11. PROPHETS’
DU’A (PRAYER) IN THE QUR’AN (6)
8. Shu‘ayb a.s.
Prophet
Shu‘ayb a.s. is mentioned by name in the Qur’an (Q. 7:85, 88, 90, 92
twice; 11:84, 87, 91, 94; 26:177; 29:36). The term shuʿayb, (شعيب( literally means “he who
shows the right path”. The story of him is given more details in Q. 7:85-93 and
Q. 11:84-95). He was sent by Allah to the people of Madyan (Midian) ibn Ibrahim
a.s. to worship Allah instead of idols. According to tradition he was granted
talent and eloquence in his language, so that he had the surname of خَطِيْبُ
الأنْبِيَاء (khaṭīb al-anbiyā’, "the eloquent preacher amongst the
prophets". His identification with Jethro (Yethro) in Jewish tradition is rejected
by modern scholars, including A. Yusuf Ali for the following reasons:
1. Shu‘ayb was believed to have been the son of
Mikil, son of Isaachar, son of Midian, son of Abraham, so that he would be only
four generations and less than two centuries from Abraham. His name was not
mentioned in Jewish tradition. According to Ibn Khaldun’s research, Prophet
Shu'aib’s mother was the pious daughter
of the Prophet Lut (Lot). His genealogy joins with Madian son of Prophet
Ibrahim. On the other hand, Jethro was mentioned in the Bible with another
name, Reuel, the father-in-law of Moses,[1]
and according to the Bible there were between four and six centuries between
Abraham and Moses.
2. The Midianites were mainly a nomad tribe. Although
Jethro was also a Midianite, the complete destruction of one of their settled
town by earthquake in which Shu‘ayb
was sent to preach, other settlements and towns would have survived many
centuries later till the time of Moses and Jethro the Midianite.
3. Prophet Shu‘ayb was sent to preach to the Midianites who lived in Madyan located
east of the Gulf of Aqabah extended to the city of Tabuk , and according to
some it was in the site of Tabuk itself. Therefore, Shu‘ayb was an Arab prophet. On the other hand, in Jethro’s time, the
region of Madyan (the Midian of the Bible) extended from the Gulf of Aqaba westward
deep into Sinai Peninsula. This was their principal territory; to the north it
extended to the mountains of Moab east of the Dead Sea. Although its
inhabitants were Arabs they intermixed with their neighbors the Biblical
Canaanites. However, there was a small
town at the eastern coast of the Gulf of Aqaba called Midian, and then
disappeared. It was revived in Muslim times, but never flourished.
The
people of Madyan to whom Prophet Shu‘ayb was sent was also called in the Qur’an
أَصْحَابُ
الأَيْكَة (“The Companions of al-Aykah”), namely,
the dwellers of al-aykah, a tree of a group of trees (which were tangled
like those in the thicket) they used to worship. They were notorious for their cheating and
dishonesty in their daily activity, and idolatry. Being in the path of
commercial highway of Asia, namely, Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, their
besetting sins characterized by A. Yusuf Ali are as follows:
1. giving short measure or weight, whereas the
strictest commercial probity is necessary for success;
2. a more general form of such fraud, depriving
people of rightful dues;
3. producing mischief and disorder, whereas peace
and order had been established (again in a literal as well as metaphorical
sense);
4. not content with upsetting settled life, taking
to highway robbery, literally, as well as
5. metaphorically, in two ways, namely, cutting
off people from access to the worship of Allah, and abusing religion and piety
for crooked purposes, i.e., exploiting religion itself for their crooked
ends, as when a man builds houses of prayer out of unlawful gains or
ostentatiously gives charity out of money which he has obtained by force or
fraud, etc.
Then
Prophet Shu‘ayb a.s. made two
appeals to the past:
1. You began as an insignificant tribe, and by Allah’s
favor you increased and multiplied in numbers and resources; do you not then
owe a duty to Allah and fulfil His Law?”
