Luqman of The Scroll, Luqman of The Qur'an: Wisdom Traditions in Conversation With Tafasir

 

Tricia Pethic Dr. Michot

   r Survey 5/11/2011

              n of the Qur ᵓ ᵓ   n: Wisdom Traditions in Conversation with Tafa   r

odest the rophet uh   ammad was reported to have said ‘can onl bring about good. When this saying was told by ᶜmra   n b. usan d.  a ompanion of the rophet another ompanion us   ayr b. Kaᶜ b  countered with a different saing from another source: sou rce: t is written in the hikma that ‘modest is partl gravit and partl imperturbabilit. ᶜmra   n replied in irritation ‘ am telling ou about the essenger of God and ou are telling me about 1  your scroll!”   The above quote demonstrates the tension that existed, and continues to exist, between the acceptance of wisdom traditions, and the revelation or inspired words of prophets. Do the latter render the former obsolete? ᶜ   ‟ discomfort with consulting a scroll while a prophet lived among his people, seems at odds with the fact that the Qur ᵓ            n, appears to lend credence to the already-known    nian wisdom that then circulated, just as it did for other well-known figures such as al-Khidr. The Companions‟ readiness to hear nonQur ᵓᵓ          n may surprise segments of the Muslim community who are closer perhaps to ᶜ   ‟        y‟.     ayr was not alone,   

  y   mit and other Companions. While some figures are mentioned in the      n by name, the identities of others are furthe     Qur ᵓᵓ      dith, while the identities of others are left entirely vague in both sources.     r literature is a valuable resource that  provides an indication of what sources were turned to throughout the ages in order to resolve

1Dimitri

Gutas, “C Arabic Wisdom Literature: Nature and Scope,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 101, No. 1( Jan-Mar 1981): 49.  

1

 

         dith, an intertextual approach, or wisdom traditions as demonstrated here.

   n, According to God and His Messenger

Compared to            n, what comes down to us from the Qur ᵓ ᵓ   n and ah   dith of the Prophet is comparatively small. The Th e modern commentator,    di, (d.1979) relates from     ‟ (d. 833)    rah an encounter between the Prophet and y   mit, who compared his speech to that tha t of         ‟  which was in his possession.        n?) asked to hear its contents. He approved of them, but then recited from the Qur ᵓ ᵓn, saying that what he had was better.    

        (d.1373)  notes, “   n.        r (d.1373)     mad recorded that Ibn ᶜUmar said, "The Messenger of Allah said, „   n the Wise used to 2

say: when something is entrusted to the care of o f Allah, He protects it. ‟”  It may be useful for

           n were revealed in relation to the above anecdote     ‟          y 

               n revealed to him. I will now turn to a brief exploration of these verses.

***

2

 http://www.tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=31&tid=40757

2

 

 3

 

 nd remember when uqma  n said unto his son, when he was exhorting him: O my  

“ 

dear son! Ascribe no partners unto Allah. Lo! to ascribe partners (unto Him) is a tremendous wrong (13) And We have enjoined upon man concerning his partners - His mother beareth him in weakness upon weakness, and his weaning is in two years - Give thanks unto Me and unto thy  parents. Unto Me is the journeying. (14) But if they strive with thee to make thee ascribe unto Me as partner that of which thou hast no knowledge, then obey them not. Consort with them in the world kindly, and follow the path of him who repenteth unto Me. Then unto Me will be your return, and I shall tell you what ye used to do (15) O my dear son! Lo! though it be but the 3

 http://quran.com/31

3

 

weight of a grain of mustard-seed, and though it be in a rock, or in the heavens, or in the earth,  Allah will bring it forth. Lo! Allah is Subtle, Aware. (16) O my dear son! Establish Establish worship and enjoin kindness and forbid iniquity, and persevere whatever may befall thee. Lo! that is of the  steadfast heart of things. (17) Turn not thy cheek in scorn toward folk, nor walk with pertness in the land. Lo! Allah loveth not each braggart boaster. (18) Be modest in thy bearing and subdue 4

thy voice. Lo! the harshest of all voices is the voice of the ass. a ss. 19” [ 31:13-19, 31:13-19, Pickthall]  

