Moses in the Qur'an and Islamic Exegesis

Brannon M. Wheeler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780700716036
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136128981
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

Relating the Muslim understanding of Moses in the Qur'an to the Epic of Gilgamesh, Alexander Romances, Aramaic Targums, Rabbinic Bible exegesis, and folklore from the ancient and medieval Mediterranean, this book shows how Muslim scholars authorize and identify themselves through allusions to the Bible and Jewish tradition. Exegesis of Qur'an 18:60-82 shows how Muslim exegetes engage Biblical theology through interpretation of the ancient Israelites, their prophets, and their Torah. This Muslim use of a scripture shared with Jews and Christians suggests fresh perspectives for the history of religions, Biblical studies, cultural studies, and Jewish-Arabic studies.

1

Q 18:60–82

Q 18:60–82 stands out among all the Moses stories in the Quran. Commenting on these verses, Muslim exegetes generally follow the story attributed to Ubāyy b. Ka‘b, transmitted by Ibn ‘Abbās or Wahb b. Munab bih,¹ which identifies the unnamed “servant of God” as “al-Khiḍr” from whom Moses attempts to learn about God's justice.² This account describes how God chides Moses for his claim to be the most knowledgeable of people, and how God tells him it is al-Khiḍr who has greater and more esoteric knowledge than anyone else. Moses sets out with Joshua to find al-Khiḍr, following the sign of the fish, and then accompanies al-Khiḍr on the events laid out in Q 18:66ȁ82.

Arent Jan Wensinck has argued that verses 66–82 are borrowed from the “Jewish legend” of Rabbi Joshua b. Levi and Elijah.³ Wensinck, followed by others, also asserts that verses 60–65 are dependent upon stories from the Alexander Romance and the Epic of Gilgamesh. A closer analysis of the sources called upon by Wensinck and others demonstrates, however, that there is no evidence to make Q 18:60–82 dependent on a particular Jewish or Christian source. This type of earlier scholarship does not make an adequate distinction between the information contained in the Quran and what is said by the Muslim exegetes about these verses. Such an approach understands the Quran and its exegesis to be confused versions of stories borrowed from earlier Jewish and Christian sources. It ignores the possibility that the Muslim exegetes might, for their own purposes, appropriate motifs and conflate characters from extra-Quranic sources.

The following pages examine selected exegesis on Q 18:60–82 with special attention to the purposeful interpretive strategies of the Muslim exegetes in appropriating extra-Quranic motifs and characters to their own agenda. Each of the three sections focuses on particular details from Q 18:60–82 as treated by the Muslim exegetes, and as interpreted by earlier Western scholarship. This analysis shows how previous scholarship, in its assumptions about the derivation of the Quran and lack of distinction between the Quran and its exegesis, misses the opportunity to discern the intent of Muslim exegetes in their use of extra-Quranic materials. A more discerning look at the exegesis of such details as the “lost fish” and the journey to the ends of the Earth, shows how Muslim exegesis can be seen to be incorporating these extra-Quranic materials purposefully. The Muslim exegetes seem to have used these details to conflate the Moses of Q 18:60–82 with the character of Dhu al-Qarnayn taken from both Q 18:83–101 and from stories associated with Alexander the Great and Gilgamesh. This conflation allows the Muslim exegesis of Q 18:60–101 to identify Moses with a number of other contexts and figures in the Quran, including Jacob and the Israelites, Abraham, and the Prophet Muhammad.

The lost fish

Probably the most influential theory regarding the lost fish and journey to the ends of the Earth in Q 18:60–65 is that put forward by A.J. Wensinck, linking these verses to the Alexander Romance and the Epic of Gilgamesh.⁴ Both of these stories, according to Wensinck, feature a hero, whether Alexander or Gilgamesh, who is supposed to go on a quest to find immortality or alternately a being who is immortal. In the Alexander stories, Alexander's cook accidentally stumbles across the spring of life when a dried fish he is washing comes to life and swims away. This is taken to be the incident upon which Q 18:63 is dependent when it mentions the fish that escapes in a remarkable manner. In the Gilgamesh epic, Gilgamesh searches for and finds Utnapishtim, an immortal being who lives at the mouth of the rivers. Utnapishtim is regarded to be what is behind the mysterious “servant of God” in Q 18:65, and the “mouth of the rivers” is supposed to be reflected in the “junction of the two waters” [majma‘ al-bahrayn] mentioned in Q 18:60 and 61.

