New Salat Article

progod

Of course vocalizations are pronounced. When we open our mouth to talk we are "vocalizing". Which leads us to the first reality, which is that Classical Arabic vocalization of words is different from the real vocalization of the language of the great reading as empirically verifiable by the majority of its passages.

For example, in the language of the great reading we say "al-rahman allam-al-quran".

On the other hand, in Classical Arabic, we should say "al-rahmanu allam-al-qurana".

This is your first incorrect statment. Vocalizations are all non-consonant letters, i.e. vowels, not just speaking in general. Please don't overgeneralize and force your self to say incorrect things. The first pronunciation that you provide fo the Quranic phrase is how Modern Arabs twist the Quran to make it easier for them. There are plenty of other evidences point to this twisting as well. The qalqalah for instance as well their are modern reciters who pronounce na3budu as ni3bidu an obvious dialect derived corruption. I'm sure you recognize it. Like niktib for naktubu.

The natural pleasantly flowing rhyme of the great reading is the closest thing we have to an ancient voice recorder and what we hear from this recorder is that in the real language of the great reading there were no case endings (this is also vastly unlike later Classical Arabic Jahiliya poetry where the case ending is an integral part of the rhyme).

The Quran has had its pronunciation forced to fit into poetry-like rhyme. It was made to always rhyme when it doesn't and made to be sung when it was not meant to be a song. Who said that the Quran has to rhyme? I've seen in the Quranic pronunciation where ahaanee is changed to Ahaanan and akramanee is changed to akraman and much more. Would you ever say huwa ahaanan for huwa ahaanee? You see how that throws your theory out the window? These are corruptions of the pronunciation of the Quran, just accepted ones so that the Quran could be made "more beatiful" to the ears of the people by forcing it to rhyme where it doesn't and making it like song when it was never meant to be sung. Again, who said that the Quran has to rhyme?

The second reality is that as you correctly said, a low status vernacular is exactly what the language of the great reading was. However, this means that it couldn?t have been a ?prestigious? poetry language that gave those who recited it elite status as Classical Arabic literature would have us think.

Again we have a mistake in your thinking. Think of hip hop for instance where Afro-American vernacular, a low status vernacular is used in song and music. Now on the whole scheme of Engilsh it is low status, but not to Afro-americans who appreciate and even praise the rhymes produced in their dialect. So whereas the language might not be prestigious on a worldly scheme it is highly praised on the street level and where this dialect is actually spoken. The same thing goes for Arabic. It was praised by the people who spoke it and used it before the Quran. It then gained international acclaim after the Arabs conquered a whole slew of people and held up the Quran (and their poetries) as the symbol of their language. Hence their Arabic then became prestigious and later Classical.

he third reality is that a vernacular is fluid and has looser standards than a formal language. So it does have an impact on grammar. In a vernacular language, no one makes a big deal or raises an eyebrow when someone says ?wasssssssaaaaap? instead of ?what is up?? or ?what?s up? no more than an average Arab at the time of the great reading would have been scolded for saying to his family ?al-walad akal-al-khubz? instead of ?al-waladu akal-al-khubza?. I am also certain that his family would have known exactly what he meant had he said ?akal-al-kuhbz al-walad? and without the Classical Arabic case endings they wouldn?t have thought that the bread had eaten the child. This is the main difference between a vernacular and a formal rigid language.

Here again you are a product of modern popular thinking, and not true scholarship. Proper English is '"what is up'' or "what's up" but what would seem to someone as unrigid or loose grammar because of differences in pronunciation is actuallly a lack of knowledge. Afro-American dialects work off of the contractions of most English phrases. Take the more archaic e'ry for every ain't for am not, etc. etc. Then because it has distinct subsrates (including Iberian dialects and different African languages) it applies different rules (not loose rules) to pronunciation. Consonant clusters are often simpified, take for instance busin' for busting, what's up became whas up. And it's and I'm take the place of it and I. So you will hear 'iss' for it's and then instead of 'it is' 'iss is' and instead of I am both I'm am and I'm is pronounced Ahm is and Ahm am. This is why I said you have to know languages to really understand this. When I talk to a regular Afro-American on the street they also think that they are just using loose grammar or bad grammar. If in Afro-American vernacular you can say something in proper English or dialect that doesn't mean that the dialect does not have rules or that it has loose rules. This is called diglossia where two languages or dialects are equally understood and used. For instance the use of be in afro-American English has very rigid rules. You can't say 'I be here' for I am here. That is just wrong, and is bad grammar. And there is a difference between 'I a be here' (which can sound just like I be here) and I be here (which is the habitual use). The issue here is that you have been taught that dialect versions of Classical/Proper langauges don't have grammar and that is wrong. Because of their low status they are usually undermined to make you think that they don't have grammar or that they have loose grammar but that is wrong. Every language has rigid grammar, they are just different grammars. It is not a matter of loose or rigid. So you cannot speculate on how the people back then didn't use case endings when it is obvious in all literature that they did. And it's being taken out when reciting the Quran is a corruption of the book to make it rhyme because in many places it obviously does not rhyme and was not meant to.

Unlike casual vernaculars, Classical Arabic is a cumbersome idealized theoretical language that no one ever actually spoke in everyday life.

Again what you are doing here is like comparing Elizabethan English to Modern English. It is cumbersome for you because you speak Modern Arabic just like I speak Modern English and Elizabethan English is cumbersome for me. It is amazing how despite the volumes of books with examples of the way people spoke back then you assume that all that is made up and somehow they all spoke like you do today. That is the most assumptious, presumptious fabrication I have ever come across and speaks to what I said about the Arabic culture today as a whole. You are not the only one I've heard this from. And it only comes out of the mouths of Arabs who are not well educated in Old Arabic literature and linguistics (the study of all langauges and their trends) and have not seen enough to make logical assumptions about the difference between their everyday language that they still call Arabic and the Arabic that Old Arabs used. Despite all of the evidence out there that people did speak with case endings you just take the few writings that don't write ANY vowels (not even the ones between the consonants) and assume that because you see f&l in an inscripton that they said it like you say it, fA&Al and not fA&AlA, when the truth is that NO vowel is written. I have explained over and over again why in the evolution of Arabic after the Quran the case endings were dropped, and conjugations changed. All you need to do is do a comparative study of Hebrew and Aramaic conjugations and realize that the majority of the people outside of the Arabian peninsula in the Middle East were speakers of Hebraic and Aramaic dialects (in Yemen Himyaritic dialects). If you knew anything about the evolution of Latin or Greek a great big bell in your head would ring.

As it concerns who is an Arab. The first Arabs were the original tribes within Arabia Felix that called themselves that. You know, the ancestors of Qahtan and Adnaan, the tribes of Mudar and the like. But because being Arab is a tribal affilation and not a racial one anyone brought into the tribes through intermarriage or acceptance becomes an Arab. that is why there are white Arabs to the north (from Caucasiod Mothers and Arab fathers from the south) and black Arabs (from the Old original Arabs (consider the Mahra and the black Arab tibes mentioned by Al-Jahiz) and from mixtures between Arabs from the peninsula and non-Arab mothers in Black Africa). And most are just a mixture of all the influences that came into the Pensinsula at any give time and were absorbed by these tribes. As well as the mixtures that went on outside of the Peninsula. The problem here is that Arabic patriarchism and the status involved with being Arab in the past totally shadowed out and erased the ethnicity of those non-Arab mothers. The only ones who have found themselves out of the mix are many sudanese Arabs, as European colonialism convinced the lighter Arabs that they are a Caucasian race, and they believed it trying to be as vain and stuck up as their conquerors.

Furthermore it is easy to see how the Quran uses those terms if you know Arabic and how it works and if you understand history. I don't see why this is Abbasid propaganda and I don't see your proof for this statement either. The habash (Black and Mixed Ethiopians) and the A'jam had been entering that peninsula for along time and fighting there. If you consider that the Habash spoke a langauge very similar to Arabic (both are Afro-Asiatic languages in the so called 'semtic' family) and the A'jam spoke a totally separate langauge (indo-european), it is obvious that if a habash learned Arabic it would flow better than an A'jam (like if A spaniard learned romanian or french). And there are more reasons for why the Persians would have been called A'jam. The banoo ghassan for instance had influence reaching down into the hijaz. They were proxies of Rome (Byzantine) and enemies of the banoo lakhm who were proxies of Persia. Thus creating a situation where the ideas of the banoo ghassan would be more prevalent in the Hijaaz (and also the aramaic scripts seeing that the banoo ghassaan were christian at the time).

I think I've explained myself enough. Take it or leave it. Either way you lose.

Godbless,
Anwar

ayman

Peace Anwar,

This is your first incorrect statment. Vocalizations are all non-consonant letters, i.e. vowels, not just speaking in general. Please don't overgeneralize and force your self to say incorrect things.

This is probably the most bizarre thing I ever heard. Why would anyone claim that consonant letters are not vocalized? The fact is that anyone who speaks knows that consonant letters are certainly vocalized. Not only this but we know for sure that the vocalization for several of the Arabic consonants is uncertain and varies greatly. For example, in Arabic the letter Geem is vocalized either as J or G. The same is true for the letter Qaf which is vocalized as Q or G or even A. The letter Kaf is pronounced as K or Ch. In fact, in pre and early post-Quranic Greek manuscripts we see Arabic words often transliterated with the letter Kaaf as a Ch. So Kabir (great) should actually be vocalized as Chabir. This is reality and you can ignore it if you want but you can?t change it.

