The Quran

Preface

وَرَسولًا إِلىٰ بَني إِسرائيلَ أَنّي قَد جِئتُكُم بِآيَةٍ مِن رَبِّكُم ۖ أَنّي أَخلُقُ لَكُم مِنَ الطّينِ كَهَيئَةِ الطَّيرِ فَأَنفُخُ فيهِ فَيَكونُ طَيرًا بِإِذنِ اللَّهِ ۖ وَأُبرِئُ الأَكمَهَ وَالأَبرَصَ وَأُحيِي المَوتىٰ بِإِذنِ اللَّهِ ۖ وَأُنَبِّئُكُم بِما تَأكُلونَ وَما تَدَّخِرونَ في بُيوتِكُم ۚ إِنَّ في ذٰلِكَ لَآيَةً لَكُم إِن كُنتُم مُؤمِنينَ

Ahmed Ali

And he will be Apostle to the children of Israel, (saying:) ‘I have come to you with a prodigy from your Lord that I will fashion the state of destiny¹ out of mire for you, and breathe (a new spirit) into it, and (you) will rise by the will of God. I will heal the blind and the leper², and infuse life into the dead, by the leave of God. I will tell you what you devour and what you hoard in your homes. In this will be a portent for you if you do believe.

Apart from ‘bird’ and other things, tair also means ‘omen’ as in 7:131, 27:47, 36:19, and ‘action’ or ‘good or evil fate’ – ‘the register of deeds’ – as in 17:13. It also means ‘destiny’ of ‘fortune’ As Apostle to the Jews at a time when their state was most deplorable (see verse 112 of this Surah), Jesus instilled new life into them, and raised them up from the mire.
The word used here is abras, one suffering from lukoderma, a disease that discolours the skin, and not judham, leprosy, in which fingers and toes rot and drop off, the leper, unlike a person with lukoderma being held in horror and shunned like an untouchable. It seems lukoderma has been confused with leprosy under evangelical influences, and abras has been invariably transalted as leper. Metaphorically, however, leprosy means to have one misfortune added to another. See Duncan Forbers’ Hindustani-English Dictionary (London, 1866) under korh, leprosy. Ibn Faris says that al-biras means ‘barren portions of the desert’, whence the metaphorical meaning of misfortune.
The Qur’an compares moral crimes to diseases, and calls those guilty of them ‘dead, dumb and blind’ as in 2:18, and ‘diseased of heart’ as in 2:10, and even ‘dead’ as in 27:80. That is why the Scripture is called ‘a healing’ as in 41:44. The meanings of blind, leper and dead have, therefore, to be taken in their metaphorical sense and not literally.