing vanities and superstitions most of which were attributed to the
Prophet (ﷺ) and his companions, and then were
included as parts of the commentary of the Qur’ān posed serious danger to the
beliefs of Muslims and to the sanctity of Islam. To what extent is this danger Dr.
Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Dhahabī in his al-Isrā’īliyyāt mentions four cases:
A. It would
damage the beliefs of Muslims by giving misconceptions concerning Allah, and
denying the ‘iṣmah (infallibility) of prophets. Sometimes, these prophets were portrayed
below the level of ordinary people. Some examples are as follows:
1.
It is
mentioned in Genesis 18:1-15 that God and two angels appeared to Abraham in the
form of three men. He brought water for them to wash their feet, and feed them. They ate while sitting under a tree. Then
God talked about Sarah that she would have a baby, and the destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah.
Here Allah appeared as a human being, together
with two angels. All of them ate the meat and drank the milk provided by
Prophet Abraham. The Qur’ān mentioned the same episode where angels appeared to
Prophet Abraham, but they did not touch the food provided for them. Allah said:
وَلَقَدْ جَاءَتْ رُسُلُنَا
إِبْرَاهِيمَ بِالْبُشْرَى قَالُوا سَلَامًا قَالَ سَلَامٌ فَمَا لَبِثَ
أَنْ جَاءَ بِعِجْلٍ حَنِيذٍ
. فَلَمَّا رَأَى أَيْدِيَهُمْ لَا تَصِلُ إِلَيْهِ نَكِرَهُمْ وَأَوْجَسَ
مِنْهُمْ خِيفَةً قَالُوا
لَا تَخَفْ إِنَّا أُرْسِلْنَا إِلَى قَوْمِ لُوطٍ (هود:69-70)
And verily, there came Our messengers to Ibrahim
(Abraham) with glad tidings. They said: “Salam
(greetings or peace).” He answered, “Salam
(greetings or peace),” and he hastened to
entertain them with a roasted calf. But when he
saw their hands went not towards it (the meal),
he
mistrusted them, and conceived a fear of them.
They said: “Fear not, we have been sent against
the people of Lūṭ (lot).” (Q. 11:69-70).
Who were the visitors, the Qur’ān did not mention, but their number was
at least three, based on the term رُسُل (messengers). According to Ibn ‘Abbās they
were: Jibrīl (Gabriel) a.s., Mīkā’īl (Michael), and Isrāfīl (Raphael).
2. In
Genesis 2:2-4 it is said: “By the seventh day God had finished the work he
had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God
blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the
work of creating that he had done.”
The Qur’ān flatly rejected the
idea of fatigue and weariness attributed to Allah, so that He was in need of
rest, as the following verse:
وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا
فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ وَمَا مَسَّنَا
مِنْ لُغُوبٍ (ق:38)
And indeed We created the heavens and the earth
and all between them in six Days and nothing
fatigue
touches Us (Q. 50:38)
3. In
Genesis 19:30-38 it is said that Prophet Lot had two daughters who gave him
wine to drink, and when he got drunk they lay with him, the elder in the first
night, and the younger in the second night. They both became pregnant, and the older
dauther’s son, Moab was the father of the Moabites, whereas the younger dauther’s
son, Ben-Ammi was the father of the Ammonites.
It is totally unacceptable that Prophet Lot a.s.
who was infallible (ma‘ṣūm) had
committed such horrible crime with his daughters. Allah sent him to his people
who practiced homosexuality. Allah said:
أَتَأْتُونَ الذُّكْرَانَ مِنَ الْعَالَمِينَ. وَتَذَرُونَ مَا خَلَقَ لَكُمْ
رَبُّكُمْ مِنْ
أَزْوَاجِكُمْ بَلْ أَنْتُمْ قَوْمٌ عَادُونَ (الشعراء:165-166)
“Go you into the males of mankind, And leave
those whom Allah has created for you to be your wivers?
Nay,
you are a trespassing people.(Q. 26:165-166)
4.
In 2Samuel 11:1-27 it is
mentioned that one evening while David (Prophet Dā’ūd a.s.) was
walking around on the roof of his palace saw the beautiful Bathsheba,
the wife his general Uriah, was bathing. He lay with her and became pregnant.
In order to get rid of her husband Uriah, David sent him to a fierce battle
where he died, and David got her. This story could occur only for an immoral
person, not an ordinary upright person, let alone for a prophet whom Allah had
protected from committing sin (ma‘ṣūm).
5. In
Exodus 32: 1-6 it is mentioned that Prophet Aaron (Hārūn) a.s. who made
a golden calf from gold earrings collected to him, then asked people to worship
it.
It is unreasonable that a prophet who was infallible that he had made an
idol and encouraged people to worship idols which was the gravest sin in Islam. Instead of
Prophet Aaron a.s., according to the Qur’ān it was the Sāmirī who
had the idol (Q. 20:85-88). They
disobeyed Aaron who told them to obey him in worshiping Allah Alone (Q. 20:90).
The term al-Sāmirī, according
to the Qur’ān commentators al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī, means “a man of the
Jewish clan of the Sāmirah” an ethnic and a religious sect which was later
called the Samaritans. But as this clan did not exist yet in the time of
Prophet Moses, the person, as maintained by Ibn ‘Abbās, was one of the
Egyptians who converted to the faith of Moses and joined the Israelis on their
exodus from Egypt. The term Sāmirī might have connection with the
ancient Egyptian shemer meaning “a foreigner” or “a stranger,” and a
newly convert would have made the golden calf idol.[1]
As punishment for him, he would keep saying lā misāsa (“touch me not”)
(Q. 20:97) indicating that he would live alone away from people.
