The Qur’an’s Reformation of

Judaism and Christianity

Return to the Origins

Edited by Holger M. Zellentin

First published 2019
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Title: The Qur’an’s reformation of Judaism and Christianity : return to the
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5 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity
An analysis of Q 43 Sūrat al-Zukhruf
Walid A. Saleh

The mute barbarians

The opponents of Muhammad did not live to tell their side of the story. Their
world and ideology have to be reconstructed from the Qur’an, and fortunately
there is much there to work with.1 Though the Qur’an did its best to undermine
their image, belittling their intelligence and calling them cattle or worse (Q 7:179,
Q 25:44 and Q 47:49), it had to answer to their trenchant criticism of Muham-
mad’s preaching and their passionate and sustained defense of the ways of their
fathers. The later Islamic tradition was far less charitable. The portrait is one of
marauding, murderous, infanticide-practicing brutes awaiting the light of Islam,
a jāhiliyyah which ended with a new calendar – though some of these images
are already present in the Qur’an. This portrayal of a mute, theologically lacking
paganism has seeped not only into Islamic historiography but also into our read-
ing of the Qur’an. Yet the opponents of Muhammad were not only articulate, as
one can deduce from the Qur’an. Rather, some of their theological critiques of
Muhammad’s preaching were devastating, and the Qur’an had to pay sustained
attention to them. Arab paganism was not in a crisis. It was, however, also not
ambitious; it was local, it lacked universal potential or a pan-Arab vision, and that
was its undoing.
This chapter will illustrate the cogent theological objections to Muhammad’s
teaching raised by his opponents. These objections needed a theological response
from Muhammad. The chapter is dedicated to an analysis of sura 43, which con-
tains what I consider to be the most interesting defense of the gods of the Meccans
against Muhammad’s teachings. The central issue in this sura is the status of Jesus
and the ontological reality of the Meccan gods. Yet before I commence this task,
I will give one example from another part of the Qur’an to illustrate how the tradi-
tion and modern translators have downplayed the theological counter-arguments
of the Meccans, although the Qur’an itself preserved them. This example is given
here to show that what we find in sura 43 is part of a larger ideological battle
and that the Qur’an and Muhammad were struggling to counter objections that
were cogent and powerful. What we find in the tradition of Qur’an commentary is
the very opposite, a dismissal of these very arguments and a re-reading that pre-
sents them as frivolous and irrational. It is worth remembering that Muhammad’s
 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity 93
ministry in Mecca was a failure, which means that none of his counter-arguments
had an impact on the majority of his audience.

The incoherent pagans of Arabia in the Tafsir tradition:

Q 7:203 as an example
The Qur’anic verse 7:203 – “and when thou bringest them not a sign, they say,
‘Why hast thou not chosen (ijtabaytahā) one? Say: ‘I follow only what is revealed
to me from my Lord; this is clear testimony from your Lord, guidance and mercy
for a people of believers” – has a peculiar trajectory in the interpretive tradition.
The English translation I have just cited is Arberry’s translation, which clearly
does not make sense: why would he choose one when he is refusing to offer one?2
The Arabic, however, might be partly to blame; in Abdel Haleem’s translation, it
reads as follows (the verb underlined is the mistranslated word):

‫ قل انما اتبع ما يوحى الي من ربي هذا بصائر من ربكم وهدى ورحمة‬.‫واذا لم تأتهم بآية قالوا لوال اجتبيتها‬
‫لقوم يؤمنون‬
When you do not bring them a fresh revelation, they say: ‘but can you
not just ask for one’? Say: ‘I merely repeat what is revealed to me from my
Lord. . . ’3

Abdel Haleem’s translation is attempting to make sense of a confusing verse.

By choosing the meaning of āyah here to be a textual revelation, by translat-
ing the verb ijtabā as to “ask for,” and finally by translating attabiʿ to mean “to
repeat (the revelation revealed to me),” rather than “to follow,” Abdel Haleem
presents us with a more coherent statement. Muhammad is seen as capable of ask-
ing for a new revelation, which he refuses to do. The verse is, however, not talking
about Quranic verses, but of signs, miraculous signs that affirm that he is indeed
a prophet. A close look at the verse reveals that it is the verb ijtabā (underlined in
the Arabic) that is causing the confusion.
Rudi Paret, unlike Abdel Haleem, understood the meaning of the term āyah in
this context to mean a “miracle” and not a “verse,” and his translation reads: “and
when you do not bring them any sign, they say: why did you not choose one?”
(“Und wenn du ihnen kein Zeichen bringst, sagen sie: Warum hast du dir keines
ausgewählt?”).4 Paret in his translation is following a suggestion from the exegeti-
cal tradition; he, however, has far more insightful commentary on this verse in his
Konkordanz, which I will discuss later.
Translators have thus offered two meanings for ijtabā (“to ask” or “to choose”),
but what could it mean? Moreover, the meaning of the verse is also dependent
on the meaning of the word āyah (is it a verse or a miracle?). The verb ijtabā
occurs 11 times in the Qur’an. In nine of these, the verb is used in a diametrically
opposite context from the one here in verse Q 7:203; in these it is God who is
the subject of the verb, and the yajtabī, performs this act towards the prophet(s)
or in one instance the believers (Q 22:78).5 God “chooses,” “brings to himself,”
or “selects” a specific named prophet or all the prophets or the believers. In one
94  Walid A. Saleh
instance, the verb is used in its lexical meaning: “to bring to” or “be collected”
as a tax or as a right for someone (this is in verse Q 28:57, speaking about the
crops of the earth being brought to Mecca).6 The usage of the verb ijtabā in verse
Q 7:203 is thus unique. The Meccans are asking Muhammad to earn or perform
a sign. This would prove to be theologically unpalatable to later Muslims; hence,
the confusion that we will witness in the exegetical tradition, which has in turn
affected modern translations, as I have just recounted.
Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (d. 150/767) understood the word āyah in Q 7:203
exactly as Abdel Haleem did (that it denotes a new revelation) but he translated
ijtabā as “to fabricate” or “to lie”:

[“If] you did not bring them a sign”: He [God] means a narration of Qur’anic
verses, and this happened when the revelation ceased for a while in Mecca;
“they said,” i.e. the unbelievers of Mecca, “if you only ijtabaytahā,” mean-
ing, fabricate it yourself Muhammad, since they have already said, “bring
another Qur’an or change it” [Q 10:15].7

