What is your interpretation of the Qur'an? Tell the story of the Qur'an here!
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Peace be upon you all, especially the good kind, and welcome to username FreedomStand's wonderful thread of the Qur'an!
Every time I mention anything from the Qur'an here, it seems a legion of people stand up while they remain seated and object to every single thing I mention. The latest incident was my saying that Moses killed someone. I never expected that this would cause a small uproar with some people or would be considered a controversial statement!
So I wanted to make a thread to get to hear your versions of the Qur'an, your interpretations, and we can also debate them here, as I will continue to post my interpretation for every single verse of the Qur'an (insha'Allah! Forgive me if I'm not able to do it, but I aim high so that what is accomplished at least be something worthwhile for myself and others)!
Are you ready? Get your extremely tight hats of contentiousness on and prepare yourself for FreedomStands Qur'an! I look forward to seeing each of yours, and feel free to catch me on EVERY SINGLE THING YOU OPPOSE AND KINDLY EXPLAIN IT AS THOROUGHLY AND PLEASANTLY AS POSSIBLE.
If you don't like my interpretation of the meaning of a verse, then object, state the verse, and your arguments. Also, feel free to post your own interpretations of the Qur'an in the same style as I am about to do.
How I will be doing it is
11 interpretation of the verse
12 interpretation of the verse
and so on!I will not include the actual text of the verse or what it says, since this is not a translation exactly but just my interpretation of what it is saying. In doing so I will work towards telling the entire story of the Qur'an, and will hopefully find out all the objections you all make and have (in what I probably will deem your gross ignorance, but don't mind that!).
LETS BEGIN! I'M EXCITED!
Oh! I'll be using the English translations from www.islamawakened.com/quran and going through each verse carefully, and giving my interpretation for it (if this ends up a not too difficult success, I might try doing it with other religious scriptures too!)
11
A statement used to invoke the power and blessing of God by the titles Allah, Rahman, and Raheem, each of which have certain meanings if one takes the root of the words to have meanings, Allah means things like Ultimate Power that is Beyond everything and worthy of all Worship, Rahman means things like the holder of all the stores of bounty (with a particular relation to the Heavens and ideas of rain, but also including all blessings or edicts good or bad), and Raheem meaning the dispenser of those stores of everything, particularly blessings. The "names" in the past were often connected to "qualities of renown" or "super powers" in the case of God, and so the power of the All Powerful Ultimate Power Allah is being invoked here to bless the proceedings, the one who holds all the stores of mercy and blessings, and can dispense them. An additional association with words with "Rahm" in it is compassion, and God literally is the only one with "true compassion" in that God encompasses the knowledge of the experience of "being you" entirely in every detail, so if you suffer, God knows it exactly and entirely, God encompasses the experience fully, which is the meaning of Compassion, to suffer what you suffer or know it as you know it.12
A sending out of praise is being performed here which also acts as a possible statement. God is being praised and another title is given, this time it is Rub Il Alameen, The Master of the Alameen which is often translated as Worlds or Universe, but could mean "Everything" or "All things distinguished" or "All things knowable" or even "All information" or "All that informs" since there is an idea of distinguishing and making distinct contained in the word due to the ILM root in the word, which is the ability to distinguish between things.13
Rahman and Raheem is repeated here, which seems to be a reference to having the control over the full stores to give out anything to the Alameen, and also being the one who dispenses everything that is received by the Alameen.14
Another title is given here, Ruler or King (of) Deen Day, a Day where people whose way of life or method of making decisions and the decisions they made will be brought forth and they will be questioned and things will be decided and sorted as the King decides!15
An extremely important statement is made here, defining what we are to do regarding the aforementioned "Allah, Rahman, Raheem, Rub il Alameen, Rahman, Raheem, Maliki Yawmi Deen" we just invoked and praised, and it is to this Allah that we direct our worship and this Allah that we ask for help from, none other, we do not worship anything else nor do we ultimately seek assistance or help from anything else, because the true Rahman and Raheem is the only one that holds the stores of benefit and power and can dispense them freely.16
Here we ask God to guide us to the straight way, as only God can, and we just stated that God is the one we ask for help from and direct our worship, submission, prayers, and praise to. We assume the "straight way" means things like "clear" "straightforward" "correct" "without crookedness" "rightly guided" "direct" and things like that. This may also refer additionally to the "bridge" people may have to cross, as was believed by the Zoroastrians under the name of the Chinvat Bridge and mentioned in the Qur'an as one of the possible things people may have to go through in the form of a bridge or path where evildoers do not make it across, almost like a metaphor made into a real experience.17
Explains what this path is, and it is the path of those who God has given goodness and favor to rather than those who are to receive bad things like wrath and suffering through being condemned to bad things happening or those who are misguided and sent astray. This places God in the jurisdiction of ruling over the results of what path is taken, and no authority is given to anyone else in this request, confirming the common theme in the Qur'an that God is the one we worship, do what we do for and by, and ask for help from, we can not be helped or saved without God, and we ask God to put us on the right path, the path of favor and blessings and goodness and right guidance rather than the path of those who are condemned, tortured, made to suffer, made to experience horrible things, or sent astray and misguided and are left ignorant and doing wrong things and are away from the path of blessings and good experiences. In a sense, the "journey of life" may be compared to a kind of "path" we travel on or course, and we ask God to put us on the course that leads to good results rather than the course that has bad experiences throughout.