The first pronunciation that you provide fo the Quranic phrase is how Modern Arabs twist the Quran to make it easier for them. There are plenty of other evidences point to this twisting as well. The qalqalah for instance as well their are modern reciters who pronounce na3budu as ni3bidu an obvious dialect derived corruption. I'm sure you recognize it. Like niktib for naktubu.

Given the inconsequential functional load of case endings in the passage, the vocalization that I provided would have been easier and far more practical even for ancient Arabs. There is no reason to believe that ancient Arabs were more interested than modern Arabs in inconsequential things and unnecessary complications in their everyday language.

The Quran has had its pronunciation forced to fit into poetry-like rhyme. It was made to always rhyme when it doesn't and made to be sung when it was not meant to be a song. Who said that the Quran has to rhyme? I've seen in the Quranic pronunciation where ahaanee is changed to Ahaanan and akramanee is changed to akraman and much more. Would you ever say huwa ahaanan for huwa ahaanee? You see how that throws your theory out the window? These are corruptions of the pronunciation of the Quran, just accepted ones so that the Quran could be made "more beatiful" to the ears of the people by forcing it to rhyme where it doesn't and making it like song when it was never meant to be sung. Again, who said that the Quran has to rhyme?

Maybe the only type of rhyme you know is the mechanical and monotonous rhyme of Jahiliya poetry and this is why you don?t appreciate the inherent natural rhyme of the great reading. The rhyme that everyone instinctively recognizes in the great reading is different. It is not mechanical and pretentious like that of Jahiliya poetry. It is a natural pleasant rhythmical flow. It has nothing to do with singing. No one on this forum sings the great reading when they read it. Yet we all intuitively appreciate and read along with that flowing rhyme even when we read a passage for the first time. This self-evident inherent property in the great reading completely disappears when you vocalize with Classical Arabic case endings. Unlike the Abbasid era theoretical Classical Arabic, this is an empirically and easily verifiable fact that we can all practically experience. This simple fact alone is enough to 100% confirm for everyone that the language of the great reading is not Classical Arabic. Again, this is reality and you can ignore it if you want and instead live in your theoretical world of Classical Arabic but you can?t change it.

Again we have a mistake in your thinking. Think of hip hop for instance where Afro-American vernacular, a low status vernacular is used in song and music. Now on the whole scheme of Engilsh it is low status, but not to Afro-americans who appreciate and even praise the rhymes produced in their dialect. So whereas the language might not be prestigious on a worldly scheme it is highly praised on the street level and where this dialect is actually spoken. The same thing goes for Arabic. It was praised by the people who spoke it and used it before the Quran. It then gained international acclaim after the Arabs conquered a whole slew of people and held up the Quran (and their poetries) as the symbol of their language. Hence their Arabic then became prestigious and later Classical.

In the case of Jahiliya poetry we are not talking about ?street level? prestige. We are talking about political and religious prestige to the extreme. Allegedly hanging Jahiliya poems on the most revered religious shrine and gaining through it access and favor with Ghassanid royalty and such would be the equivalent in America today of hanging Hip Hop poetry on the Supreme Court and giving Hip Hop artists the Noble prize in literature.

Here again you are a product of modern popular thinking, and not true scholarship. Proper English is '"what is up'' or "what's up" but what would seem to someone as unrigid or loose grammar because of differences in pronunciation is actuallly a lack of knowledge. Afro-American dialects work off of the contractions of most English phrases. Take the more archaic e'ry for every ain't for am not, etc. etc. Then because it has distinct subsrates (including Iberian dialects and different African languages) it applies different rules (not loose rules) to pronunciation. Consonant clusters are often simpified, take for instance busin' for busting, what's up became whas up. ...

Even in your argument you acknowledge that in vernaculars things are simplified and not made more complex and strict. This is especially the case for elements that do not serve much practical function. Those are the first elements to go away in a vernacular. It is an empirically verifiable reality that case endings have an insignificant functional load so it is highly unlikely that they would have been part of what you already admitted to be the real vernacular language of the great reading.

The discussion that we are having about vocalization marks is not new or even exclusive to Arabic. Christians had similar discussions about the vocalization marks of Hebrew texts of the Old Testament. You are taking a dogmatic view similar to that of fundamentalist Christians that the Hebrew Niqqud (vocalization marks) are inspired when in reality we know that they were invented around 500CE while the Hebrew text of the Old Testament was inspired in a different millennium. It is not surprising that like the Arabic Tashkil, the Hebrew Niqqud is completely useless and is never used in practice. It is also not surprising that in both cases as we see here in this discussion and elsewhere dogmatic ideas about the language prevent people from coming to grips with reality.

The rest of your post is equally detached from reality. Like your blind acceptance of supposed Arab (whatever that means) genealogy from Abbasid era nationalistic sources. Or your claim that the Roman proxies Ghassanids used Aramaic scripts because they were Christians when in reality we know from the epigraphic record that the Romans and the Ghassanids used Greek as their political and religious language. Thus, they even wrote Arabic using the Greek script. On the other hand, the Aramaic script was used to write Arabic in the Lakhmid areas which fell outside this Roman Trinitarian influence. Thus, Aramaic was the language of religion and politics of groups such as the Nestorians which the Trinitarians viewed as heretic and which took refuge in the Lakhmid provinces. As I said, the rest of your post is equally detached from reality and my response is already too long so I will not go into further pointing out of what everyone can easily verify for themselves. I will however address one more point despite it being self-evident because you specifically asked me to clarify

Furthermore it is easy to see how the Quran uses those terms if you know Arabic and how it works and if you understand history. I don't see why this is Abbasid propaganda and I don't see your proof for this statement either.

Your prejudiced view that ?a3jami? can mean barbarian or unclear Arabic is completely negated by 16103 which indicates that the language of religious writings is ?a3jami?, i.e. foreign. A language of religious writing can hardly be regarded as ?barbaric? or ?unclear?. In fact, you even contradict what you said about the real language of the great reading being a street language since it is actually street languages that are regarded as not civilized or ?barbaric?. This is also confirmed by the epigraphic record showing that the language of religion in the 6th-7th century CE was Greek in the Ghassanids provinces and Aramaic in the Lakhmids provinces. So this is reality.

As for ?3arab?, it has to do with virgin, wild, untouched, crude, and unrefined. When used to describe a group of people it becomes ?a3rab? just like in the case of sabat and asbat, nabat and anbat (Nabateans), etc. In line with ?3arab?, the term ?a3rab? means people from the wilderness (in contrast to city dwellers) and this is how it is used in the great reading. It has nothing to do with genealogy. Similarly, when describing a language, the term ?3araby? implies a wild language, i.e. a street language (as you admit) and not a formal or an unfamiliar foreign one.

So I would translate 16103 as follows

And we know that they say that it is a human who teaches him. The language of the one who they falsely attribute to is foreign and this is an obvious wild language (i.e., in modern terminology a ?street language?).

Peace,

Ayman

khurram

Peace be upon you brothers and sisters,

Solaa, just as the title of this section states, means Link. The birds flying in a column is the RESULT of them knowing thier Link(solaa) with the God. The God has developed a SYSTEm(deen) for all creation. Only those who establish thier Link , thier connection/link with the God, follow that system. They follow it closely. "Each knows its solaa", yes, the birds know thier position with the God as servants because they know thier connection with the God. And the instructive example is the birds getting up at dawn EVERY MORNING, not hitting the alarm clock, not doing ritual prayer, but singing song. Now when we think that solomon was taught the speech of birds, we realize that the birds are symbols of spirituality. That is why they are used in example of Abraham and the four birds. The Birds give us the best of examples in this matter!! o))

Solaa is reciting of the REading(Qur'an) at dawn and dusk. We must realize that the restricted house(bayt) is a Psychology. The best psychology. Al day we are bombarded with so many differnt psychologies. The psychology of sex, violence, etc. The God tells us that we should establish the Link with Him at dawn and dusk to keep us from evil deeds. The Mind is where everything starts. Thought forms actions. If you watch violence all the time, it rubs off. If you read the Words of the God everyday, it rubs off o) We are fighting a battle. I can FEEL IT when I don't establish solaa for days or weeks. I can feel myself slip back....but this is not proof so I will get back to the topic.

PEACE Kyle,

I agree with you on the fact that solaa is Reciting the Quran...

How else did a generation of gentile Arabs learn the Quran by heart?

progod

Peace,

Ayman there is no point responding to your post. You are intent on making up your own version of history and justifying it however you can. Modern Dialects are not the Old Arabic, I will say that once and for all. And "wild langauge"? These opinions of yours are pure fantasy. I have spoken the truth for all to see. And those who are willing to truly study will see the truth from falsehood. And whoever wants to rebel against the Islamic version of "the Man" then let them. I've never seen any one more Modernly Arab-centrist than you. All history that is not yours is a conspiracy. What kind of thinking is this? Unfortunately this kind of thinking is gaining force amongst the uneducated, including many uneducated Arabs. Anyone who doesn't know that all your are saying is your own invented version and corruption of truth then shame on them, and on you. May God guide you to the truth and heal your mind from its maladies and perversions. I know you'll say the same thing and respond back with like. But whatever, this is the truth take it or leave it. You lose either way.

Godbless,
Anwar

ayman

Peace Anwar,

If you are going to be studying ancient linguistics seriously then you really ought to be more professional in your responses and leave emotions and antagonism at the door. You are getting better at it but you are not there yet... just a friendly piece of advice.

