Surat 72 - al-Jinn

[dklei...@gmail.com]

The 72nd surat of the Qur'an is named al-Jinn because it talks about
the jinn. This makes it one of the controversial surats because, of
course, nobody who accepts modern philosophy believes in jinn.

This is not mentioned too often, but if, like all pious Muslims are
supposed to do, you believe the Qur'an is the exact words of Allah,
then you have to accept the idea that jinn exist. I hope I can be
forgiven for doubting that any great number of Muslims believe in
jinn. Which implies, to me, that most Muslims do not really believe
the Qur'an is the Word of God, except, of course, when they are
required to affirm that they do.

The rhyme scheme in this surat is quite regular. Each ayat (one
exception) ends in a word break followed by a word of the form @-@-@
with two short vowels and finally a nunnated accusative. The set of
third consonants is severely limited and that fact may also be
significant. The third consonant is D 19 times (out of 28), B 5 times,
Q 3 times and X once. In fact the last 12 lines all have the final
consonant D.

The exception to this scheme, ayat 22, ends in a word with one more
syllable. The rest of the word follows the usual scheme. Only the word
break has not been followed.

The first ayat says "Say: It was revealed to me that some jinn
listened and then they said ...". What the jinn corporately said,
using the first person plural extends through the 15th ayat. In the
16th ayat the speaker in the first person plural is clearly Allah. So
we have a poem in 15 ayats about the jinn and an appendix in 13 ayats
which does not form a coherent whole and appears to be somewhat
confused.

Not all of the material in ayats 1-15 can be considered original. Ayat
3 simply reiterates and emphasizes the end of ayat 2. It is surely a
late intrusion. Ayats 6-7 are a brief anecdote about the jinn in the
third person and must not have originated here. This anecdote says
that people used to join the jinn and were a bad influence on the
jinn. These people denied Judgment Day.

About the jinn we learn that they believe in the Qur'an (that is,
those jinn who listened believed) and that they would not associate
any other deity with "our Lord" (the text does not say Allah). This
implies that they were worshipping the being they called "our Lord"
who is assumed to be Allah. At this point ayat 3 was inserted. It
still calls him "our Lord" and insists he has neither consort nor son.
This ayat is clearly anti-Christian polemic and is therefore quite
late. Then the poem says that there were foolish jinn who told wild
stories about Allah (here the text uses Allah). Then ayats 6-7 were
inserted to explicate these stories. Ayats 8-9 are a brief retelling
of the jinn's attempts to invade heaven. Ayats 10-15 expound further
on the fact that some jinn are good and some are not. They have
different religions (XRAQ). The Muslim jinn have normal Islamic ideas
about Judgment Day. No other aspects of Islam are mentioned.

If one wanted to get pedantic one could object that jinn cannot follow
Islam unless there is a jinn society very like human society. It seems
fair to believe that whoever wrote this poem believed exactly that.
The jinn marry and die. They transact business. They pray towards the
Qibla. There is nothing, unfortunately, to tell us where the jinn are.
Apart, of course, from the fact that they can sit around close to the
gates of heaven - but that is surely not their home. Once it is said
that Iblis (the devil) was a jinn. It is never said aloud, but it
seems as though the jinn are thought of as fallen angels. It not clear
to me how, in Islamic theology, an angel could fall. There are
problems about free will.

The appendix to the poem is too diffuse to summarize. In ayat 18 it
says that the mosques are Allah's so do not pray to anyone with (MO)
Allah. And in ayat 19 it mentions an 'Abdullah who was crowded when he
stood up to pray. Of course, the commentators take this 'Abdullah to
be Muhammad but actually they have no reason to do so. The Qur'an
knows how to identify Muhammad, but there is nothing here to suggest
that 'Abdullah is not some other man named 'Abdullah. Muhammad's
father was named 'Abdullah, for example.

[dklei...@gmail.com]

I have just observed that in Fluegel's edition of the Qur'an ayats 22
and 23 of surat 72 were combined thereby eliminated the one
irregularity of rhyme. The combined ayat is much longer than one would
expect. But this part of the surat appears to have been cobbled
together from fragments of diverse origin so an irregular size is not
surprising.