March 28, 2024

An Infidel Reads Sūrah 72

This is the 14th part of this series, reading The Qur’an; A New Translation by Abdel Haleem. We’ll occasionally compare that to other translations and with tafsirs for clarification. We’re also reading each “chapter” [surah] in order of revelation rather than the order in which they are typically printed. If you missed some of this series, you can see:
my 1st post on surahs 1 & 2.
my 2nd post on surahs 96, 68 & 73.
my 3rd post on surahs 74, 111 & 81.
my 4th post on surahs 87, 92, 89, 93, 94 & 103.
my 5th post jumping to surah 18.
my 6th post on surahs 100, 108, 102, 107, 109 & 105
my 7th post was on surahs 113, 114, 112 & 53.
my 8th post on surahs 80, 97, 91, 85, 95 & 106.
my 9th post on surahs 101, 75, 104 & 77.
my 1oth post on surahs 50, 90 & 86.
my 11th post on surah 54.
my 12th post on surah 38.
and my 13th post on surah 7

Sūrah 72 (Al-Jinn) The Genie

Translator, Abdel Haleem says this is a “Meccan sura that gives an account of what a group of jinn said when they overheard a recitation of the Qur’an and realized its truth”. To paraphrase that, after talking to an angel, Muhammad is now going to tell us what a bunch of genies told him. Seriously!

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So the djinni heard the Qur’an and “realized its truth”?

Forgetting for the moment that the only way to realize the truth of anything is to realize how to show the truth of it or prove it to be true, which we obviously haven’t been able to do with anything we’ve read in this book so far, let’s now remember that this surah begins by telling us what genies say to each other!

1Say [Prophet], ‘It has been revealed to me that a group of jinn once listened in and said, “We have heard a wondrous Qur’an, 2that gives guidance to the right path, and we have come to believe it.

Genies! Supernatural efreeti created out of fire by Allah, according to human myth-makers who weren’t there. Genies! Who supposedly exist in the supernatural realm, yet they didn’t believe in Allah until they heard the Qur’an?! Not even the whole Qur’an either, but just the parts we’ve read so far, which had no perceptible truth in it but quite a lot wrong with it. How could even fictional air and fire elementals believe in that?

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Remember also that in Islam, the genies are both angelic and demonic at the same time, being a heavenly host made out of fire. So like a choir of Heaven’s devils, as opposed to a pack of Hell’s Angels?

Amusingly, we recently had a video discussion in two parts (One and Two) wherein an Islamist apologist tried to pretend that there are no scientific errors in the Qur’an. I wanted to make it a whole series, covering a list of more than 60 such errors found so far, but the apologist dropped out after hours of abject failure to defend the Qur’an’s claim that sperm comes from between the backbone and the ribs. This is the first surah we’ve covered since then, and it begins by talking about what genies believe!

Anyone who doesn’t believe in God must feel foolish knowing that even genies believe in God, right? Unless you don’t believe in genies either.

Before I could believe what Muhammad says genies believe, I would need to hear it from a djinn directly! Because until that happens, I can’t believe in genies! Nor devils nor angels nor any “supernatural” [magic/imaginary] blended combination thereof.

We shall never set up partners with our Lord––

Quran.My seems to have a more eloquent translation: “we shall not join (in worship) any (gods) with our Lord.”

3and that He––exalted be the glory of our Lord!––has neither spouse nor child.

There you go, Christians. Your religion is wrong, because genies said so. So how could there be any doubt? God can do anything he wants, but he can’t father any children. Even though Zeus, Odin and Krishna could all do that.

4Outrageous things have been said about God by the foolish among us, 5although we had thought that no man or jinn would [dare to] tell a lie about Him.

I note that those who believe in God can’t seem to tell the truth about him either.

6Men have sought refuge with the jinn in the past, but they only misguided them further.

Then why should we trust genies now?

7They thought, as you did, that God would never raise anyone from the dead.

8We tried to reach heaven, but discovered it to be full of stern guards and shooting stars.

Quran.My says “we found it filled with stern guards and flaming fires”. So Heaven is a flaming cauldron full of fiery demon guards? Sounds more like that other place.

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9we used to sit in places there, listening, but anyone trying to listen now will find a shooting star lying in wait for him

Al-Islam.org translates this as “we used to sit there in stations to eavesdrop, but any who intends to eavesdrop now will find a shooting star watching him in ambush”. So does this mean Hitchens was right? Heaven really *is* a celestial North Korea?