Peace,

Ayman

nadeem

Peace,

Perhaps brothers Ayman and Progod could suggest for us some books that might shed more light on this issue?

Nadeem

ayman

Peace Nadeem,

Perhaps brothers Ayman and Progod could suggest for us some books that might shed more light on this issue?

I would suggest Taha Hussein's excellent book "Fi Al-Adab Al-Jahily". This book is about how to improve the methods of teaching of classical Arabic literature. As it turns out, this mundane educational book pitted him against the establishment that had earlier embraced him, Al-Azhar, to the point where he was declared by some to be a blasphemous heretic. The book?s main thesis is that teaching of classical literature should not be organized into neatly delineated sequential historical periods, but one should take into account themes and styles as well as the cultural and literary milieu. Unfortunately, most of those who conventionally study Classical Arabic, including Anwar as we see here, fear such obvious idea.

After analyzing the themes and styles of pre-quranic poetry and considering the cultural and literary forces likely affecting their development, Taha Hussein concluded that the vast majority of pre-Quranic poems are in fact later-day fabrications from the post-Quranic Umayyad and Abbasid period.

Taha Hussein was not alone and, around the same time, other researchers made similar observations. David Margoliouth of the University of Oxford published a paper entitled "The Origins Of Arabic Poetry", in which he reached the same conclusion.

Margoliouth?s theory is based on passage 26224-227 of the Quran, which talks about the poets and categorically argues against people at the time claiming that the Quran is poetry. As many researchers did, he noted the obvious fact that the Quran bore no resemblance in structure, style or content to pre-Quranic poetry. So this presented a puzzle Mohammad, who was not familiar with the art of poetry, was aware that his revelations were not poetry; whereas his people, who presumably knew the art of poetry, thought they were. We should have expected the converse. Margoliouth resolved this puzzle by concluding that the poems we know of as pre-Quranic were actually forgeries of a later Islamic period.

Other interesting works include MCA MacDonald "Reflections on the Linguistic Map of Pre-Islamic Arabia", which I had sited in one of my articles.

As you saw in Anwar's response, like all those who emotionally defend pre-Quranic poetry, he takes his cue from Hadith defenders by resorting to a straw man and screaming "conspiracy theory" to anything questioning the traditional. Ironically, one of the least controversial and hence most overlooked aspects of Crone and Cook's book, "Hagarism" deals with the cultural forces affecting the Ummayad and Abassid empires. Those cultural forces created strong demand for Arabic pre-Quranic and prophetic literature. Of course, demand naturally creates supply and the natural law of supply and demand negates the need for any conspiracies.

Peace,

Ayman

nadeem

Thanks Ayman, I will read those books. I found this article while searching for Margoliouth http//www.islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/poetry.html

Seems that it is scholar vs scholar...

progod

Peace, This is a repost with corrections. If the moderator decides to delete one of these please delete the previous one

Isn't Taha Hussein the same man who composed a verse like the Quran, and who couldn't realize that the Quran's challenge had nothing to do with literary style? And you trust the rest of his assessments? I haven't read those books admittedly but I must say that these authors make big steps with little evidence.

Also, let us be more specific about the Quran. Tajweed or the art of Quranic recitation was also a work in progress. So comparing the general style of Quranic recitation with pre-islamic poetries (that are no longer recited) is not an intelligent way of making accurate deductions. The truth as I have it is that those pre-islamic poetries, and other poetries modeled after them, were generally pronounced with the same rules applied to the Quran for rhyme and meter. Futhermore the Quran is always pronounced with every vowel except at the end of a prhrase, where not only the short (usually) non-written vowels are not pronounced but also the nun of a fatha tanween and even the long vowels. Remember ahaanan for ahaanani and akraman for akramani. (this is because of the post-Quranic poeticization of the recital of the book)

I also have pointed out to you in the script of the Quran where short vowels were represented by the written long ones. This is inconsistent in the Quranic scripts however and point to the inconsistencies of the development of Arabic script throughout the ages. The proof is in the pudding and that can be found in most of the still archaic scripts of our Qurans.

The milieu of the early Arab-Islamic empires and the literature produced at the time is good to know and that is fine and dandy. But where as there was a demand for poetry modeled after the Old Arabic poetry (which has nothing to do with vowels but with meter and phases of rhyme. Like the difference between haikus and other molds of poetry which have nothing to do with grammar) it is a big step to say that these Old Arabic poetries were invented with no proof of that other than the late point at which they were written down. We could argue the same with non-dotted versions of the Quran and claim that the late written scripts that we have are the proof that the Quran was invented at the later dates of the scripts we have when it was written down. But that is absurd as well, given the evidence of Quranic schools of recitations as well as the schools of riwah for pre-Islamic poetry.

As for my emotional response, it is hard to deal with someone who skips the important parts of my posts and the pertinent questions ( I give examples of tajweed and Quranic spellings) only to have that person respond with particulars that literally have nothing to do with anything (admittedly your most recent post was better). And thanks for the advice.

Also why are you reading and following behind all of these extreme writers like Taha Hussien? He was considered a heretic for having claimed to compose a verse like the Quran. The fact that Muslims don't really understand the challenge (it is not about I'jaaz) is what led him to be considered a heretic, but it is obvious that he didn't understand the challenge himself.

Furthermore I am not a traditional Islamic scholar in the halls of Al-Azhar in awe and reverence of my ancestors and scholars of old. But whereas I am accepting the overwhelming evidence that Classical Arabic with its vowels and grammar was the natural, native language of the Arabs at that time (changing rapidly on the street level over the period of hundreds of years and incorporations of new non-Arab peoples into the Arab fold. Not even the Bedouins were isolated from this internationalization of their ethnicity, language and religion which brought new forms of speech and new blood into the original Arabic tribal ethnicities), you are going against mountains of evidence and proposing something that you have no proof for, not even in the Quran. So I do not fear true analysis of any form of literature. What I fear is that you are trying to re-invent the wheel needlessly and over-criticizing the literature of old to make it conform with your sense of what the langauge of Arabic is today. It would be the same if a Modern Greek criticized Classical Greek and said that its grammarians concocted it from their own imaginations and really spoke like they do. Which is just completely not true. So I will get somewhat emotional when in front of ideas that are just completely illogical, extreme and unintelligent in the guise of reform and a voice of (albeit philo-occidental) reason.

As for whether the Quran is poetry or not, let us just consider that if someone was reciting an excellent form of literature from memory and preaching it to others, for others to claim that he is an eccentric poet is not out of hand. They said the Quran was si7r as well. But I'm sure none of these authors tried to figure out why that really was either, and not using all of the definitions to be found in Classical Arabic and not just the popular meanings used today.

I would be wary of these Islam bashers or modern-day reformists who are only rebelling against and within the frame of their traditionally indoctrinated ways of thought. I'm sure they say some things of merit but their intentions are wrong and that will affect their works.

Godbless,
Anwar

Boricuasun

See below

Boricuasun

Hello Everybody,

I think what gets lost in the debates, arguments, posts, and questions is this one fact Religion is an intensely personal matter.
Al Qur'aan Al Kareem, is a book written by man, it's source of revelation should not be in question due to the fact that no one can prove unquestionably that Allah Ta'ala revealed it. Miracles and divine signs are referred to as such, because they are outside the scientific processes and the norm. So from this base, people should deal with the plain text and its injunctions.
The reality is that, no matter who is posting, in their own minds they are right. They've come to certain conclusions based on their particular understanding of certain ayaat that they feel justify their position. In none of the 114 suwraahs of the Qur'aan is a step by step process for performing Salaat. It does not exist. What does exist is verses which refer to certain parts or aspects, but in none does the following happen

"Say This is how my servants should perform Salaat for my reverence"

Religion is again an intensely personal matter. Arguing that one is absolutely wrong and one is absolutely right is asanine. The reason why is because no one can do the following

PROVE that Abraham, or Ishmael even existed
PROVE that Abraham and Ishmael ever visited Arabia
PROVE that Abraham and Ishmael ever visited the Hijaz or Mekkah
PROVE the Kaabah is any older than the 2nd Century B.C.E.
PROVE that Abraham and Ishmael ever raised the foundations of the Kaabah
PROVE that Abraham thereafter prayed to Allah Ta'Ala to bless his progeny to observe Salaat
PROVE that Ishmael had children
8.) PROVE that the Arabs of Quraysh were descended from Ishmael
PROVE that the Arabs knew the Salaat
PROVE that Muhammad was in the cave of Hira
PROVE that the Angel Gabriel exists
PROVE that the Angel Gabriel descended to Arabia
PROVE that the Angel Gabriel spoke to the Prophet Muhammad
PROVE that the Angel Gabriel taught Salat to the Prophet Muhammad
PROVE that the Prophet Muhammad performed the same Salat as their concepts dicate

Therefore to argue as to absolute right or wrong, is simply impossible. All one can do is juxtapose that certain positions they've taken are closest to the literal text of the Qur'aan as they perceive it.

The Qur'aan is relegated to the same world of the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammipada, the Bahai texts, the Tanakh, the Gospels, the Vedas, the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching, the Books of Mormon, etc. They are the products of an individual or communal undertaking of understanding how to experience the supernatural according to a preconceived conception. None of them can be proved to come from an invisible heavenly source, as none can prove this invisible heavenly source even exists. Its all hypothesis and guesswork. The shame is people fight and divide over someone whom they've never even laid eyes on or met's mental framework for comprehending non-material realities. In simpler terms, someone else's idea, which remains unproveable and unverifiable.