The linchpin of any explanation attempting to link Q 18:60–65 with Alexander is the identification of the “fish” in Q 18:61 and 63 with the dried fish, in certain versions of the Alexander stories, that comes to life when Alexander's cook washes it in the spring of life. A link between the Alexander stories and Q 18:60–82 was first suggested by Mark Lidzbarski and Karl Dyroffin 1892,⁵ and was subsequently developed almost twenty years later by Karl Vollers,⁶ and Richard Hartmann,⁷ and culminated in the monographic work of Israel Friedländer in 1913.⁸ Before Friedländer's work, however, the association of the Alexander stories with Q 18:60–82 was based on the presence of “al-Khiḍr” in the Arabic, Ethiopic, and Persian versions of Alexander stories.⁹ These scholars interpreted Q 18:60–64 in light of the identification of the “servant of God” with al-Khiḍr in Q 18:65–82, and thus the association of al-Khiḍr with Alexander.

There is a Syriac version of the Alexander stories that has been variously dated from the sixth to the tenth centuries C.E. The Syriac version was first roughly dated to the ninth or tenth centuries by E.A.W. Budge who argued that, on the basis of the spelling of proper names and vocabulary, the Syriac text was a translation of an Arabic original. This is a difficult position to maintain, given that only fragments remain of the Arabic versions of the Alexander stories. Theodor Nöldeke dated the Syriac version to the late sixth century, arguing that the spelling and vocabulary indicate not an Arabic but a Pahlavi original.¹⁰ Nöldeke's dating is based, on the one hand, on the assumption that the bulk of Pahlavi literature appeared in the fifth and sixth centuries. On the other hand, the terminus ad quem of Nöldeke is based on the contention that Pahlavi was not widely known after the sixth century. Aside from the dating, it is imperative to recognize that the fish episode, which is the key factor in both Friedländer and Wensinck's argument that Q 18:60–64 is derived from the Alexander stories, does not occur in the Syriac version. The origin of the fish episode, according to Friedländer, is a passage from a sermon on Alexander by Jacob of Serugh.

The sermon on Alexander by Jacob of Serugh, in which the fish episode is present, is dated to the early part of the sixth century on the basis of Jacob of Serugh's death in 521.¹¹ Lines 170–197 describe how an old man tells Alexander to command his cook to take a salted fish and wash it at every spring of water he finds. When the fish comes to life, the old man explains, the cook will have found the water of life. The sermon then goes on to tell how the cook is washing the fish in a spring when it comes to life and swims away The cook, fearing Alexander would want the fish back, jumps into the water to retrieve the fish and gains immortality himself.¹²

It should be noted that there is an Alexander story in the Babylonian Talmud that involves a salted fish. The story, found in Tamīd 32a–32b describes how Alexander posed to the “elders of the south country” a number of philosophical questions. After some questions, Alexander proposes to go to Africa, but is told that the “mountains of darkness” are in the way. Alexander sets out and comes to a place with only women who teach Alexander wisdom. As he leaves, Alexander sits by a well and begins to eat. He takes out some salted fish and washes them in the well upon which they give off a sweet odor. Alexander declares that this means that the water of the well comes from the garden of Eden. Alexander then follows the water to the garden of Eden and is given an eyeball which is heavier than all of his silver and gold.¹³ This story has several elements which have parallels in other Alexander stories, like Alexander's meeting the Amazons, and the gift of the heavy stone. It is significant, however, that although the fish in this story is salted, it does not come back to life nor does it escape.

The closest parallel to the fish episode is to be found in some of the Greek versions of the Alexander stories.¹⁴ The story, not found in recension αs,¹⁵ occurs in recension β usually dated sometime between recension α and recension λ and manuscript L, these latter two difficult to date earlier than the middle of the sixth century.¹⁶ In the Greek recension β [11.39], the fish episode is much shorter than in other recensions. It describes how Alexander and his party arrive at a water source surrounded by rushes. Alexander asks his cook to bring him some food. The cook washes a salted fish in the water source at which point the fish escapes into the water, but the cook does not tell anyone about the fish.¹⁷ In recension λ, manuscript L, and recension γ dated no earlier than the seventh century,¹⁸ the cook is also described as taking some of the water of life in a silver vessel and giving some to Alexander's daughter.¹⁹ In all of the Greek recensions, the cook finds the spring of life by accident in contrast with Alexander's instructions in Jacob of Serugh's sermon that the cook use the fish as an indication that he had found the spring of life.