We have here some of the elements that will be used by medieval exegetes to
establish the meaning of this verse. These elements are, first, that Muhammad
was asked for a new revelation (tying Q 7:203 to Q 10:15, where Muhammad
was asked to change his preaching or replace it); second, that the Meccans were
asking him to lie about his message, and, finally, that the verb ijtabā means “to
lie” or “to fabricate.”
Al-Ṭabarī likewise understood āyah to be a verse. He offered two meanings
for the verb ijtabā: “to fabricate on your own accord” (iftaʿal, or ikhtalaqa, or
aḥdath), a meaning close to the one offered by Muqātil; and “to receive it from
God” (taqabbal or talaqqa).8 The interpretation offered by al-Ṭabarī is, however,
more complicated, since his preamble does connect verse Q 7:203 to verse Q 3:179
(where God selects or chooses his messengers), already realizing that the verb
here should be understood in relation to its usage in other instances in the Qur’an,
a realization that is not pressed further. He simply presents us with the Sunni
traditional understanding that seems intent on neutralizing the meaning. This is
an example of how philology on its own was not enough a force to reconfigure
traditional theological interpretations. Al-Ṭabarī comes down in favor of the first
meaning, that the verb means “to lie,” citing lexicographers and grammarians who
seem to have taken an interest in the verb ijtabā; the grammarians and philologists
(al-Farrāʾ and Abū ʿUbaydah), however, offer support for understanding the verb
to mean “to fabricate.”9 This is one of many examples where philological argu-
ments are suspect, since they were clearly created to support the meaning offered
by theologians and do not reflect an independent process. Al-Māturīdī, although
he brought nothing new, introduced a complicating factor by proposing that the
question in this verse could have been actually raised by the believers themselves
in their quest for more confirmation of their faith (building on verses Q 9:124
and Q 47:20).10 Al-Wāhidi gathered a large number of opinions on the matter;
however, he also offers nothing new here.11 Clearly, the verse has now acquired
 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity 95
what I would call a classical meaning with little dissent: that āyah here denotes a
“verse” and ijtabā (according to most exegetes) means “to fabricate.”
Yet the verse Q 7:203, one could argue, should not have been this difficult to
decipher. Al-Ṭabarī knew to connect this verb to its other usages in the Qur’an.
It is my contention that the exegetical tradition was rather unwilling to cede to
or state the obvious. I am venturing to make this statement because the tradi-
tion would eventually betray itself and offer a radically different understanding
of the verse. These hidden reversals happen so often that one can argue that it is
a characteristic of the Qur’anic exegetical tradition that I now take to be a feature
of its long history. Every so often, an exegete would break ranks and suggest
another reading, a reading compelling enough to make us realize that the verse’s
apparent meaning was not far from their grasp had they wished to see it. These
contrarian readings, however, are buried deep in the tradition so that they are
incapable of breaking free from the pull of the accepted understanding of a given
verse. To make these readings central would have entailed a reconfiguring of how
exegetes approached the Qur’an, which never happened in the traditional Sunni
tradition. The contrarian readings remained a curiosity if, however, a testament
to the impact of the philological revolution on all aspects of Islamicate culture.
In this instance it is al-Rāzī who, clearly unsatisfied with the previous interpre-
tation, gave us a detailed analysis of this verse and what this verb and the verse
could have meant.12 He first understood āyah to be a miracle, reversing the con-
sensus in the tradition and citing verse Q 17:90 as an example of the kind of signs
asked from Muhammad, which were miraculous ruptures in the natural order.
After citing the by then accepted interpretations of ijtabā, he rather hurriedly pre-
sents a new interpretation that takes note of the verse’s context and is based on its
Qur’anic usage:

Or it could mean: why do you (Muhammad) not suggest it to your God, if

you are indeed stating the truth that your God harkens and hears your prayer
and answers your supplication. Muhammad was ordered to reply what the
Qur’an stated: “Say: I follow what is revealed to me from my God” that is, it
is not up to me (Muhammad) to suggest to my God how to manage his affairs
in any matter, I only wait for the revelation, and everything I was told to say
I have declared to you, otherwise I should remain silent and desist from sug-
gesting things:
‫ وعند هذا أمر‬,‫أو يقال هال اقترحتها على إلهك ومعبودك إن كنت صادقا في ان هللا يقبل دعاءك ويجيب التماسك‬
‫ وهو قوله (قل إنما أتبع ما يوحى الي من ربي) ومعناه ليس لي ان اقترح على‬.‫رسوله ان يذكر الجواب الشافي‬
‫ واال فالواجب السكوت وترك االقتراح‬,‫ وإنما انتظر الوحي فكل شيء أكرمني به قلته‬,‫ربي في أمر من األمور‬.

This is indeed, I would agree with al-Rāzī, what the Meccans meant: if God is
refusing to send a sign (the Qur’an never tires repeating this point) and the Qur’an
consistently presents God as refusing to produce miracles, can you, Muhammad,
ask Him for a sign? The verse Q 7:203, understood in this new light, becomes
far more menacing, unrelenting in its critique of the monotheistic and prophetic
96  Walid A. Saleh
claims of Muhammad, and as such the objection of the Meccans was worthy of a
rebuttal; hence, the trouble the Qur’an took to answer their objections. This ques-
tion is also dangerously alluding to instances in the Qur’an where Muhammad
seems to want such miracles, only to be rebuked and chastised himself (Cf. Q
6:35; Q 13:31).
The Meccans were stating this: if your God keeps repeating that he is not will-
ing to give a sign, why then do you, as a prophet and a man of God, not play a
role in this and demand from your God a sign? They are asking: Are you not able
to earn it, ijtabā? Where does a prophet stand in relationship to God? Are you not
close enough to God, of such a standing that you are also part of the process? The
God who is earning these prophets unto Him, can you earn Him unto you? Is not
your prophetic character such that you can ask? Especially since other prophets
were capable of this, as Muhammad claimed and as the Meccans were reminding
him (Q 6:24 – “we shall not believe in you untill we are given (shown) the same
as previous prophets”). Muhammad, the Meccans were implying, is not a prophet
like the others he keeps referring to; he has no standing in front of his God. He has
no access to God. He is incapable of this reciprocal relationship that the Qur’an
itself depicts between real prophets and this God. By using the very verb that
Muhammad used to speak of God’s closeness to his other prophets, they are ques-
tioning Muhammad’s alleged closeness to God. Muhammad is not one of those
who are earned unto God, nor able to earn God unto himself – hence the verb.
That the Meccans should care to use a verb already used by the Qur’an to charac-
terize God’s relationship to his chosen ones is indicative of the fact that they were
listening all too attentively to Muhammad’s teaching and that they were pointing
out glaring contradictions. The Meccans were raising a trenchant theological cri-
tique based on Muhammad’s own teachings. It is nothing short of a dissection of
the notion of messengership as presented in the Qur’an. It is not a frivolous cri-
tique, as the commentators implied by their interpretation, which if we remember
can be summarized as: you are a liar, so why don’t you lie a bit more.
As mentioned earlier, Rudi Paret, in his Konkordanz, grappled with the verb
ijtabā in verse Q 7:203, and he was one of the few who saw that there is a deeper
issue in the verse. Here are his reflections in German:

Dem Ausdruk lawla ijtabaytahā mag die Vorstellung zugrunde liegen, daß
für die Gottesgesandten verschiedene Wunderzeichen (als Ausweise ihrer
göttlichen Sendung) vorgesehen sind und sozusagen bereitliegen, so daß der
einzelne jeweils nur eines herauszureifen braucht.13

