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 Topic: Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible

 (Read 5269 times)
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  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     OP - June 09, 2015, 02:41 AM

    a new interpretation of Surat al-Masad (Q 111), to be honest the traditional interpretation has always seems to be ridiculous.


    https://iqsaweb.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/celik_abu-lahab-jezebel/
  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     Reply #1 - June 09, 2015, 03:40 AM

    It seems like a stretch, given that the Biblical Ahab is not called "the Ahab" - ha-Ahab as the Hebrew (and some North Arabian languages) would have it. He's just named Ahab.
  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     Reply #2 - June 09, 2015, 06:44 AM

    This is actually an interesting place to start looking at the idea from. On point 1, "May the hands of Abu Lahab [Abu’l-Ahab] be ruined and ruined is he"--It is interesting to relate this to King Ahab, because in the literature, the hands of Jezebel were, along with the feet and skull, the only parts that it says were found of her body:

    Quote
    2 Kings 9:30 And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her eyes, and attired her head, and looked out at the window. 31 And as Jehu entered in at the gate, she said: 'Is it peace, thou Zimri, thy master's murderer?' 32 And he lifted up his face to the window, and said: 'Who is on my side? who?' And there looked out to him two or three officers. 33 And he said: 'Throw her down.' So they threw her down; and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses; and she was trodden under foot. 34 And when he was come in, he did eat and drink; and he said: 'Look now after this cursed woman, and bury her; for she is a king's daughter.' 35 And they went to bury her; but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands. 36 Wherefore they came back, and told him. And he said: 'This is the word of the LORD, which He spoke by His servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying: In the portion of Jezreel shall the dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel; 37 and the carcass of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel; so that they shall not say: This is Jezebel.'


    Also, in 1 & 2 Kings, where the stories of Ahab and Jezebel are, "hand" is a synonym for "power". The phrase "in[to] your hands" or "into his hands" appears in all but one of the chapters in Ahab's timeline, in some as many as 5 times, so it was clearly something that meant a great deal to those authors. In Kings, having a thing in your hands meant you had power and control over it, and so this probably indicates that the people who did the writing didn't feel they had a lot of power over their lives.

    Another thing that is worth noting is that it was very common in Jewish, and later Christian, literature to refer to people in power by euphemisms, and in particular to make those euphemisms sound historical so as to pass off the criticism of the current leader as a criticism of a long-dead leader to the uninitiated. This happens in a great deal of the literature, and Jezebel in particular was a very popular name to do this with, with Ahab also being somewhat popular. So it is possible that this was a similar kind of idea: whoever wrote this Islamic text intended for it to be about someone they were familiar with, hated, and couldn't speak out against because of a power difference; although the person's name would likely not have been related to the name "Ahab".

    On the second point, "His wealth will not avail him or that which he gained"--The thing that got Ahab and Jezebel cursed to have their blood lapped up from the ground by dogs and flesh eaten by dogs, respectively, was that Jezebel had a man murdered because Ahab wanted to steal his land. So, perhaps whoever wrote this had had their property confiscated by someone, felt it was unjust, and wrote this as a response--invoking the curses upon Ahab upon whoever did the confiscating or stealing of their stuff. It could also just be a reference to that part of the story.

    On the fifth point, "Around her neck is a rope of [twisted] fiber", Jezebel was thrown out of a tower, but not hung to death; maybe the author of this was alluding to that. Or, if my little thing about them being mad at someone is right, maybe the wife of that person had been hung or had hung herself, and so they included this in the past tense as a hint about who they were talking about--a famous person whose wife had died with a rope around her neck, perhaps someone they perceived as the wicked father of an unjust ruler. This does not necessarily have to be an Arab person, it could easily be a foreign king, perhaps Roman or Persian. I don't know much about the time when this particular passage was written or the local history, maybe this will ring a bell with someone else and they can chime in.

