The Islamic Whale: Difference between revisions

* نٓ - ''noon'' - the name of the whale

* وَٱلْقَلَمِ - ''wal-qalam'' - by the pen (''wa-'' prefix means "and" or "by")

* وَمَا - ''wa-ma'' - and what

* يَسْطُرُونَ - ''yasturoona'' - they write

* ذَا ٱلنُّونِ } صاحب الحوت}

* {Man of the fish} companion of the whale (الحوت, ''al-hoot'')

* This doesn't explain the verse at all. If anything, it would mean that Allah puts random letters into his revelation for mankind, for no reason.

* Muhammad was illiterate and he did not write the revelations. He recited them. "Qur'an" means recitation. Maybe it was not just the letter ن ("n"), but the whole name نون ("nun"). It's just a matter of writing it. So maybe it was not meant to be a letter of the alphabet at all. Maybe it was the three-letter word N-u-n.

* The verse 68:1 "نٓ وَٱلْقَلَمِ وَمَا يَسْطُرُونَ" could be translated as "Nun '''and''' the pen and what they write", since و usually means "and". It seems that Allah is enumerating 3 things (and enumeration usually donesn't mix things and letters):

** Nun (ن or نون)

** '''and''' (و) the pen (ٱلْقَلَمِ)

** '''and''' (و) what (مَا)

** they write (يَسْطُرُونَ)

* The word Ar-Rahman is nowadays actually written as الرحمان, but in the old Uthmani script it was written without the ا (alif) before the ن. It was added later, to indicate the "aa" vowel.  

* A lot of verses start on other [[Muqatta'at|letters]] and putting them together doesn't produce any interesting word. So choosing just three of them and getting an interesting word could be considered a cherry-picking.

* The Qur'an used the word مِدَادًا (''midaadan'') for "ink" in the verse 18:109, while it used the word نون (''nun'') to mean "whale" in the verse 21:87. So it is more probable, that the meaning of nun here is "whale".

* According to this interpretation, this refers to the ink with which the Qur'an was written. Which is not very fitting, since the primary form of the Qu'ran is recitation. The word "Qur'an" itself means "recitation".

* About a century later after Shawkani wrote about the flat Earth on the back of a giant whale, non-Muslims from Russia managed to escape the round Earth and land on the Moon.

And finally a quote from Ibn Abbas himself, from the chapter '''“Do not ask the people of the Scripture about anything.”'''. Did he support taking interpretations of the Quran from the Jews? Let's see:

* Nun definitely means "whale", because Jonah (who was eaten by a whale) was called "man of the Nun".  

* The ''turjuman ul-Qur'an'' Ibn Abbas, along with the most respected Islamic scholars, both sunni and shia, agree that Nun in the verse 68:1 refers to the whale which carries the Earth on its back.  

* The Earth is supossedly attached to the whale with mountains. The mountains function as pegs.

** So the Islamic whale also helps to explain the verse 78:7 about mountains being "pegs".

* The scholars who based their knowledge on reading the Arabic Qur'an and hadiths believed that the Earth is flat and it is attached with mountains (as pegs) to a big whale.

* Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVhsVjXJzKM The Masked Arab - Islam & the whale that carries the Earth on its back]

* [[Scientific Errors in the Quran]]

* Zaify's article [https://medium.com/@galacticwarrior9/the-islamic-whale-debunked-1bc3a922b845 “The Islamic Whale” - debunked]

** ''"The argument attempts to prove that the Qur’an implies the Earth is carried on the back of a whale."''

*** No, the main point is that Muslims understood it that way.

** ''"...the matter at hand is a narration from Ibn Abbas rather than a direct claim made by a mufassir."''

*** Ibn Abbas IS a mufassir.

** ''"Ijtihad means independent reasoning."''

*** The Quran and the hadiths are the basis for reasoning of a Muslim. In Islam the Earth is flat. So within this ideology, it IS reasonable to expect something to hold the Earth.

** ''"...an example where Ibn Abbas narrates contradicting Isra’iliyat reports regarding the dimensions of Noah’s Ark..."''

*** Why he didn't say both versions in both narrations? It seems more likely that he narrated one version, but one of the hadith was corrupted.

** ''"Nobody is criticising Ka’b al-Ahbar - or Ibn Abbas for that matter - for narrating Isra’iliyat. Rather, we are castigating those present the Isra’iliyat as narrations from the Prophet (ﷺ) or opinions of the companions, and so say that they must be believed by Muslims."''

*** But this is about the interpretation of the Quran and Muhammad made dua for Ibn Abbas, so that he can know the correct interpretation. Did the dua not work? And if it worked, why Ibn Abbas didn't oppose The Islamic Whale hypothesis if it was a wrong interpretation?

** ''"Nun (ن), is known in Arabic as one of the muqatta’at... their meaning is only known to Allah."''

*** So how can you be sure that it doesn't mean whale?

** ''"The spelling of the two Nuns are different; they are only similar in pronounciation."''

*** No. They are exactly the same in pronunciation. The letter ن ("n") standing by itself is read as نون ("nun").

** ''"A comparison can be made with the English words hear and here. Although they sound identical, they have different meanings. It is not logical to claim that they have the same meaning because they have the same pronounciation."''

*** But we do NOT have ن and نون written differently by Muhammad or Ibn Abbas and then claiming that these differently spelled words have the same meaning. It was transmitted orally and it was pronounced "nun" in both cases. And how some people, dozens of years later, chose to write these orally transmitted traditions, is irrelevant.