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“Become you apes, repelled!” (Quran 7:166): The transformation of the Israelites into apes and its biblical and midrashic background1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2015

Uri Rubin
Uri Rubin*
Affiliation:
Professor Emeritus, Tel Aviv University
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

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.

Keywords

QuranIsraelitesMannaQuailApesBibleMidrashDavidJesusTheodoretAylaTiberias
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 25 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2015 

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Footnotes

1

My thanks are due to the participants in two seminar meetings at Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University, with whom I shared an earlier draft of this study, as well as to an anonymous reader, for their insightful comments. I alone am responsible for any remaining shortcomings.

References

2 For example Speyer, Heinrich, Die biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran (repr. Hildesheim, 1961), 313–14Google Scholar; Lichtenstaedter, Ilse, “‘And Become ye accursed apes’”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 14, 1991, 153–75Google Scholar; Cuypers, Michel, The Banquet: A Reading of the Fifth Sura of the Qurʾān (Miami, 2009), 290–1Google Scholar; Reynolds, Gabriel Said, The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext (London and New York, 2010), 106–17Google Scholar.

3 Hirschfeld, Hartwig, New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran (London, 1902)Google Scholar, 108. Cf. Reynolds, The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext, 114 n. 339. According to Hirschfeld, the Quranic story is “a mistaken rendition” of the biblical episode about the manna that became worms after the Children of Israel had disobeyed Moses by saving it for the morrow (Exodus 16:20). Hirschfeld posits that in the Quranic version, the people who left the manna overnight became insects themselves – qirāda (vermin). He maintains that the compilers of the Quran eventually preferred qirada (apes) to qirāda.

4 Unless otherwise stated, the English translation of the biblical passages is according to The New Revised Standard Version.

5 The Tosefta, Nashīm (Sotah 6:7) trans. Jaccob Neusner (New York, 1979), 174.

6 Sifré, Bamidmar, n. 95; Jacob Neusner, Sifré to Numbers (Atlanta, 1986), II, 105–6. See also Midrash agada, ed. Salomon Buber (Vienna, 1894), I, 101 (on Numbers 11:22).

7 Q. 10:94; 17:101; 25:59; 16:43; 21:7. Cf. Q. 43:45. See also Q. 2:211.

8 Midrash Tanhuma, Shemoth, Ki Tissa, no. 35 (Jerusalem, 1997), 703.

9 See Harrington, D.J., “Pseudo-Philo: a new translation and introduction”, in Charlesworth, James H. (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York, 1985)Google Scholar, II, 317.

10 See Ambros, Arne A., A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic (Wiesbaden, 2004)Google Scholar, 147 (traditionally explained as “swimming on or near the surface”).

11 Speyer, Die biblischen Erzählungen, 314. Cf. Reynolds, The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext, 115.

12 Drazin, Israel, Targum Onkelos to Numbers (Hoboken NJ, 1998)Google Scholar, 139. This is a delicate rendering, as if le-zārā were le-ṣārah (לצרה). Cf. ibid., 140 n. 44.

13 Clarke, E.G., Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text and Concordance (Hoboken NJ, 1984)Google Scholar, 170; Macho, Alejandro Díez, Neophyti 1 (Madrid, 1968–79)Google Scholar, IV (Números), 107.

14 The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshiṭta Version, Part I, fascicle 2 (Leiden, 1991), 39.

15 Margulies, Mordecai, Midrash Wayiqra Rabbah: A Critical Edition Based on Manuscripts and Genizah Fragments with Variants and Notes (Jerusalem, 1954–57), II, 409–10Google Scholar.

16 See the variants, ibid., 410.

17 See the Bar-Ilan University synoptic online edition of Leviticus Rabbah: http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/midrash/VR/editionData.htm. The first printed edition of Leviticus Rabbah (Constantinople, 1512) has the orthographic variation לקרדא/le-qardā: “into mites”. This would mean that the quail eaters were liable to be infested with mites. Had this variant been found in an early manuscript of Leviticus Rabbah, it might have provided a striking clue to the Quranic qirada. But alas, this is not the case. We only find it in printed editions, including those of Numbers Rabbah (7:4), where R. Ebyatar's text is repeated.

