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11. PROPHETS’ DU’A (PRAYER) IN THE QUR’AN (6)

10. Shu‘ayb a.s.

Prophet Shu‘ayb a.s. is mentioned by name 11 times in the Qur’an (Q. 7:85, 88, 90, 92 twice; 11:84, 87, 91, 94; 26:177; 29:36). The term shuʿayb, (شعيب‎( literally means “he who shows the right path”. The story of him is given more details in Q. 7:85-93 and Q. 11:84-95. He was sent by Allah to the people of Madyan (Midian) ibn Ibrahim a.s. to worship Allah instead of idols. According to tradition he was granted talent and eloquence in his language, so that he had the surname of خطيب األنبياء (khaṭīb al-anbiyā’, "the eloquent preacher amongst the prophets". His identification with Jethro (Yethro) in Jewish tradition is rejected by modern scholars, including A. Yusuf Ali for the following reasons:

1. Shu‘ayb was believed to have been the son of Mikil, son of Isaachar, son of Midian, son of Abraham, so that he would be only four generations and less than two centuries from Abraham. His name was not mentioned in Jewish tradition. According to Ibn Khaldun’s research, Prophet Shu'aib’s mother was the pious daughter of the Prophet Lut (Lot). His genealogy joins with Madian son of Prophet Ibrahim. On the other hand, Jethro was mentioned in the Bible with another name, Reuel, the father-in-law of Moses,1 and according to the Bible there were between four and six centuries between Abraham and Moses.

2. The Midianites were mainly a nomad tribe. Although Jethro was also a Midianite, the complete destruction of one of their settled towns by earthquake in which Shu‘ayb was sent to preach, other settlements and towns would have survived many centuries later till the time of Moses and Jethro the Midianite.

1 See Numbers 10:29

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3. Prophet Shu‘ayb was sent to preach to the Midianites who lived in Madyan located east of the Gulf of Aqabah extended to the city of Tabūk , and according to some it was in the site of Tabūk itself. Therefore, Shu‘ayb was an Arab prophet. On the other hand, in Jethro’s time, the region of Madyan (the Midian of the Bible) extended from the Gulf of Aqaba westward deep into the Sinai Peninsula. This was their principal territory; to the north it extended to the mountains of Moab east of the Dead Sea. Although its inhabitants were Arabs they intermixed with their neighbors the Biblical Canaanites. However, there was a small town at the eastern coast of the Gulf of Aqaba called Midian, and then disappeared. It was revived in Muslim times, but never flourished. The people of Madyan to whom Prophet Shu‘ayb was sent was

also called in the Qur’an أصحاب األيكة (“The Companions of al-Aykah”), namely, the dwellers of al-aykah, a tree of a group of trees (which were tangled like those in the thicket) they used to worship. They were notorious for their cheating and dishonesty in their daily activity, and idolatry. Being in the path of commercial highway of Asia, namely, Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, their besetting sins characterized by A. Yusuf Ali are as follows:

1. giving short measure or weight, whereas the strictest commercial probity is necessary for success;

2. a more general form of such fraud, depriving people of rightful dues;

3. producing mischief and disorder, whereas peace and order had been established (again in a literal as well as metaphorical sense);

4. not content with upsetting settled life, taking to highway robbery, literally, as well as

5. metaphorically, in two ways, namely, cutting off people from access to the worship of Allah, and abusing religion and piety for crooked purposes, i.e., exploiting religion itself for their crooked ends, as when a man builds houses of prayer out of

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unlawful gains or ostentatiously gives charity out of money which he has obtained by force or fraud, etc.

Then Prophet Shu‘ayb a.s. made two appeals to the past:

1. You began as an insignificant tribe, and by Allah’s favor you increased and multiplied in numbers and resources; do you not then owe a duty to Allah and fulfil His Law?”

2. What was the result in the case of those who fell into sin? Will you not take warning by their example?

The people not only rejected him, but also the chiefs among them threatened to drive him out from their village unless he returned to their religion. Of course Prophet did not want to disobey Allah to please them, and put his trust in Allah. He prayed to Him, saying:

نا (89األعراف:) الفاتحين خير وأنت بالحق قومنا وبين بيننا افتح رب

“Our Lord! Judge between us and our people in truth, for You are the best of those who give judgment.” (Q. 7:89)

Since Prophet Shu‘ayb knew that he was on the right side, Muhammad Asad translates the term افتح as “lay open” (the truth), so that he translates the above prayer of prophet Shu‘ayb as follows: “O our Sustainer! Lay Thou open the truth between us and our people—for Thou art the best of all to lay open the truth.”

They strongly disbelieved him and rebelled against him and said that if you follow him you would be the losers (Q. 7:90). They accused him of being bewitched, affected by witchcraft, and lying when he said that Allah had sent him (Q. 26:185-186) He warned them that their disobedience would lead them to destruction, like what befell upon the people of Noah, Hūd, Saleh, and Lot, and asked them to repent. But they said that they did not know what he was talking about, and thought that he was weak because his tribe did not follow him. If it were not because of the powerful position of his family over the people of Madyan, they would have stoned him to death (or according to another interpretation, they would have

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cursed him verbally), and that he had no position of power over them (Q. 11:89-91).

