Download Scott Andersen Section Leader: Semi Ertan 10/29/09 World

Scott Andersen
Section Leader: Semi Ertan
10/29/09
World Religions Paper #1
Smoke
The 44th sura of the Qur’an is titled Smoke. The main idea of this sura is that those who
do not believe in the message that Muhammad brings of the oneness of God, Tawhid, will be
punished by that very God. The sura goes about constructing this theme in two ways. The first
several verses introduce the revelation as being that of one all powerful God. The message He
sends to the profit is this, “There is no god but He; He gives life and causes death, your Lord and
the Lord of your fathers of yore (Qur’an 44.8).” Smoke was revealed to Muhammad at Mecca,
and the following verses speak of how it was not being received well by the people there and
how they would be painfully punished for their disbelief. From verse 34 through the end it once
again discusses the punishment of the sinners and their misery in hell. In the middle verses,
Muhammad’s situation is related to that of the Israelites in Egypt. The sura implies a parallel
between Muhammad and his followers who are being oppressed by the Meccan pagans and
Moses and the Israelites who were oppressed by the Pharaoh and the Egyptians. The sura
implies that the Meccans will be punished just as the Egyptians were for their persecution of the
Israelites. (Qur’an 44) The eventual result of preaching revelations like Smoke was that
Muhammad and his followers fled Mecca and took the particular actions that they did such as the
Jihad against Mecca.
To understand why the Meccan’s rejected the message that Muhammad brought,
proclaiming Tawhid, one must first understand the environment within which it was born.
Mecca was a city in west Arabia. The surrounding landscape was barren, and the townspeople
relied on one central well for water. The economic security of Mecca was dependent on the
trans-arabian trade and primarily the trafficking of frankincense which was of high demand in
the powerful neighboring Byzantine and Sassanian empires. (Knysh, The Qur’an:An Outline) In
western Arabia, Mecca was the primary center of polytheism. The shrine of the most important
gods and idols of the religion resided in the city. (“Muhammad”, 2009) This demanded the flow
of more people through Mecca and subsequently the development of tourist based income. It
was in this thriving, commerce center that Muhammad was born. His birth marked the end of
Jahiliyya, the age of ignorance, and began the Golden Age, the time of the prophet (Knysh,
Islam’s Formative Period...). His father was already dead by the time he was born, and his
mother died when he was six. As a result, he grew up with his uncle and grandfather.
Muhammad was a deeply religious individual who rejected the pagan ideals that were entrenched
in his culture. At the age of 40, in the year 610 C.E., he secluded himself to the mountains. It
was in a cave that the Archangel Gabriel appeared to him and delivered the first of many
revelations from God. The revelations were concealed from the public at first, but three to four
years after the first revelation, Muhammad began to publicly preach the word of God. (Knysh,
Islam in Space...)
The sura, Smoke, was revealed and preached at Mecca and carried a very specific
message to its inhabitants. As said before, the most fundamental belief of the Islamic faith,
Tawhid, appears near the beginning of the sura. As noted here, Muhammad brings them the
message, “How shall they be reminded, and there came to them an Messenger making clear (the
truth) (Qur’an 44.13).” The sura threatens those who do not accept this message. It is said that
there will be a smoke, “That shall overtake men; this is a painful punishment (Qur’an 44.11).”
The end of the sura damns the sinners and those that do not believe to hell. “Surely the tree of
Zaqqum, (Qur’an 44.43)” which is the fruit bearing tree of hell (“A Description of Hellfire...”,
2006), “Is the food of the sinful- Like dregs of oil; it shall boil in (their) bellies, Like the boiling
of hot water (Qur’an 44.44-46).” The sura claims that the shirks, those that give partners to God
and do not truly believe in Allah, will be punished and experience immense pain in hell. Once
again the sura reiterates this by following with, “Seize him, then drag him down into the middle
of hell; Then pour above his head of the torment of the boiling water: (Qur’an 44.47-48)” In the
meantime, the true believers, followers of Allah, will be rewarded and kept safe from this
misery. The sura promises salvation for the Muslims with these verses, “Surely those who guard
(against evil) are in a secure place, In gardens and springs; They shall wear of fine and thick silk,
(sitting) face to face... They shall not taste therein death except the first death, and He will save
them from the punishment of hell (Qur’an 44.51-53, 56).” The sura clearly lays out a
punishment for the shirks, and the only option of escape that it offers is through the acceptance
of Tawhid and Allah.