18 Speyer, Die biblischen Erzählungen, 313–14.

19 Midrash Tanhuma, Bereshit, Noah, no. 13 (Jerusalem, 1994), 126.

20 Lane, Lexicon, 736 col. 3.

21 Cf. Ambros, A Concise Dictionary, 85.

22 Leviticus Rabbah, 18:4.

23 The form zārīm is common to all manuscripts and printed editions.

24 The obligation imposed on the Jews to keep the Sabbath is related in the same sūra, in Q. 4:154, as well as in a Meccan sūra (Q. 16:124).

25 The clause lā yatanāhawna could be interpreted as “they did not restrain one another” (Ambros, A Concise Dictionary, 276), but this is a less plausible option. See Cook, Michael, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 2000), 15–16Google Scholar.

26 Elsewhere (Q. 21: 105), the Quran indeed alludes to a verse in Psalms – 37:29.

27 See Speyer, Die biblischen Erzählungen, 383; Paret, Rudi, Der Koran: Kommentar und Konkordanz (Stuttgart, 1971, 127)Google Scholar (with reference to Speyer). See also Cuypers, The Banquet, 350–51.

28 The possible relationship of Psalms 78 to David's curse has already been suggested by modern scholars, without, however, pinpointing the specific link. See Cuypers, The Banquet, 351. As noted by Cuypers, al-Biqāʿī (d. 885/1480) does quote a verbatim translation of Psalms 78:1–42, but again without focusing on a specific connection to the Quranic curse by the tongue of David. See ʿUmar al-Biqāʿī, Ibrāhīm b., Naẓm al-durar fī tanāsub al-āyāt wa-l-suwar (Hyderabad, 1972–84), VI, 260–2Google Scholar.

29 See The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshiṭta Version (Leiden, 1980), Part II, fascicle 3, 91.

30 The suggestion that Jesus's curse stands for Matthew 15–16 (quoted already by al-Biqāʿī), or 23, is therefore not entirely plausible. For these suggestions see Cuypers, The Banquet, 351–2. These passages may, however, be relevant to the Quranic affair of the Table (Q. 5:112–15).

31 Cuypers, The Banquet, 416, 419–23.

32 For example, Muqātil, Tafsīr, I, 496 (on Q. 5:78).

33 Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, The Questions on the Octateuch, Greek text revised by John F. Petruccione, English translation with introduction and commentary by Robert C. Hill (Washington DC, 2007), II, 121 (Question 19, on Numbers 11).

34 For example, Sulaymān, Muqātil b., Tafsīr al-Qurʾān, ed.Shiḥāta, ʿAbdallāh Maḥmūd (Cairo, 1979)Google Scholar, II, 70; Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Muḥammad b., Jāmiʿ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān (Cairo, 1323/1905)Google Scholar, repr. (Beirut, 1972), IX, 62.

35 A more refined location is suggested in traditions to the effect that the town by the sea is Maqnā, a town near Ayla, populated by Jews. The traditions say that it is between Madyan and ʿAynūnā. See Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, IX, 62; Muḥammad b. Abī Ḥātim, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b., Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, ed. Asʿad Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib (Mecca-Riyad, 1997)Google Scholar, V, 1598 (no. 8443 ). According to another version, Maqnā lies at the seashore (sāḥil) of Madyan. See Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq b. ʿAṭiyya, al-Muḥarrar al-wajīz fī tafsīr al-kitāb al-ʿazīz (Rabat, 1975–91)Google Scholar, VII, 186.

36 Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, IX, 62 (on Q. 7:163).

37 Ṭabarī, ibid.

38 For example, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Tafsīr, V, 1597 (no. 8442); Muḥammad al-Māwardī, ʿAlī b., al-Nukat wa-l-ʿuyūn fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, ed. ʿAbd al-Maqṣūd b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, (Beirut, 1992)Google Scholar, II, 272; Ibn ʿAṭiyya, Tafsīr, VII, 186; Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Qurṭubī, , al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān (Cairo, 1967)Google Scholar, VII, 305.