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A prophet named in the Qur'an, sent to the people of Midian and of al-Ayka; because of the gentle style and eloquence with which he conveyed God's commands to his people, some sources call him khatib al-anbiya, "the orator of the prophets".
Differing reports are transmitted about his lineage, his name, his relation to Moses, the people to whom he was sent and his end; these appear one by one in the Multiple Views section. Ibn Sa'd and Ibn Habib, stating that he descended from Abraham, give his name as Shu'ayb b. Yawbab b. Ayfa b. Madyan b. Ibrahim; Ibn Sa'd reports that he was sent after Salih and before Moses and Aaron. Ibn Qutayba relates a report that he received this name because he prayed, "O God, bless me among my people (sha'bi)." His name does not occur in the Bible.
The name Shu'ayb occurs eleven times in the Qur'an (al-A'raf 7/85, 88, 90, 92; Hud 11/84, 87, 91, 94; al-Shu'ara 26/177; al-Ankabut 29/36); the people to whom he was sent are named Midian and al-Ayka (al-Shu'ara 26/176). Islamic sources hold that the region of his mission, like the homeland of the prophets Hud and Salih, was north-western Arabia and the eastern shores of the Gulf of Aqaba. According to the Old Testament, the nomadic Midianites had spread westward from Aqaba to Sinai, northward to Moab and as far as east of the Jordan valley. Muslim scholars state that Midian was a people descended from Madyan b. Ibrahim and that the place where they lived was given this name; al-Mas'udi says they spoke Arabic.
The Qur'an relates that Shu'ayb called his people to believe that there is no god but God, to accept his prophethood and worship God alone, to give full measure and weight, to uphold justice among people, not to wrong others and not to spread corruption on earth; that he warned them that if they ignored his warnings, what had befallen the peoples of Noah, Hud, Salih and Lot might befall them too, reminding them in particular that the people of Lot were not far from them (Hud 11/89).
According to the Qur'an, because the people of Midian ignored the warnings they were destroyed by a violent earthquake (al-A'raf 7/91; al-Ankabut 29/37), a mighty blast (Hud 11/94) and the punishment of "the day of the shadow" (al-Shu'ara 26/189); only those who believed in Shu'ayb were saved from it. Reports differ on what became of Shu'ayb and his followers afterwards.
Differing Scholarly Views
Lineage — Ibn Sa'd and Ibn Habib connect him to Abraham through Madyan b. Ibrahim. There are also views that his father's name was Mika'il or Nawil (Nuwayl). Some say he descended from a man who believed in Abraham and emigrated with him to Syria, or that he was the son or grandson of Lot's daughter. The atlas does not choose between these views.
Origin of the name — Although there are views that Shu'ayb is the diminutive of "sha'b" (tribe, people) or "shi'b" (valley, path), the view that the name is an original form rather than a diminutive has been preferred, since a diminutive form was not deemed fitting for the name of a prophet. Nöldeke suggests the name may come from north-west Arabian tradition.
Relation to Moses — In the Old Testament the father of the girls whom Moses helped is called Jethro. Some scholars say that the father of the girls whom Moses helped at the waters of Midian, as told in the Qur'an, was Shu'ayb; others say he was Yathrun, the son of Shu'ayb's brother. Ibn Abbas and al-Hasan al-Basri state that this man cannot have been Shu'ayb, who lived much earlier; Ibn Taymiyya likewise argues that Moses' father-in-law can have been neither Shu'ayb nor his brother's son. The atlas takes no side among these views.
Midian and al-Ayka — Some scholars, such as al-Maqdisi and al-Qurtubi, hold that Shu'ayb was commissioned twice, to the people of Midian and to the people of al-Ayka; al-Tha'labi and Ibn Kathir regard the two as one people; al-Maturidi says it is not known whether Midian is al-Ayka. According to the source, from al-Tabari onward many Muslim scholars have regarded the two peoples as the same.
His end and the location of the grave — According to the source, Shu'ayb and his followers, in one view, went to Mecca and died there; in another, they went on living in the same place. The source does not mention the shrine in Wadi Shu'ayb near Salt, to which the atlas record points, or any other burial place; nor is the note that the Midianites spread as far as east of the Jordan valley a judgement on the shrine's location. Because the pilgrimage tradition of the shrine does not appear in this source, it is not written here. The atlas does not choose between the two reports.
Sources
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) · vol. 39, pp. 222-223, entry “Şuayb”
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