Surah Taha 20:90-104 - Quran Translation Commentary

(20:90) Indeed, Harun had told them earlier, ‘My people you have been put into a trial therewith, and surely your Lord is the Most Merciful; therefore, follow me and obey my command.’⁸⁷

(20:91) They said, ‘We shall remain squatted around it until Musa returns to us.’⁸⁸

(20:92) He asked, ‘O Harun! What prevented you when you saw them going astray?

(20:93) That you should not follow me?⁸⁹ Have you then disobeyed my order?’⁹⁰

(20:94) He replied, ‘O my mother’s son. Do not seize me by my beard or by my head. I feared that you would say, “You caused division among the Children of Israel and you did not observe my word.”’⁹¹

(20:95) He asked, ‘What then is your case, O Samiri?’

(20:96) He replied, ‘I saw what they did not see. So I took a handful of the prints of the Messenger and cast it.⁹² That is what my inner self suggested to me.’⁹³

(20:97) He said, ‘Begone then. It shall be your lot in this life that you should say, “No touching.”⁹⁴ And you have a promise that you will not fail you.⁹⁵ Now look at your deity to which you remained devoted. We shall burn it down⁹⁶ and then scatter it in the sea as dust.⁹⁷

(20:98) Surely, your God is Allah, besides whom there is no god but He. He circumscribes everything with His knowledge.’

(20:99) Thus We narrate to you some of the stories of what has been in the past, and thus We have given you a reminder from Us.

(20:100) Whoever turned away from it, indeed, he will carry a burden on the Day of Judgment.

(20:101) Abiding therein forever - an evil burden for them on the Day of Judgment.

(20:102) The Day when the Trumpet is blown; and We shall gather together that Day the criminals (all) blue.⁹⁸

(20:103) Whispering to one another, ‘You lived not but ten (days).’

(20:104) We know best what they will say when the best among them in ways will say, ‘You lived not but a day.’⁹⁹

Commentary

87. Although short, this sentence is rich in meaning. Harun first criticized the Israelites for their calf-worship by saying, “My people! You have been put into a trial therewith”; then he invited them to know and understand their Lord God by saying, “and surely your Lord is the Most Merciful”; then, thirdly, invited them to ponder over his own Prophethood by saying, “therefore, follow me”; and, finally, invited them to follow the Law by saying, “and obey my command.”

We may remind at this point that the epithet “Al-Rahman” has another meaning of “Al-Aziz”, (the Most Powerful) which seems better suited to this verse (Au.).

88. That is, “We shall wait and see what Musa has to say about it when he returns. Maybe he too will adopt its worship” (Qurtubi,Alusi).

89. The words, “That you should not follow me” have been understood in two ways: one, “Why did you not, O Harun, collect together all those who did not accept calf-worship and come away to me?” This is how Ibn `Abbas and Sa`id b. Zayd understood the verse. This corroborates well with Harun’s reply who said, “I feared that you would say, ‘You caused division among the children of Israel.’” That is, by breaking away with a party of them you caused division. However, Ibn Jurayj understood the words as meaning, “Why did you not, O Harun, follow my ways and prevent them from calf-worship?” (Ibn Jarir).

90. Harun was referring to Musa’s advice that he had said while leaving for Mount Tur. In Mawdudi’s words, “.. refers to Moses’ directives to Aaron when he delegated the leadership of the Israelites to Aaron in his absence as he headed to the Mount. According to the Qur’an, ‘And Moses said to Aaron, his brother: “Take my place among my people, act righteously and do not follow the path of those who create mischief”’ (Al-A`raf, 142).”

91. Although it amounts to the same thing, yet Mawdudi points out that it was not national unity that Harun was trying to preserve, but rather avoiding a civil strife among the Israelites who would all but murder him if he had forcefully tried to prevent the calf-worship. The Qur’an recorded Harun’s words elsewhere (7: 150), “My mother’s son, the people overpowered me and almost killed me.”

Had Harun acted forcefully, the initial division of the Israelites would have ultimately resulted in the appearance of a sect with die-hard members at its core. Therefore, Harun let things run their course until Musa’s return and hence his words to him, “I feared you would say, ‘You caused division among the Children of Israel’” (Au., with a point from Shafi`).

92. Ibn `Abbas, Mujahid and others have said that the Samiri saw Jibril and picked up a handful of dust from the hoof-prints of his horse. He threw it into the gold that was being melted saying, ‘Be a calf with a low,’ and then molded the calf (Ibn Jarir). There are reports from `Ali which say that the Samiri saw Jibril and his horse when he had come down to inform Musa of his appointment with his Lord (Alusi).

It might be worth noting that a similar “vision” was “experienced” by Shybah b. ‘Uthman at Hunayn. He himself reports that when the Muslims fled with the initial onslaught, exposing the Prophet to the enemy, it occurred to him (although in the Prophet’s army as a new-Muslim) that he could avenge the deaths of his father and uncle killed at Badr. But as he neared the Prophet he saw flames between himself and him, resembling lightning. He feared for his life and covering his eyes with his hands, traced his steps backward. The Prophet turned towards him and asked him to get near. When he got closer he said, “O Allah, drive Satan away from him” and asked him to go forward and fight the unbelievers. Shaybah said, “Messenger of Allah. I see a beautiful horse.” The Prophet replied, “O Shaybah. No one but an unbeliever sees it.” Then he placed his hand on his breast and said, three times, “O Allah, guide Shaybah.” With that his hatred for the Prophet changed to love. Earlier at Badr too a Bedouin onlooker had died of heart attack when he saw angels descending from the heaven. These “visions” should help us look at the so-called “Kashf” of the Sufis from a proper perspective (Au.).