This analysis is flawed: first, it is still taking the verb to mean “to select,” and also
it presupposes that the Meccan are buying the arguments of Muhammad, rather
than that they knew him to be incapable of producing a miracle and were push-
ing Muhammad to deny his own status as a man close to God. They were posing
a question that shows that they understood that Muhammad had no leg to stand
on – neither is his God producing a miracle, nor is Muhammad able to ask for a
miracle.
 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity 97
The Meccans were offering their own understanding of Muhammad, challeng-
ing his positioning of himself in a unique role, one with access to God. They
were defining what he is, and a struggle ensued between the Qur’an and the Mec-
cans about how to understand Muhammad’s ministry, thus forcing the Qur’an to
elaborate on the character of the messenger. The main features of this struggle are
apparent in the persistent language in the Qur’an that emphasizes Muhammad’s
humanness, that as a human he has no power to perform miracles, as well as the
utter passivity of his role as a messenger: he is only delivering a message, nothing
more. The Meccans are then portrayed as pushing their argument further, stating
that this is precisely why they are not going to harken to his message and stating
that not only has he no standing in front of his God, but he is deluded to think that
he has merit to demand from his God. Muhammad is all too human, they agreed
with the Qur’an, and hence he is no messenger; he is subject to the dictates of
dahr (time) and manūn (fate). They realized that they had time on their side, and
they will wait for the treacheries of fate, death itself natarabbaṣ rayb al-manūn
(vicissitude of fate) (Q 52:30). An unsettling prospect, as even the Qur’an has
to concede, thus forcing it to admit to the possibility that Muhammad might die
before seeing the chastisement he had promised his people – admitted to in sev-
eral places in the Qur’an, but for our purposes most notably in Q 43:41–42.
The Meccans were worthy theological opponents of Muhammad. That is not what
the exegetical tradition wanted to construct, a coherent Meccan critique of Muham-
mad’s preaching. This refusal to see in the Meccans a serious opponent to Muham-
mad’s preaching, I am arguing, is a major conceptual attitude of the traditional
exegetical approach to the Qur’an that had a profound impact on what exegetes
could conceive of and see, limiting the scope of what they understood the Qur’an to
be stating. It is, moreover an image that we have inherited, and by “we” I mean most
of scholarly Qur’anic studies. The Meccans were such that they were incoherent.

Sura 43: the eloquent unbeliever, the incoherent unbeliever

Conceptually and methodologically, this chapter builds on the work of Angelika
Neuwirth, especially her detailed analysis of sura 19 and sura 3 as they relate to
Mary and Jesus.14 Neuwirth’s insight that the Qur’anic revelations were “commu-
nicated to the early listeners in response to particular discourses that the commu-
nity was engaging in” and that “later communications (often being commentaries
on earlier ones) can thus be presupposed to encapsulate those earlier debates” is at
the basis of how I read sura 43 and its polemical attacks on the Meccans.15 Neu-
wirth refers to “intra-Qur’anic contexts” as the process through which the Qur’an
grew.16 My study inverts her article on sura 19, which read sura 19 in light of sura
43 – it is a reading of sura 43 that uses sura 19 to illuminate the polemics in sura
43. Neuwirth has made incisive remarks about sura 43, and I will be building on
these remarks to enlarge the scope of her arguments, seeking also to show that
sura 43 is central in understanding of the position of the Meccans vis-à-vis the
preaching of Muhammad. Her analysis of sura 43, however, is not a full analysis,
it being part of her elucidation of sura 19.17
98  Walid A. Saleh
I am thus more interested in understanding the position of the Meccans than
in what Muhammad thought of Jesus. I will be arguing that the Jesus material in
the Meccan Qur’an can only be understood by realizing how the Meccans were
using Muhammad’s own preaching – in this case his stories about Jesus – against
him and in defense of their gods. Neuwirth already highlighted the fact that sura
43 and sura 19 are not only thematically related but are also part of what Nöldeke
has called ‘raḥmān suras’ and are seen as part of the Middle Meccan phase of
Muhammad’s preaching.18 What this chapter will emphasize is that the initial
preaching of Muhammad in sura 19 was bereft of any polemical Jesus material
(already noted by Neuwirth) and, more importantly, that sura 43 was the setting
for the response of Muhammad against the Meccans reuse of his Jesus preach-
ing to defend their own gods. The main difference I have with Neuwirth is that
I understand the argument of the Meccans as part of an articulated attack on the
universal claims of Muhammad (and his monotheism). I do not take the Meccans
as simply to be thinking that their “own deities, imagined as daughters of God,
are better than Jesus.”19 They were raising a far more cogent argument. Moreover,
there is no evidence that the Meccans had incorporated Jesus into their pantheon,
as Neuwirth suggests, nor that they were overly concerned with Jesus.20 They
rather used Jesus when Muhammad started preaching about him. The reference
to divisions among groups in the sura is not about Christian sects, but actually
about Jewish-Christian debates on the status of Jesus, and hence part of a far more
insidious polemic against Muhammad’s universal God: how is a universal God
producing religiously diverse communities, who are damning each other, they
asked, and the Qur’an had to respond to these attacks.21