    In response to the criticism by Zimriel, although it is true that Ahab would not have been called "the ahab", if they were trying to make it "father of Ahab", that would have been something like אביו של אחאב (transliterated: aviv shal Ahav or Ahab), which does include a lamed next to the word, so it may have been an example of someone who couldn't write either language particularly well putting down what he thought it should sound like. Lamed can also be a prefix in Hebrew, and it means "to" or "for", so that is another possible explanation for whoever wrote this down thinking it should be written l'ahab (it's common now to mark where a break should be in a word, but wasn't common back then because they expected you to know--kinda like we don't mark the word bathroom as bath-room, we expect you to know to break it there and not say BA-threwm), maybe he was going for "father to Ahab" and just didn't speak very good Hebrew.

    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     Reply #3 - June 09, 2015, 11:19 AM

    a new interpretation of Surat al-Masad (Q 111), to be honest the traditional interpretation has always seems to be ridiculous.


    https://iqsaweb.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/celik_abu-lahab-jezebel/

    My goodness gracious .. you got a brilliant link hatoush..  let me read that again and may be write to the author of that link...   that is fantastic..  I think that 1 page analysis of that  surah 111 caught everyone with their pants down.  All historians  specially so -called Quran scholars/explorers  from western universities are useless in front of that brilliant one page article  on analyzing that surah

    well let me read that again...

    with best wishes
    yeezevee

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     Reply #4 - June 09, 2015, 11:29 AM

    ..............In response to the criticism by Zimriel, although it is true that Ahab would not have been called "the ahab", if they were trying to make it "father of Ahab", that would have been something like אביו של אחאב (transliterated: aviv shal Ahav or Ahab), .......................  maybe he was going for "father to Ahab" and just didn't speak very good Hebrew.

    well I would agree with that last point galfromusa ., who knows what happens to words and stories in some 2nd century BC when they move some 1000 miles from the point of their origin..  THAT TOO FROM ONE LANGUAGE TO OTHER LANGUAGE??   Errrrrr  anything could happen.. allah/aloo potato whatever knows the best.   With all the internet and instant communication we still get wrong story  in this 21st century for either political reasons or because simple mistake/bias of journalists..

      
    So dear  galfromusa,   explore more  in that direction from the Jewish books/stories of  Ahab, Naboth, Jezebel, and Elijah ..... and his 20 or 30 years of rule in good old Samaria....

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     Reply #5 - June 09, 2015, 12:11 PM

     
    a new interpretation of Surat al-Masad (Q 111),  .

    https://iqsaweb.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/celik_abu-lahab-jezebel/

      so that link says
    Quote
    Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible  Posted on May 26, 2015  by Ercan Celik*

    Quote
    In The Qur’an and Its Biblical Subtext, G. S. Reynolds observes that

    …scholars of the Qur’an accept the basic premise of the medieval Islamic sources that the Qur’an is to be explained in light of the life of the Prophet Muhammad…

    However, he proposes that critical Qur’anic scholarship not depend on prophetic biography (sīrah) or traditional Qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr), but rather,   …the Qur’an should be appreciated in light of its conversation with earlier literature, in particular Biblical literature…This argument necessarily involves an examination of both the relationship of Muslim exegetical literature to the Qur’an and the relationship of the Qur’an to Biblical literature.


    Abu Lahab IN Quran/tafseer

    Abu Lahab, meaning “the father of flame,” is identified as the uncle of the prophet Muhammad, ʿAbd al-ʿUzza ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, nicknamed Abu Lahab on account of his reddish complexion. He is said to have been a rich and proud man, and he and his wife Umm Jamil, sister of Abu Sufyan, are depicted as fierce enemies of Muhammad and the early Muslim community. There are many anecdotes in the Islamic literary sources about their verbal and physical attacks on the prophet. Some Qur’an commentators say that Umm Jamil used to litter Muhammad’s path with harmful thorns of twisted palm leaf fibres, and that this is the historical context for the final verse of Sūrat al-Masad: “Will have upon her neck a halter of palm-fibre” (Q 111:5).