B. The
use of the isrā’īliyyāt in commenting the verses of the Qur’ān would
give an impression that Islam is a religion of superstition. Some examples are
as follows:
1. It
was reported that Adam a.s. was very tall that his head reached the
cloud, and he became bald. When he descended to the earth he wept so much that
his tears reached the sea where ships sailed.
2. David
a.s. prostrated to Allah forty
nights and wept until grass grew from his tears; then he sighed then it
withered.
3. Allah
says:
الَّذِينَ يَحْمِلُونَ
الْعَرْشَ وَمَنْ حَوْلَهُ يُسَبِّحُونَ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّهِمْ (غافر:7)
Those
(angels) who bear the Throne (of Allah) and those around it glorify the praises
of their Lord,…(Q. 40:7)
Al-Qurṭubī said that it was reported that the carriers
of the Throne their legs were at the lowest earth, and their heads penetrated
the Throne; they were submissive, they did not lift up their eyes, and they were
the best and most honorable angels. It is said that there were 70 000 angels
surrounding around the Throne, with tahlīl (i.e., uttering the
formula لاَإله إِلَّا الله, “There is no god but Allah”) and takbīr (i.e., utteringالله أكْبَر “Allah is Great”); behind
them 70 000 of angels were standing in rows, putting their hands on their
shoulders, raising their voices with tahlīl and takbīr, and
behind them 100 000 angels in rows, putting their right hands on their left
hands, glorifying Allah.
C. The unjustified attribution of the isrā’īliyyāt
to scholars among the ṣaḥābah and tābi‘īn was so common that their
reliability and honesty might be doubted. Being scholars of tafsīr and ḥadīth
any legend attributed to them would put them under attack by the enemy of Islam
and the Orientalists. Among those who were under attack for reporting isrā’īliyyāt
were: Abū Hurayrah, ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sallām, Ka‘b al-Aḥbār, and Wahb ibn Munabbih.
D. The inclusion of isrā’īliyyāt might
render people turn away from the main objective of revealing the Qur’ān and
from pondering over its verses, from gaining lessons from its advices, from
searching its rulings and wisdom to minor unimportant things which bring no
benefit, except wasting time. For example, knowing the colour and name of the
dog of the Aṣḥāb al-Kahf (“the Companions of the Cave”, the people who
took refuge in the Cave) mentioned in sūrat al-Kahf (Q. 18); knowing
what kind of tree the staff of Prophet Moses (Mūsā) a.s. was made of; knowing the name of the boy
killed by the wise man Khiḍr; and knowing the ark of Prophet Noah a.s. in
details: its length, its width, its height, and the names of animals brought
into it. This was also the view of Shaykh Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905), the mufti
of Egypt who considered the isrā’īliyyāt as redundancy.
As an example is the story of Aṣḥāb al-Kahf
(the Companions of the Cave) known in the West “the Seven Sleepers.” There are several
versions of it, including Greek, Syriac, Coptic, and Georgian. According to Western
tradition the Seven Sleepers were: Maximian, Malchus,
Marcian, John, Denis, Serapion, and Constantine, whereas according to Eastern
tradition they were: Maximilian, Jamblichus, Martin, John, Dionysius, Antonius,
and Constantine. In both traditions John and Constantine were mentioned. Some
names were almost similar, such as: Maximian – Maximilian, Marcian – Martin,
Denis – Dionysius.
There are various locations of the cave of the Seven Sleepers, among
which are as follows: (1) It is near Ephesus (near modern Izmir), at Mount Pion
(Coelian, Celion, or Ochlon), Turkey where the church built over it was
excavated in 1927–28. (2) It is in the
village of Rajib south of Amman, Jordan. (3) It is in Turpan in Xinjiang as suggested by Uyghur Muslims. (4) It
is in Babek District, Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in Azerbaijan.
The story of the Companions of the Cave was revealed to the Prophet to
answer the questions of the Jews of Madinah passed the Maccan idolaters about
young men who disappeared in the past to test his authenticity. After two weeks
Allah revealed it to the Prophet (ﷺ) without details. To find the details many Qur’ān commentators
referred to the isrā’īliyyāt which could be harmful for it could be
treated to be genuine Qur’ān commentaries
In
Conclusion, including the isrā’īliyyāt in Islam in general and in the
commentary of the Qur’ān as well as the Ḥadīth could (1) damage the
beliefs of Muslims by giving misconceptions concerning Allah, and denying the ‘iṣmah
(infallibility) of prophets, (2) give an impression that Islam is a religion of
superstition, (3) damage the reliability
and honesty of the ṣaḥābah and tābi‘īn
by unjustified attribution of the isrā’īliyyāt to them, (4) render people turn away from the
main objective of revealing the Qur’ān and from pondering over its verses, from
gaining lessons from its advices, and from searching its rulings and wisdom to unimportant details .
(CIVIC,
12 May, 2017)
المراجع:
المكتبة الشاملة
تفسير الطبري (ت.
310/922 (
تفسير القرطبى (611 -
671 هـ / 1214 - 1273 م(
تفسير ابن كثير (ت.
774/ 1373 (
الذهبي, الدكتور محمد حسين.
الإسرائيليات في التفسير و الحديث. القاهرة: مكتبة وهبة, 1411هـ ـ 1990 م.
Holy Bible. New International Version.
Muhammad
Asad. The Message of the Qur’ān.
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