Wednesday, June 08, 2016

My pupils are dangling on my cheeks

I've never really looked into Islamic lore around Job, but found my way to some as part of a book chapter on Joban reception history I'm working on. While there's not much in the Quran, accounts of the "lives of the prophets" are full of details - some continuous with Biblical, Jewish and Christian traditions I know, some not. Here's a taste from one by Abu Ishaq Ahmad Ibn Muhammed Ibn Ibrahim Al-Thalabi (died 1036),
A graphic vision of horror! (Job's fingers are useless as he scratched at his boils until all his fingernails fell off, though he still manages to put back worms which fall out, as God gave him to them for food.) But the most painful thing, we learn from a summary of various sages' views of what precipitated Job's saying "I am afflicted with distress," among his few words in the Quran (sura 39:41), may be the "gloating of enemies."

Ara'Is Al-Majalis Fi Qisas Al-Anbiya or Lives of the Prophets:
As Recounted by Abu Ishaq Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim Al-Tha'labi,
trans. William M. Brinner (Brill, 2002), 261, 270