The Meccans, who bore the brunt of this threat, did not receive this message well. The
majority of the city had pagan beliefs. The sura was intended to be a warning, but the Meccans
did not heed it. This is made evident through the verse, “Nay they are in doubt, they sport
(Qur’an 44.9).” They do not take it seriously and even mock the word. Eventually they outcast
Muhammad all together. It is shown in the sura, “Yet they turned their backs on him and said:
One taught (by others), a madman (Qur’an 44.14).” They denied that Muhammad received the
divine word, rather they insisted that he was instructed in this doctrine by some other teacher.
As a result they acted hostile toward Muhammad and persecuted him and his followers. (Knysh,
Islam’s Formative Period...)
Even if some did believe Muhammad’s revelations, it was to their benefit to discredit him
for two main reasons. The first reason was that his proclamation threatened their lives. People
generally do not respond pleasantly when others threaten their lives. Panic would have forced
those who felt genuinely threatened to cast off his ideas, because it was safer if the statements
were false. Often in history, when one comes along speaking of tragedy and demise for the great
majority, the leaders step up to torture and persecute the minority in order to make them appear
weak and discredit their demands. Joan of Arc, based on visions from God, proclaimed that the
British advance on France during the Hundred Years War would be vanquished. After several
crippling defeats, the English were able to capture Joan, discredit her as a witch, and burn her at
the stake in response to the threat that she posed. (Bois, 1999) In this case, the Meccan leaders
were compelled to torture Muhammad and his followers to discredit his threats.
The other reason is that Muhammad’s message threatened not only the Meccan’s lives,
but also their economic security. (Knysh, Islam in Space and Time) As stated before, Mecca was
a center of commerce and trade. There was a high trafficking of people in Mecca because it was
the polytheistic center of western Arabia. This entailed visits to the large pagan worship center.
Much of the well being of the community was a result of the wealth accumulated from the
tourists and tradesman who were forced to pass through Mecca. Muhammad’s message
threatened the continuance of pagan worship. The leaders must have felt that abandoning the
pagan religion like Muhammad demanded would see Mecca drop off the map as a relevant
center for pagan worship. The result would most certainly have been a great loss in the tourism
and trade generated by the idol worship, and subsequently an immense decline in Mecca’s
economic success. Therefore the concept of Tawhid that Muhammad brought forth in sura’s like
Smoke threatened the survival of the pagan religion, which in turn threatened the well being of
the entire city.
In the middle, the sura wraps the idea of punishment around a similar historic
circumstance. Directly after relating the consequences for the Meccan pagans, the story of the
prophet Moses is remembered, “And certainly We tried before them the people of Pharaoh, and
there came to them a noble messenger, (Qur’an 44.17).” The rest of middle verses proceed to
tell an abbreviated story of the Israelites flight from Egypt. The verses state that they were saved
from the oppressive Pharaoh, “And certainly We delivered the Children of Israel from the
abasing chastisement, From Pharaoh; surely he was haughty, (and) one of the extravagant
(Qur’an 44.30-31).” These verses are consistent with how we today understand the historic
event of Moses leading his people out of persecution and slavery in Egypt.
Their case relates very closely with Muhammad’s predicament. He and his followers
were being oppressed by the leaders of Mecca, just as the prophet Moses and his followers were
by the Pharaoh and his companions in Egypt. The Israelites were chosen by God, “And certainly
We chose them, having knowledge, above the nations (Qur’an 44.32).” Now Muhammad was
bringing a message that he and his followers were chosen by God. It can be said that this would
heighten the Meccan’s fear that they may suffer the same fate at the hands of God as the
Egyptians did. The sura describes the Egyptians being swallowed by the sea, leaving all of their
property and wealth behind, “And leave the sea intervening; surely they are a host that shall be
drowned. How many gardens and fountains have they left! And cornfields and noble places!
