Beast of the Earth or a Phenomenon of Energy Occurrence

The quiddity and nature of the portents of the Last Day (ashrāṭ al-sā‘a) has always been a topic of discussion and the interpreters have dealt with it mainly through traditions. One of the instances is the bringing out a Beast from the earth (dābbat al-‘arḍ), which is mentioned briefly and ambiguously in verse 82 of Sūrat al-Naml. There are different and sometimes contradicting views in interpretations concerning the quiddity, quality, existence, action, and words of the Beast of the earth. With a comparative study of the interpretations, they can be divided into two main groups, from which seven subgroups are derived. The first group, which are mainly originated from traditions, have found referents for the Beast of the earth and the other group have not dealt with its nature. Thus, with the use of the descriptive-analytical method, delving into the words of the above verse, and with a brief explanation of the context of Sūrat al-Nam, it is tried in this paper to describe the quiddity and nature of the Beast of the earth. To this end, first, the exegetical viewpoints are briefly explained, then the word study of the verse in question is presented, and finally the selected viewpoint is stated, which is a scholarly analysis.
The findings suggest that, given the extensiveness of traditions about portents of the Last Day, some of which are also contradictory, it is necessary that by employing word study and finding the semantic field of the verse’s word, to undertake interpretation so as to get a more accurate understanding of Divine words. The achievement of this method is the approximation of exegetical opinions, unity of opinion, and the quiddity and quality of the portents of the Last Day.