ᵓ   n In verse 13,       .         t, the Qur ᵓ often changes point of view and in in verses 14-15, the speaker is God. The fact that verses 14-15 are spoken by God is not n ot only borne out by the text itself, but also in the hadith literature. Several commentators say that these verses, which enjoin en join unto mankind (insan) duty towards

  .  .     parents, are in fact descending with regard      aᶜd               s .      ammad ibn   s [Ibn ᶜ   r al  5

(d.1373) who  who derives Yaᵓqub al-Fairo 817/1414)].  It is also the opinion of Ibn Kat   di (d. 817/1414)].   r (d.1373) from al-    aᵓ‟ mother who took up a hunger strike in hopes that her son   ni  y   would abandon Islam. Here he is counseled to continue his good treatment, but not to heed her demands. The Qur ᵓ ᵓ         aᵓd by name, and opens this advice to anyone    in similar circumstances. Then         n who finishes his advice to his

ᵓ   ‟    son in verses 16-19. This is the entirety en tirety of the Qur ᵓ   n.

   n, According to Popular Lore 4

 http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/qur http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/quran/031.qmt.html an/031.qmt.html   http://altafsir.org/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=2&tTafsirNo=73&tSoraNo=31&tAyahNo=14&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0 5

&LanguageId=2

4

 

   di (d.1979) also informs us that the pre-Islamic poetry of ᶜImr ᵓ -y    d, al6

Aᵓ      arafa       n .       ammad Asad (d. 1992)         n   y  y   d Ibn Muᶜawiyah    7     -y P rophet.  But these were all       ni) in the sixth century just prior to the Prophet.

   d who lived a long life, second only to alreferences to a certain Luq    n from the tribe of ᶜ Khidr. These tales often echoed, and would continue           m, takes of 8

Aesop and Ahiqar, Greek and Hebrew figures respectively.  

n assumes the audience has prior knowledge of     The Qur ᵓᵓ      n. This is the case since no further mention is given of his identity, occupation, occupa tion, or where he lived.  lived.  These verses appear to have prompted discussion among the companions who apparently had no qualms about sharing the accumulated c      n; notably, their speculations concerning him are rarely attributed to the Prophet.  Prophet.  

    r (d.1373) notes, “    -         y         n said to his son: `Wisdom puts the poor in the company of kings.''' It was also a lso narrated that ᶜAwn bin ᶜ     n      y   y             m, then sit at the edge of the group, and do not speak until you see that they have finished speaking. Then if they remember 9 Allah, join them, but if they speak of anything else, then leave them and go to another group'.''   First, there are his origins; was he an Ethiopian slave or a Nubian?   bir bin ᶜAbdullah    bir holds he is the latter, as does Sa   ᶜd ibn al Musayyib, who once     n as a positive role model for dark-skinned people,

6

 Zafar Ishaq Ansari, Ed. Towards Understanding the Quran, Vol. 8 (Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 2007): 129.  Muhammad Asad.,The Message of the Quran, (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1980), 628. 8  B. Heller, “,” in Vol. V, Encyclopedia  Encyclopedia of Islam,  Islam, Ed. Ed.   C.E. Bosworth, E. Van Donzel, B. Lewis, and Ch. Pellat.. (Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1986): 812-813   Pellat 9  http://www.tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=31&tid=40757  7

5

 

“ Al-ᶜ ᶜd bin Al  ᶜi said, "ᶜ -   n bin Harmalah told me; `A black man came to Sa   Musayyib to ask him a question, and Sa   ᶜd bin Al-Musayyib          y                   l, Mahjaᶜ  the freed slave of ᶜUma  -              n the Wise, who was a black Nubian with 10

thick lips.''  

