Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Of Qarun and Surah Ad Dhuha

Kak Ling and Nadimah,

TQ for sending me the articles on Firaun.

The 'battle' between Firaun and Prophet Mosses[ pbuh] was at the spiritual,intellectual, and physical level and of epic proportion. It started with Ramses saying to Mosses,

"What!!, dont you scum know that I am God!"...to the culmination of the split of the Red Sea itself, by divine intervention, and subsequently the natural 'mummification' of Ramses and now on public display in a Cairo museum.To appropriate clowns like Bush, Mubarak and the rest at this same level would be doing Firaun a major disservice! The closest anology for comparision I could think off hand is just our biblical and Quranic friend, Qarun....just my thought. And I know I am not entirely correct and stand corrected.

Qarun[ Korah ] was not on the same level as Firaun, being mentioned only once in the Quran but nonetheless his name has been put on record for lessons to all of us, mere mortals not to follow , from Mosses time up to to eternity.

Definitely not on the same level as Firaun of course. If one study Firaun carefully, he had no equal.He was so powerful , to the point he was able, without much difficulty, even to delude himself as 'God reincarnate' on this planet earth.

A good friend of mine, quite erroneously of course, also put good old Dr M as 'Mahafiraun'. So angry this 'young-old' man with Dr M !

I beg to differ

'Aad,' I told him ,'Let us be generous with Dr M. Let Allah decides on him. He is not that bad you know, and Malaysian politics is not that easy...soo convoluted! Unheard off things like HINDRAF even going to war on the usage of the word PARIAH, Amenu and everything..... If you are too soft , you get Pak Lah.If you are always moving with the wind, we get The First Lady.'

Putting Dr M aside and coming back to our principal actor this time, we all know Qarun was contemporary with Prophet Mosses.
I tried looking in the Quran and seerah regarding Qarun. Probably more stories on him in the Old Testament and old israelite hadiths ....trying to decipher what kind of personality...'sembahyang ke dia, 'hypocrite kah dia'?, 'jahat kah dia'?..'tak bayar zakat kah dia?'....the Quran and relevant seerah and hadiths are pretty quiet on these characteristics...No mention.

The only outstanding thing mentioned about Qarun in the Quran was : HIS ARROGANCE
" I am a billionaire because I am damn good. I am brilliant. My business prosper because my business acumen is above average. I have nothing to be thankful about.
It has nothing to do with the NEP bastards! I am damn good"....

It can also be... " I am Richard Dawkins and I know everything that is to know about molecules, cells and organisms and evolution...and it is my considered opinion that God is not there! "..an extreme example of intellectual pompousity and arrogance!

More commonly though it would be...." I am Yang Ariff and this is the 21st century. How can we judge and adjudicate with the primitive and tribal laws of Arabia of the 7th century...or Kelantan will be inundated with 'SUP Tangan' "....and so on and so forth.

Qarun was damn good at what he was doing ie and that was 'making money'. We were told in the Quran, he had troops of strong men to carry just the keys to his dozens of massive godowns. Damn rich and damn arrogant. The Sultan of Brunei or Bill Gates would salivate looking at Qarun !...Much richer than them, all in CASH and diamonds and gold and silver ! No need for overdraft or huge bank loans or looking over the shoulder for an errant brother making afast run for your money..

I am not worried about us being Firaun. No one can equal to Firaun in history. I am worried about us, especially myself included, sometime feeling and behaving like Qarun, Allah forbids !

Intellectual prowess, wealth, skills, position in life : Tan Sri, Datuk Sri, King , Queen or even for that matter First Lady, etc etc and etc. All of us can fall into the 'Qarun' mental trap, if we are not careful.

Mashaallah.

Allahualam.

Nik Howk
PS: I stumble this morning on this good tafsser of Surah Ad Dhuha by Shaykh Riyadh Al Haq, that is in part related to the position of 'Qarun' on our need to always be humble....First, rendition of Ad Dhuha by world famous qari, Abdul Bassit. Enjoy them both :


Ad-Dhuha

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
By the morning hours
And by the night when it is stillest,
Thy Lord hath not forsaken thee nor doth He hate thee,
And verily the latter portion will be better for thee than the former,
And verily thy Lord will give unto thee so that thou wilt be content.
Did He not find thee an orphan and protect (thee)?
Did He not find thee wandering and direct (thee)?
Did He not find thee destitute and enrich (thee)?
Therefor the orphan oppress not,
Therefor the beggar drive not away,
Therefor of the bounty of thy Lord be thy discourse.


Qari Abdul Bassit ,Surah Ad Dhuha, click here

Tafseer surah Ad Duha, click here

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