Обсуждение:Карун

Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE

Korah (Qārūn)

Qārūn (the biblical Korah) is the protagonist of a Qurʾānic passage (Qurʾān 28:76–82) in which he is introduced as one “belonging to the people of Moses” who “became insolent to them.” God had accorded him such enormous treasures that their “very keys were too heavy a burden for a company of men” (Q 28:76). People urged him to act not with a view to this world but for the world to come, and he answered, “What I have been given is only because of a knowledge that is in me” (Q 28:78). He did not know that God had already destroyed “generations of men stronger than him” (Q 28:78). Thus, when Qārūn “went forth unto his people in his adornment” (Q 28:79) and his people began to discuss his fortune, God decreed his death and “made the earth swallow up him and his dwelling, and there was no host to help him” (Q 28:81). A few other Qurʾānic passages mention Qārūn alongside Pharaoh and Hāmān. In one, they arrogantly oppose Moses (Q 29:39), while in another they accuse Moses of being a sorcerer and say, “We also sent Moses, with Our signs and a clear authority, to Pharaoh, Hāmān, and Qārūn; they said, ‘A lying sorcerer’” (Q 40:24).

Exegetical literature and later narrative descriptions of Qārūn elaborate the story. He was either Moses’s cousin or his uncle (al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ, 20:105–6), and he was nicknamed al-Nūr (lit., the light) because he was particularly handsome (al-Thaʿlabī, 213) or because his voice reciting the Torah was beautiful (al-Suyūṭī, 437; cf. variants in al-Majlisī, 250; al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, 518: variant nickname al-Munawwar, lit., the shining one). He appeared before his people in luxurious attire, with a magnificent escort consisting of hundreds of girls, thousands of riding beasts with purple saddles, and seventy thousand soldiers or more. Exegetes usually assert that Qārūn’s insolence in Q 28:76 is connected to his wearing clothes one span longer than people were accustomed to wear, which was considered inappropriate for a man (al-Suyūṭī, 437; Tottoli, 67), or that “his adornment” (Q 28:76) means that he presented himself to his people wearing luxurious yellow or red clothing (al-Suyūṭī, 440–1; cf. Tottoli, 70) made of materials such as silk and bearing jewels of every kind (al-Ḥayṣam, 400). The keys to his treasures were the leather keys of his storehouses, which were no larger than a finger but so heavy that it took forty men or sixty mules to carry them (al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ, 106–8). He owned a house with walls covered in gold and with a golden door (al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ, 118).

The confrontation between Moses and Qārūn took place while the Israelites were in the wilderness, refusing to enter the Holy Land (Qummī). Qārūn, envious of the prophethood of Moses and of the privileges of Aaron (al-Samarqandī, 2:525; al-Thaʿlabī, 215–6) planned to get rid of Moses. He paid a woman to accuse Moses of adultery, but the woman, when examined by Moses, retracted her accusation and revealed Qārūn’s plan (Mujāhid; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ, 116–8). Moses ordered the earth to seize Qārūn, and, in spite of Qārūn’s pleas, he and his house were completely swallowed up (Muqātil, 3:357). A tradition attributed to the prophet Muḥammad states that Qārūn every day sinks deeper into the earth by the height of a man and that he will continue sinking at this rate, not reaching the lower earth until the day of resurrection (Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, 451). It is also said, however, that, while sinking into the earth, Qārūn heard Jonah’s voice in the belly of the whale and felt sorry when he learnt of Moses’s and Aaron’s deaths; as a reward, God relieved him of his punishment (al-Majlisī, 13:253). According to some reports, the Israelites for some time even accused Moses of having caused Qārūn’s death in order to take his wealth and his house (Muqātil, 357).

Some reports link Qārūn’s knowledge mentioned in the Qurʾān to alchemy and maintain that he was able to change lead and copper into silver and gold. Qārūn learnt alchemy from his wife, who was Moses’s sister, and built palaces with walls of gold and silver after Moses had been asked by God to cover the ark of the Torah with gold and to teach Qārūn this art (al-Kisāʾī, 229). He also learnt to spy on Moses (al-Rabghūzī, 1:260). Or Moses himself taught one-third of his magic each to Aaron, his sister, and Qārūn, but Qārūn was then able to acquire all of it (al-Ḥayṣam, 401).

