''OK what do you think this means if it doesn't mean he was leaning on his stick?''
He may have been leaning on his stick - but we don't know. What else could the verse be referring to? - I honestly feel I'd be wasting my time speculating - sorry!
''How long did it take for the ferret to eat the stick?''
I don't know maybe we should conduct an experiment - I'm sure though that a mole-rat or a meerkat or a number of other creatures that live in the ground (i.e. an earthly creature) could eat away at a stick so that it would break within a few hours.
tbh Hassan I feel a bit silly at speculating at these things - I hope you're going somewhere with this.
But this is not meaningless speculation - we are trying to find out what the Qur'an means. Or are you suggesting parts of the Qur'an don't mean anything? Or their meaning cannot be understood?
So do you agree leaning on a stick is the only thing that makes sense? If it doesn't mean that then what could it mean that makes more sense? Does this verse make no sense?
As for the ferret eating the stick in a few hours - OK let's say it ate it in a few hours. Here's the scene:
The Jinn are suffering a painful and humiliating work. Sulayman then dies and a few hours later falls down and the Jinn see him.
Now the Qur'an says:
"when he fell down, the Jinns saw plainly that if they had known the unseen, they would not have tarried in the humiliating Penalty"The word is
labitha - that means stayed a long time. Is a few hours a long time?
So you are saying the Jinn saw him after a few hours and said "OMG if ONLY we had known we wouldn't have stayed in this humiliating painful work - we could have knocked off a few hours early!"
Tell me honestly, doesn't it sound like the Jinn had been toiling a lot longer than a few hours? After all that is what makes this whole verse extraordinary. It is within the realms of possibility that one might not notice a dead person for a few hours - that has happened many times. There is nothing extraordinary about that. No-one would question themselves:
"If only we knew the unseen."And if God can send a ferret to eat a stick in a few hours - why is that anymore believable than an insect eating it over days?
btw creature of the earth implies a small insect - that is certainly how all the tafseers and linguists understood it.
Tell me truthfully do you reject the idea of an insect eating the stick in a few days (or more) because you find it unsupported by the text of the Qur'an - or because you personally find it a bit silly?
Also tell me honestly do you find the idea of a ferret eating it in a few hours better supported by the text of the Qur'an - or is it because that might make more sense to you?
Is it
really the text that you follow or what makes more sense to you, Abu Yunus?
Topic: The Story of Sulayman