Based on the dates alone, it is possible that the fish story in the Quran could be derived from the fish episode in Jacob of Serugh's sermon. According to Friedländer, the entire story associated with Moses and al-Khiḍr in the exegesis on Q 18:60–65 is taken from the Alexander romance.²⁰ The character identified as Moses in the Quran is Alexander. Alexander's cook who finds the water of life and becomes immortal is made into two different characters, both the “servant” of Moses of Q 18:61–64 and the mysterious servant of God of Q 18:65. The exegetes' identification of the servant of God with al-Khiḍr, according to Friedländer, is an attempt to explain the third character in the story. Wensinck's theory about the fish episode is close to that of Friedländer with one notable exception. Wensinck rejects the notion that the two servants are the same character and the exclusive identification of Alexander's cook with al-Khiḍr but he endorses the identification of the cook and Moses' servant along with the fish from the two stories. To support the identification of Alexander's cook and Moses' servant, Wensinck further adduces that the Arabic term “fatā,” used for Moses' servant is more consistent with an appellation for Alexander's cook.²¹ For Wensinck, this shows that Q 18: 60–65 is dependent on the Alexander romance rather than Ibn Shāhīn's story of Joshua b. Levi from which he claims Q 18:66–82 is derived.²²

There are a number of reservations against the identity of the “fish” in the Alexander romance and Q 18:61 and 63. The identity of the two fish is itself problematic. While the story in Q 18:60–65 has in common with the fish episode in Jacob of Serugh's sermon a fish whose escape is either made or noticed just before it is eaten, and the mention of some unusual water, it is not necessary to equate the two stories.²³ Given the information in the Quran alone, it is uncertain that the fish in 18:61 and 63 was dead and escaped by being brought back to life in the water of life. Q 18:61 states that the two people, presumably Moses and his companion, forgot their fish which took its way into the water. Q 18:63 likewise states that the fish took its way into the water. In neither case is there an indication, first, that the fish was dead and, second, that if it were dead its escape was due to its contact with the water of life. Even if it is assumed that the fish was dead and escaped by coming back to life, there is no indication in verses 61 or 63 that this resurrection took place on account of the fish coming into contact with the water of life. In fact, in verse 63 Moses' companion states that the fish escaped while he and Moses were taking refuge on a rock.

Another possible allusion to the fish in Q 18:61 and 63 is the fish upon which it is said that God created the Earth. There are a number of reports found in al-Ṭabarī [839–923] and Ibn al-Jawzī [1116–1201].²⁴ The report of al-Suddī given by Ibn al-Jawzī is an example of this story.

al-Suddī reported on the authority of his teachers that: smoke emerged from the water. It was high above the water so it was called the sky. Then the water was caused to dry up and it was made into a single land mass. It was rent into pieces and made into seven land masses. The land mass was created upon the fish [ḥūt], fish [nūn]. The fish is in the water and the water is on top of some stones, the stones on top of an angel, the angel on top of a rock, and the rock in the wind.²⁵

The association of the fish in this story with the creation of the world, and in particular with the rock and the water could be seen as parallels to the forgetting of the fish on the rock and the meeting place or origin of the waters mentioned in Q 18:60–65.²⁶ In several of the versions of this story given by al-Ṭabarī the word for fish is given as nūn as an allusion to the letter “nūn” at the beginning of surat al-Qalam (68:1), the “pen.” This allusion is designed to explain the existence of the letter “nūn” at the beginning of the sūrah, being that both the fish and the pen were involved in the creation of the world.²⁷ The version cited above, transmitted by al-Suddī and, in another version by Mūsā b. Hārūn al-Hamdānī, however, uses the word ḥūt to refer to the fish upon which the world was create...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Routledgecurzon Studies in the Quran
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Q 18:60–82
• 2 Q 28:21–28
• 3 Sanctuary at Beersheba and Mecca
• 4 Cities at the ends of the Earth
• Conclusion: Prophet Muhammad and the water of life
• Notes
• Works cited
• Index of Quran citations
• Index of Bible citations
• General index