Uri Rubin

“Become you apes, repelled!” (Quran 7:166): The transformation of the Israelites into apes and its biblical and midrashic background

In Quran 7:163–6, God punishes the inhabitants of “a town by the sea” who have collected fish from the sea on a Sabbath by transforming them into apes (qirada). Almost none of the attempts to find a precedent for this punishment in pre-Islamic texts have been plausible. This article argues that this scene reflects post-biblical traditions referring to Numbers 11:19–20. This biblical passage deals with the Israelites who consumed quails that had come from the sea; they were doomed to partake of the meat until it came out of their nostrils and became loathsome to them. This was their punishment after having expressed their discontent with the manna, while craving for meat and fish and vegetables. The midrashic sources describe various obnoxious bodily effects which the meat of the quails had on their unrestrained eaters. It will be suggested that the punitive transformation into apes, suffered by the people of the town by the sea who ate fish, represents the Quranic reshaped version of the bodily infliction which the quail eaters suffered as a result of eating the quails that came from the sea. In support of this suggestion, several points common to the biblical quail eaters and the Quranic people of the “town by the sea” will be highlighted.

More Light on Muḥammad’s Pre-existence: Qurʾānic and post-Qurʾānic Perspectives

One of the themes that distinguishes Muḥammad’s post-Qurʾānic image from his Qurʾānic one is his pre-existence. Several modern scholars, including the present writer, have already studied the Islamic traditions about Muḥammad’s pre-existence,1 but never in the context of his post-Qurʾānic image as compared with his Qurʾānic one. Such a comparison is the subject of the present study. It will demonstrate how Islamic post-Qurʾānic tafsīr has read into the Qurʾān ideas that put Muḥammad in a magnified perspective that goes beyond the relatively modest dimensions of his Qurʾānic image. The case investigated here will be Q 26:219, probably the only Qurʾānic verse which the exegetes managed to adapt to the idea of Muḥammad’s preexistence. We shall begin with an analysis of the internal Qurʾānic context of this passage, with a view to tracing the process in which post-Qurʾānic tafsīr has eventually brought the passage into line with ideas about Muḥammad’s pre-existence that originally do not seem to have had any Qurʾānic basis. The dogmatic and political aspects of the notion of Muḥammad’s pre-existence will also be touched upon.

Bibliography Harald Motzki

This volume provides new insights into the transmission of the textual sources of Islam and combines this with the dynamics of these scriptures by paying close attention to how believers interpret and apply them.