If your practice brings you a higher state of tranquility or spiritual experience, that should be it. Dictating to someone else that you're right and their wrong is analogous to being in a dark tunnel you didn't build with a group of people you've never met and assuming you're the only one who knows how to get to the end.

Peace to All!

progod

Paz Boricuasun,

I must say that I really disagree with the intention of your post. You say some things that are true but you also say some things that are not true. Proving is also a subjective matter and when we are not dealing with physical evidence but rather deductive ones it comes down to the honesty of the deducer or the capability to deduce. Either way this is their choice. Even the more material sciences can come up with proofs that only serve to be disproved later on. So proof is not something fixed in stone but something dependent on our ability to percieve and understand all the factors involved.
Also I would take each religious book separately and not try to group them together. We do not KNOW that man invented the Quran. We know that it was copied down by men but every person we could possibly attribute the book to does not claim to have invented it. The one man who the book goes back to is the last prophet Muhammad (of course him being the last prophet is a Quranic idea that I espouse), and he also did not claim to have invented it. So there is a lack of proof on your side that the book was invented by any man because no man claims to have invented it. So this is a giant leap on your part. At the very least you could say that we don't know who wrote it without considering what the Quran says itself, which you are skeptical of.

Now the Quran does associate raka&a (which is to bow or kneel) with Salat in particualr Mary's salat. But in the end Salat means prayer, any prayer and prayer in any way. We find that Mary bowed in her prayer and we will find the Quran saying pray, do what is right and kneel/bow. So at the very least we know we are to bow or kneel when we pray. But there is no formula for physical movement during prayer in the Quran nor for our words besides how those mentioned in the Quran prayed. And there need not be such forumulae. As far as the following issues

PROVE that Abraham, or Ishmael even existed

If we have deduced that the Quran is from God and that is a personal endeavor then we can prove that these two existed based on the trustworthinessw of our source. But if you are looking for physical evidence then as of now there is none.

PROVE that Abraham and Ishmael ever visited Arabia

THis is a story from the Hadeeth. It is not Quranic.

PROVE that Abraham and Ishmael ever visited the Hijaz or Mekkah

Again this is Hadeethic, not Quranic.

PROVE the Kaabah is any older than the 2nd Century B.C.E.

This is also a Hadeethic issue. The Kabah is nothing but a Masjid (place of worship/reverence). If it is older than 2 BC it is of no great deal to me. It is a masjid like any other.

PROVE that Abraham and Ishmael ever raised the foundations of the Kaabah

Again who knows if the temple that Abraham and Ishmael built (God bless them both) was the Kaabah. The only evidence for this is in Arabic lore. And the biblical Judaic lore has him raising many temples, including ones named Beth'el. So again who knows. The kabah could have been one of many.

PROVE that Abraham thereafter prayed to Allah Ta'Ala to bless his progeny to observe Salaat

Again on this if we have deduced that the Quran is true and had this proven to our minds then we will accept this. dhurriyatun can also mean following and not jsut progeny. And again Salat in Arabic is any prayer. Even trinitiarian Arabs who pray to Jesus (God bless him) are making Salat.

PROVE that Ishmael had children

I can't recall what the Quran says about this. Aparently Jacob had children and this would be equally dificult to prove, even if the Children of Israel claimed descendency form him. The Bible says he had children. I think the Quran is silent on this matter. In the end it doesn't matter. Arab lore just corroborates Jewish lore and claims that Ishmael's descendents were brought into the original Arab tribes form Qahtan and Adnaan. We have no proof against it, so innocent until proven guilty, right?

8.) PROVE that the Arabs of Quraysh were descended from Ishmael

I already explained that above. According to the lore the children of Israel were Arabicized. This is a Hadeethic affair anyway. I'm glad the Quran didn't waste its time on such subjects.

PROVE that the Arabs knew the Salaat

Again Salat is prayer, no matter who is praying. Muslims are deluded by thinking that their ritualistic form of prayer is only Salat. It is Muslim Salat and Christian prayer is Christian Salat and Jewish prayer Jewish Salat, etc. etc.

PROVE that Muhammad was in the cave of Hira

The Quran is not detailed on this and the Hadeeth talks about this more. The Quran as far as I recall doesn't actually say that the one recieving this book was in that cave. It also does not say who this was. I think we would do well to try to connect this story with another more detailed story in the Quran. In the end what does it matter anyway?

PROVE that the Angel Gabriel exists

Again this depends on our having proof that the Quran is trustworthy.

PROVE that the Angel Gabriel descended to Arabia

ditto.

PROVE that the Angel Gabriel spoke to the Prophet Muhammad

ditto.

PROVE that the Angel Gabriel taught Salat to the Prophet Muhammad

ditto. The answer is in the Quran.

PROVE that the Prophet Muhammad performed the same Salat as their concepts dicate

Who's concepts?

Godbless,
Anwar

Wakas

peace,

Now the Quran does associate raka&a (which is to bow or kneel) with Salat in particualr Mary's salat.

Which verse(s) are you referencing for the example with Mary?

But in the end Salat means prayer, any prayer and prayer in any way. We find that Mary bowed in her prayer and we will find the Quran saying pray, do what is right and kneel/bow.

Are you working along the lines of since 'B' is mentioned in the same verse/context as 'A' then that means 'B' is done during 'A'? Or is it simply one of the possibilities?

ayman

Peace Anwar,

Thank you for your comments.

Isn't Taha Hussein the same man who composed a verse like the Quran, and who couldn't realize that the Quran's challenge had nothing to do with literary style?

Isn?t it amazing that I have seen no one who makes such accusation about Taha Hussein produce this ?verse? that Taha Hussein composed? Come on Anwar, if you are going to have a serious scholarly discussion then you shouldn?t be appealing to the emotions of the reader by using academically inconsequential polemics like this.

And you trust the rest of his assessments?

There is no such thing as trust and mistrust in scholarly research. The scientific method is not about trust or mistrust of people?s inner consciousness. The scientific method is also certainly not about diverting the focus to smears on a person?s character while not even reading his thesis. This is not you but I have had this experience with many highly educated people and it speaks to the sad state of affairs of Muslim intellectuals. Despite the increased education and literacy, they are still following in the footsteps of unscientific traditionalists who when challenged resort to appeals to emotions and hearsay about people?s character.

Taha Hussein was excellent at analyzing literature and he understood that culture and literature are inseparable. His assessment in this area is very good and matches well with what other researchers have concluded about the development of the Arab empire culture.

I haven't read those books admittedly but I must say that these authors make big steps with little evidence.

Your words speak for themselves. I hope that you can see the irony. I rest my case.

Also, let us be more specific about the Quran. Tajweed or the art of Quranic recitation was also a work in progress. So comparing the general style of Quranic recitation with pre-islamic poetries (that are no longer recited) is not an intelligent way of making accurate deductions.

How can poetry be no longer recited? What is the point of poetry if it is not recited? This doesn?t really make any sense or you are not carefully choosing your words so that they make sense.

The truth as I have it is that those pre-islamic poetries, and other poetries modeled after them, were generally pronounced with the same rules applied to the Quran for rhyme and meter.

Just listen to yourself saying ?the truth as I have it?. Does this sound very scientific or even professional? It is not surprising that you then go on in the very next sentence and contradict this very ?truth as you have it? since you acknowledge that there is a big exception.

Futhermore the Quran is always pronounced with every vowel except at the end of a prhrase, where not only the short (usually) non-written vowels are not pronounced but also the nun of a fatha tanween and even the long vowels. Remember ahaanan for ahaanani and akraman for akramani. (this is because of the post-Quranic poeticization of the recital of the book)

End of a phrase is a very big difference. All speech consists of phrases so this would indicate that every single sentence uttered by those who spoke the language of the great reading differed from the Classical Arabic grammar of alleged Pre-Islamic Poetry.

Moreover, even your contradiction is wrong. It is based on the hasty assumption that what you refer to as ?a verse in the Quran? is always a sentence. This is false and we can easily find many examples where sometimes a ?verse? encompasses several sentences, half a sentence or even a single word. Since a word is the lowest common denominator then we are not talking about the end of each phrase, we are in reality talking about the end of each word falling under what you admitted is an exception to Classical Arabic grammar rules.

I also have pointed out to you in the script of the Quran where short vowels were represented by the written long ones. This is inconsistent in the Quranic scripts however and point to the inconsistencies of the development of Arabic script throughout the ages. The proof is in the pudding and that can be found in most of the still archaic scripts of our Qurans.

You are talking about two different unrelated issues. Case ending vocalization marks have nothing to do with long vowels. Medial long vowels that are sometimes noted in the script have nothing to do with grammar.

The milieu of the early Arab-Islamic empires and the literature produced at the time is good to know and that is fine and dandy. But where as there was a demand for poetry modeled after the Old Arabic poetry (which has nothing to do with vowels but with meter and phases of rhyme. Like the difference between haikus and other molds of poetry which have nothing to do with grammar) it is a big step to say that these Old Arabic poetries were invented with no proof of that other than the late point at which they were written down.

So you acknowledge that there was a demand for such poetry and therefore there is no need for a conspiracy (which was your prior main objection). This is good progress but I would like to make one simple but crucial correction to your statement

?there was a demand for poetry modeled after what storytellers mistakenly thought was the Old Arabic style of poetry?

