ABSTRACT
Al-Tha‘labc’s history of Job is presented across 11 pages of printed text (some 4,600 words). From the opening Qur’anic passages (Q. 38:40 and Q. 21:83), al-Tha‘labc moves on to a composite People of the Book account (with Wahb and Ka‘b as named sources) describing Job’s physical person, his genealogy, and his happy (and virtuous) situation prior to his afflictions. The words of Wahb b. Munabbih provide the body of the subsequent narrative: how Iblcs’ envy came to be aroused by the harmony of the angels echoing God’s appreciation of Job, and how Job was then afflicted at his hand (as a test to ascertain, before God, the depth and sincerity of his faith), the three stages of these afflictions (possessions, children, then person) and Job’s response to each, Iblcs’ repeatedly foiled hopes of breaking Job through affliction. He describes Job’s expulsion from the village and the dialogue of blame between the prophet and his former disciples that follows, Job’s eventual entreaty to his Lord, God’s seemingly angry response to this plea, Job’s apology and God’s ensuing declaration that His sentence has been carried out, the removal of the afflictions, and the reunion of Job and his wife.