Western studies have discussed the relation of the Qurʾānic Qārūn to the biblical Korah mentioned in the Book of Numbers (in part, 16:31–3 and 26:10), who rebelled treacherously against Moses and was swallowed up by the earth, with all his possessions. The relationship of biblical and rabbinic narratives on Korah to the Qurʾānic and Islamic narratives on Qārūn is discussed in several studies (Geiger; Speyer). The origin of the Arabic name Qārūn has been likened to names such as Aaron (Hārūn; see Sycz; Horovitz; Jeffery).

Bibliography

Sources

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Musnad (Beirut 1991), 2:574, no. 6587

al-Hayṣam b. Muḥammad, Qiṣaṣ al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbduh Ḥatāmila and Muḥammad Jāsim al-Mashhadānī (Amman 2006), 399–406

al-Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, ed. Isaac Eisenberg (Leiden 1922–3), 229–30, ed. and trans. Wheeler M. Thackston Jr., The Tales of the prophets of al-Kisaʾi (Boston 1978), 245–6

al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār (Beirut 1983), 13:249–58

Mujāhid b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr (Cairo 1989), 532–3

Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr (Cairo 1979–89), 3:355–8

al-Qummī, Tafsīr (Beirut 1991), 2:144–5

al-Rabghūzī, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, ed. Hendrik E. Boeschoten and John O’Kane, Stories of the prophets (Leiden 1995, 20152), 1:260–3, 2:301–5

al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr fī l-tafsīr al-maʾthūr (Beirut 1983), 6:436–43

al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āyāt al-Qurʾān (Cairo 1968), 20:105–19

al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M. J. de Goeje et al. (Leiden 1879–1901), 1:517–27, ed. and trans. William M. Brinner, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 3, The children of Israel (Albany 1991), 99–111

al-Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ (Cairo 1954), 213–7, trans. William M. Brinner, ʿArāʾis al-Majālis fī Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ or Lives of the prophets (Leiden 2002), 353–60.

Studies

Amina Adil, Gaben des Lichts. Die Wundersamen Geschichten der Gesandten Gottes (Kandern im Schwarzwald 1999), 351–5

A. Geiger, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? (Bonn 1833), trans. Judaism and Islam (Madras 1898), 121–2

Max Grünbaum, Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sagenkunde (Leiden 1893), 170–3

Josef Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen (Berlin and Leipzig 1926), 131

Arthur Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary of the Qurʾān (Baroda 1938), 231–2

D. B. MacDonald, Ḳārūn, EI2

Gabriel S. Reynolds, The Qurʾān and the Bible, New Haven 2018

Abū l-Layth al-Samarqandī, Tafsīr = Baḥr al-ʿulūm, ed. ʿAlī Muḥammad Muʿawwaḍ, ʿĀdil Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Mawjūd, and Zakariyyāʾ ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Nawutī (Beirut 1993), 2:525–8

Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī taʾrīkh al-aʿyān, vol. 1, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās (Beirut 1985), 1:449–52

D. Sidersky, Les origines des légendes musulmanes dans le Coran et dans les vies des prophètes (Paris 1933), 95–7

Heinrich Speyer, Die biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran (Gräfenhainichen 1931), 342–4

S. Sycz, Ursprung und Wiedergabe der biblischen Eigennamen im Koran (Frankfurt am Main 1903), 42–3

Roberto Tottoli, Tradizioni islamiche sull’uso di tessuti e vestiti, in Manuela Marín (ed.), Tejer y vestir. De la antigüedad al Islam (Madrid 2001), 43–72.

Cite this page

Tottoli, Roberto, “Korah (Qārūn)”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Consulted online on 19 December 2022 <http://dx.doi.org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_35673> First print edition: 9789004464636, 20221101, 2022-6