What sura Q 43 is about: structure and significance22

The Qur’an was unable but to admit that the Meccans were relentless opponents,
forcing it to expend much energy and argumentation in order to fend off their
blows against its preaching. In several instances they were dubbed as “eloquent
opponents” (khaṣīm mubīn), for example, in verses Q 16:4 and Q 36:77.23 There
was, however, a particular critique that so riled the Qur’an that it accused its oppo-
nents of being both cogent deniers (kafūr mubin, Q 43:15) and, a few verses later,
that they were ‘ineloquent’ (ghayru mubīn, Q 43:18). This particular critique (and
I will come to it soon) struck a nerve and the Qur’an would hit back hard, dedicat-
ing a whole sura to the issue, Q 43 Sūrat al-Zukhruf. So critical was the issue that
the Qur’an did not hesitate to make a gendered argument the mainstay of the sura,
in essence, a gendered critique of the Meccans and by extension of their gods:
they were effete, effeminate, if not sodomites, and as such by definition frivolous
(Q 43:18, more on this verse later).24 But by then, even such shaming was not
enough; a more sustained counter-argument was needed. Fatherhood itself has to
be denied. God is absolutely one.
Sura Q 43, a grappling with the Meccans’ response to Muhammad’s critique
of their daughters of God, has gone unexamined and will be the subject of this
chapter.25 The accusation of incoherency (ghayru mubīn) here is foundational to
 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity 99
the argument of the sura, and it is part of a detailed response to the Meccans;
we should not equate it with the approach found in the exegetical tradition. The
exegetical tradition simply pretended that the Meccans had had no argument to
start with. The word mubīn (clear) and derivatives thereof are used seven times in
this sura alone: the Qur’an is mubīn (Q 43:2), human beings are “cogent deniers”
(kafūr mubīn, Q 43:15), those raised in adornment are “ineloquent” ghayr mubīn
(Q 43:18), Muhammad is an “eloquent messenger” (rasūl mubīn, Q 43:29),
Muhammad’s opponents are in “manifest error” (ḍalāl mubīn, Q 43: 40), Moses
is accused of being “barely eloquent” or “inarticulate” (wa-lā yakād yubīn, Q
43:52), and finally the devil is a “manifest enemy” (ʿaduww mubīn, Q 43:62) of
humanity. Eloquence here is tied to masculinity, or more accurately, ineloquence
is ascribed to femininity, and a female God and her effeminized followers are, if
not mute, then ineloquent.
The sura uses three main arguments to refute the attacks of the Meccans: the
first is a gendered approach in which eloquence is impossible when it is feminine,
the second is a denial that monotheism has conceptually allowed multiplicity of
the Godhead or seeing God as a father, and finally, the refusal to admit that the
universalism of stipulating one God necessarily entails uniformity in religious
practices. Each of these themes will be tied to other minor themes: wealth is not a
sign of grace, a universal God does not mean a unified global community, division
among monotheists is not an indication that monotheism is false, etc. We have to
understand that these counter-arguments were made in response to the arguments
the Meccans were making. The Meccans were building on Muhammad’s own
preaching to construct their own attacks, which made the Qur’an elaborate on
what it meant when it mentioned Jesus as a sign of God’s mercy or what it meant
when it said that God wants humanity to believe in Him alone.
Neuwirth has already characterized the opening of sura 43 by its claim to
“divinely warranted authenticity and human accessibility” as marking “the cli-
max of the process of Qur’anic self-actualization.”26 “It is a clear book, an Arabic
Qur’an, so that they understand it” (Q 43:2–3); the Qur’an is brooking no argu-
ment about its incoherence. As I said, its clarity is referenced throughout the sura
by using this opening term six more times. I am, however, especially interested
in verse 5, which has gone unnoticed in the preamble of this sura, a preamble
that extends to verse 14.27 Q 43:5 reads (in Abdel Haleem’s translation): “Should
we ignore you and turn this revelation away from you because you are insolent
people?” This is an unclear statement, unless we tie it to the attack on the univer-
salism of Muhammad’s message by the Meccans that appears later in the sura.
The verse is a retort to their bewilderment as to why a messenger was sent to
them now, in this moment in history, when they have been for eternity a nation
who follows the tradition of their forefathers – objections raised further on in the
sura (Q 43:20–22). The sura is already preparing the audience for the issues of
contention between Muhammad and his audience. Why is Muhammad not leav-
ing them alone? And why now all of a sudden is there a new revelation accusing
a community that lived in pious observance of the cult of the ancestors of being
impious and worshiping false gods? How is it not God’s will, for if it was not
100  Walid A. Saleh
God’s will, we (the Meccans stated) would not have worshiped his angels (verse 20)
for so long unperturbed.
The rest of the introduction is familiar from other parts of the Qur’an and seems
to be leading up to the heart of the matter, which starts in verse 15. This is the
topic of the sura: Does God have equals? Or is God part of a pantheon? Verse 15
opens the second section of the sura, which consists of verses 15–22. Verse 15
reads:

[Human beings] are assigning a portion from His creatures as His, human
beings are eloquent in their denial of God.
.‫وجعلوا له من عباده جزءا إن االنسان لكفور مبين‬

This is the only instance in the Qur’an of using the word juzʾ, “portion,” in such a
construction. The word juzʾ is odd here, neutral in its implication and genderless –
but not for long. When the Qur’an wanted to accuse human beings of polytheism
or of worshiping more than one god, it typically used other expressions such as
sh-r-k (“to associate”), nadd (“be equal”), āliha ghayr Allāh (“gods beside God”),
āliha min dūn Allāh (“gods in addition to God”), etc.28 The anti-Christological
core of this sura, which I will come to later, raises the possibility that juzʾ here
might be an indication that the sura was grappling with the Christian dogma of
the trinity (cf. Q 5:73 thālith thalātha, one of three). The Qur’an could be alluding
to the theological notion of hypostasis, especially if we compare this verse with
verse Q 2:260:

and then divide (the birds) into parts and place these on different hills, and
call them to you and they will run to you.
‫ثم اجعل على كل جبل منهن جزءا ثم ادعهن اليك يأتينك سعيا‬

By using the word juzʾ, God is seen as part of something else (a part), or his crea-
tures are seen as part of him, a divided entity so to speak. The sura then launches
into its critique of sonship or fathership of the Godhead, mocking the Meccans for
their unjust division of spoils, giving God daughters when they would prefer sons:

16: Or has he taken daughters for Himself and favoured you with sons?
17: When one of them is given news of the birth of that which they claim
God has, his face turns dark and full of anger.
18: the one who is brought up in adornment (or trinkets) – while he is
incapable of eloquence.

Here is then the first rebuttal to the Meccans – by their patriarchal standards,
a woman is not equal to a man (cf. with Q 3:36 “verily a female is unlike the
male”). A female child is a cause of distress; something is intrinsically flawed
with a female – to ascribe such a creature to God is doubly ironic, almost
insulting – while humans want, as it were, the better offspring for themselves
 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity 101
(an unjust division, as the Qur’an says in another sura in Q 53:22, “You have
the male and give Him the female: what an unjust division”). But we have to
keep in mind that this gendered argument is problematic in light of the son-
ship of Jesus that the Meccans will be raising later in the sura, and as such its
cogency has been drastically weakened. This gendered discourse, used with
ironic relish in earlier parts of the Qur’an (Q 53:21–22; Q 37:149, 153, and
later in a late Meccan sura in Q 16:57), has lost its potency, and clearly some-
thing more is needed. Verse 18 is thus a new and concluding statement from the
Qur’an about why a female deity is impossible. The ineloquence of the femi-
nine is a new argument, a new stab at the mute gods of the pagans. But verse
18 is actually enigmatic, “the one who is in adornments grown – in arguments
(or dueling) ineloquent,” cuts both ways: it seems to point to the absurdity of
an eloquent female Godhead, or it could mean that their arguments are akin to
a woman’s argument, which by definition is frivolous: adornment is not cogent.
The domain of the feminine is the opposite of the eloquent. One cannot defend
a female God and be eloquent.
Adornment, in this sura, however, is a constant theme that is raised throughout
and in different contexts. Adornment does not always mean the same thing. Verse
18 is the beginning of an engagement with surface appearances, with luxury and
items of value, trinkets. Verse 53 accuses the enemies of Moses of asking him to
adorn himself with gold that he might be believed: “were he not given gold brace-
lets (as sign of his prophecy), or bring the angels under his command.” An absurd
demand – gold is not a measure of truth. Yet wealth is itself the issue, for the Mec-
cans are tying possessing it with acquiring a right for proximity to the gods (verse
31 “if only this Qur’an was given to a mighty man of our two cities [we could
have then listened]”). In response, the sura ties wealth to another theme in the
Qur’an – tamattuʿ: enjoyment of this world in an oblivious life of complacency,
believing that all that there is in life is this world. The state of being wealthy on
this earth is not an indication of God’s grace, the sura wants to reiterate. The sura
tackles this issue in verses 29–35 (Abdel Haleem’s translation):

