Thursday 24 June 2010

Does Allah Repent?

Allah Does NOT Repent

Some Christian critics are claiming Allah repents in the Quran. This is blatantly false and dishonest on their part. This claim to my attention when a Christian critic made this claim and claimed Surah 2:37 proves it, this is utter nonsense.

The context and the translations prove these Christian “critics” to be incorrect. The context of the verse is Adam asking Allah for forgiveness and Allah forgives him. Before proving Allah does not repent in Surah 2:37, by listing various English translations of the Verse, we shall quickly look at the context

The Context Shows the Christian Critics to be Wrong

Surah 2:36 tells us of Adam’s sin:

36.
Then the Shaitân (Satan) made them slip therefrom (the Paradise), and got them out from that in which they were. We said: "Get you down, all, with enmity between yourselves. On earth will be a dwelling place for you and an enjoyment for a time."

The next Verse (2:37) tells us of Allah accepting Adam’s repentance.

37.
Then Adam received from his Lord Words. And his Lord pardoned him (accepted his repentance). Verily, He is the One Who forgives (accepts repentance), the Most Merciful.

To add further context to this we can even mention the prayer (Words) which Adam used to beseech (beg for) forgiveness from Allah. The prayer Adam used is in Surah 7:23.

Thus it is clear ADAM is seeking REPENTENCE from God (Allah) and Allah ACCEPTS the REPENTENCE.

The Christian critic throws aside all sense of logic in making their bizarre claim. It is Adam who has sinned, he (Adam) is repenting; Allah is ACCEPTING the repentance, why cannot these unscholarly Christian critics see this?

It seems as though it is a case of rank dishonesty on the part of the Christian critics, especially when viewing the English translations as no translation is claiming Allah is repenting!

The Translations Disagree with these Christian Critics

View the translations below to realise the Christian claim is a lie.

Let us begin our translation-based refutation by highlighting Mohammad Asad’s translation of the Quran, this translation of the Quran is widely considered to be the best English translation available

فَتَلَقَّى آدَمُ مِن رَّبِّهِ كَلِمَاتٍ فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ إِنَّهُ هُوَ التَّوَّابُ الرَّحِيمُ (2:37)

Transliteration: Fatalaqqa adamu min rabbihi kalimatin fataba AAalayhi innahu huwa alttawwabu alrraheemu


ASAD: Thereupon Adam received words [of guidance] from his Sustainer, and He accepted his repentance: for, verily, He alone is the-Acceptor of Repentance, the Dispenser of Grace. (2:37)

Here we realise Allah FORGIVES Adam; it does NOT say Allah repented! The Christian missionaries making such claims have either lost their ability to comprehend and read or are simply being dishonest.

Other Translations Show the Christian Critics to be Incorrect

To be even thorough a number of other English translations of the Quran are presented, these translations all prove the Christian missionaries to be incorrect, and thus proving to us that Allah does NOT repent.

As you can see (below) all these translations (Quran 2:37) point out the fact that Allah ACCEPTED the repentance of Adam; none of the translations claim Allah was repenting:


YUSUFALI:
Then learnt Adam from his Lord words of inspiration, and his Lord Turned towards him; for He is Oft-Returning, Most Merciful.

PICKTHAL:
Then Adam received from his Lord words (of revelation), and He relented toward him. Lo! He is the relenting, the Merciful.

SHAKIR:
Then Adam received (some) words from his Lord, so He turned to him mercifully; surely He is Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful

Hilali/Khan:
Then Adam received from his Lord Words . And his Lord pardoned him (accepted his repentance). Verily, He is the One Who forgives (accepts repentance), the Most Merciful.

The “other” translations have been divided into two groups, the first group (above) contains translations by Muslims, and the second group consists of translations from non-Muslims. NO group of translators claim Allah repents.

