OK, where were we?
When you're reading the Quran, it's hard to remember where you are because it says the same damned thing over and over again. So if you're reading along with me, you're going to need a bookmark.
If you remember last time, Allah was busy telling disbelievers how foolish and blind they were (because he made them that way) and then dooming them for their disbelief.
Now he tells us that he especially dislikes people who pretend to believe when they're around Muslims, and then disbelieve when they hang out with devils.
And when they fall in with those who believe, they say: We believe; but when they go apart to their devils they declare: Lo! we are with you; verily we did but mock. 2:14
Allah will mock and blind them.
Allah (Himself) doth mock them, leaving them to wander blindly on in their contumacy ... Allah taketh away their light and leaveth them in darkness, where they cannot see ... Deaf, dumb and blind. 2:15-18
And do you know what? If Allah really wanted to, he could destroy their sight and hearing. Allah can do anything.
If Allah willed, He could destroy their hearing and their sight. Lo! Allah is able to do all things. 2:20
And if you doubt that any of this stuff I've been quoting really comes from Allah, then just try to write something like it.
And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a surah of the like thereof. 2:23
That's right you disbelievers! Just try to write a Surah that's as meaningful and cool-sounding as this one:
The power of Abu Lahab will perish, and he will perish.
His wealth and gains will not exempt him.
He will be plunged in flaming Fire,
And his wife, the wood-carrier,
Will have upon her neck a halter of palm-fibre.
That is Surah 111 and there's nothing you can write that would be nearly as good.
Not that people haven't tried. Here's one that someone wrote, for example, trying match the beauty of Surah 111.
In the name of Marvin, most-merciful, all-compassionate:
Damn both hands of my neighbor Sam; damn him!
His money and children will not save him!
He will be burnt in a blazing flame --
Sam and his dame, who is also to blame.
As she was carrying wood to her home,
She put some thorns in the path where I roam.
So she shall suffer a torment most dire,
Dangling in hell from a noose of palm-fibre.
But that is obviously inferior.
Go ahead and try, though, if you want to. You will fail and Allah will burn you forever if you in the fire that he has prepared for disbelievers, whose fuel is men and stones.
And if ye do it not - and ye can never do it - then guard yourselves against the Fire prepared for disbelievers, whose fuel is of men and stones. 2:24
So there!
- Bogging the Quran
- Surah 2: 25-34 -- Believers get pure companions in heaven, Adam learns the animals' names, and Iblis becomes a disbeliever
