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The Islamic Whale: Difference between revisions
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==="Allah knows best"=== | ==="Allah knows best"=== | ||
"[[Allah knows best]]", in other words "the author knows what he meant", is not an interpretation at all. "Allah knows best" could be said about all Qur'anic verses. In fact, there could be a whole tafsir saying only "Allah knows best" to every verse. But it would be useless, because "Allah knows best" doesn't explain the meaning at all. | "[[Allah knows best]]", in other words "the author knows what he meant", is not an interpretation at all. "Allah knows best" could be said about all Qur'anic verses. In fact, there could be a whole tafsir saying only "Allah knows best" to every verse. But it would be useless, because "Allah knows best" doesn't explain the meaning at all. | ||
==Apologetics== | |||
Some Muslims, who consider the whale hypothesis to be false <ref>https://islamqa.info/en/114861</ref> and are embarrassed that this is part of their religion try to put forward arguments to prove that it is in fact not a part of their religion. | |||
===It's not in the Qur'an=== | |||
This is questionable. Nun is mentioned in the Qur'an 68:1 and it was used in another verse 21:87 to mean "whale". It is not clearly stated in the Qur'an that Nun is the whale which carries the Earth on its back, but the Qur'an speaks about mountains being like pegs, which supports the "whale cosmology". If there is no whale under the Earth, then there is no reason for mountains to function as pegs. | |||
Also when something is not in the Qur'an, then it doesn't mean it's not a part of Islam. The "5 pillars of Islam" are also not described in the Qur'an and they are considered to be a part of Islam. Islam (or at least the mainstream Islam) is derived from the Qur'an, hadith and sira. | |||
===The hadith is ''mawqoof''=== | |||
When a hadith (narration) is called ''mawqoof'', it means that it is not a quote originally from Muhammad himself, but it is from someone from the Sahaba (his companions). In this case Ibn Abbas. | |||
There is a fatwa which says that a ''mawqoof'' hadith can be used as evidence if nobody protested against it: | |||
{{Quote|Fatwa 217021 <ref>http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=217021</ref>|As for taking it as evidence, it means that we have to act according to it and consider it a source of evidence of the Islamic religion. Scholars have ten different opinions regarding that issue. The nearest of them to correctness is that '''if the opinion of the companion spread widely and no one went against it, then it is a source of evidence and a consensus by silence'''. However, if it did not spread or some other companions went against it, then it is not a source of evidence, but can be used as secondary evidence.}} | |||
The whale interpretation spread widely among the scholars and none of them discredited this story in any way. | |||
===Only the early scholars believed it=== | |||
As we've seen, the scholar Shawkani, who was born more than a thousand years after Muhammad's death, still wrote about the whale. So it's not just a matter of the early scholars. | |||
* 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. | |||
===It's from the Jews=== | |||
The Torah nor the Talmud talk about a whale, which carries the earth on its back. So this idea is not derived from Judaism. It was also said that Ibn Abbas ''probably'' learned it from Ka‘b al-Ahbar, who was an ex-Jew Muslim. A respected sunni scholar Ibn Hajar said this about Ka‘b al-Ahbar: | |||
{{Quote|Ibn Hajar Asqalani, Taqrib al-Tahdhib, Op Cit., p. 135.|Ka`b Ibn Mati` al-Himyari, Abu Ishaq, known as '''Ka`b al-Ahbar, is trustworthy'''.}} | |||
So "''It's probably from al-Ahbar''" is just an unsuccessful ''ad-hominem''. | |||
===Scholars can be wrong=== | |||
Everyone can be wrong. For example Muhammad could have been wrong when he assumed he is a prophet and Muslims can be wrong by believing in Islam. Since everyone can be wrong and this argument could be used against both sides, it is not a valid argument for any side. | |||
==Conclusion== | ==Conclusion== | ||