Non-Muslim (Christian) Translations (of Quran 2:37) Prove Allah is NOT repenting in the Quran

To add further proof of the dishonesty of these Christian critics making the bizarre claim of Allah repenting in Surah 2:37 we can refer to translations by non-Muslims too, which show the Christian critics to be wrong. Amongst the non-Muslim translations we have a Christian MISSIONARY (Rodwell) who proves the Christians claiming “Allah repents in the Quran” to be incorrect.

Rodwell:
And words of prayer learned Adam from his Lord: and God turned to him; for He loveth to turn, the Merciful.

As we can clearly see, Rodwell is not claiming Allah repented. Rodwell is agreeing with all the other translations by pointing out Allah accepts Adam’s repentance.

We also have AJ Arberry who is endorsed by the Christian missionary Dr Robert Morey. Arberry does not claim Allah is repenting. Arberry reflects what every other translator reflects, that is, Allah FORGIVING Adam.

AJ Arberry:
Thereafter Adam received certain words from his Lord, and He turned towards him; truly He turns, and is All-compassionate.

Sale and Palmer do not claim Allah is repenting thus they also disagree with the Christian critic’s claim. Both, Sale and Palmer reflect Allah’s acceptance of Adam’s repentance.

George Sale:
And Adam learned words of prayer from his Lord, and God turned unto him, for He is easy to be reconciled and merciful.

E.H Palmer:
And Adam caught certain words from his Lord, and He turned towards him, for He is the compassionate one easily turned


It is quite clear the Christian critics are simply being dishonest. To take the refutation of their fallacious claim one step further we can refer to Tafsir literature

Tafsir also Proves the Christian Critics to be Lying

Tafsir literature reflects what early Muslims believed about Verses from the Quran, we can clearly note the Tafsir literature does not claim Allah repents, in fact the Tafsir literature simply reiterates that Allah ACCEPTS the repentance of Adam and forgives him.

Tafsir Jalalayn Confirms Allah is simply accepting Adam’s repentance.

Thereafter Adam received certain words from his Lord, with which He inspired him (a variant reading [of Ādamu] has accusative Ādama and nominative kalimātu), meaning they [the words] came to him, and these were [those of] the verse Lord, we have wronged ourselves [Q. 7:23], with which he supplicated, and He relented to him, that is,
He accepted his repentance; truly He is the Relenting, to His servants, the Merciful, to them.


Summary

It is clear through the context, translations and Tafsir literature that Allah did NOT repent. The evidence shows Allah accepting the repentance of Adam.

The Christian critics are spreading falsehood and should be rebuked (corrected) by sincere Christians.

10 comments:

Anthony Rogers said...

The Arabic word for "Repentance" (tawbah) means "turning," and the intensive word (tawwab) for Allah's forgiveness ("Oft-Returning" or "Ever-Returning") is from the same root.

maratsafin said...

@tony, i have a hard time taking seriously arabic lessons from a southern american,who home schools his children and unfortanetly they (but i hope not) will come out as dumb as the majority of the southerners.Hm I bet you would love to go back to a time when most of your ancestors thought non-whites were not fully human. you fool noone tony keep your simplistic arguments for your fellow dumbo's.

mrsonic said...

Sahih International: And they thought there would be no [resulting] punishment, so they became blind and deaf. Then Allah turned to them in forgiveness; then [again] many of them became blind and deaf. And Allah is Seeing of what they do.


arab word for "turned " is "TAAba"

the literal translation is ,"ALLAH TURNED to theM..."

Astagfirullah, how exactly do DEAF ppl hear a "repenting god" ?

this "repenting god" belongs to crosstianity, not islam.

Anthony Rogers said...

maRATsafin,

You are a good Muhammadan. Few other people on the planet can speak so many errors in such a short space. Your fallacious attempts at inferring truths about me from my blog profile tempt me to say that you and logic have shook hands and parted, but since I don't think logic has ever made your acquantance I will refrain.

In the first place, just because I went to college in Virginia does not at all mean that I am a southerner. I was not born or raised in the South. In fact, neither the state of my birth and upbringing (birth - c. 1991/2) nor the state I lived in until I went to college (c. 1992 - 2002) were part of the United States or the Confederate States.