2. What was the result in the case of those who
fell into sin? Will you not take warning by their example?
The people not only rejected him, but also the chiefs
among them threatened to drive him out from their village unless he returned to
their religion. Of course Prophet did not want to disobey Allah to please them,
and put his trust in Allah. He prayed to Him, saying:
رَبَّنَا افْتَحْ بَيْنَنَا
وَبَيْنَ قَوْمِنَا بِالْحَقِّ وَأَنْتَ خَيْرُ الْفَاتِحِينَ (الأعراف:89)
“Our
Lord! Judge between us and our people in truth, for
You
are the best of those who give judgment.” (Q.
7:89)
Since Prophet Shu‘ayb knew that he was on the
right side, Muhammad Asad translates the term افْتَحْ as “lay open” (the truth), so that he translates
the above prayer of prophet Shu‘ayb as follows: “O our Sustainer! Lay Thou open
the truth between us and our people—for Thou art the best of all to lay open
the truth.”
They strongly disbelieved him and rebelled against him and said that
if you follow him you would be the losers (Q. 7:90). They accused him of being
bewitched, affected by witchcraft, and lying when he said that Allah had sent
him (Q. 26:185-186) He warned them that their disobedience would lead them to
destruction, like what befell upon the people of Noah, Hud, Saleh, and Lot, and
asked them to repent. But they said that they did not know what he was talking
about, and thought that he was weak because his tribe did not follow him. If it
were not because of the powerful position of his family over the people of
Madyan, they would have stoned him to death (or according to another
interpretation, they would have cursed him verbally), and that he had no
position of power over them (Q. 11:89-91).
As refutation of his people Prophet Shu‘ayb told them
that he wondered that they would have left him alone out of respect for his
people instead of respect for the greatness of the Lord, the Most Blessed and
Exalted. Their awe of Allah should have prevented them from harming him rather
than their respect for his people. They should have feared Allah Who knew all
of their actions and reward them for their deeds (Q. 11:92)
Prophet Shu‘ayb out of despair of their response to
him threatened them that the unchanging action and attitude of theirs and his
would result in Allah punishment upon the wrong side of the two, them or him,
and asked them to join him in waiting for this coming punishment (Q. 11:93).
Stubbornly and defiantly they challenged him and said, “So, cause a piece of
the heaven to fall on us, if you are of the truthful” (Q. 26:187). Then Prophet
Shu‘ayb turned from them and said:
يَا قَوْمِ لَقَدْ أَبْلَغْتُكُمْ
رِسَالَاتِ رَبِّي وَنَصَحْتُ لَكُمْ فَكَيْفَ
آسَى عَلَى قَوْمٍ كَافِرِينَ
(الأعراف:93)
“O my people, I have indeed conveyed to you the
messages
of my Lord and advised you, so how could
I grieve for a disbelieving people?” (Qur’an 7:93(
When Allah’s
punishment came He saved Prophet Shu‘ayb and his followers, then an awful cry
seized the wrongdoers, and they lay lifeless in their homes, on the ground, as though
they had never lived there (Q. 11: 67-68 and 94-95). Ibn ‘Abbas explains that the
term صَيْحَة (lit. “vehement cry” or “sound”) in the verse is a synonym
of صَاعِقَة , “a thunderbolt” or the “sound of thunder”. The punishment on
the Thamūd people who disobeyed Prophet Saleh was رَجْفَة “violent trembling” indicating an earthquake (Q. 7:78).