    n Ath-Thawri said, narrating from Al-Ashᶜath, from ᶜIkrimah,   r further notes that “y from Ibn ᶜAbbas”   [ ᶜ         n was an Eth.    lid ar-Ribaᶜi concurred and even shared a lengthy anecdote,

“      -   ᶜ     n was an Ethiopian slave who was a   r recorded that  carpenter. His master said to him, `Slaughter this sheep for us,' so he h e slaughtered it. [His master] said: `Bring the best two pieces from it,' so he brought bro ught out the tongue and the heart. Then time  passed, as much as Allah willed, and [his master] said: `Slaughter `Slaughter this sheep for us,' so he slaughtered it. [His master] said, `Bring the worst two morsels from it,' so he brought out the tongue and the heart. His master said to him, `I told you to bring out the best two pieces, and you       y           y    n said, `There is nothing better than these if they the y are good, and there is nothin nothing g worse than these  if 11 they are bad.'''   The companions also pondered his spiritual status; was he a prophet or a merely a wise man?    bir bin ᶜAbdullah, Saᶜ   yy     s,     bir   hid as   r invokes Ibn ᶜ  part of the clear majority who view him as a righteous man. It was ᶜIkrima alone who thought 12

him to be a prophet.  

Although        ‟   y 

   m,       di attacks the same Orientalists whom he says 13

 provide fabricated stories in order to show the Qur ᵓ ᵓ   ‟   ?  .   In a somewhat contradictory fashion     ‟ Fables de Loqman le Sage was merely a translation of a work compiled in the thirteenth century and was not of

10

 http://www.tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=31&tid=40669  http://www.tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=31&tid=40669 12 Heller. 812.  13  Ansari. 130-131. 11

6

 

‟  own fabrication.     di, wisdom traditions seem threatening; they are              n.   n in the Qur ᵓᵓ   

   n and al-Khidr: Wisdom of the Ages Or Limitation of the Sages? ᵓ   -.   Another briefly mentioned Qur ᵓ      n, his existence points to the promise of lofty spiritual attainment for non-prophets; this is perhaps what causes the Sufis

ᵓᵓn. in particular to draw upon these figures at length, despite their brief treatment in the Qur    Some shared qualities of both sages emerge from the tafsir and popular traditions. Both are sages, who occasionally converse with prophets, who live extraordinarily long lives, and who are  both symbolically connected to green/vegetation.

The allusion to green as a symbol s ymbol of imperishable wisdom is borne out by      ammad Asad (d.1992) who considers al-Khidr as an allegorical figure:

“In the Tradition on the authority of Ubayy Uba yy ibn Kaᶜ b,  b, this mysterious Sage is spoken of as AlKhadir or Al-Khidr, meaning "the Green One". Apparently this is an epithet rather than a name, implying (according to popular legend) that his h is wisdom was ever-fresh ("green") and imperishable: a notion which bears out the assumption that we have here aan n allegoric figure symbolizing the utmost depth of mystic insight accessible to man .” 

We must turn to a Shi ᶜi commentary by Ayatullah Agha Mahdi Pooya (d. 1973) to find a

     n that seems to overlap with the descriptions of al-Khidr as the travelling sage who is affiliated with things fresh and green:

“                 .       yy  .      y         .           nus. Once, when he was asleep, angels came and asked if he would like to be Allah's deputy on the earth. To this, he replied that if it was a command from Allah, he would accept it, however, if Allah hadjustice asked among his desire he and would like tonot be excused because it was a great responsibility to dispense men, he could bear the burden. 7

 

 y   Et hiopian carpenter whom the Greek called   n is that he was an Ethiopian .…        y  y  to disclose their     .        d and discuss with him complicated 14      ….”   This Shiᶜ          n, from undisclosed sources. These sources appear to have been             -y      ᵓᵓ, such as al-Thaᶜlabi.15 

     n refuses the offer of prophethood and he also     d.    n and al-Khidr also converge in the type of knowledge bestowed upon them. Regarding verse 18:68, in which al-Khidr alludes to something which     has no

               zi‟       sa   “y    y       ᵓ   ᵓ -y   ᵓ   ᵓ     y.”                sa longs for in previous verses as two forms of knowledge, that of the outward (dh     

     in). His experiences with al-Khidr show   “  y   y ”       y    y  ‟  of an allegory is apt here.

