Website: www.aaiil.uk
Quran says Jacob
(Israel) was righteous, Bible says he was a usurper
Friday
Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz,
for Lahore
Ahmadiyya UK, 3 November 2023
|
“Say: We believe in Allah and (in) what has been
revealed to us, and (in) what was revealed to Abraham, and Ishmael and Isaac
and Jacob and the tribes, and (in) what was given to Moses and Jesus, and
(in) what was given to the prophets from their Lord; we make no distinction
between any of them and to Him we submit.” — ch. 2, Al-Baqarah, v. 136 |
قُوۡلُوۡۤا
اٰمَنَّا
بِاللّٰہِ
وَ مَاۤ اُنۡزِلَ
اِلَیۡنَا
وَ مَاۤ
اُنۡزِلَ
اِلٰۤی
اِبۡرٰہٖمَ
وَ اِسۡمٰعِیۡلَ
وَ اِسۡحٰقَ
وَ یَعۡقُوۡبَ
وَ
الۡاَسۡبَاطِ
وَ مَاۤ
اُوۡتِیَ
مُوۡسٰی وَ
عِیۡسٰی وَ
مَاۤ اُوۡتِیَ
النَّبِیُّوۡنَ
مِنۡ
رَّبِّہِمۡ
ۚ لَا
نُفَرِّقُ
بَیۡنَ
اَحَدٍ
مِّنۡہُمۡ
۫ۖ وَ نَحۡنُ
لَہٗ مُسۡلِمُوۡنَ
﴿۱۳۶﴾ |
|
“And We gave him Isaac; and Jacob, a son’s son. And
We made (them) all good. And We made them leaders who guided (people) by Our
command, and We revealed to them the doing of good and the keeping up of
prayer and the giving of charity, and Us (alone) they served;” — ch. 21, Al-Anbiya,
v. 72–73 |
وَ
وَہَبۡنَا
لَہٗۤ
اِسۡحٰقَ ؕ
وَ یَعۡقُوۡبَ
نَافِلَۃً ؕ
وَ کُلًّا
جَعَلۡنَا
صٰلِحِیۡنَ
﴿۷۲﴾ وَ
جَعَلۡنٰہُمۡ
اَئِمَّۃً یَّہۡدُوۡنَ
بِاَمۡرِنَا
وَ اَوۡحَیۡنَاۤ
اِلَیۡہِمۡ
فِعۡلَ
الۡخَیۡرٰتِ
وَ اِقَامَ
الصَّلٰوۃِ
وَ اِیۡتَآءَ
الزَّکٰوۃِ
ۚ وَ
کَانُوۡا
لَنَا
عٰبِدِیۡنَ
﴿ۚ۷۳﴾ |
The first
verse which I read, and which occurs again in ch. 3, v. 84, says that Muslims
should declare to the world that they believe in all the prophets whom God sent
into the world and believe that those prophets too received revelation from God
just as the Holy Prophet Muhammad received revelation from God. The verse adds
the names of some leading prophets, and except for Ishmael, all the others
arose among the Israelites, that is to say, the Jews. They are called the
Children of Israel in the Bible and the Quran (banī Isrā’īl)
because they are descended from the prophet Jacob (Ya‘qūb) and the
Bible says that Jacob, after a certain incident in his life, was given the name
Israel by God. This incident is related as follows in the Bible. Once when
Jacob was alone, a man wrestled with him all night till the morning. The man
could not defeat him, and when he wanted to leave, Jacob said he would not let
him go until the man blessed him. This mysterious man then bestowed upon Jacob
the name Israel, because it means: “he struggles with God”. (See Genesis,
32:24–28.)
Some
believers in the Bible say that this man with whom Jacob wrestled was God
Himself. Others say he was an angel, who had come from God, and therefore
wrestling with this angel was the same as wrestling with God. No scholar of the
Bible, nor any Jew or Christian, is sure of what this incident means. From the
Muslim point of view, we could say that Jacob wasn’t wrestling with God
but wrestling to reach God, and he didn’t give up until God blessed him.