Since at their time Arabic has been turned into the official and formal political and religious language of the empire, this is what they thought was Old Arabic, not the real common people street language of the great reading.

All poetry is invented. Poetry doesn?t fall from the sky. The poets are people who have a creative gift for invention. We can clearly see that supposed pre-Islamic poetry was a tool for storytelling. All pre-Islamic poems are told in the course of a story where the main character or the hero is the poet. This is why even an elementary school student who can recognize the difference between fiction and non-fiction can recognize that all supposed Pre-Islamic poems have the typical traits of fiction. For example, the story of Qays and Layla has all the traits of other fictions such as Romeo and Juliet. The same goes for Imru?Al-Qays (the Hamlet of Arabia) and ?Antar Ibn-Shaddad who could defeat hundreds of men single handedly. Those stories and the poetry that is intertwined in them and advances the plot bear the indisputable hallmarks of fiction. How can any sane person think that those enchanted characters really existed and that they paused at every opportune moment in their story to spontaneously utter poetry even when no one was listening is beyond me.

That you and other intellectuals needed Taha Hussein or anyone else to discover this readily obvious fact again speaks to the dark veil of Arab nationalistic fantasies that has enveloped the Muslim minds and detached them from reality.

We could argue the same with non-dotted versions of the Quran and claim that the late written scripts that we have are the proof that the Quran was invented at the later dates of the scripts we have when it was written down. But that is absurd as well, given the evidence of Quranic schools of recitations as well as the schools of riwah for pre-Islamic poetry.

This is a false analogy. Many of the earliest versions of the Quran such as the Sanaa manuscript are dotted. Moreover, there are several examples of pre-Quranic inscriptions that are dotted. Also, there are mundane early post-Quranic manuscripts which are dotted. Also, dotting has no bearing on grammar. Dotting was needed for the sole reason that what we refer to as the Arabic script is in fact a foreign Nabataean Aramaic script. Using it to write Arabic is much like using the English script to write Arabic. Because all the Arabic consonants are not represented, this would be the equivalent of adding say an apostrophe over the A to make it into ?A for an Arabic . On the other hand, the real Arabian script where all the consonants are represented is the Musnad script.

As for my emotional response, it is hard to deal with someone who skips the important parts of my posts and the pertinent questions ( I give examples of tajweed and Quranic spellings) only to have that person respond with particulars that literally have nothing to do with anything (admittedly your most recent post was better). And thanks for the advice.

I look forward to continued improvements with less emotions and more specific focus on pertinent issues on both sides.

Also why are you reading and following behind all of these extreme writers like Taha Hussien? He was considered a heretic for having claimed to compose a verse like the Quran. The fact that Muslims don't really understand the challenge (it is not about I'jaaz) is what led him to be considered a heretic, but it is obvious that he didn't understand the challenge himself.

Your statement is the same exact statement I often get from other Muslim intellectuals when I challenge one of the Hadiths. They also say ?why are you reading and following behind all of these extreme writers like Rashad Khalifa? He was considered a heretic for having claimed to be a messenger and taking 2 verses out of the Quran.? Again, this endemic approach amongst Muslim intellectuals speaks to their sad state of affairs and explains why despite the increased education there is no corresponding increase in enlightment.

Taha Hussein doesn?t actually regard all supposed pre-Islamic poetry as later day literature. He claims that there are rare nuggets of truly pre-Islamic poetry amongst them. He rationalizes this by saying that on the rare occasions when a whole set of poems exhibits a clear and strong personality of the author then this means that the author really existed. However, what he fails to see is that whether the poems have a strong personality and the author really existed or not has no bearing on the dating of the poem. It simply speaks about the level of skill of the author of the poem.

Furthermore I am not a traditional Islamic scholar in the halls of Al-Azhar in awe and reverence of my ancestors and scholars of old. But whereas I am accepting the overwhelming evidence that Classical Arabic with its vowels and grammar was the natural, native language of the Arabs at that time (changing rapidly on the street level over the period of hundreds of years and incorporations of new non-Arab peoples into the Arab fold.

But the overwhelming empirically verifiable evidence points to Classical Arabic not being the language of the great reading and hence not the native language of Mohamed?s people at the time. This is why you admitted that ?end of phrase? case endings are not part of the language of the great reading. This by itself is a huge exception to Classical Arabic grammar. Moreover, since what you call ?end of phrase? is in fact end of ?verse? and a ?verse? could be one word or half a phrase then we are really talking about the case endings of words being an exception to Classical Arabic grammar since this is the lowest common denominator.

Not even the Bedouins were isolated from this internationalization of their ethnicity, language and religion which brought new forms of speech and new blood into the original Arabic tribal ethnicities), you are going against mountains of evidence and proposing something that you have no proof for, not even in the Quran.

The people from the rural areas were never isolated from internationalization even before the great reading. This is why the language of the great reading contains many foreign words.

Also, you keep referring to this ?Arabic ethnicity? despite the terms ?araby and a?rab having nothing to do with ethnicity but are used as a contrast between civilized city people and their language and rural people from the wilderness and their language.

So I do not fear true analysis of any form of literature. What I fear is that you are trying to re-invent the wheel needlessly and over-criticizing the literature of old to make it conform with your sense of what the langauge of Arabic is today. It would be the same if a Modern Greek criticized Classical Greek and said that its grammarians concocted it from their own imaginations and really spoke like they do. Which is just completely not true. So I will get somewhat emotional when in front of ideas that are just completely illogical, extreme and unintelligent in the guise of reform and a voice of (albeit philo-occidental) reason.

I never said that the people of Mohammed spoke like I do. This is a straw man. All I said is that they didn?t speak like Classical Arabic and this you admitted at least for end of phrases.

As for whether the Quran is poetry or not, let us just consider that if someone was reciting an excellent form of literature from memory and preaching it to others, for others to claim that he is an eccentric poet is not out of hand. They said the Quran was si7r as well. But I'm sure none of these authors tried to figure out why that really was either, and not using all of the definitions to be found in Classical Arabic and not just the popular meanings used today.

The fact is that supposed pre-Islamic poetry is so homogeneous and readily recognized that no one can mistake the great reading for it. So whatever it is people were comparing the great reading to, it couldn?t have been what we now believe is pre-Islamic poetry.

I would be wary of these Islam bashers or modern-day reformists who are only rebelling against and within the frame of their traditionally indoctrinated ways of thought. I'm sure they say some things of merit but their intentions are wrong and that will affect their works.

Our intentions should be focused on the truth of reality. I think that we all get emotional when we face a new reality. In your case, this new reality, as you admitted, is that at least end of ?verses? (implying end of words) in the language of the great reading is different to Classical Arabic. You see this as a big difference that shakes the comfort zone that you have been immersed in and devoted to for a long time. I have seen this reaction with many people who have devoted a large portion of their lives to studying any discipline. When they face a new reality in this discipline that shakes their prior beliefs, they react emotionally for some time and maybe a very long time. This is why I have great respect for sister Samia, who despite probably spending a lot more of her life than you studying Classical Arabic and being immersed in it, she had very little emotional reaction and was able to quickly adjust to this new reality.

Ironically, you make a big deal out of it, while I don?t see this as a big difference between Classical Arabic and the language of the great reading because case endings have extremely low functional load and are therefore inconsequential. So to me Classical Arabic is still a very good approximation of the language of the great reading while from your reaction one would think that this is the end of Classical Arabic.

Peace,

Ayman

Boricuasun

Re New Salat Article
? Reply #144 on Today at 012132 PM ? Quote

Paz Boricuasun,

I must say that I really disagree with the intention of your post. You say some things that are true but you also say some things that are not true. Proving is also a subjective matter and when we are not dealing with physical evidence but rather deductive ones it comes down to the honesty of the deducer or the capability to deduce. Either way this is their choice. Even the more material sciences can come up with proofs that only serve to be disproved later on. So proof is not something fixed in stone but something dependent on our ability to percieve and understand all the factors involved.
Also I would take each religious book separately and not try to group them together. We do not KNOW that man invented the Quran. We know that it was copied down by men but every person we could possibly attribute the book to does not claim to have invented it. The one man who the book goes back to is the last prophet Muhammad (of course him being the last prophet is a Quranic idea that I espouse), and he also did not claim to have invented it.

ProGod... Proof is only subjective to evidence. Meaning that there is undenaible archaelogical or physical matter which negates doubt that any other conclusion can be drawn but the obvious conclusion from the matter at hand.
When I point out what can be "proved" I reference it in that context.

So there is a lack of proof on your side that the book was invented by any man because no man claims to have invented it. So this is a giant leap on your part. At the very least you could say that we don't know who wrote it without considering what the Quran says itself, which you are skeptical of.

ProGod.. to claim that there is a lack of proof on my side that the book was invented beauce no man claims to have invented it, is faulty reason at best. No where in the historical record is someone's claim to have invented the wheel, but it exists cut from solid matter and shaped to an usuable vehicle. There is also no historical record as to who invented taking or creating a shelter, but we have undeniable evidence that homo sapiens did so from atleast 225,000 years ago. We also have no historical record as to a person claiming to invent any of the following

The compass
The map
The art of writing
The spear
The arrow head
The concept of mating
The cup
The fork
The pencil

and many more such famous inventions, but they do exist and were fashioned by man.

Now the Quran does associate raka&a (which is to bow or kneel) with Salat in particualr Mary's salat. But in the end Salat means prayer, any prayer and prayer in any way.

