seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Quran 15:61. And when the envoys came to the family of Lot.
62. He said, “You are a people unknown to me.”
63. They said, “We bring you what they have doubts about.”
64. “We bring you the truth, and we are truthful.”
65. “Travel with your family at the dead of the night, and follow up behind them, and let none of you look back, and proceed as commanded.”
66. And We informed him of Our decree: the last remnant of these will be uprooted by early morning.
67. And the people of the town came joyfully.
68. He said, “These are my guests, so do not embarrass me.”
69. “And fear God, and do not disgrace me.”
70. They said, “Did we not forbid you from strangers?”
71. He said, “These are my daughters, if you must.”
72. By your life, they were blundering in their drunkenness.
73. So the Blast struck them at sunrise.
74. And We turned it upside down, and rained down upon them stones of baked clay.
75. Surely in that are lessons for those who read signs.
76. And it is on an existing road.
77. Surely in that is a sign for the believers.
78. The people of the Woods were also wrongdoers.
79. So We took revenge upon them. Both are clearly documented.
There isn't a lot of commentary on these verses. Here it is.As remarked in 11:78a, Lot was a stranger among the Sodomites, and, as this verse shows, he was forbidden by the people to entertain any stranger as a guest or to give him shelter.
He offered his daughters as hostages, as a guarantee that the strangers would not make any mischief;
Mutawassim is one who examines things in order to know the real character of a thing from outward signs; hence one who takes a lesson from the fate of others.
Well that makes a lot more sense. In the Bible.... one of his daughters is raped outside his door. I mean these are wicked people... I get that.... but to have the child die on the doorstep is horrible. How do you teach that story to children? The Quran says that Lot wasn't really appreciated in Sodom. He was forbidden from entertaining company. The people of Sodom didn't want him bringing in people who wouldn't fit in. They didn't want to see him entertaining those Jewish cousins. His daughters were a guarantee.This story plays out in the westerns all the time. A stranger settles in town. He's not like the others..... After all his cousin is Abraham.... the guy who would sacrifice his own son for God. Lot had a lot of daughters.... and Lot was expected to hand those daughters over to the town. After all the town watering whole needed something pretty to look at. When the visitors came to town..... the towns folk didn't like it. After all.... these girls were the town's future... new blood.... for the sons of Sodom. Lot didn't have any right to bring in strangers. So the towns folk got together at the watering hole and decided Lot's friends had to go. Think of them as that mob that comes with guns, drunk and yelling. They might have even had a noose to string Lot up if he got in the way. They might have even been talking of "stringing up" those strangers.
In the westerns the townspeople would have been full of bluster. Lot and the strangers would be shown standing beside the window peaking out a fluffy little curtain.... keeping watch.... and then... in the night..... verses 73 and 74 take place.... the meteor storm kicks in.... fire from the sky.... like laying ground cover for them to make their escape. The strangers knew the time was right and got Lot and his girls safely out of Sodom before the town's men could make their horrible claim. Lot's wife... well she wasn't sold on the whole "moving on" idea. She had to look back....... that was it.... on the western... she would be shot and fall, clutching her breast, and the music would swell and then go silent. Lot was coming up the rear... according to verse 65.... so he saw his wife hit with salt. In the westerns he would have made time to go over and hold her hand as she died.... but they were on the run in both the Bible and the Quran.... so he had to leave her and run.
Sodom was full of people who would buy any idea that came along except the one about God being in charge of everything everywhere anytime. I bet they were the most "unjudgmental" bunch of humans anyone ever met.... until the strangers came to see Lot. I bet they had a cancel culture that set the rules for cancel culture.... until the strangers came to see Lot.
Both the Bible and the Quran say Sodom and everyone in it was destroyed before the sun came up the next morning. Lot's wife stood frozen caked in a thick salt stone. Men and women lay covered in salty lava ash. Lot and his daughters were the only humans who survived.
It's important to realize.... back when Sodom was destroyed.... Sodom was their whole world. Lot and his girls were sure they were the only humans left on earth. It was that horrible! That meteor storm destroyed everything but Lot and his girls who ran just in time..... because the strangers came to town and warned them to get out just in time.
Lot and his daughters..... made it out alive.
