 |
| Sahih al-Bukhari |
Many of the traditions about Jesus in hadith literature stem
from the Sermon on the Mount; parables appear infrequently. The parable of the
Workers in the Vineyard found in Sahih al-Bukhari is a prominent exception. This parable,
which appears at least six times—although none of those instances ever
indicates that the labor occurs in a vineyard—is significantly reworked to
Islamicize its message (for a more extensive examination, see Elmostafa 2015).
All versions follow the same basic story, but the occurrences in 3:468, 3:469, 4:665,
and 6:539 (al-Bukhari 1971) are more closely related, and the
occurrences in 1:533 and 3:471, where the first two sets of workers quit the
assigned task, closely resemble each other.
The version in Sahih
al-Bukhari Volume 4, Book 56, #665 (4:665) is an example of the first
category:
Allah’s Apostle said, “Your period
(i.e. the Muslims’ period) in comparison to the periods of the previous
nations, is like the period between the ‘Asr prayer and sunset. And your
example in comparison to the Jews and the Christians is like the example of a
person who employed some laborers and asked them, ‘Who will work for me till midday
for one Qirat each?’ The Jews worked for half a day for one Qirat each. The
person asked, ‘Who will do the work for me from midday to the time of the ‘Asr
(prayer) for one Qirat each?’ The Christians worked from midday till the ‘Asr
prayer for one Qirat. Then the person asked, ‘Who will do the work for me from
the ‘Asr till sunset for two Qirats each?’” The Prophet added, “It is you (i.e.
Muslims) who are doing the work from the Asr till sunset, so you will have a
double reward. The Jews and the Christians got angry and said, ‘We have done
more work but got less wages.’ Allah said, ‘Have I been unjust to you as
regards your rights?’ They said, ‘No.’ So Allah said, ‘Then it is My Blessing
which I bestow on whomever I like.
In this version, Muhammad is explaining to Muslims their
current situation. The employer—Allah, as we find out at the end of the
story—hires the first group (i.e., the Jews) to “work” until midday for one
Qirat—a weight measurement seen as equal to the weight of a seed from a carob tree
(.2053 grams) for gold or silver, from which we get the English word carat. At midday, the work for the Jews
was over, and then the Christians were hired, also for one Qirat, to work the
next period of the day. The Christians finished their work, and then Muslims
were hired to finish the day/task, and they were paid twice the amount as the
first two groups of Jews and Christians. The reason for the doubling of pay is
perhaps explained elsewhere in the Sahih al-Bukhari, in a hadith that envisions the doubling of
pay for extra work/faithfulness:
Allah’s Apostle said, “(A believer)
who accompanies the funeral procession of a Muslim out of sincere faith and
hoping to attain Allah’s reward and remains with it till the funeral prayer is
offered and the burial ceremonies are over, he will return with a reward of two
Qirats . . . . He who offers the funeral prayer only and returns before the
burial, will return with the reward of one Qirat only” (Volume 1, Book 2, #45).
In the parable, there is an important difference between the
first two assignments and the third: The first two are finished working, since
Jews and Christians have completed their tasks. The third group’s mission is
still ongoing, since the labor of Muslims continues: “you . . . are doing the work.”
This interpretation of the different groups of laborers
representing different religious groups is similar to some earlier Christian
interpretations. Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, and Gregory, for example, all
argue that the different agreements the owner makes at different times with
workers represent the different dispensations God established throughout
history (e.g., the covenants made with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus).
In hadith traditions, the first two dispensations are Jews and Christians, but
the final dispensation is that of Muslims. In other words, this parable is
reworked to argue that even though God’s revelations to Muhammad are reminders
of what God had already conveyed to previous prophets like Abraham, they are
also corrections to the errors of the Jews and Christians. Muhammad, the last
and most important of those prophets, is able to correct those errors.
Next up: Other examples of the (re)interpretation of this parable in Sahih al-Bukhari.
No comments:
Post a Comment