ProGod As has been pointed out by postings from other Free-Minds members and of course contextual root occurences of the word Salat, it does not merely mean pray. I choose to avoid the context postings of Ayman or Layth, but suffice it to say that the word salat does not mean pray, that again is your deduction based upon your conception.

We find that Mary bowed in her prayer and we will find the Quran saying pray, do what is right and kneel/bow. So at the very least we know we are to bow or kneel when we pray. But there is no formula for physical movement during prayer in the Quran nor for our words besides how those mentioned in the Quran prayed. And there need not be such forumulae.

ProGod Salat throughout the Qur'aan is referred to with the positive article al, or in modern arabic as meaning the. The is used to refer to a definite physical article, such as the book, or the pen, or the car, or the camel. It juxtaposes a physical or material existence to a subject referred to as Salaat, not an ambiguous concept.

As far as the following issues

PROVE that Abraham, or Ishmael even existed

If we have deduced that the Quran is from God and that is a personal endeavor then we can prove that these two existed based on the trustworthinessw of our source. But if you are looking for physical evidence then as of now there is none.

ProGod That is where we disagree. I don't deduce the Qur'aan is from Allah Ta'Ala because ooutside of the realm of belief, there is nothing upon which to place the basis of a deduction. For example, Baha'ullah claimed that the Kitab-i-Iqan was revealed to him from God. Blind faith would delineate that I must accept his claim. However, as even al Qur'aan Al Kareem supposes I'm responsible for my judgment, hearing, and eyesight upon "yawm al akhiraah", accepting any mortal's claim without verifying it's worthiness would violate al hukm minallah.

PROVE that Abraham and Ishmael ever visited Arabia

THis is a story from the Hadeeth. It is not Quranic.

PROVE that Abraham and Ishmael ever visited the Hijaz or Mekkah

Again this is Hadeethic, not Quranic.

PROVE the Kaabah is any older than the 2nd Century B.C.E.

This is also a Hadeethic issue. The Kabah is nothing but a Masjid (place of worship/reverence). If it is older than 2 BC it is of no great deal to me. It is a masjid like any other.

PROVE that Abraham and Ishmael ever raised the foundations of the Kaabah

Again who knows if the temple that Abraham and Ishmael built (God bless them both) was the Kaabah. The only evidence for this is in Arabic lore. And the biblical Judaic lore has him raising many temples, including ones named Beth'el. So again who knows. The kabah could have been one of many.

PROVE that Abraham thereafter prayed to Allah Ta'Ala to bless his progeny to observe Salaat

Again on this if we have deduced that the Quran is true and had this proven to our minds then we will accept this. dhurriyatun can also mean following and not jsut progeny. And again Salat in Arabic is any prayer. Even trinitiarian Arabs who pray to Jesus (God bless him) are making Salat.

PROVE that Ishmael had children

I can't recall what the Quran says about this. Aparently Jacob had children and this would be equally dificult to prove, even if the Children of Israel claimed descendency form him. The Bible says he had children. I think the Quran is silent on this matter. In the end it doesn't matter. Arab lore just corroborates Jewish lore and claims that Ishmael's descendents were brought into the original Arab tribes form Qahtan and Adnaan. We have no proof against it, so innocent until proven guilty, right?

8.) PROVE that the Arabs of Quraysh were descended from Ishmael

I already explained that above. According to the lore the children of Israel were Arabicized. This is a Hadeethic affair anyway. I'm glad the Quran didn't waste its time on such subjects.

PROVE that the Arabs knew the Salaat

Again Salat is prayer, no matter who is praying. Muslims are deluded by thinking that their ritualistic form of prayer is only Salat. It is Muslim Salat and Christian prayer is Christian Salat and Jewish prayer Jewish Salat, etc. etc.

ProGod again your claim is that salat is prayer. You are articulating your belief.
10) PROVE that Muhammad was in the cave of Hira

The Quran is not detailed on this and the Hadeeth talks about this more. The Quran as far as I recall doesn't actually say that the one recieving this book was in that cave. It also does not say who this was. I think we would do well to try to connect this story with another more detailed story in the Quran. In the end what does it matter anyway?

PROVE that the Angel Gabriel exists

Again this depends on our having proof that the Quran is trustworthy.

PROVE that the Angel Gabriel descended to Arabia

ditto.

PROVE that the Angel Gabriel spoke to the Prophet Muhammad

ditto.

PROVE that the Angel Gabriel taught Salat to the Prophet Muhammad

ditto. The answer is in the Quran.

ProGod This would again assume that a rational person accepts the ideology of Islaam. To merely state that a claim in the Qur'aan places it back in the realm of the main claims made by the various holy books. This is the realm of relgion and belief, not concrete material reality.

PROVE that the Prophet Muhammad performed the same Salat as their concepts dicate

Who's concepts?

ProGod the various concepts as promoted by the people who post here.

ProGod you also said "Also I would take each religious book separately and not try to group them together." I was joining them together in the category of assumed divine inspiration. That is a category for which placing the various books along side each other is appropriate.
The issue here is that Muslims, as well as all adherents to a theological or spiritual doctrine claim that thier conception and comprehension is true.
True is subjective to perception. Fact is not. It is a fact that the earth revolves around the sun due to the verifiable data we can measure. It is a fact that vision is merely the response to light refracted by physical items due to verifiable data. It is belief or theory that Muhammad was the last prophet of Allah Ta'Ala and that al Qur'aan Ash Sharief was revealed by this same Allah Ta'Ala to this same Muhammad. Muslims (submitters) must accept that they are upon no better footing than Mormons, Jainists, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Nuwaubians, Moonies, Confucians, or any other follower of a dogma in that they believe or accept they follow a supernatural source of guidance in their lives. Therefore they are subject to the same crucible of scientific testing and verification as anyone else who makes a claim..

Peace.

nadeem

Dear Brother Ayman,

If CA is not truly the language of the Quran, then what is? Where can I learn this language? Are there any textbooks? Dictionaries? Grammar books? etc?

Or must I first learn CA, and then apply the corrections in the books that you have been kind to suggest?

Nadeem

progod

Peace,

Ayman, you totally misunderstood everything I had to say. It seems almost like you twisted what I had to say to make it fit into your perceptions of me and of everything else. It obviously seems that you are stuck in your ways. I will write a response soon. I'm pressed for time and I can already tell that it will be lengthy. Give me some time.

As for the rest I will also answer your concerns as soon as I can. Thank you.

Godbless,
Anwar

progod

Isn?t it amazing that I have seen no one who makes such accusation about Taha Hussein produce this ?verse? that Taha Hussein composed? Come on Anwar, if you are going to have a serious scholarly discussion then you shouldn?t be appealing to the emotions of the reader by using academically inconsequential polemics like this.

They don't? Well that is a problem. Also I am not appealing to the emotions of the reader, but this is a serious question that I don't think you have asked yourself or answered.

There is no such thing as trust and mistrust in scholarly research. The scientific method is not about trust or mistrust of people?s inner consciousness. The scientific method is also certainly not about diverting the focus to smears on a person?s character while not even reading his thesis. This is not you but I have had this experience with many highly educated people and it speaks to the sad state of affairs of Muslim intellectuals. Despite the increased education and literacy, they are still following in the footsteps of unscientific traditionalists who when challenged resort to appeals to emotions and hearsay about people?s character.

Taha Hussein was excellent at analyzing literature and he understood that culture and literature are inseparable. His assessment in this area is very good and matches well with what other researchers have concluded about the development of the Arab empire culture.

Well, the scientific method is often occluded by subjective reasonings and biases. I also wouldn't say that it is as clear cut as that when it comes to analyzing literatre and history. Actually I find most Arab educated individuals that I've come accross to be very unscientific and rather rely on their titles to compensate for that. However, I have read alot of western intellectuals works during college that gave the appearence of being more rational but covered up their unscientific methods with their rational rhetoric, like politicians. As far as the Arab empirical culture, there is alot of revisionist history going on. I think some of this anti-classical Arabic thought is coming from the fact that Arabic has changed from what it was a thousand years ago as a langauge (although it was accurately recorded) but the Arabs still identify with being Arab are still connected in ideology to the Arab empires and speak langauges still recognizable as being derived from Classical Arabic. So there is a big disconnect. But reading too much into literature becomes a purely subjective endeavor. Have you ever listened to literature scholars analyzing English poems from authors during different eras. Most of what they say is guesswork and without evidence, and it seems like Taha Hussein is up to this same old type of horseplay. Admittedly I'm going off of your description of his ideas. My impression of him is not positive at all cosidering his having invented a verse like the Quran and totally misunderstood the Quran's challenge. That says alot about his powers of insight and honesty to me.

How can poetry be no longer recited? What is the point of poetry if it is not recited? This doesn?t really make any sense or you are not carefully choosing your words so that they make sense.

I hope that is not a serioius commnet. How can you expect poetry from over a thousand years ago to still be regularly recited? Poetry can be read on paper and easily not recited. Have you ever read a book of poetry? Did you recite all of that poetry aloud? So what are you talking about? Maybe you misunderstood me.

Just listen to yourself saying ?the truth as I have it?. Does this sound very scientific or even professional? It is not surprising that you then go on in the very next sentence and contradict this very ?truth as you have it? since you acknowledge that there is a big exception.