Of course, our interpretation would be that this wrestling did not happen
physically, but was seen by Jacob in a vision. At a later time in his life,
says the Bible, Jacob was directly told by God: “Your name is Jacob; no longer
shall you be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name” (Genesis, 35:10).
While Jewish and Christian religious scholars say that the word Israel
means “he struggles with
God”, it can also have a different meaning which is mentioned by Maulana
Muhammad Ali in his Urdu commentary of the Quran under verse 2:40. This is the
verse where the Quran uses the word banī Isrā’īl for the first time. The Arabic word asr (اسر), letters alif-sīn-ray,
means to make someone a captive or slave. In the Quran the word asīr
(اسیر) is used to mean a captive or slave, where it
says that the righteous people are those who “give food, out of love for Him
(God), to the poor and the orphan and the captive” (76:8). This word asīr
means the same as the word ‘abd (عبد).
So the first part of the word Isrā’īl means ‘abd. And
its second part is ’īl, which is used in the Bible to mean God. Therefore,
as Maulana Muhammad Ali concludes, the word Isrā’īl literally
means ‘Abdullāh. Hence the name given to the modern Jewish state, Israel,
the name which is very much dominating the news these days, means Abdullah, the
most widespread Muslim name. Perhaps both sides of this conflict might reflect
on how to be servants of God in the real sense. Perhaps one day Israel will be
Abdullah in the real sense.
Now I turn to the name Jacob. According to the Quran all prophets were
totally obedient to God and did not commit any sin. It says about prophets in
general that: “they are honoured servants — they do not speak before He speaks,
and according to His command they act” (ch. 21, v. 27). In other words, every
prophet only preached what God taught him, and he only did what God commanded
him to do. In the second verse I read above, it is stated specifically about
Abraham, and his son Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob, that they were all good and
righteous, ṣāliḥ as the Quran describes them. It says
that they were guides to people, and Allah revealed to them the teaching to do
good deeds, keep up prayer and give charity, and they were servants (‘ābidīn,
عابدین) of Allah.
However, it is unfortunate that the Bible portrays the character and
behaviour in life of Jacob as being quite the opposite of good and righteous. According
to the Bible, Jacob was born as a twin. His twin brother was called Esau, and
as Esau came out of his mother’s womb first, before Jacob, he was the elder
brother with birth-right of succession to the father. The story of Jacob in the
Bible contains incidents which present Jacob as always trying to rob his older
twin brother Esau of his birth-right by means of blackmail, deceit and
falsehood.
Jewish and Christian scholars of the Bible, who believe in the Bible as the
scripture of their religions, say that the very name Jacob indicates a deceiver
and usurper, who tries to take away someone else’s rights for himself.[*]
On one occasion when Esau returned from doing hard labour in the fields, and
was exhausted and starving, Jacob refused to give him food unless Esau gave him
his birth-right. It says in the Bible: “Esau said, ‘Look, I am about to die; so
what use is a birth-right to me?’ Then Jacob said, ‘Swear to
me first.’ So he swore to him, and sold his birth-right to Jacob. Then
Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils…” (Genesis, 25:34).
On another occasion, it is recorded that when their father Isaac, a prophet
of God, was on his deathbed, and was blind, he told Esau that he wanted to pass
on Divine blessings to him and that he should bring him some meat to eat, and
he would pass on those blessings to him. In the religion of the Israelites,
prophethood went from the father to a son, so Isaac wanted to pass his
prophethood and succession to Esau, as being the elder son. Their mother
Rebekah overheard the conversation between Isaac and Esau, and when Esau went
to the field to hunt an animal to bring meat, she told Jacob to bring food and
meat to Isaac and pretend to be Esau and receive the blessings intended for
Esau. But Jacob pointed out a problem with this plan. He said to his mother:
“Esau my brother
is a hairy man, and I am a smooth-skinned man. Perhaps my father will feel me,
and I shall seem to be a deceiver to him; and I shall bring a curse on myself
and not a blessing”.