Second, my ancestors were not Southerners or even technically "whites". My ancestors originally came to the United States from Sicily by way of Ohio and New York.

Third, no one in my family has ever taught (at least they never taught me) that black people are raisin heads who are not fully human.

The reasoning typified above proceeds from one non-sequitur to another. From the fact that I went to College in Virginia you fallaciously inferred that I was born and/or raised in the South. Since you concluded that I was born and/or raised in the South you fallaciously inferred that my ancetors were southerners. Since you concluded that my ancestors were southernors you fallaciously inferred that they were prejudicial bigots like yourself who think all southerners are stupid and racist.

It is the kind of reasoning on display here that makes it easy to see why you are a Muslim. Only the kind of irrationality that riddles your thinking could account for the fact that you are a Muslim and that you would think it is true and defensible.

I will leave my final proof of your foolishness (n.b. unlike yourself, when I say you are foolish it is based on a plethora of available evidence) for my response to mrsonic.

P.S. Rather than carry on this discussion in two different threads, I will make my response in the comments thread of Yahya's video post on this subject: here

maratsafin said...

@tony, if you are originally from sicily then you are technically white.
You also state "In fact, neither the state of my birth and upbringing (birth - c. 1991/2) nor the state I lived in until I went to college (c. 1992 - 2002) were part of the United States or the Confederate States" so you were born in 1991/2? seriously dont you know when you were born? or is that when you came to the states? i say this because if you were truly born in 1991/2 than the photo betrays your actual age (you look around mid 40's).
Sure you may have not been born in one of the racist states but it sure has rubbed of on you,the dumbness of your arguments confirm that. Although virginia did go blue at the last election, nearly half of them still voted for mcpalin,which shows a lot of them still need educating and unfortunatley you are in that group.
BTW i only made these conclusions to show you how much of a leap you evangelicals dumbo's make when you come up with dumb arguments such as the one refuted by brother yahya snow. But since 15% of americans think that obama is a muslim and that he was not born in the usa (the percenatge i can guarantee is much higer in the southern states) than there isnt really much hope for you and your ilk. I will still make these calims as long as you and your fellows dummies make these false assertions against muslims and Islam.

Anthony Rogers said...

You are still showing your ignability to think. I only have time to quickly correct you on one thing: I didn't give you the year of my birth. I am referring to the year of my birth all the way up to 1991.

maratsafin said...

@tony

incoherent as ever, seriously next time write more coherently and with facts you dont want to end up like the caner brothers now do you? lololol. I suppose though people like you looked up to them for thier false expertise on Islam,it was probably the holy spirit that made you deaf,dumb and blind to thier lying.Hm I do wonder though the many millions of christians who were filled with holy spook when they listened to these liers without questioning thier clear contradictory statements, your holy spook,one third of your God never inspired,spoke or did anything to you lot about this. It took a muslim to out these fake and it is just out of pride that certain christians have taken up the cause (cough cough james "i have so many uncredited Phd's white).Surely You must question the power of your holy spook? I bet you were filled with the holy spook when you heard their testimony!!Such a gullible God.

Anthony Rogers said...

MaRATsafin,

Since you take the cake for incoherence, as I have shown, writing off your misunderstanding on me rather than seeing it as due to your irrationality and illiteracy is further proof that you are lame in the membrane. If you have nothing of substance to contribute to the issue, then I have no further interest in spending any more time on you. Chow.

maratsafin said...

hey ANT i will be like your colleague shameless shamoun, i will not let you have the last word ok. BTW you have shown that you are a southerner and those you hang out with are definetly racist and illiterate. I suppose though your holy spook coudnt inspire you to come back with a better response.
btw since youare in the states and i am in europe,i must have really troubled your faith since you are writing non-responses to me @3 and 7 in the morning.
lololol goodbye oldman.

Anonymous said...

Took me time to read the whole article, the article is great but the comments bring more brainstorm ideas, thanks.

- Johnson