I'll have to ask again, is this a serious comment? You are displaying something common in the general Arab mindset. That is that when one thinks he knows the truth he portends as if he knows the absolute truth and there is not doubt about it. If scientists or professionals want to act like they know the complete truth and defend that in a absolute way they are free to do that. But that is neither truly scientific or professional. Furthermore I did not contradict my self at all following this. Let's see. You are not understanding something called tajweed and its development and I will deal with that answering your next comment.

End of a phrase is a very big difference. All speech consists of phrases so this would indicate that every single sentence uttered by those who spoke the language of the great reading differed from the Classical Arabic grammar of alleged Pre-Islamic Poetry.

Moreover, even your contradiction is wrong. It is based on the hasty assumption that what you refer to as ?a verse in the Quran? is always a sentence. This is false and we can easily find many examples where sometimes a ?verse? encompasses several sentences, half a sentence or even a single word. Since a word is the lowest common denominator then we are not talking about the end of each phrase, we are in reality talking about the end of each word falling under what you admitted is an exception to Classical Arabic grammar rules.

Here again you are wrong. Firstly as I said earlier it would seem that the Classical Arabic poetries were recited with similar rhyme and metere as the Quran. With that I am not referring to the Quranic language, but rather tajweed, the art of reciting the Quran. That art involves taking letters out of the Quran in its pronunication to make it conform to rhyme. Since pre-Islamic poems are no longer recited (they used to be) but only read with all of their vowels and using no poetic license (as the Quran can be as well), the closest thing I can relate to this is the prophetic dua's found in the Hadeeth. When they are recited they are recited with the same tajweed rules as the Quran is recited. So both the Quran and the dua's of the hadeeth are living remnants of the poetic license that was often (but not always) employed in poetry reciting and songs. So when you talk of Quranic language please do not assume that the way the Quran is recited is really Quranic langauge. It is an ancient artistic form of reciting poetry. The Quranic language is how you find it written with every single vowel. How it is recited is an artistic form of recitation that i am convinced was transferred from the way of reciting ancient Arabic poems onto the Quran to make it more attractive to the Arabs. I however have some doubts on things like qalqalah.

Furthermore when did I say that a verse in the Quran is a sentence? And how did I ever assume that? I wish I could find a post of mine where I have openly said that in the Quran ideas in the form of sentences flow from one verse into another. I don't even believe that the Quran was revealed in verses like we have them. So where did you get this from? Again whenever a complete stop is made usually indicating a stop in an idea the last vowel is dropped. In addition to that the ta marbootah is pronounced as a haa or an open fathah and long vowels are also not pronounced. I'm saying that this is not Quranic language, but rather the art of pronunciation for ancient poems and songs which still exists in the recitation of the Quran and of hadethic dua's. There are some aspects of this that I believe were developed as the art of singing the Quran and others which I believe were native pronunciations. But we haven't even gotten to that point yet. Furthermore I am specifically talking about the word that ends a phrase not each and every word. In my opinion there are many poetic licenses that eventually became apart of the modern version of the Arabic langauge but this also has do with lingusitic substrates as it pertains to the Arab tribes that assimilated so many non-Arab ethnicities who also spoke similar Afro-Asiatic langauges.

You are talking about two different unrelated issues. Case ending vocalization marks have nothing to do with long vowels. Medial long vowels that are sometimes noted in the script have nothing to do with grammar.

Firstly I was clarifying to you that not only are case ending vocalizations dropped on words at the ends of phrases, but also the long vowels waw and ya. I pointed that out with ahaanani. So we cannot apply things that happen in Quranic recitation only at the ends of phrases as a matter of modes of poetic license to all words to the whole langauge. That is easy with case endings and ta marbootas for you because that is the common modern way of pronouncing Arabic words. But when we see that final long vowels are also cut making ahaananee ahaanan or al3afu al3af this does not vibe with modern Arabic pronunciation and turns your theory upside down. Again these are poetic licenses, some of which have entered the modern derivatives of Classical Arabic and some of which have not. I also just wanted to point out to you that those medial long vowels as you call them (they are not just medial, suqyahaa is found as suqyaahaa with an alif before the ha and ahlihaa as ahleehaa with a ya befoer the ha) only have to do with grammar as it concerns what the short vowels convey grammatically. When it comes to the Quran some things are more than meets the eye, and you need to understand the background of what you are reading or hearing for it to make good sense.

So you acknowledge that there was a demand for such poetry and therefore there is no need for a conspiracy (which was your prior main objection). This is good progress but I would like to make one simple but crucial correction to your statement

?there was a demand for poetry modeled after what storytellers mistakenly thought was the Old Arabic style of poetry?

I don't know what you think I'm admitting but it is not what you are saying. There is no 'therefore' in my conclusion. I am saying that there was a demand for poetry was modeled after the Old Arabic poetry to continue such Old Arabic poetic traditions. Not that there was a demand for people to invent poetry and call it Old Arabic poetry.

Since at their time Arabic has been turned into the official and formal political and religious language of the empire, this is what they thought was Old Arabic, not the real common people street language of the great reading.

More assumptions on your part. Since when is it the case that when a langauge becomes official, formal and religious because of the fame of its speakers that it automatically stops being the language on the street and is therefore not the great reading? Just a few years a go those same people who became famous (and who brought fame to their langauge) weren't so famous. So how is it that when speakers of a langauge become famous and therefore their religious book and their politics famous somehow their language changes? How does status change a langauge? To clarify an example that I gave to you before when Afro-American verncular English or Jamaican English can be used and is perfectly accepted as eloquent expression at let's say the Hip Hop awards or a Jamaican Dancehall or reggae awards, that langauge has reached a position of status among its speakers. That is exactly the same as when Arabs showed up in Arab courts (of the proxy empires of the Lakhmids and Ghassanids) to recite their poetry. The parents and grandparents of the Ummayyads before they became rulers of an empire spoke the same language they spoke. And the Quran was written in their langauge. And their fellow Arab tribes spoke their langage. Do you know what changed the langauge on the street (and not in the Halls and literature of the official dynasties)? The fact that the Arab soldiers, businessmen and religious leaders who came to live in the new non-Arab territories of what is now Iraq, Joradan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and north Africa married non-Arab women who did not speak Arabic or who learned to speak it badly. This is the beginning of the street Arabic that is so different from the Quran, the Hadeeth and traditional Arabic literature (Hijazans and Bedouins also went to and fro from their lands to participlate in these Arab empires and were also subjected to the langauge change) . There is no other explanation that has as much evidence as this. It is corroborated by historical circumstance, logic and what the actual early Arabs were saying about the changing of their langauge. Any other conclusion is based off of imagination. So Old Arabic during the time of Ummayyads and before was the language of the street and the country side of the original Arab tribes. And when the Arabs came to power and their language got some status it still stayed the same. Where is your evidence that the Quranic language is different from these Old Arabic poems and the Quran? As I've pointed out to you the hadeethic dua's that are still recited are done with the same artistic modes of poetic license that are employed when the Quran is sung. Yet if you read them without singing them they are read with all case endings.

All poetry is invented. Poetry doesn?t fall from the sky. The poets are people who have a creative gift for invention. We can clearly see that supposed pre-Islamic poetry was a tool for storytelling. All pre-Islamic poems are told in the course of a story where the main character or the hero is the poet. This is why even an elementary school student who can recognize the difference between fiction and non-fiction can recognize that all supposed Pre-Islamic poems have the typical traits of fiction. For example, the story of Qays and Layla has all the traits of other fictions such as Romeo and Juliet. The same goes for Imru?Al-Qays (the Hamlet of Arabia) and ?Antar Ibn-Shaddad who could defeat hundreds of men single handedly. Those stories and the poetry that is intertwined in them and advances the plot bear the indisputable hallmarks of fiction. How can any sane person think that those enchanted characters really existed and that they paused at every opportune moment in their story to spontaneously utter poetry even when no one was listening is beyond me.

Wow this is modern cynicism at its best. Firstly histories can be true and told in story form. That does not take away from their reality. Have you ever heard of dramas based on real life events? Have you ever heard of Odes to kings and ancestors? The fact that they are told in stories does not make them untrue. However, it is expected that Odes and the like are embellished versions of real events. Do you think that the odes of kings mentioned the negative things of that king if it didn't somehow make his character seem grander? Does that mean that those events or that that person didn't exist? No. It just means that the inventor of that poem was an exaggerator (for his own reasons). Does that mean that such poems were invented after the Quran? No. It is true that they can be fictional but it is posible that the fictional aspect of the poem came from before Islamic times as well. Who said that because they are pre-Islamic poems that they have to tell the truth? So you are conflating two issues here the first is whether the poems are historically accurate or fiction and the second is whether they were created in pre-Islamic or post-Quranic times. I am dealing with the latter and believe that they are pre-Islamic. The former doesn't concern me at all. And I have no opinion on it.

This is a false analogy. Many of the earliest versions of the Quran such as the Sanaa manuscript are dotted. Moreover, there are several examples of pre-Quranic inscriptions that are dotted. Also, there are mundane early post-Quranic manuscripts which are dotted. Also, dotting has no bearing on grammar. Dotting was needed for the sole reason that what we refer to as the Arabic script is in fact a foreign Nabataean Aramaic script. Using it to write Arabic is much like using the English script to write Arabic. Because all the Arabic consonants are not represented, this would be the equivalent of adding say an apostrophe over the A to make it into ?A for an Arabic . On the other hand, the real Arabian script where all the consonants are represented is the Musnad script.

