And When…

April 28, 2009, 7:18 am by dc-agape.

Surāh 82 – Al-Takwīr: The Folding Up

I will start each post on the Qur’an with a link to M Mohammad Ali’s translation of the Qur’an with his commentaries. 

Oddly if you only read the commentaries by M Yusuf and M Esed you will find that the opening prophecy of this surāh is about the end of the world and Judgment Day.  The first thirteen verses start with variations of “And when…”.  When read literally, this would mean that all of these events must take place before the Day of Judgment.  Since I have posted before about how long this will take for the literal interpretation to come into existence, I will not post about that again.  I will only remind my readers that when all the suns are dying is even further in the future than the death of earth and our sun. 

M Ali has a completely different take on these same thirteen verses.  He likens them to events that have already occurred here on earth.  First, he believes that the resurrection of humans occurs here on earth when they accept the Truth of the Holy Qur’an.  Very similar to some Christians believing that being Born Again is a resurrection of the human soul before death.  Following his concept of the followers of Allāh being “stars”, then the verse about the stars darkening is about the oppression of the Truth.  Passing away of mountains is actually the removal of obstacles for Islam.  Gathering wild animals is fulfilled by humans creating zoos.  The seventh verse prophecies about a one world nation.  That one will take a hell of a long time.  Interestingly, M Ali considers leaving the daughters uneducated is similar to the ancient practice of kill girl babies.  Yet today, women are not allowed to have an education in many Islam nations.  So it is obvious, just as in Christianity, that the followers of Islam cherry pick which interpretations they like best. 

The verses 15 through 25 try to prove that this message is not from a madman or magic or a demon.  The two proofs are extremely weak.  First, he attempts to use the rotation of the earth as proof that his message is as natural as the day and night.  The sun rises for every human on the planet, “God” does not speak directly to every inhabitant of this planet.  So the similarities are useless.  Second, he attempts to use the fact that he has hidden nothing from his followers.  Unfortunately this does not prove that he was not a madman nor someone possessed by a demon.  Many madmen have existed that claim to spread new values to humanity.  And, of course, he was not possessed by a demon…demons do not exist!  So as with his other attempts to “prove” the message of the Qur’an is the “Truth”, this one also fails.

The last two verses are quite telling.  All the commentators attempt to blow this one off on human faults keeping us from “knowing” Allāh.  But the direct translation of all five of my copies says the exact same thing:

81:28-29 For him among you who will go straight.  And you will not, except Allāh please, the Lord of the worlds.

There is no doubt that when this is read literally, it proves that we puny humans do not have freewill if Allāh exists.  All five of my translations say the exact same thing.  It may be a mistranslation, it may be my lack of knowledge of the Traditions of Men, but in the end the literal reading of these two verses leaves no doubt that in Islam we do not have freewill.  And it does not matter how much the believer protests, Allāh only allows us to feel like we have freewill.  Similar to it feeling like the sun rotates around the earth.

Posted in Holy Qur'an, Traditions of Men, Freewill, Readings | Print | 7 Comments »