29 I have let these people and their fathers enjoy (mattaʿtu) long lives, and
now I have given them the Truth and a messenger to make things clear – 30
yet when the Truth came to them, they said, “This is sorcery. We do not
believe in it,” 31 and they said, “Why was this Qur’an not sent down to a
distinguished man, from either of the two cities?” 32 Are they the ones who
share out your Lord’s grace? We are the ones who give them their share of
livelihood in this world and We have raised some of them above others in
rank, so that some may take others into service: your Lord’s grace is bet-
ter than anything they accumulate. 33 If it were not that all mankind might
have become a single nation [of disbelievers], We could have given all those
who disbelieve in the Lord of Mercy houses with roofs of silver, sweeping
staircases to ascend, 34 massive gates, couches to sit on, 35 and golden orna-
ments. All of these are mere enjoyments of this life; your Lord reserves the
next life for those who take heed of Him.
102  Walid A. Saleh
Here are golden ornaments again, silver roofs, all could be given to all humanity,
even if they were unbelievers. God is declaring here that he could make everyone
on earth rich beyond imagination, and it would change nothing of their moral
worth. Wealth is not a measure, and God is not to be disputed with as to how he
favors people (i.e. the poor). Prophets are chosen by God to deliver a message,
even when they are of lowly origin (cf. verse 52, when Moses is called despicable
and lowly). But in every community that has been warned by God, it is the rich
and mighty (mutrafūhā, literally the decadent) who spearhead the opposition to
God (verse 23). Wealth is corrupting. Wealth in this world is tied to oppression.
Only in the afterlife does it signify grace. The same phrase that appears in Q 43:53
to describe a bracelet of gold is used twice to describe the adornment of the deni-
zens of paradise (Q 18:31; Q 22:23; and Q 35:33), a pointed reference to wealth
as appropriate in heaven. sura 43 picks up this theme at the end (verses 66–73).
Wealth in the afterlife is real, mixed with joy and contentment and absence of
fear. Adornment here is elaborate: trays and cups of gold, fruits, and delights,
whatever the soul desires. It is also eternal. More pointedly, wealth in Paradise is
denuded of its gendered valuation – men are the ones to be adorned. Materiality
is at the heart of this reward, and as such the valorization of wealth is a common
denominator: the unbelievers think it is a sign of God’s grace in this world, and
the Qur’an believes the same – but in the next. The dispute concerns when wealth
signifies grace. Here, the Qur’an is not denying wealth its positive meaning; it is
simply relocating this to a different realm. It is this proximity in values that makes
the disputes in the Qur’an unresolvable.
The sura continues with verses 19–22, elaborating on the beliefs of the Mec-
cans and why they are absurd. Here is the translation from Abdel Haleem:

19 They consider the angels – God’s servants – to be female. Did they witness
their creation? Their claim will be put on record and they will be questioned
about it. 20 They say, “If the Lord of Mercy had willed it, we would not have
worshipped them,” but they do not know that – they are only guessing – 21 or
have We perhaps given them a book before this one, to which they hold fast?
22 No indeed! They say, “We saw our fathers following this tradition; we are
guided by their footsteps.”

The arguments in this section attempt to undermine the claims of the Meccans
by pointing to the fact that the Meccans have no Scripture to back up their asser-
tions, and more importantly, by ridiculing their justification that they could not be
worshiping the gods if the gods themselves did not want them to worship them.
They have no authority but the customs of their fathers. The response to their
statement (Q 43: 22) of following these customs opens the third section of the
sura, the longest, from verses 23–56, which layers three stories from the bygone
nations with alternating direct speech to the Meccans. The section (verses 23–25)
starts with a general statement about rebellious cities and their decadent inhabit-
ants (already discussed earlier) and moves to the story of Abraham and Moses.
Each story is followed by a long rebuttal of the Meccans and their arrogance.
 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity 103
This section is familiar to us from the “punishment stories” paradigm. Nations are
recalcitrant and are punished when they refuse the messengers. The most interest-
ing part of this section is the speech of Pharaoh to his people (Abdel Haleem’s
translation):

51 Pharaoh proclaimed to his people, “My people, is the Kingdom of Egypt

not mine? And these rivers that flow at my feet, are they not mine? Do you
not see? 52 Am I not better than this contemptible wretch who can scarcely
express himself? 53 Why has he not been given any gold bracelets? Why
have no angels come to accompany him?”

The Pharaoh is comparing himself to Moses, who is found wanting: a king of

Egypt, commanding its rivers, versus a despicable despised man who can barely
make himself understood. Who is better? The question asked in verse 52 prepares
the reader for the coming confrontation between Muhammad and the Meccans
later in the sura, for this very formula is going to be used to raise the most devas-
tating question by the Meccans.
Apart from the general statement about other creatures being made a juzʾ
(part) of God and the tying of gender to eloquence in verse 18, we are still on
familiar ground in this sura. But at verse 57, the sura takes a strange turn. The
story of Jesus, which the Qur’an has apparently used in a previous context (sura
19), that is to preach to the Meccans, has clearly been used by the Meccans
against Muhammad, and not without some success. Having been chastised as
angel worshipers claiming that the angels are daughters of God and females to
boot, the Meccans then wonder how different their theology is from that of a
deified Christ. Muhammad, having preached the story of Jesus, was caught off
guard when it was used to undermine his own theology. This is the focal point
of sura 43, and it is in this pericope that we encounter what was troubling the
Qur’an about the claims of the Meccans and their attack on the preaching of
Muhammad. The verses that cover this Christ–angels dispute are 57–65 (Abdel
Haleem’s translation):

57 When the son of Mary is cited as an example, your [i.e., the Prophet’s]
people laugh and jeer,29 58 saying, “Are our gods better or him?” – they cite
him only to challenge you: they are a contentious people – 59 but he is only a
servant We favoured and made an example for the Children of Israel: 60 if it
had been Our will, We could have made you angels, succeeding one another
on earth. 61 This [Quran] gives knowledge of the Hour: do not doubt it. Fol-
low Me, for this is the right path; 62 do not let Satan hinder you, for he is your
sworn enemy (ʿaduww mubīn). 63 When Jesus came with clear signs he said,
“I have brought you wisdom; I have come to clear up some of your differ-
ences for you. Be mindful of God and obey me: 64 God is my Lord and your
Lord. Serve Him: this is the straight path.” 65 Yet still the different factions
among them disagreed – woe to the evildoers: they will suffer the torment of
a grievous day!
104  Walid A. Saleh
Neuwirth has already shown that this pericope was the model for an insertion in
the sura 19 (verses 34–40), which undermined any use of the Jesus story against
Muhammad.30 The Qur’an first preached of Jesus as a miraculous child and a sign
of God only for the Qur’an to add a resolute confirmation that Jesus was a human
being – a creature of God. But more on that later.

