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102
وَاتَّبَعوا ما تَتلُو الشَّياطينُ عَلىٰ مُلكِ سُلَيمانَ ۖ وَما كَفَرَ سُلَيمانُ وَلٰكِنَّ الشَّياطينَ كَفَروا يُعَلِّمونَ النّاسَ السِّحرَ وَما أُنزِلَ عَلَى المَلَكَينِ بِبابِلَ هاروتَ وَماروتَ ۚ وَما يُعَلِّمانِ مِن أَحَدٍ حَتّىٰ يَقولا إِنَّما نَحنُ فِتنَةٌ فَلا تَكفُر ۖ فَيَتَعَلَّمونَ مِنهُما ما يُفَرِّقونَ بِهِ بَينَ المَرءِ وَزَوجِهِ ۚ وَما هُم بِضارّينَ بِهِ مِن أَحَدٍ إِلّا بِإِذنِ اللَّهِ ۚ وَيَتَعَلَّمونَ ما يَضُرُّهُم وَلا يَنفَعُهُم ۚ وَلَقَد عَلِموا لَمَنِ اشتَراهُ ما لَهُ فِي الآخِرَةِ مِن خَلاقٍ ۚ وَلَبِئسَ ما شَرَوا بِهِ أَنفُسَهُم ۚ لَو كانوا يَعلَمونَ

Yusuf Ali

They followed what the evil ones1 gave out (falsely) against the power of Solomon: the blasphemers Were, not Solomon, but the evil ones, teaching men Magic, and such things as came down at Babylon to the angels Harut and Marut2. But neither of these taught anyone (Such things) without saying: “We are only for trial; so do not blaspheme.” They learned from them3 the means to sow discord between man and wife. But they could not thus harm anyone except by God’s permission. And they learned what harmed them, not what profited them. And they knew that the buyers of (magic) would have no share in the happiness of the Hereafter. And vile was the price for which they did sell their souls, if they but knew!
  • This is a continuation of the argument in 2:101. The People of the Book, instead of sticking to the plain Books of Revelations, and seeking to do the will of God, ran after all sorts of occult knowledge, most of which was false and evil. Many wonderful tales of occult power attributed the power of Solomon to magic. But Solomon dealt in no arts of evil. It was the powers of evil that pretended to force the laws of nature and the will of God; such a pretence is plainly blasphemy.
  • This verse has been interpreted variously. Who were Harut and Marut? What did they teach? Why did they teach it? The view which commends itself to me is that of the Tafsir Haqqani, following Baidhawi and Tafsir Kabir. The word “angels” as applied to Harut and Marut is figurative. It means “good men, of knowledge, science (or wisdom), and power.” In modern languages the word “angel” is applied to a good and beautiful woman. The earlier tradition made angels masculine, and applied to them the attributes which I have mentioned, along with the attribute of beauty, which was implied in goodness, knowledge, wisdom, and power.
    Harut and Marut lived in Babylon, a very ancient seat of science, especially the science of astronomy. The period may be supposed to be anywhere about the time when the ancient Eastern Monarchies were strong and enlightened: probably even earlier, as Marutu or Marduk was a deified hero afterwards worshipped as a god of magic in Babylon. Being good men, Harut and Marut of course dabbled in nothing evil, and their hands were certainly clean of fraud. But knowledge and the arts, if learned by evil men, can be applied to evil uses. The evil ones, besides their fraudulent magic, also learnt a little of this true science and applied it to evil uses. Harut and Marut did not withhold knowledge, yet never taught anyone without plainly warning them of the trial and temptation of knowledge in the hands of evil men. Being men of insight, they also saw the blasphemy that might rise to the lips of the evil ones puffed up with science and warned them against it. Knowledge is indeed a trial or temptation: if we are warned, we know its dangers: if God has endowed us with free will, we must be free to choose between the benefit and the danger.
    Among the Jewish traditions in the Midrash (Jewish Tafsirs) was a story of two angels who asked God’s permission to come down to earth but succumbed to temptation, and were hung up by their feet at Babylon for punishment. Such stories about sinning angels who were cast down to punishment were believed in by the early Christians also. (See the Second Epistle of Peter 2:4, and the Epistle of Jude, verse 6). There may be an allusion to such legends here, but much spiritualized, and we are expressly warned against dabbling in magic or believing that anything can hurt us except by God’s will, and God is just and righteous.
  • What the evil ones learnt from Harut and Marut (see last note) they turned to evil. When mixed with fraud and deception, it appeared as charms and spells and love potions. They did nothing but cause discord between the sexes. But of course their power was limited to the extent to which God permitted the evil to work, for His grace protected all who sought His guidance and repented and returned to Him. But apart from the harm that these false pretenders might do to others, the chief harm which they did was to their own souls. They sold themselves into slavery to the Evil One, as is shown in the allegory of Goethe’s Faust. That allegory dealt with the individual soul. Here the tragedy is shown to occur not only to individuals but to whole groups of people, for example, the People of the Book. Indeed the story might be extended indefinitely.