Monday, February 23, 2009

Qur'an: the Fig

In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy

By the fig, by the olive, by Mount Sinai, by this safe town, We* create man in the finest state then reduce him to the lowest of the low, except those who believe and do good deeds- they will have an unfailing reward. After this, what makes you [man] deny the Judgement? Is not God the most decisive of judges?

*Again, We? I don't expect the answer to be particularly profound, but this does seem to keep coming up and I would expect the Lord's "I" instead.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the English language--Royalty also uses "WE" instead of "I"

Anonymous said...

By the way, There are 99 names of God in Islam. Language needs to "define" ---that is the purpose of language. But God cannot be defined. So, rather than confine the concept of "God" to a single label/word many "labels" are used so as to represent the vastness of the concept of "God"
---not sure if I explained it well--please ask if you have questions.

Curious Monk said...

Oh, of course the Christian Bible has plenty of the same issues- off the top of my head, i'd say "let us make man in our image" is ambiguous in context. we take it to mean the trinity, but i'm pretty sure the hebrew writer didn't. so, consider me clarified.