The exegetical tradition and verse Q 43:58

Before I come back to analyze this section, I would like to show how the Mus-
lim exegetical tradition dealt with Q 43: 57–58. The exegetical tradition would
construct an elaborate structure to undermine the focal point of Chapter 43, thus
rendering one of the main arguments of the Meccans moot, not unlike what it did
with verse 7:203 discussed earlier. Verses Q 43:57–58 are the central theme of the
sura; here we encounter the Meccan critique of Muhammad’s claim of belonging
to a tradition of monotheism that includes Christianity in it. These verses con-
fronted the exegetical tradition with an intractable problem: the fact that the Mec-
cans were raising serious objections to Muhammad’s preaching and thus stand
absolved in their refusal to desert their gods. More troubling is the length that the
Qur’an went to address this criticism, making it all the more necessary to belittle
the argument, if not to completely misconstrue it.
The Islamic exegetical tradition misread (I would argue deliberately) the whole
cluster of verses around Jesus in sura 43 and would offer what is in effect an elab-
orate justification that turns our attention away from this chapter to sura 21, and
in particular to verse Q 21:98, “You (disbelievers) and what you worship instead
of God will be fuel for Hell: that is where you will go.” An elaborate story about
why verse Q 21:98 was revealed is told (sabab al-nuzūl): when the verse I just
translated was revealed, the Meccans came and asked Muhammad if all the false
gods will burn in hell; having answered yes, they responded that if any being that
is worshiped will be burnt in hell, would not Jesus and the angels be burned also,
since they are worshiped by some? They would not mind being in the company
of their gods and Jesus and the mysterious ʿUzayr of the Jews, they affirmed.
Muhammad was dumbfounded (supposedly by such a cogent argument), and God
saw to it to solve this problem by revealing verse 101 of the same sura, where
those who are already saved are spared this fate – which was taken to mean Jesus
and his mother. It is this whole episode that was being referred to (we are told) in
sura Q 43:57–81. The Meccans were raising an objection about why their gods
will be burned and not Jesus. This is not about anything else but the fate of their
gods in the coming world.
The fictive narrative produced to inform us about the reason behind the rev-
elation of verses in sura 21 is used to interpret and reconfigure how the Islamic
tradition understood sura 43. In this tradition, sura 43 is nothing but a childish
complaint of the Meccans that their gods are going to be burned while Jesus will
not, although the Qur’an asserted the opposite! I am arguing that sura 21 was
understood in light of the need to mitigate the situation in sura 43. The purpose
was to undermine the impact of the Jesus cluster in sura 43, and to that end a
 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity 105
fictive narrative (sabab al-nuzūl) was used to construct a story in which the Mec-
cans were raising a frivolous issue with Muhammad, which can be boiled down
to this: God said he will burn all the false gods, but isn’t Jesus a god, and hence
by Muhammad’s definition a false one (and the angels also), so God will have to
burn them, and if so, then we don’t mind this. When the Qur’an supposedly quali-
fied who will be burned of the false gods (excluding Jesus and his mother), the
Meccans objected to the injustice as Q 43:57–58 indicates. Of course, the inanity
of the whole argument is also jarring – that is, the Meccan are depicted as unable
to understand that Muhammad was not claiming that Jesus is a god; as such,
Jesus did not claim divinity and would not be punished. The use of this story to
understand sura 43 points to the real problem that needed to be avoided: verses Q
43:57 onwards could not be left embedded in their sura and understood through
their context there, for then we would end up with a Meccan critique that made a
mockery of all of the preaching of Muhammad.
This sabab al-nuzūl (reason for revelation), although organically related to sura
21, is thus primarily used in sura 43. It appears fully formed in Muqātil in refer-
ence to verse Q 43:57, and by changing the context of this verse reframes the
whole discourse of sura 43.31 Al-Ṭabarī has an added explanation of the Meccans’
displeasure with Muhammad’s mentions of Jesus in his preaching: Muhammad
apparently wanted them to worship him as their God instead of their angels –
already an absurdity. Al-Ṭabarī does mention the traditional interpretation, and he
even has a garbled hadith that joins the two interpretations into an incoherent tra-
dition. This is a remarkably awkward approach to this verse, and one does wonder
when the tradition would get its act together to face up to the verse.32 Al-Thaʿlabī
is no better here, repeating al-Ṭabarī’s approach.33 Al-Wāḥidī adds nothing new.34
The mainstream Sunni exegetical tradition was unwilling to see that there is a
problem here. Al-Māturīdī was unhappy with the episode about why the verse
was revealed, finding it exceedingly irrational and hence improbable; a rounda-
bout way of saying that even unbelievers can’t be that stupid.35 He, however, still
upheld the traditional interpretation.
The early exegetical tradition was uniform in ascribing an irrationality to
the Meccans that was used to understand all their utterances. They are not only
described as animal-like in the Qur’an; they are presented as incapable of being
rational in the exegetical tradition. Once again, we have to see in this exegetical
approach a hermeneutical lens that is based on an ideological conviction that the
Meccans could not have been possibly a rational people. The language of the
Qur’an is here not only clear, however, but, as we will see, the tradition itself
would eventually come round and attempt to face the verses as they are. I am
inclined to see in such similar approaches a pattern, and hence a mode of interpre-
tation that set the tone as to how one was supposed to read the Qur’an.

The meaning of pericope Q 43:57–65

The first to state what the verse is about is al-Zamakhsharī. Having offered the by
then usual reflections on Q 43:57, al-Zamakhsharī stated that perhaps it is related
106  Walid A. Saleh
to God denouncing the Meccan’s worship of angels, for they said that they don’t
stand alone in their practices, since the Christians have made Jesus a son of God
and worshiped him, and they stand a tad more justified in this, for they merely
attributed to God angelic progeny, while they (the Christians) associated Him
with humanity. Al-Zamakhsharī then added that the verse accused them of false
analogy and argumentation. Here is his interpretation:

‫ المالئكة بنات هللا وعبدوهم – ما لنا بدعا من القول وال فعلنا نكرا من‬:‫ويجوز ان يقولوا – لما أنكر عليهم قولهم‬
ّ ‫ فان النصارى جعلوا المسيح ابن هللا وعبدوه ونحن‬,‫الفعل‬
‫ فانا نسبنا اليه المالئكة وهم‬,‫أشف منهم قوال وفعال‬
‫ فقيل لهم مذهب النصارى شرك باهلل ومذهبكم شرك مثله وما تنصلكم مما أنتم عليه بما‬.‫نسبوا اليه األناسي‬
.‫أوردتموه اال قياس باطل بباطل‬
It could also mean that when they were accused of worshipping the angels
as the daughters of God, they replied that we are not unique in this regard, nor
is our deed unknown before us. For the Christians have made Christ a son of
God and worshiped him. We are far more subtle here, both in word and deed,
for we ascribed to God the angels as daughters (a closer affinity surely, both
being spiritual beings), while they (the Christians) made a human his son.
They were answered that the religion of the Christians is polytheism and your
religion is polytheism like it. You justifying your position by this comparison
is a fallacious argument (literally using wrong to justify wrong).36

