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of Babylon are shown in this primeval story to have held that Ishtar, that is
Zohra, ascended on high, exactly as is told us in Muslim tradition, as also in
the Jewish commentaries.
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Now if we search for the Source of the above tale, we shall no doubt find it
in what the Talmud says of the angels associating with women, in its commentary
on the two verses in Genesis quoted below.1 Speaking of the second verse, a
Jewish commentator gives us the following interpretation: "It was
Shamhazai and Uzziel who in those days came down from heaven." Hence we see
that the whole imaginative tale has come out of the mistake of this and other
ignorant commentators. For the word giant, as shown below, was misconstrued by
them to signify not those who tyrannically "fell" on the poor people
around them, but angels who "came down, or fell, from heaven."2 And
this unhappy mistake has led to the spread of the strange idol-worship just
narrated. Nor was there any apparent reason for the mistake; since in the Targum
we find the name (Nefīlīm) explained in its right and natural sense as
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"giants." But by and by the Jews came to love the wild tales that
spread abroad; and so in a counterfeit book ascribed to Enoch, we are told that
200 angels under Samyaza (i.e. Shamhazai) came down from the heavens to commit
adultery on the earth, as we read:
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The angels of heaven having seen the daughters of men, fell in love with
them, and said to one another, Let us take for ourselves these women, the
daughters of mankind, and beget children for ourselves. And Samyaza, who was
their chief, said ....Azaziel taught men to make swords, daggers, and shields,
and taught them to wear breastplates. And for the women they made ornaments of
kinds, bracelets, jewels, collyrium to beautify their eyelids, lovely stones of
great price, dresses of beautiful colours, and current money.
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Let it be remembered also that we have mention of this in the Qur'an: Men
learned from these two (Hārūt and Mārūt) that by which to cause a division
between a man and his wife; but they did not injure any one thereby excepting by
leave of God; and they learned that which would hurt them and not profit them.1
This is similar to what we have seen above in the Midrash Yalkut, where we are
told that Azael embellished the daughters of men with ornaments to make them
lovely and attractive.
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But enough has been said to show that the story of Hārūt and Mārūt, as we find
it in the Qur'an and Muslim books, has been derived from Jewish sources.
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Fifth. A few other things taken by Islam from the Jews. If time permitted,
we could easily tell of many other narratives in the Qur'an, not in our Scripture
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