The mother solved this problem in this way. She took Esau’s best clothes
and got Jacob to put those on, and she covered his hands and neck with goat
skins. Jacob then went to his blind father and said to him: “I am Esau your
firstborn”. Isaac felt Jacob’s skin and said: “The voice is the voice of Jacob,
but the hands are the hands of Esau”. But Jacob falsely confirmed to him that
he was Esau. So Isaac blessed him and prayed for him. But shortly after this,
Esau returned in order to get the blessing, and discovered that the father had
already given it to Jacob. The father said:
“Your brother
came deceitfully and took your blessing.” Esau replied: “Isn’t he rightly named
Jacob? This is the second time he has taken advantage of me: He took my
birthright, and now he has taken my blessing!” (See Genesis, 27:1–36.)
In regard to Esau’s statement, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob?”, the Jewish
and Christian scholars of the Bible say that the word ‘Jacob’ means ‘he grasps
the heel’, and it is a way of saying that ‘he takes advantage of’ someone or
‘he deceives someone’. But the description of Jacob in the Quran is the
opposite. It mentions Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by name all together and says
about them in one place: “Each did We guide” (6:84), and in a second place
which I read out above: “And We made them all good” (21:72), and in a third
place: “We indeed purified them by a pure quality, the keeping in mind of the
(final) abode. And surely they were with Us, among the elect, the best” (38:46–47).
Again, according to the Quran, Jacob once said to those of his sons who
were errant and sinful, about keeping your word: “Allah is Guardian over what
we say. … Judgment is only Allah’s. On Him I rely, and on Him let the reliant
rely” (12:66–67). If he himself had lied to his own father and deceived him,
could he teach his sons these values? He also said to them, on two occasions,
about what to do in a state of loss: “patience is best” — fa ṣabr-un
jamīl (12:18, 83). That is what the father Israel advised his sons,
and it has perhaps a lesson for Israel today.
The Quran thus fully exonerates Jacob of committing any kind of falsehood
and deceit. And now just look at the wonderful interpretation given by Lahore
Ahmadiyya scholars to the meaning of his name: ‘he grasps the heel’. We say
this doesn’t mean he pulls someone down from behind by his heel in order to
take his place. It means he grasps the heel of his father Isaac and his
grandfather Abraham in order to follow them in righteousness. In the Quran, it
says that when Abraham’s wife thought that she was unable to bear children,
Allah “gave her the good news of Isaac, and coming behind Isaac (wa min
warā’ Isḥāq, Ya‘qūb), of Jacob” (11:71).
It is perhaps the supreme irony in the religious history of the world that
the man, Jacob, who was given the name Israel, after which the people and the
state of Israel are named, is presented in their own scripture as a
deceiver, liar and usurper, but that same man is declared in the scripture
of the Muslims as pure, innocent and guided by God! This is the favour
done by the Quran to the Jews and a free gift offered to them by the religion
of Islam.
If the Holy Prophet Muhammad had been a self-seeking man, he would have
exploited this portrayal of Jacob’s character in the Bible, as well as the
similar negative portrayal of many other major prophets in the Bible, for his
own ends. He would have used these events to claim that the founders and great
figures of previous religions were false, and these religions were false from
the very beginning. But God revealed to him the truth, that the past prophets
of other religions before him were true and sincere, just like him, and that it
was their followers who had deviated from the teachings of these holy men. It
seems that they had imputed these false incidents of unlawful behaviour to
their prophets in order to justify their own misbehaviour of committing
wrongdoing, usurping others’ rights and other acts of injustice.
The message of Islam to them is: Your founders were righteous messengers of
God, and this Messenger Muhammad has arisen to show you what they were really
like, and not as in your stories. I conclude with the prayer that God may turn
the hearts of all people towards the real examples set by all the prophets,
both Israelite prophets and non-Israelite prophets — Ameen.
Website: www.aaiil.uk