This is indeed the issue here. It is not that the Meccans were saying that “our
gods are better than Jesus” – a frivolous statement and inconsequential, but that
also does not fit the pericope. Nor was this an address targeted at a syncretic
community who had incorporated Jesus into their pantheon. It was a retort to
the preaching of Muhammad (when Jesus was mentioned to them, your people
said. . .). This interpretation of al-Zamakhsharī, penetrating as it is, is presented
as an after-thought, after one reads the more established interpretation, where the
sabab al-nuzūl story anchors the verse in a divine historical narrative that one
does not wish to escape from. Al-Rāzī would give this interpretation more promi-
nence by placing it first instead of last. He is, however, not willing to reconfigure
his understanding of the sura in light of this explanation.37
It is not only that the Meccans had some good points to raise, but (I am argu-
ing) they were forcing Muhammad to confront issues that he had not antici-
pated. Their argumentation has to be seen as an integral part of the development
of the preaching of Muhammad, just as Neuwirth has suggested. The Christo-
logical problem in the Qur’an (as presented in sura 19 and 43) has thus to be
seen as responding to the counter-arguments of the Meccans – as Neuwirth sug-
gested, but it cannot be seen as addressed to a syncretic community which has
already included Jesus in their pantheon.38 sura 19 and 43 are thus not connected
to a Christian audience, nor for that matter to an audience that was Christ-
concerned. Muhammad, preaching the story of Jesus as part of the continu-
ation of the biblicalization of Middle Meccan period, where the stories from
the Bible become more central, did not anticipate the use of Jesus against him.
 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity 107
The audience who, having been called upon to “take an example” from the
story of Jesus, used it for their own purposes in two ways. They argued that the
divinity of the daughters of God, the Goddesses of their pantheon, was no less
irrational or different from that of the Christians (daughtership and sonship are
hardly ontologically different, notwithstanding the Qur’an’s gendered tongue-
in-cheek teasing of the Meccans about giving God what they would not want,
since the Christians cannot be accused of that). More importantly, they held that
as humanity is historically made up of diverse religious communities, there was
never a universal religion that Muhammad could come and ask them to conform
to now. This forced the Qur’an to take the splintering of human communities
as a sign of God’s wisdom, but not without betraying the serious theological
problem that this state of ikhtilāf (verse Q 43:65) in human history raises for the
positing of a universal God who is supposedly manifestly accessible to rational
human beings. Muhammad was asking the impossible and arguing falsely that
there is a rational or self-evident truth in his preaching by pointing to human
history to argue for it. Having preached sura 19 (without the anti-Divine Christ
pericope Q 19:34–40, which is a Medinan insertion), the Meccans were quick to
point the absurdity of Muhammad criticizing them for worshiping the daughters
of God. These two thorny issues are raised in sura 43, such that it has to be seen
as one of the central suras in the Qur’an that tackled the issue of the fatherhood
of God.
Sura 43, read in this light, is thus serving a double function, answering the
Meccans’ equation of their gods to Jesus (and we should remember that their
comparison is not meant to state that their gods are better, but rather that there
is no difference and as such they are not going to replace their gods with any
new God). The other function of the sura is to offer a new Christological
understanding of the character of Jesus, hence my reading of juzʾ in verse 15.
The response of the Qur’an to the analogy of the Meccans (qawmaka) is that
Jesus was ʿabd, a creature, a parable (mathalan) to the Israelites. Moreover, the
angels are not a special form of divine beings, but rather creatures that could
possibly replace humanity and populate the earth, and as such do not warrant
worshiping. God, if he so wished, would have made earth populated by angels
(Q 43:60) – a statement to be understood as an insistence that angels are a
similar order of beings to humans in that they are created; they could have
replaced humanity. Jesus is made to preach a reconciliatory message to the
Israelites – although here the Qur’an is creating a new problem for its paradigm
that messengers were sent to disbelieving nations. Sending Jesus to monothe-
istic Jews is another problem, since one would presume that the Jews were
already monotheists. Jesus thus apparently came to clarify issues of dispute (Q
43:63: to clarify some of the disputes that you are fighting over). Yet the parties
did quarrel among themselves, a clear reference to the polemical differences
between Jews and Christians (Q 43:65). The Qur’an is here forced to admit to
the rift between Christian and Jewish communities and to admit to the absence
of a unified monotheistic tradition.
108  Walid A. Saleh
The conclusion of sura 43
After a heaven and hell pericope (section 5, Q 43:66–77), the sura concludes by
returning to the topic at hand: does God have progeny? The pericope (Q 43:78–
89) starts with Muhammad stating that he has brought truth to his people (verse
78), but they have made up their minds and God is as determined as they are in
insisting on the truth revealed (verse 79, a mirror image expression that is used
repeatedly in the Qur’an – God mimicking the acts of the resolute believers). The
sura reaches a defiant cry at verse 81, “Say: If God indeed had a son I would be
the first to worship His son” ‫قل ان كان للرحمن ولد فأنا أول العابدين‬. An honest response
to conflicting claims to truth: the Qur’an is open to the possibility of changing its
mind, but it is so certain of its claims, it is making this bold wager.39 Then comes a
defiant assertion of one sovereign ruler of the universe in verse 84: “He is the God
in the heavens, He is the God on earth, He is wise, all knowing.” This is the only
instance in the Qur’an that we encounter such a formulation – for a text that was
fond of repeating formulas, this is unique. The usual understanding of this verse is
that it is about the idols or the gods of the Meccans. There is another possibility,
one that is based on the last two verses of this sura, which can only remind one of
the crucifixion scene from the Gospel of Luke (23:34). The Qur’an, in verse 89,
has Muhammad state:

“Lord, this is a people that does not believe.” “Forgive them and say “Peace”
for they will come to know.”
‫ فاصفح عنهم وقل سالم فسوف يعلمون‬.‫وقيله يا رب إن هؤالء قوم ال يؤمنون‬.