Therefore, it is possible that the “vehement sound” and the “sound of thunder”
mentioned here and in other verses of the Qur’an, such as that befell on the
people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Q. 15:73) were the subterranean rumbling
preceding or accompanying the earthquake and the thunder-like noise of a
volcanic eruption.[2]
Then Allah sent his punishment to the people of
Madyan, as follows:
فَأَخَذَهُمْ عَذَابُ يَوْمِ الظُّلَّةِ إِنَّهُ كَانَ عَذَابَ
يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍ (الشعراء:189)
…So the torment of the Day of
Shadow seized them. Indeed,
that was the torment
of a Great Day. (Q. 26:189)
Ibn ‘Abbas was asked by
Yazīd al-Bāhilī about the meaning of the above verse. He said:
Allah sent upon them
thunder and intense heat, and
it terrified them
[so they entered their houses and it pursued
them to the
innermost parts of their houses and terrified them further], and they ran
fleeing from their houses into the fields.
Then Allah sent upon
them clouds which shaded them from the
sun, and they found it cool and pleasant, so
they called out to
one another until they had all gathered
beneath the
cloud, then Allah sent fire upon them. That
was the
torment of the Day of Shadow, indeed that
was the torment of a
Great Day.
‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar‘s commentary on “the torment of the Day of Shadow”
in the above verse is that the intense heat lasts for seven days. Another
classical commentator, Abd al-Rahman bin Zayd bin Aslam said that the intense
heat burned them like roasted insects.
There are many views about the Prophet Shu‘ayb’s
later life and where he died:
1. Shu’ayb and
his followers settled in Mecca where he died .
2.
Shu ayb settled in Hadramaut
where he died .
3.
He was buried in Shaban near the Valley of Ibn ‘Ali where people came to
visit his grave.
4. The tomb of Shu‘ayb is overall saved in Jordan,
2 km west of the town of Mahis in an area called Wadi Shuʿayb. Other spots in the Sinai Peninsula and
Palestine were also claimed to be his tomb.
5. Another site recognized by Druze as the tomb of
Shuʿayb, Nabi Shu‘ayb, is located in Hittin in the Lower Galilee. Each year on
April 25, the Druze[3]
gather at that site to discuss their community
affairs.
(CIVIC, 12
September, 2014)
المراجع :
المكتبة الشاملة
تفسير الطبري (ت. 310 هـ)
تفسير القرطبى (ت. 671 هـ)
تفسير ابن كثير (ت.
774 هـ )
Abu
Khalil, Dr. Shauqi . Atlas of the Qur’an. Riyadh, Darussalam, 2003
Ali,
A.Yusuf. The Meanings of the Holy
Qur’an
Asad,
Muhammad. The Message of the Qur’an.
Holy
Bible: New International Version, 1973
http://muslim-academy.com/hazrat-shuayb-great-prophet/
https://www.facebook.com/notes/way-to-jannat/prophet-shuayb- as/473939456042373
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/172195/Druze
[2] The term الصَّيْحة (al-ṣayḥah,
“the vehement cry/sound”) in the Qur’an is found in Q. 11:67; 15:73 and 83. The
term صَّيْحة (ṣayḥah, “a vehement cry/sound”) in the Qur’an is found
in Q. 36:29, 49, and 53; 38:15, and 54:51. In Q. 63:4 it means “a cry”. The
term الصَّاعِقَة , “the thunderbolt” or “the sound of thunder” in the Qur’an is found in Q.
2:55; 4:153; 23:41; 29:40; 50:42, and 51:44. The term صَّاعِقَة, “a thunderbolt” or “a sound of thunder” in the Qur’an is found
in Q. 41:13.
[3] The name “Druze” is taken from Arabic “Durūz”, plural
form of “Darazī”, the followers of Muḥammad al-Darazī, the subordinate of Ḥamzah
ibn ʿAlī, the founder of Druze religious beliefs which developed out of
Ismāʿīlite teachings. They believed that al-Ḥākim bī-Amr Allāh (“Ruler by the
Command of Allāh”), the sixth caliph (996–1021) of the Fāṭimid dynasty of
Egypt, whom they call al-Ḥākim bī-Amrih (“Ruler by His Own Command”) did not
die but vanished. One day he will return triumphantly to inaugurate a golden
age.