10[so now] we do not know whether those who live on earth are due for misfortune, or whether their Lord intends to guide them. 11Some of us are righteous and others less so: we follow different paths. 12We know we can never frustrate God on earth; we can never escape Him. 13When we heard the guidance we came to believe: whoever believes in his Lord need fear no loss nor injustice.

You’re a supernatural being, a genie, essentially the same thing that God is. So if a genie believes in his own existence, and that of other genies, then it would be easy enough to believe that God exists too.

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Beyond that, you just said you’ve been to Heaven and had to escape under fire, but that you can never escape God, and you knew all that before you heard the Qur’an. Yet you didn’t believe until then?

If I already believed in God, reading the Qur’an would cause me to question that belief.

14Some of us submit to Him and others go the wrong way: those who submit to God have found wise guidance, 15but those who go wrong will be fuel for Hellfire.” ’

Yeah, yeah, I know. Believe the insane ravings against all reason or you’ll be sorry. I get it. But how come after reading the Tanakh, plus the Christian addition (in violation of Deuteronomy 12:32 & Proverbs 330:6) and now 42 surahs of the Qur’an, I still haven’t seen any hint of the wise guidance you speak of? Instead of hearing apologists make excuses trying to conceal scientific errors in all these sacred tomes, maybe I should ask them to show me where God ever offered any wise guidance? I already did a video on What the Bible Ought to Say, which should help set those expectations.

16If they had taken to the right way, We would have given them abundant water to drink– – 17a test for them––but anyone who turns away from his Lord’s Revelation will be sent by Him to spiralling torment.

Surah.My interprets this as “If they (the Pagans) had (only) remained on the (right) Way, We should certainly have bestowed on them Rain in abundance. “17That We might try them by that (means). ” Why is having abundant rain a test? Abdel Haleem says, “In the Qur’an, plenty is as great a test as privation, if not greater”.

Al-Islam.org offers quite a lot of explanative commentary, really a good source for this sort of study! They note the uncertainty of whether all of this is the jinn talking to Muhammad or whether some parenthetical comments in there might be God talking instead. Since the genies are saying some things only God should say. To my mind, since genies and gods are pretty much the same thing anyway, then what’s the difference?

18Places of worship are for God alone–– so do not pray to anyone other than God– – 19yet when God’s Servant [Muhammad] stood up to pray to Him, they pressed in on him. 20Say, ‘I pray to my Lord alone; I set up no partner with Him.’ 21Say, ‘I have no control over any harm or good that may befall you.’ 22Say, ‘No one can protect me from God: I have no refuge except in Him.

That is how this particular delusion is perpetuated.

23I only deliver [what I receive] from God–– only His messages.’

Which are usually transmitted telepathically in a manner that looks disturbingly similar to psychosis and sounds suspiciously like the ravings of a mad man.

Whoever disobeys God and His Messenger will have Hell’s Fire as his permanent home:

Once again, if the order came from God, no one could ignore it nor disobey it. We can and do only because the orders obviously come instead from self-appointed messengers pretending to speak for God, and wanting to be afforded undo reverence for that reason.

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24when they are confronted by what they have been warned about, they will realize who has the weaker protector and the smaller number.

And what if that dreadful event never comes? What is the expiration date on that prophecy? Because whatever it is, I’m calling your bluff.

25Say, ‘I do not know whether what you have been warned about is near, or whether a distant time has been appointed for it by my Lord.’

So there is no expiration date. That’s the only way to keep this empty threat going forever.

26He is the One who knows what is hidden.

Yet he himself is hidden, and he keeps hidden, along with everything he knows and all the “wise guidance” that he never shared with anyone.

27He does not disclose it except to a messenger of His choosing.

Of course. That’s why God’s assorted prophets are always so questionable, and the things they say are always so absurdly silly.

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He sends watchers to go in front and behind 28to ensure that each of His messengers delivers his Lord’s message: He knows all about them, and He takes account of everything.

Then explain the conflict between Sunnis and Shia, as well as the Yazidis. Explain the conflict between all the Christian denominations, as well as their very existence in the first place. Then explain why it is that each of the big three Abrahamic religions have been at war with each other continuously each since their inception.

 

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