Abul Uzza Ibn Abdul Muttalib was Mohamed’s uncle. He was wealthy and influential, but did not believe his nephew’s claims of being a prophet. However, that did not stop him from providing some protection to his nephew purely based on tribal kinship. Once he was told that Mohamed claimed that the late Abdul Muttalib, who was Abul Uzza’s father, would be burnt in hellfire because he died as a non-Muslim (although there was no Islam at the time of Abdul Muttalib who had died when Mohamed was still a child). This is laughable; nevertheless, that is the logic of Mohamed. Hearing that, Abul Uzza was disgusted at Mohamed’s utter lack of respect for his own grandfather, who had looked after Mohamed when he was a child. Abul Uzza then became openly hostile to Mohamed and denied him any protection or financial support.
Sura Al Masad is a short chapter that is solely dedicated to swear at Abdul Uzza, later known as Abu Lahab, and his wife.
Let us read this sura, Q.111
1. Perish the hands of Abu Lahab! Perish he!
2. No profit to him from all his wealth, and all his gains!
3. Burnt soon will he be in a Fire of Blazing Flame!
4. His wife shall carry the (crackling) wood - As fuel!-
5. A twisted rope of palm-leaf fibre round her (own) neck!
In an average street in an average Arab town, it is usual to hear few people shouting and swearing at one another using words like yukassir ideek. This is generally considered to be rude and is only used by bad-mannered people in times of anger. Yet it is exactly the modern equivalent of ‘perish the hands of …’ used in the Quran fourteen hundreds years ago. What is more disturbing is that, every one of the above verses is actually a swearing verse!
The above sura is one of the most commonly recited suras in the Quran, Nearly all Muslims know this sura by heart, even though it serves no religious function whatsoever. One would wonder why Allah, with all his greatness, could be so angry with one man and dedicate an entire chapter of his only book to swear at him and at his wife. Why Allah did not try to punish them during their lives? There is no evidence from Islamic history that Abu Lahab or his wife had ever suffered of any harm when they lived in Mecca.
This sura should alarm the reader to the falsity of this book. But do Muslims see it that way? Not at all! Muslims can only see miracles in the Quran, and this sura is no exception. Muslim scholars strategy is always to go on the offensive by converting the Quranic errors into miracles! In this case they say that Abu Lahab died as a non-believer and he could have converted to Islam just to prove that the verse is not accurate. But he did not. By making such a claim, Muslim scholars deliberately ignore the principle of abrogation in the Quran in which newer Quranic verses cancel the older verses. If desired, Mohamed could have easily ‘revealed’ other verses in praise of his uncle, or even could have asserted that Allah had ordered him to remove the sura completely.