In fact, the Sufi commentator Thanwi states that Kashf is not a prerogative of the Ahl al-Haq at all.

Another interpretation advanced by Abu Muslim as in Razi and in Asad’s words is as follows: “.. athar (literally “vestige” or “trace” [is]) in its topical sense of the “practices and sayings” or – collectively – the teachings of any person, and particularly of a Prophet; thus, he makes it clear that the phrase qabadtu qabdatan min athari ‘r-rasul fa-nabadhtuha signifies “I took hold of a handful [i.e., “something”] of the teachings of the Apostle and discarded it”: it being understood that “the Apostle” referred to by the Samaritan in the third person is Moses himself.”

In simpler words, the Samiri said that he had discarded a handful of the ways and practices of Musa. But there are two obvious problems in this interpretation. One, “athar” (in singular) is not used in the sense of “practices and sayings.” It is its plural “aathaar” that is used in the above sense. Second, since the Samiri was speaking to Musa he should have said “I took a handful of your practices and sayings and discarded them” and not “I took a handful of the Apostle’s practices and sayings and discarded them” (Au.). It is another thing, adds Alusi, that the construction of the sentence does not allow for such far-fetched meaning and interpretation.

As regards several doubts that might arise about the Samiri and his feat, Alusi sets himself to answer them but which we ignore since anyone who has not placed a limit to his mind and thought, can easily work out the answers by himself (Au.).

93. What the Samiri meant to say by these words is, “It was my inner self’s suggestion that if I threw the handful of dust taken from the hoof-marks of the horse, the molded calf would produce the lowing sound.” This is in the same report of Ibn `Abbas in Durr al-Manthur from which the story of Jibril’s horse has been taken.

94. Qatadah said that the Samiri was one of the great figures of the Israelites until they crossed the sea. But, thereafter he preferred to be a hypocrite. The punishment that Musa prescribed for him was that he should be boycotted at every level of interaction, to the extent that he was not even to touch anybody, nor anyone touch him (Ibn Jarir).

Yet the above does not make clear why the Samiri should have been saying to everyone who came close to him, “No touching.” Perhaps Musa’s words brought on him some kind of disease that caused him pain on human touch (Au.).

In fact Mufti Shafi` reports that the commentary work “Al-Ma`alim” has a narration that Musa had supplicated against the Samiri which brought a disease on him with the result that when he touched someone or someone touched him, both he and the other person suffered high fever.

95. The allusion is to the Day of Judgment (Ibn Jarir, Ibn Kathir).

96. A variant reading would render the meaning of “la-nuharri-qannahu” as “we shall reduce it to dust” (Kashshaf, Razi).

In fact, that is how Ibn `Abbas used to read and explained that since gold and silver cannot be burnt directly, the calf was first powdered and then burnt to ashes (Shawkani).

97. Yusuf Ali places his last word on the Samiri here. He writes: “Thus ends the Samiri’s story.. It may be interesting to pursue the transformation of the word Samiri in later times.. Whether the root of Samir was originally Egyptian or Hebrew does not affect the later history. Four facts may be noted. (1) There was a man bearing a name of that kind at the time of Moses, and he led a revolt against Moses and was cursed by Moses. (2) In the time of King Omri (903-896 B.C.) of the northern kingdom of Israel, there was a man called Shemer, from whom, according to the Bible, was bought a hill on which was built the new capital of the kingdom, the town of Samaria. (3) The name of the hill was Shomer (= watchman, vigilant guardian), and that form of the name also appears as the name of a man (see II Kings xii. 21); some authorities think the town was called after the hill and not after the man (Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics), but this is for our present purposes immaterial. (4) There was and is a dissenting community of Israelites called Samaritans, who have their own separate Pentateuch and Targum, who claim to be the true Children of Israel, and who hold the Orthodox Jews in contempt as the latter hold them in contempt; they claim to be the true guardians (Shomerim) of the Law, and that is probably the true origin of the name Samaritan, which may go further back in time than the foundation of the town Samaria. I think it probable that the schism originated from the time of Moses, and that the curse of Moses on the Samiri explains the position.”

98. The translation reflects the understanding of Alusi. Linguistically though, “zurqan” has been understood as “blue-eyed”, meaning perhaps, that eyes would have turned blue due to fear. Other suggested meanings are “blind” and “thirsty” (Au.).

99. At another place it is said in the Qur’an (79: 46),

كَأَنَّهُمْ يَوْمَ يَرَوْنَهَا لَمْ يَلْبَثُوا إِلَّا عَشِيَّةً أَوْ ضُحَاهَا [النازعات : 46]

“The Day they see it they will think they did not tarry but an evening or a morning.”

In yet another place it said, (30: 55),

وَيَوْمَ تَقُومُ السَّاعَةُ يُقْسِمُ الْمُجْرِمُونَ مَا لَبِثُوا غَيْرَ سَاعَةٍ [الروم : 55]

“The Day when the Hour is called, the sinners will swear (that) they did not tarry (in the world) but for an hour.”

Scientists say that our universe is around 15 billion years old while humans have been on the earth for no more than 10 million years, no matter how generous the counting parameters. The ratio then of human stay versus the life of the universe works out to 1: 1,500,000 years. It works out that the so-called “modern age” is no more than a second in comparison to the age of the universe (Au.).