CAIN AND ABEL

Cain (Heb: Qayin (), Gk: Kain () ), whose name means "possession" is the elder son of Adam. The name is also translated to Kenites, a group of people living in the area between southern Palestine and the Sinai mountains. Moses' father-in-law belong to this tribe.

Abel is the second son of Adam. The Qur'an does not mention their names. In the Bible, Cain was jealous of his brother Abel and killed him. Hughes mentions some tradition concerning this killing:

> "The occasion of the marking this offering is thus related, according to the common tradition in the East. Each of them being born with a twin-sister, when they were grown up, Adam, by God's direction, ordered Cain to marry Abel's twin-sister and Abel to marry Cain's; (for it being the common opinion that marriages ought not to be had in the nearest degrees of consanguinity, since they must necessarily marry their sister, it seemed reasonable to suppose they ought to take those of the remoter degree;) but this Cain refusing to agree to, because his own sister was the handsomest, Adam ordered them to make their offerings to God, thereby refering the dispute to His determination. The commentators say Cain's offering was a sheaf of the worst of his corn, but Abel's a fat lamb of the best of his flock. (Hughe's Dictionary of Islam, p. 2, quoting Sale's Koran, I., p.122)

- burial of Abel, al-Ma'idah 5:31-32, and the verse say that Cain was repentent.

  In the Qur'an, Allah showed Cain how to bury. This story is similar to Targum of Jonathan and Targum of Jerusalem:

  > "Adam and his help mate were sitting weeping and lamenting over him [Abel], and they did not know what to do with Abel, for they were not acquinted with burial. A raven, one of whose companions had died, came. He took him and dug in the earth and buried him before his eyes. Adam said, 'I shall do as this raven.'

  > Immediately, he took Abel's corpse and dug in the earth and buried it." (Jewish legend related by Pirqey Rabbi Eliezer, chapter XXI, quoted by Abdiyah Akbar Adul-Haqq, Sharing Your Faith with a Muslim.)

  Tisdall quotes from the same source in a slightly different translation:

  > So also in the book Pirke Rabbi Eleazer, we find the source of the burying of Abel as described in the Coran, there being no difference excepting that the raven indicates the mode to Adam instead of to Cain, as follows:- Adam and Eve, sitting by the corpse, wept not knowing what to do, for they had as yet no knowledge of burial. A raven coming up, took the dead body of its fellow, and having scratched up the earth, buried it thus before their eyes. Adam said, Let us follow the example of the raven, and so taking up Abel's body buried it at once. (W. St-Clair-Tisdall, Souces of Islam)

  Tisdall signalled that al-Ma'idah 5:31 and al-Ma'idah 5:32 seemed rather unrelated and pointed to the Mishnah Sanhedrin that provided the connection:

  > the Reader will look at the last verse (35) in the quotation above from Surah v. of the Koran, he will see that it has no connection with the one preceding. The relation is explained thus in the Mishnah Sanhedrin, where in quoting from Genesis the verse, - The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, 2 - the Commentator writes as follows:- "As regards Cain who killed his brother, the Lord addressing him does not say, 'The voice of thy brother's blood crieth out,' but 'the voice of his Bloods'; - meaning not his blood alone, but that of his descendants; and this to shew that since Adam was created alone, so he that kills an Israelite is, by the plural here used, counted as if he had killed the world at large; and he who saves a single Israelite is counted as if he had saved the whole world." Now, if we look at the thirty-fifth verse of the text above quoted, it will be found almost exactly the same as these last words of this old Jewish commentary. But we see that only part is given in the Koran, and the other part omitted. And this omitted part is the connecting link between the two passages in the Koran, without which they are unintelligible. [Footnote 2: 2 Gen. iv. 10, "Bloods" in the margin for blood.] (W. St-Clair-Tisdall, Souces of Islam)

- Cain killed Abel, al-Ma'idah 5:27-32

- as if murdered whole mankind. See above.

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