As refutation of his people Prophet Shu‘ayb told them that he wondered that they would have left him alone out of respect for his people instead of respect for the greatness of the Lord, the Most Blessed and Exalted. Their awe of Allah should have prevented them from harming him rather than their respect for his people. They should have feared Allah Who knew all of their actions and reward them for their deeds (Q. 11:92)

Prophet Shu‘ayb out of despair of their response to him threatened them that the unchanging action and attitude of theirs and his would result in Allah punishment upon the wrong side of the two, them or him, and asked them to join him in waiting for this coming punishment (Q. 11:93). Stubbornly and defiantly they challenged him and said, “So, cause a piece of the heaven to fall on us, if you are of the truthful” (Q. 26:187). Then Prophet Shu‘ayb turned from them and said:

فكيف لكم ونصحت رب ي رسالت أبلغتكم لقد قوم يا (93األعراف:) كافرين قوم على آسى

“O my people, I have indeed conveyed to you the messages of my Lord and advised you, so how could

I grieve for a disbelieving people?” (Qur’an 7:93(

When Allah’s punishment came He saved Prophet Shu‘ayb and his followers, then an awful cry seized the wrongdoers, and they lay lifeless in their homes, on the ground, as though they had never lived there (Q. 11: 67-68 and 94-95). Ibn ‘Abbas explains that the term صيحة (lit. a “vehement cry” or “sound”) in the verse is a synonym of صاعقة , “a thunderbolt” or the “sound of thunder”. The punishment on the Thamūd people who disobeyed Prophet Saleh was رجفة “violent trembling” indicating an earthquake (Q. 7:78). Therefore, it is possible that the “vehement sound” and the “sound of thunder” mentioned here and in other verses of the Qur’an, such as that befell on the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Q. 15:73) were

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the subterranean rumbling preceding or accompanying the earthquake and the thunder-like noise of a volcanic eruption.2

Then Allah sent his punishment to the people of Madyan, as follows:

لة يوم عذاب فأخذهم ه الظ (189الشعراء:) عظيم يوم عذاب كان إن

…So the torment of the Day of Shadow seized them. Indeed, that was the torment of a Great Day. (Q. 26:189)

Ibn ‘Abbas was asked by Yazīd al-Bāhilī about the meaning of the above verse. He said:

Allah sent upon them thunder and intense heat, and it terrified them [so they entered their houses and it pursued

them to the innermost parts of their houses and terrified them further], and they ran fleeing from their houses into the fields. Then Allah sent upon them clouds which shaded them from the sun, and they found it cool and pleasant, so they called out to

one another until they had all gathered beneath the cloud, then Allah sent fire upon them. That was the

torment of the Day of Shadow, indeed that was the torment of a Great Day.

‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar’s commentary on “the torment of the Day of Shadow” in the above verse is that the intense heat lasts for seven days. Another classical commentator, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Zayd bin Aslam said that the intense heat burned them like roasted insects.

There are many views about the Prophet Shu‘ayb’s later life and where he died:

1. Shu’ayb and his followers settled in Mecca where he died .

2 The term يحة in the Qur’an is found (”al-ṣayḥah, “the vehement cry/sound) الصin Q. 11:67; 15:73 and 83. The term يحة in (”ṣayḥah, “a vehement cry/sound) صthe Qur’an is found in Q. 36:29, 49, and 53; 38:15, and 54:51. In Q. 63:4 it means “a cry”. The term اعقةص ال , (al-ṣā‘iqah, “the thunderbolt” or “the sound of thunder”) in the Qur’an is found in Q. 2:55; 4:153; 23:41; 29:40; 50:42, and 51:44. The term اعقة in (”ṣā‘iqah, “a thunderbolt” or “a sound of thunder) ,صthe Qur’an is found in Q. 41:13.

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2. Shu‘ayb settled in Hadramaut where he died.

3. He was buried in Shaban near the Valley of Ibn ‘Ali where people

came to visit his grave.

4. The tomb of Shu‘ayb is overall saved in Jordan, 2 km west of the town of Mahis in an area called Wadi Shuʿayb. Other spots in the Sinai Peninsula and Palestine were also claimed to be his tomb.

5. Another site recognized by Druze as the tomb of Shuʿayb, Nabi Shu‘ayb, is located in Hittin in the Lower Galilee. Each year on April 25, the Druze3 gather at that site to discuss their community affairs.

(CIVIC, 12 September, 2014)

المراجع :الشاملة المكتبة

هـ( 310. ت) الطبري تفسير هـ( 671. ت) القرطبى تفسير

هـ ( 774. ت) كثير ابن تفسيرAbu Khalil, Dr. Shauqi . Atlas of the Qur’an. Riyadh, Darussalam, 2003 Ali, A.Yusuf. The Meanings of the Holy Qur’an Asad, Muhammad. The Message of the Qur’an. Holy Bible: New International Version, 1973 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuaib http://muslim-academy.com/hazrat-shuayb-great-prophet/ http://www.itsislam.net/articles/prophet_ shuayb https://www.facebook.com/notes/way-to-jannat/prophet-shuayb-

as/473939456042373 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/172195/Druze

3 The name “Druze” is taken from Arabic “Durūz”, plural form of “Darazī”, the followers of Muḥammad al-Darazī, the subordinate of Ḥamzah ibn ʿAlī, the founder of Druze religious beliefs which developed out of Ismāʿīlite teachings. They believed that al-Ḥākim bī-Amr Allāh (“Ruler by the Command of Allāh”), the sixth caliph (996–1021) of the Fāṭimid dynasty of Egypt, whom they call al-Ḥākim bī-Amrih (“Ruler by His Own Command”) did not die but vanished. One day he will return triumphantly to inaugurate a golden age.