(Qur’an 44.24-26)” It is said that the Egyptians suffered immensely in the Israelites wake. We
know biblically that Pharaoh’s people faced much more at the hands of God than drowning in the
sea. Their first born sons were murdered, their community was racked with plague, and famine
struck the land. This punishment is the example that the word of God articulates in Smoke when
dealing with the shirks of Mecca. It must have been hard for the Meccans to listen objectively to
Muhammad when he was threatening them with the same terrible fate that the Egyptians
suffered.
Muhammad’s revelation, Smoke, threatened the lives of Meccan pagans and the
economic livelihood that was generated by pagan worship centers. Because of the threats on their
lives and economy, the Meccans tortured and persecuted Muhammad and his followers. Like
Moses and the Israelites who were commanded, “So go forth with My servants by night; surely
you will be pursued (Qur’an 44.23),” Muhammad and his followers fled Mecca in the night
where they journeyed to the city that was then called Yathrib but now known as Medina. This
flight was made in the year 622 C.E. and is now known as the Hijra. It marks the first year of the
Meccan calender because of its importance to Islamic history. (Knysh, Islam’s Formative
Period...) The traditional hadith compiled by Sahih Bukhari claims that Muhammad sent forth a
messenger to Medina with these instructions, “...You are going to a nation from the people of the
Scripture, so let the first thing to which you will invite them, be the Tauhid of Allah...
(“Translation of Sahih Bukhari”, 9.93.469)” A growing number of people there embraced the
prophet as he shared his revelations. A religious community was forged at Medina, and as it
grew in power, Muhammad assumed the role of statesman and military leader. (Knysh, Islam in
Space...) Following the proclamation in Smoke, “On the day when We will seize (them) with the
most violent seizing; surely We will inflict retribution (Qur’an 44.16),” Muhammad used the
new power he had established at Medina to lead a Jihad, or holy war, against Mecca. After years
of conflict between the cities, Muhammad was able to overrun Mecca in 630 C.E with a force of
about 10,000 men. Many in Mecca finally accepted his message and joined the Muslims. In the
meantime Muhammad desecrated the idols that were previously worshipped around the sacred
black stone, called the Kabba, that was said to date back to the time of Adam, and converted the
pagan sanctuary to a Muslim shrine. (“Muhammad”, 2009) It can be said that Muhammad did
this in retribution to the oppression and torture he and his followers faced in Mecca, and as
acting on the word of God dictated in Smoke.
The suras were not given names by the prophet. They were later named arbitrarily as a
way to distinguish them between one another. The title of this sura, Smoke, is taken out of the
text from this verse, “Therefore keep waiting for the day when the heaven shall bring an evident
smoke (Qur’an 44.10).” After looking at the recurring theme of punishment throughout the sura,
it can be said that this title was not just randomly chosen to identify the collection of verses. It
was chosen also to represent the central theme between the verses. Smoke goes hand in hand
with fire, which is a common punishment from the divine in biblical tradition, and it is also a
representation of hell. Those who assigned the title would have done so in order to stay
consistent with the overarching theme of punishment revealed in the sura. Because it inspired
persecution from the Meccan pagans and laid out a course to be followed like that of the
Israelites, Smoke and other suras like it dictated the course of Muhammad and his followers flee
from Mecca. It also proclaimed and then inspired Muhammad to return to his home town
Mecca, conquer the city, destroy the pagan sanctuary and convert it to Islam.
Works Cited
“A Description of Hellfire:Its Food and Drink.” Islamreligion.com. 2006. 28 Oct. 2009.
<http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/357/>
Bois, Danuta. “Joan of Arc.” DistinguishedWomen.com. 1999. 28 Oct. 2009.
<http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/joanarc.html>
Knysh, Alexander. “Islam’s Formative Period and Sacred History.” Lecture 23 Sep. 2009
Knysh, Alexander. “Islam in Space and Time, the Five Pillars.” Lecture 21 Sep. 2009
Knysh, Alexander. “The Qur’an: An Outline.” Lecture 9 Oct. 2009
“Muhammad.” World History: Ancient and Medieal Eras. 2009. ABC-CLIO. 26 Oct. 2009.
<http://www.ancienthistory.abc-clio.com>
“The Qur’an.” Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement. 2007. University of South California. 16
Oct. 2009.
<http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/quran/>
“Translation of Sahih Bukhari.” Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement. 2007. University of
South California. 26 Oct. 2009.
<http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/buk
hari/>