I think the Qur’an has already realized that it has to offer an alternative and mean-
ingful narrative of the life of Jesus and has begun to formulate a narrative that
fits its understanding of the role of messengers of God, thus anticipating the anti-
Christian polemic addressed to Christians that would appear later in the Medinan
Qur’an. Later on, the Qur’an will deny the crucifixion and speak of an assumption
of Jesus. Jesus’ life, more than any other biblical figure, was reconfigured to fit a
universal paradigm of prophetic history. In this paradigm, messengers are human.
Thus, Jesus is pointedly called a “slave, ʿabd ” of God; messengers were sent
to specific people; the Qur’an tells us that Jesus was sent to the Israelites, rob-
bing Christianity of any universal claims to salvation; messengers were always
vindicated by God, and so was Jesus vindicated by God (cf. Q 61:14). Jesus is
thus rendered into a typical messenger, similar to any in the Qur’an. The last two
verses of sura 43 actually invert the Gospels’ climactic narrative into a Muham-
mad narrative about God’s unity. The sura thus is a long counter-argument, not
only countering the worship of angels, but also attempting to reshape Jesus into
the image of Muhammad. Sura 43 read in this light is certainly one of the most
intriguing examples of the preaching of Muhammad – a mirror image of a Gospel
narrative in which only God is the sovereign, and elements of the narrative of
Jesus’ last moments are refashioned into a moment of resigned desperation that
would characterize the last phase of Muhammad’s career in Mecca.
 Meccan Gods, Jesus’ divinity 109
Notes
1 See Patricia Crone, Qur’anic Pagans and Related Matters (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2016)
for a series of articles on the Meccans.
2 Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955), ad loc.
3 Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an: A New Translation by M. A. S. Abdel
Haleem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 108.
4 Rudi Paret, Der Koran: Übersetzt von Rudi Paret (10th edition. Stuttgart: Kohlham-
mer, 2007 [1977]), 125.
5 Q 22:78; Q 16:121; Q 20:122; Q 68:50; Q 19:58; Q 6:87; Q 3:179; Q 42:13; and Q
12:6.
6 The root j-b-a will be used for one of the technical terms of taxation (jibāyah) in early
Islamic times.
7 Here, Muqātil uses the verse Q 10:15 to explain verse 7:203; 10:15 has the same phrase
“I only follow what is revealed to me.” Muqātil, Tafsīr, ed. Abd Allāh Shiḥātah (Cairo:
al-Hayʾah al-Maṣrīyah al-ʿĀmah li-al-Kitāb, 1983), vol. 2, 82–83.
8 Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, ed. ʿAbd Allāh al-Turkī (Cairo: Dār Hajar, 2001), vol. 10,
654–657.
9 Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, vol. 10,656–657.
10 Al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt al-Qur’ān, ed. Ahmet Vanlıojlu, et al. (Istanbul, Dār al-Mīzān,
2006), vol. 6, 151.
11 Al-Wāḥidī, al-Basīṭ, ed. Muḥammad al-Fawzān, et al. (Riyadh: Jāmiʿat al-Imām
Muḥammad Ibn Saʿūd al-Islāmiyya, 2009), vol. 9, 559–563.
12 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr aw Mafātīḥ al-ghayb (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub
al-ʿIlmiyyah, 2009), vol. 15, 106.
13 “The expression lawla ijtabaytahā can be understood in light of the notion that every
messenger has various signs [which proves they are divine messengers] available to
them and so to speak readily available, so that all each one of [the messengers] needs to
do is to select from them.” Rudi Paret, Der Koran: Kommentar und Konkordanz (2nd
Edition. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1977), ad loc.
14 See chapters 12 “Imagining Mary, Disputing Jesus: Reading Sūrat Maryam (Q 19)
and Related Meccan Texts in the Context of the Qur’anic Communication Process,”
328–358; and chapter 13 “Mary and Jesus: Counterbalancing the Biblical Patriarchs:
A Re-reading of Sūrat Maryam (Q 19) in Sūrat Āl ʿImrān (Q 3),” 359–384, in eadem,
Scripture, Poetry and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qur’an as a Literary
Text (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); see now also eadem, “A ‘Religious
Transformation in Late Antiquity’: Qur’anic Refigurations of Pagan-Arab Ideals
Based on Biblical Models,” 63–91 above.
15 Neuwirth, Scripture, 330.
16 Neuwirth, Scripture, 330.
17 Neuwirth, Scripture, 345–348.
18 Neuwirth, Scripture, 330, esp. note 13.
19 Neuwirth, Scripture, 346.
20 Neuwirth, Scripture, 347.
21 See below further on this point.
22 I divide sura Q 43 into the following six sections: 1) verses 1–14 (introduction), 2)
verses 15–22 (attack against female goddesses), 3) verses 23–56 (punishment stories
with reflective discourse against the Meccans), 4) verses 57–65 (the core of the surah,
Meccans polemic against Muhammad and his Christ preaching), 5) verses 66–77
(heaven and hell), and 6) verses 78–89 (conclusion, back to the one God and absence
of progeny). For another division see Neuwirth, Studien zur Komposition der mekka-
nischen Suren (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980), 283.
23 The verses are almost identical: “We created the human being from a clot and behold
he is an eloquent opponent.”
110  Walid A. Saleh
24 For the commentary tradition on this verse see Aisha Geissinger, Gender and Muslim
Construction of Exegetical Authority: A Rereading of the Classical Genre of Qur’an
Commentary (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2015), 47–53.
25 The only Western scholar to analyze some aspects of this sura is Neuwirth, as part of
her understanding of sura 19. See note 14 for reference.
26 Neuwirth, Scripture, 346.
27 See note 22 earlier for my division of sura Q 43.
28 The Qur’an uses all the variations of the root sh-r-k (verb, noun, etc.); a common
phrase is jaʿalū li-Allāh shurakā (they created partners for God); see for example Q
6:100; Q 13:16, 33. The root n-d-d (equal) is actually only attested in the same phrase
in the Qur’an (see Q 41:9; Q 39:8 among many). For the phrase min dūn Allāh, one
of the most common phrases in the Qur’an see (Q 2:165 or Q 5:76). For ghayr Allāh
“other than God,” see for example Q 52:43, for the phrase min ilāh ghayrih (“a god
other than Him”) see Q 7:65 among many.
29 This is a strange translation, the Arabic word is yaṣiddūn, “to resist,” “turn away.”
30 Neuwirth, “Imagining Mary,” 342–344.
31 Muqātil, Tafsīr, ad loc.
32 Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, ad loc.
33 Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa-l-bayān ʿan tafsīr
al-Qur’ān, ed. Ṣalāḥ Bāʿuthmān, et al. (Jeddah, Dār al-Tafsīr, 2015), ad loc.
34 Al-Wāḥidī, al-Basīṭ, ad loc.
35 Al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt al-Qurʾān, ad loc.
36 Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf ʿan ḥaqā’iq ghawāmiḍ al-tanzīl
wa-ʿuyun al-aqāwīl fī wujūh al-ta’wīl, ed. ʿĀdil Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Mawjūd and ʿAlī
Muḥammad Muʿawwaḍ (Riyadh: Maktabat al-ʿUbaykān, 1998), ad loc.
37 Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, ad loc.
38 Neuwirth, Scripture, 347.
39 The exegetical tradition here would rewrite the Qur’an, having no other choice but
to do that. For the torturous response of the exegetical tradition see the summary in
Mawsūʿat al-tafsīr bi-al-ma’thūr, ed. Musāʿid al-Ṭayyār (Riyadh: Markaz al-Dirasāt
al-Qur’ānīyah, 2017), v. 19:713–717, and the references there.

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