    Abu’l-Ahab in Biblical Literature

    In searching the Hebrew Bible for a wicked man whose name resembles Abu Lahab, one finds Ahab (Hebrew: אַחְאָב), the seventh kings of ancient Israel (r. ca. 885-874 BCE), son of King Omri and husband of Jezebel of Sidon. We could read “Abu Lahab” alternatively, and without substantial change, as “Abu’l-Ahab,” father of Ahab. According to the Hebrew Bible, the father of Ahab is Omri, who is described in 1 Kings 16:25 as having acted “more wickedly than all who were before him.” His son Ahab, in his own time, “married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshiped him . . . Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1 Kings 16:31-33).

    Quote
    A Comparison of the Qur’anic and Biblical Characters

    There are some significant parallels between the qur’anic character of Abu Lahab and the biblical character of Abu’l-Ahab. To illustrate these, let us evaluate Sūrat al-Masad in light of the biblical account:

    May the hands of Abu Lahab [Abu’l-Ahab] be ruined and ruined is he. The biblical story of Ahab fits well with this verse, in both linguistic and narrative/thematic terms. The father is invoked for ruin. Omri was the first person to introduce the worship of Baal in Israel, for which his progeny are to be ruined. In Qur’anic Arabic terminology, hands (here, yadā) are symbolic of power and of progeny. The fate of Omri’s progeny is pronounced not so much in the tafsir literature as in the biblical texts.
    His wealth will not avail him or that which he gained. The Ahab of the Bible seems to have had greater wealth than the Abu Lahab of Islamic tradition; his great wealth failed to prevent his demise by God’s command.
    He will [enter to] burn in a Fire of [blazing] flame. Hellfire is an eschatalogical concept associated with unbelief, especially with the sort of idolatry instituted by Omri and Ahab.

    And his wife [as well]—the carrier of firewood. The feature of firewood (ḥaṭab) is key. The challenge at Mount Carmel consisted of sacrificing bulls on firewood in order. We can imagine Jezebel supporting the Baalist priests by collecting the best woods to burn the sacrifice easily. The image of Jezebel carrying firewood makes more sense of this verse than that of Umm Jamil dumping thorns.

    Around her neck is a rope of [twisted] fiber. Traditional exegetes struggle to explain the meaning of the rope of palm-fiber (masad). It may be better understood in light of the Jezebel story. The term masad appears to be a hapax legomenon in the Qur’an that might have a Hebrew root and be related to Jezebel’s violent death. This term begs for further examination along these lines.



    well there is more at that link.. I only posted  bits  and pieces of his article., The author  Ercan Celik  also says "* Ercan Celik is a certified public accountant in Turkey"

    My goodness....certified public accountant..... That Turkish accountant has given much better analysis of Quran than all those Scholars and Professors of Islam of  West and East put together..

    That is how one should analyze silly books/stories of all religions that originated in cave ages by some cave dwellers.   One has to be smart/intelligent CRIME INVESTIGATOR to analyze this  history of religious stories and books.   I  say, throughout the world,  In schools and colleges this religious history is taught as stagnated mud without using any commonsense or oxygen consumption in the brain.. it is just routine copy/pasted rubbish.   And that is NOT just for Islam but to ALL religions and their books/stories without any exception.

    And  I think It would be nice to look Quran again with different eyes, so called  verses in Meccan Surahs w.r.t New Testament  and the so called verses in Madinan Surahs w.r.t Old Testament

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     Reply #6 - June 09, 2015, 06:20 PM

    It seems like a stretch to me given that Surah 111 is clearly about hellfire -- see verse 3 -- and that is the presumptive reference of "Father of Flame."  In other words, the connection between Abu Lahab and "nāran dhāta lahabin", not to mention "l-ḥaṭabi" (meaning fireword) cannot be accidental in my mind.  Also, hellfire is not usually something that Biblical tradition directs at OT figures.  Hellfire is for contemporaries who fail to heed the message, not so much for figures of the past.

