E.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Hughes, Thomas Patrick
(3) In theological books the term kaffāratu ʾẕ-ẕunūb, “the atonement for sins,” is used for the duties of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage. There is also a popular saying that ziyāratu ʾl-qubūr is kaffāratu ʾẕ-ẕunūb, i.e. the visiting of shrines of the saints is an atonement for sins.
Theologians define the terms kaffārah and fidyah as expressing that expiation which is due to God, whilst diyah and qiṣāṣ are that which is due to man. [FINES, SACRIFICES.]
For that expiation which is made by freeing a slave, the word taḥrīr is used, a word which implies setting a slave free for God’s sake, although the word does not in any sense mean a ransom or atonement for sin. It occurs in the Qurʾān, Sūrah iv. 94, “Whosoever kills a believer by mistake let him FREE a believing neck” (i.e. a Muslim slave).
EXTRAVAGANCE. Arabic Isrāf (اسراف). An extravagant person or prodigal is musrif, or mubaẕẕir, and is condemned in the Qurʾān:—
Sūrah xvii. 28, 29: “Waste not wastefully, for the wasteful were ever the brothers of the devil; and the devil is ever ungrateful to his Lord.”
Sūrah vii. 29: “O sons of men, take your ornaments to every mosque; and eat and drink, but be not extravagant, for He loves not the extravagant.”
EYES. Arabic ʿAyn (عين); pl. ʿUyūn, Aʿyun, Aʿyān. “If a person strike another in the eye, so as to force the member with its vessels out of the socket, there is no retaliation in this case, it being impossible to preserve a perfect equality in extracting an eye. But if the eye remain in its place, and the sight be destroyed, retaliation is to be inflicted, as in this case equality may be effected by extinguishing the sight of the offender’s corresponding eye with a hot iron.” (Hidāyah, iv. 294.)
There is a tradition by Mālik that the diyah or “fine” for blinding one eye is fifteen camels. (Mishkāt, book xiv. 167.) [EVIL EYE.]
EZEKIEL. Arabic Ḥizqīl. Not mentioned by name, but there is generally supposed to be an allusion to Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones (Ezek. xxxvii. 1) in the Qurʾān, Sūrah ii. 244:—
“Dost thou not look at those who left their homes by thousands, for fear of death; and God said to them ‘Die,’ and He then quickened them again?”
Al-Baiẓāwī says that a number of Israelites fled from their villages either to join in a religious war, or for fear of the plague, and were struck dead, but Ezekiel raised them to life again.
The Kamālān say he is perhaps the same as Ẕū ʾl-Kifl. [ZU ʾL-KIFL.]
EZRA. Arabic ʿUzair. The son of Sharaḥyāʾ, the scribe. Mentioned only once by name in the Qurʾān, Sūrah ix. 30:—
“The Jews say ʿUzair (Ezra) is a son of God.”
Al-Baiẓāwī says that during the Babylonish captivity the taurāt (the law) was lost, and that as there was no one who remembered the law when the Jews returned from captivity, God raised up Ezra from the dead, although he had been buried a hundred years. And that when the Jews saw him thus raised from the dead, they said he must be the son of God.
This story is supposed to have been revealed in the Qurʾān, Sūrah ii. 261:—
“[Hast thou not considered] him who passed by a city (which was Jerusalem), riding upon an ass, and having with him a basket of figs and a vessel of the juice of grapes and he was ʿUzair, and it was falling down upon its roofs, Nebuchadnezzar having ruined it? He said, wondering at the power of God, How will God quicken this after its death?—And God caused him to die for a hundred years. Then He raised him to life: and He said unto him, How long hast thou tarried here?—He answered I have tarried a day, or part of a day.—For he slept in the first part of the day, and was deprived of his life, and was reanimated at sunset. He said Nay, thou hast tarried a hundred years: but look at thy food and thy drink: they have not become changed by time: and look at thine ass.—And he beheld it dead, and its bones white and shining.—We have done this that thou mayest know, and that We may make thee a sign of the resurrection unto men. And look at the bones of thine ass, how We will raise them; then We will clothe them with flesh. So he looked at them, and they had become put together, and were clothed with flesh, and life was breathed into it, and it brayed. Therefore when it had been made manifest to him he said, I know that God is able to accomplish everything.”