The motif of two forms of knowledge is repeated in i n Ibn al-ᶜ‟      n, in his Bezels of Wisdom.      ‟   G 

“” 16which means knowing by experience, ex perience, as in His saying, We will surely test you      y  …. G   g  between knowledge acquired by direct [sensory] experience and absolute knowledge, direct

     .”

14

 http://quran.al-islam.org/ 812.  16  R.W.J Austin, Trans. Bezels of Wisdom, (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 238.  15 Heller,

8

 

           “[         ‟      ikma) led him to discover insights essentially similar to some of those furnished by  prophetic revelation. In other words, reason, if used properly, brings one to the threshold of

            .” 17  This, indeed, is wisdom for the ages.

But ‟      “    ”    y danger inherent in the argument (thus, the limitation of the sages). Dimitri Gutas‟ y into

       n constituted a written body of wisdom literature (        ayr b. Kaᶜ  y   mit seem to suggest), is useful here:      “  y     ᵓ   n did not acknowledge the y     „‟   ᵓ         ikma, apparently in order to avoid according any authority autho rity to collections of maxims. If God — as as the argument in favor of maxims would run — grants grants worthy mortals collections of maxims, which can be used, as discussed above, to guide proper conduct, cond uct, then any collection of established respectability, such       n, could be considered as God-given and hence equally authoritative with the Qur ᵓᵓ n. In fact there ar       .” 18    

The sages must be limited because theirs was not a revelation, although their wisdom was God-given. The failure to emphasize this fact opens the way to wisdom literature, with its long and difficult-to-verify past, devaluing revelation. Additionally, Gutas cites a detractor of the Prophet     .    rith, as evidence of a hidden body of written maxim literature; he accused the Prophet of doing nothing more than he did in having his scribes write extant ancient tales on scrolls. If this is the case, that writing down maxims was commonplace, this explains the matter-

  17

 John Renard, Ed.         m: Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious Life. (Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1998), 145. 18  Gutas. 53 

9

 

of-fact way in which some of the Companions Co mpanions resorted to such scrolls to understand the more

ᵓn. vague references in the Qur ᵓ    That some form of      ‟ y       

 C C .           nian wisdom in a seventeenth century manuscript of Coptic Cop tic sermons, as well as among the Syrian Melkite 19

Christians.   C   y        n from the

   y y “               . . 30….          —     —  ? ?—     .”20    ‟  It is clear that whenever the Qur ᶜ ᶜ   n mentioned a figure that the Companions were unfamiliar with, they received whatever the Prophet offered them in the way of explanation. ex planation. However, they were also content to draw upon a large corpus of stories that were either oral or

  .         r where one can find additional sayings that are not attributable to the Qur ᶜ ᶜ   n or to the Prophet. The significance of this is that the Qur    ᶜn appeared to have confirmed the integrity of certain figures who were at the time looked to for wisdom and inspiration. However, there was a limit to how much stock could be taken in these wisdom traditions, whose origins were geographically widespread. There was also a danger that

  “ ”  ld lead to people becoming more concerned with searching out and disseminating their contents, rather than acts a cts that for many people would be b e deemed more beneficial, for example, the memorization and dissemination of the Qur    ᶜᶜn with its confirmed revelatory status.            r tradition is hermetically 19

 Mark N Swanson, “C   Vol. 33. No. 3.   n the Wise,” Currents in Theology and Mission , ( Vol. June 2006): 246. 20  Ibid. 249. 

10

 

sealed off from the larger body of wisdom literature, in many man y cases it perpetuated it and allowed such wisdom traditions to live on, albeit in a more cautionary fashion.

11

 

Bibliography

Accessed May 15, 2011.