    Basically I agree with Reynolds that this is metaphorical.
  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     Reply #7 - June 09, 2015, 09:16 PM

    Also, hellfire is not usually something that Biblical tradition directs at OT figures.  Hellfire is for contemporaries who fail to heed the message, not so much for figures of the past.



    With Jewish authors, this is because the person would have already left Geh-hinnom (Arabic Jahannam), as the maximum stay you could have there would be a year. I wrote a two and a bit page paper about this, it's here: oh hell

    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     Reply #8 - June 09, 2015, 09:30 PM

    Yeah, totally agree.  It's only with Christianity that you start to see a real heavy hell emphasis emerge, and it's not directed towards the ancient figures of the past, it's directed towards contemporaries.  That process continued on a trajectory from Christianity to Islam, where the hellfire is just unrelenting, and almost all of it is directed towards the contemporary unbelievers who refuse to heed the message and the coming Day of Judgment.  I see Q 111 as just another example of that Qur'anic polemic against the unbelievers who are bound for hell after the Hour, not a homily on scripture (though I would be interested if somebody could find a better example of biblical or apocryphal literature, Ahab doesn't work for me).
  • Who were Abu Lahab and His Wife? A View from the Hebrew Bible
     Reply #9 - June 09, 2015, 09:45 PM

    The edits were to figure out how to do the link properly, lol. Anyway. The later texts do talk a lot about sending people to hell, even when they're using the name of a person from the past--like I said in my earlier post in this thread, they liked using Ahab and Jezebel's names to refer to their contemporaries who they hated, and often left a clue about who it was. The Christian book of Revelations does this a lot, and even does it with the name Jezebel, so it's a good example:

    Quote
    Revelations 2:18 And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass;
    19 I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.
    20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
    21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.
    22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
    23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
    24 But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.
    25 But that which ye have already hold fast till I come.


    Jezebel was almost certainly not the actual name of the woman the author hated. So it's a euphemism for a real woman, and the author provides clues as to who it is: she calls herself a prophetess (something the more historical Jezebel never did; the older Jezebel story has her keeping a couple hundred prophets of Ba'al on her payroll). Jezebel of Revelations also is encouraging, or complicit in, what the author perceives as sexual immorality, and eats things sacrificed to idols--which was a major issue for the first century church, with Paul saying it is fine but Acts saying it is a sin.

    So this is a very common trope, with people being called Jezebel or sometimes Ahab, for doing things whoever wrote the text didn't like. Another thing they did was calling them the name of a country that no longer existed (eg "Babylon is fallen, is fallen"--Isaiah 21:9, Rev. 14:18 & 18:2)--this protected them against whoever the king was they were ACTUALLY writing against, should the documents fall into his hands, because they could just say "it's not about you, see, it says Babylon/Pharoah/Assyria/etc--they've been dead for centuries!" But they always provided clues about who they really meant, usually in the guise of being a similarity between the old story and the new one, so the initiated could tell.

    That process continued on a trajectory from Christianity to Islam, where the hellfire is just unrelenting, and almost all of it is directed towards the contemporary unbelievers who refuse to heed the message and the coming Day of Judgment. 


    I was commenting to someone about that in a chat the other day. In really ancient times, people could say "My god is stronger than your god, and to prove it, I'll beat the crap out of you!" But with the rise in monotheistic traditions and the movement of power from warring city-states to huge empires, that became a lot harder. So perhaps the evolution of the horrors of hell is a response to that--"My god is stronger than your god, and to prove it, I may not be able to beat the crap out of you, but you better believe he will! With FIRE! FOREVER! And there will be foul smells! and vile food! and you'll feel all alone!"

    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
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