Mistranslations of Islamic Scripture (English): Difference between revisions

According to this verse, [[Dhul-Qarnayn]] (Alexander the Great) went to the farthest place on earth “until he reached the setting of the sun, he found out that the sun sinks in a hole of muddy water, and found people there..” Many Muslim apologists have tried to explain away the absurdity of this verse by claiming it is simply a visual interpretation of what Dhul-Qarnayn saw, the sun apparently looked like it was sinking into the “horizon”. But such explanations are frustrated by the two Jalals in ''Tafsir Al-Jalaleen'' (p. 251) when he writes that the setting of the sun is in a well which contains a murky mud. We find the same interpretation and text in Tabari’s commentaries (p. 339) as well as in "Concise Interpretation of the Tabari" (p. 19 of part 2) in which he remarks that the well in which the sun sets "contains lime and murky mud". There is no “apparent” or “looks like” in these explanations. It perfectly reflects [[Muhammad|Muhammad's]] seventh century beliefs in regards to the [[A Qur’anic Understanding of the Universe|universes' cosmology]]. Furthermore, since the earth is in fact round, [[Flat Earth and the Qur'an|not flat]] as the Qur'an suggests, Dhul-Qarnayn could never have reached the farthest point, since he would simply be going around in circles. Again, the Al-Azhar site uses a deceptive translation, where it talks about the Atlantic Ocean, trying to convince the reader that as the sun sinks in the horizon it looks like it is sinking in a muddy hole. Really? Then why does the Qur'an fail to mention this? Other apologists tried to exonerate the Qur'an from this mistake by saying that it was Dhul-Qarnayn's “opinion” and not the Qur'an's. Again, really? Then why would Allah endorse Dhul-Qarnayn's views in {{Quran|18|84}} and give him special powers, if he was so naïve as to claim that the huge sun, which is approximately 1.3 million times larger than the earth, sinks in a hole of murky water on earth?