The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page lxii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION thousand years later, is able to correct these narratives. The errors which the Quran points out are readily acknowledged by reason. Prophets Defamed by the Bible There have also crept into the Bible statements which are immoral in their import. It seems impossible to attribute actions reported in them either to God or to His Prophets, (1) In Genesis 9:20-22 we read: And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. This account presents Noah in a most unbecoming manner. According to it Noah planted a vineyard, drank the wine, was undressed in his tent, his son Ham saw him naked and told his brothers about it. The account is wholly uncomplimentary to Noah, and yet of Noah we read in Genesis 6:9. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. It is inconceivable that such a man would commit the indecency of becoming undressed before his own children. Then it offends our moral judgement to think that the indecency should be committed by Noah but curses should be heaped upon Ham. Ham's fault, even according to the Biblical account, was to see his father undressed and yet he hardly could do otherwise. When he found his father drunken and naked, he could not possibly avoid seeing him as such and yet according to the Bible Noah said, "Cursed be Canaan" (Genesis 9:25). Actually, Canaan is not to blame at all. Canaan was the son of Ham who committed the unavoidable indecency of seeing his naked father. Yet Noah had not a word to say in condemnation of Ham. He curses Canaan, who is not to blame at all. Is it because Ham was his son and Canaan his grandson? Such conduct offends our moral consciousness and cannot be attributed to a Prophet. To attribute it to a Prophet is a matter of shame for one who makes the attempt. We can well understand, however, that these things were not revealed to Moses by God, nor did Moses have them written down in his Book. Jewish scholars who describe the Prophets as thieves and robbers must have entered these things into the Book of Moses as a cover for their own sins. Their unholy interference with a Book of God made it necessary that God should reveal another Book which should be free from the absurdities and falsehoods which had crept into the old. xxxvi