Here you are conflating issues again. I also mentioned that there were dotted manuscripts, and am specifically considering the non-dotted versions, so why are you pointing this out? Secondly the early dotting of scripts were for vowels only. Dots were used instead of fatha, kasrah and dammah. I am not referreing to the dots of jeem, khaa, dhal, dhawd, dhaw, zaa, faa or qaf. These were not dotted. Furthermore where did you get this "real" Arabic script stuff from? The Musnad script is an Ethiopic script. The foreigness of a script has no bearning on it capacity to express a given langauge. Aramaic from what I know has every single letter that Arabic has, as well as Hebrew. It looks more like the Arabs has an imperfect knowledge of the Aramaic script and added to it as they saw fit to make up for their inadequate knowledge of the script. Arabic can be and has been written accurately in Aramaic scripts. The dawd may be the only exception to the letters common to these langauges. The Arabs never had a script that they invented themselves. They borrowed both the Aramaic and the Ethiopian scripts to write their langauges. There is no such thing as a real Arabian script.

Your statement is the same exact statement I often get from other Muslim intellectuals when I challenge one of the Hadiths. They also say ?why are you reading and following behind all of these extreme writers like Rashad Khalifa? He was considered a heretic for having claimed to be a messenger and taking 2 verses out of the Quran.? Again, this endemic approach amongst Muslim intellectuals speaks to their sad state of affairs and explains why despite the increased education there is no corresponding increase in enlightment.

Taha Hussein doesn?t actually regard all supposed pre-Islamic poetry as later day literature. He claims that there are rare nuggets of truly pre-Islamic poetry amongst them. He rationalizes this by saying that on the rare occasions when a whole set of poems exhibits a clear and strong personality of the author then this means that the author really existed. However, what he fails to see is that whether the poems have a strong personality and the author really existed or not has no bearing on the dating of the poem. It simply speaks about the level of skill of the author of the poem.

I am glad you are criticizing Muslim intellectuals. I can assure you that I am not apart of this class of people. I am just hoping you understand the motives of the author you are reading especially considering his conclusons about composing a verse like that found in the Quran. Intentions of an author are very importand and affect the works of that author. Rashad Khalifa's loyalties were clear. He rejected all hadeeth but a few. I also am suspicous of his intentions given that this is clearly hypocritical on his part. So I expect to see alot of hypocrysies in his work.

Also I have always had issues with the art of scrutinizing literature and pulling out conclusions about history and motives from such scrutinizing. I have seen alot of liberties taken when it comes to English literature and the Bible for instance (that Jehovist, Yahwist stuff is crap). I believe in honest assessemts" What does it say? Who does it say says it? Are there any evidences to the contrary? Using ones imagination to come up with possiblities by thinking things apart to oblivion is not good scholarship when it comes to scrutinizing the authenticity of a piece of literature. Your last sentence i agree with complety I commented in the same way earlier.

But the overwhelming empirically verifiable evidence points to Classical Arabic not being the language of the great reading and hence not the native language of Mohamed?s people at the time. This is why you admitted that ?end of phrase? case endings are not part of the language of the great reading. This by itself is a huge exception to Classical Arabic grammar. Moreover, since what you call ?end of phrase? is in fact end of ?verse? and a ?verse? could be one word or half a phrase then we are really talking about the case endings of words being an exception to Classical Arabic grammar since this is the lowest common denominator.

No when I say end of phrase I mean end of phrase, not end of verse. Go listen to a Quranic recitation again and you'll see what I mean. I am not talking end of verse I am talking end of phrase, end of idea. And as I explained tajweed is form of poetic recitation that employs poetic license. You cannot take that as completely respresentative of Classcial Arabic talk. What is completely representative are all the vowelling that you find on that paper. Why? Because if the people didn't speak like this where would they get the idea to put things in the langauge that don't exist? Poetic license is for rhyme and style. We see how taking case endings off can improve rhyme in certain cases but where would the Arabs get the idea to add things to the language that never existed in that langauge in the first place? And make it a matter of integral grammatical function. There is a difference betwee sukootun and sukootan that has nothing to do with aesthetics, but meaning.

The people from the rural areas were never isolated from internationalization even before the great reading. This is why the language of the great reading contains many foreign words.

Also, you keep referring to this ?Arabic ethnicity? despite the terms ?araby and a?rab having nothing to do with ethnicity but are used as a contrast between civilized city people and their language and rural people from the wilderness and their language.

The bedouins were relatively isolated because they were not in stable or valued towns along trade routes or any of the like. So their wandering in the deserts would have naturally made them more isolated than their city dwelling counterparts to foreign influences. Again this isolation is relative and depends on the eras that we are dealing with. Of course they were not completely isolated. That is not what I am saying. And that relative isolation is also what allowed foreign words to enter into the language, as they were in contact with their city dwelling counterparts. Also there are trends of bedouinization and citification that people were subject to over the ages everywhere, even in Arabia.

Also araby and a'rab do have everything to do with ethnicity and tribes. I can prove that by the fact that arab and a'raab follow no adjective pattern from araba. There is only aruba which means to be a true Arab are to be a good speaker of Arabic. fa3al often relates to maf3ul, or even 3araab. But this does not exist in the case of arab. The root meanings of to be clear or to express oneself (form 4 and 2) have to do with the linguistic basis of the ethnicity, and how naturally they though that those who spoke their own langauge spoke clearly and those who did not speak their language did not speak clearly.

The fact is that supposed pre-Islamic poetry is so homogeneous and readily recognized that no one can mistake the great reading for it. So whatever it is people were comparing the great reading to, it couldn?t have been what we now believe is pre-Islamic poetry.

You are confusing language and linguistic quality with theme and format.

Our intentions should be focused on the truth of reality. I think that we all get emotional when we face a new reality. In your case, this new reality, as you admitted, is that at least end of ?verses? (implying end of words) in the language of the great reading is different to Classical Arabic.

This is not what I admitted or implied in any way. I hope you understand what I was saying now.

You see this as a big difference that shakes the comfort zone that you have been immersed in and devoted to for a long time. I have seen this reaction with many people who have devoted a large portion of their lives to studying any discipline. When they face a new reality in this discipline that shakes their prior beliefs, they react emotionally for some time and maybe a very long time.

Whatever. I have a problem with this because it is a total distortion of the truth. And that is why it irks me so much. It is so wrong and so wrong reasoned out that I can't believe you can say such things out of your mouth. I am all for alternative understandings, but I draw the line a badly reasoned conjectures.

This is why I have great respect for sister Samia, who despite probably spending a lot more of her life than you studying Classical Arabic and being immersed in it, she had very little emotional reaction and was able to quickly adjust to this new reality.

What? It is obvious that Samia has no clue what Classical Arabic really is. If she was quick to adjust it was only fill the void of knowledge she had with some false concept that would justify that void. You also fall into this category, unfortunately.

Ironically, you make a big deal out of it, while I don?t see this as a big difference between Classical Arabic and the language of the great reading because case endings have extremely low functional load and are therefore inconsequential. So to me Classical Arabic is still a very good approximation of the language of the great reading while from your reaction one would think that this is the end of Classical Arabic

Yes your idea of low functional load I know very well. But your reasons for why they didn't exist in the past is (to steal your expression) the straw man. It takes alot of bad guess work to contradict every known form of Old Arabic literature to try to make Old Arabic somehow closer to modern Arabic by saying that case endings did not exist and were invented by the Abbasids. All your reasons are based on exceptions (that have their reasons) and trying to apply them to the whole language. This is wrong, and completly bad science. Whether Classical Arabic is a close approximation ot the great reading or not is really not the issue. This is not a matter of different opinion, and how I should just take it easy. This is a matter of you're using horribly bad logic and science, and extreme reasoning to base your conclusions on. And because of this I am convinced that you have an alterior motive that allows you to employ such horrible logic and science, and such extreme reasoning to come to your conclusions (and I'm convinced it is based on Modern Nationalistic Pan-Arab, revisionist ideas). There is nothing logical, and absolutely nothing historical that can lead anyone to believe that the same Arabic we find in the pre-islamic poems, the hadeeth and the Quran (in their written forms) is not the same Arabic, i.e. Classical Arabic. Any variation can be logically explained through the poetic licenses of tajweed that are applied to hadeethic dua's and the Quran when recited aloud as poetry or song. And the only reason we do not hear the pre-islamic poems with these licenses is because they are no longer recited by the people, although some do contain these licenses. It is also counter logical to assume that the Abbasids during their period of rule added to the grammar of the langauge as everything in Abbasid literature is identical to the 2 above mentioned sources. In song and poetry poetic licenses are used and in other literature, it is not. The only evidence that you have provided is conjecture; grammatical conjecture and the conjecturing of conspiracy theories. And in my mind this is unacceptable. I have very little tolerance for conjecture.

progod

I'll get to the rest of you who have responded to me in time. Thank you for being patient.

Godbless,
Anwar

progod

Correcton to 2nd paragraph in the 13th point of response.

Also araby and a'rab do have everything to do with ethnicity and tribes. I can prove that by the fact that 3arab and 3a'raab follow no adjective pattern from 3araba. There is only aruba which means to be a true Arab or to be a good speaker of Arabic. fa3al often relates to maf3ul, or even fa3aal. But this does not exist in the case of 3arab. The meanings of to be clear or to express oneself (form 4 and 2 and not form 1) have to do with the linguistic (and not racial) basis of the Arab ethnicity, and how naturally they thought that those who spoke their own langauge spoke clearly and those who did not speak their language did not speak clearly.

Godbless,
Anwar