An Analysis of Q43 (Prof. Saleh)

Article

1. What sura Q 43 is about: structure and significance
2. 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 mekkanischen Suren (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980), 283.
3. 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. The accusation of incoherency (ghayru mubīn) here is foundational to 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. 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 climax of the process of Qur’anic self-actualization” (Neuwirth, Scripture, 346).