Thus concludes a brief commentary on the first Surah of the Qur'an, commonly known as Surah Al-Fatihah, or The Opening.
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Salaam,
I object already on the first word in your translation, i.e. Allah. It does not have any advanced meaning like you wish to imply but it stems from the Hebrew version which is Elohim. It is a third person phrase of the introduction God gives to Moses "I am that I am", i.e. Allah means "is that it is" basically.
My morpheme analysis would render it as "Be To Thereby Be". It can be compared to that Moses was told to go to the Children of Israel and say "I AM has sent me".
B'sm Allah alrahmani alraheem, as the famous phrase basically goes, means "In the spirit of Benevolent Merciful" implying on the assimilated state between Creator and Creation that becomes established for those who discover that affinity. Allah does not have any complicated meaning as you see.
And God has no names either but it is all about spiritual affinity and assimilation. Hard to put a name on something that simply is without any prerequisites or fixed image although Allah is a nice descriptive term.
Salaam
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Salaam,
I object already on the first word in your translation, i.e. Allah. It does not have any advanced meaning like you wish to imply but it stems from the Hebrew version which is Elohim. It is a third person phrase of the introduction God gives to Moses "I am that I am", i.e. Allah means "is that it is" basically.
My morpheme analysis would render it as "Be To Thereby Be". It can be compared to that Moses was told to go to the Children of Israel and say "I AM has sent me".
B'sm Allah alrahmani alraheem, as the famous phrase basically goes, means "In the spirit of Benevolent Merciful" implying on the assimilated state between Creator and Creation that becomes established for those who discover that affinity. Allah does not have any complicated meaning as you see.
And God has no names either but it is all about spiritual affinity and assimilation. Hard to put a name on something that simply is without any prerequisites or fixed image although Allah is a nice descriptive term.
Salaam
Though that is good and Allah is what Allah is which is Allah and not anything else, what I am talking about with the meanings of the word based on the root is not made up by me of course and can be looked up in etymological works by those scary academicians who haunt the Universities of the world.
Can you provide your interpretation for these 7 verses the way I did? 7 shouldn't be too hard!
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You will not find the right answer in those works.
Salaam
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You will not find the right answer in those works.
Salaam
Can you make your interpretation of the 7 verses please and maybe throw in a little reasoning and explanation too?
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Perhaps later. It feels unconvincing to do it when it is in vain.
Salaam
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Perhaps later. It feels unconvincing to do it when it is in vain.
Salaam
Ok, maybe later, but I don't think it is vain really because someone else even might like it, and I don't think I'll necessarily bother you about it much in this thread except I'd like the explanations for it in as much detail as you can provide if possible. I might move on to the next few verses soon, I don't know!
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I will not include the actual text of the verse or what it says, since this is not a translation exactly but just my interpretation of what it is saying. In doing so I will work towards telling the entire story of the Qur'an, and will hopefully find out all the objections you all make and have (in what I probably will deem your gross ignorance, but don't mind that!).
Don't put the horse behind the cart. Interpretation is explanation or establishment of the meaning or significance of the text.
First step is to analyze the words, individually. Determine its meanings, most importantly propositional.
Determine the phrases; it may communicate something different than the individual words comprising it. Determine the element in the sentence to which the phrase links.
Determine the role and function of each word and its relationship with other words in the sentence.Without doing this whatever will be your interpretation, it will merely be a story imagined NOT the interpretation of the source text into target language text.
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Don't put the horse behind the cart. Interpretation is explanation or establishment of the meaning or significance of the text.
First step is to analyze the words, individually. Determine its meanings, most importantly propositional.
Determine the phrases; it may communicate something different than the individual words comprising it. Determine the element in the sentence to which the phrase links.
Determine the role and function of each word and its relationship with other words in the sentence.Without doing this whatever will be your interpretation, it will merely be a story imagined NOT the interpretation of the source text into target language text.
Thank you, good tips for sure, you can also post your interpretation using that technique for the first 7 verses for starters here if you would like to (I'd love to see it!)
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Hello FreedomStands! I remember you from other websites and am happy to see you on here.
You may or may not remember we had a conversation about the movie "Inception." The movie is basically about lucid dreaming up to three layers deep, i.e., a "dream within a dream."
Anyway, I am interested in the so-called seven layers of understanding of the Quran, the first of which is mostly concerned with Arabic letters, words and semantic root meanings. The second layer of understanding is more spiritual/less material and based on our level of faith. This is progressively true as we move from layer 1-7, the wisdom we gain is more and more in our heart and less and less in our head.Any believer has the right to make an interpretation based on his/her level of faith and wisdom, without intermediaries between oneself and God. Sometimes people do look to others who are more wise/educated for help, however, this is a choice and not technically necessary.
My interpretation of Al Fatihah fom personal experience is There is something on the horizon and it is coming this way. Later on I read the following from the Quran and the two were somehow linked in my mind
8123 And he has already seen Gabriel in the clear horizon.Thanks for starting this thread and I think it is a VERY ambitious undertaking!
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Hello FreedomStands! I remember you from other websites and am happy to see you on here.
You may or may not remember we had a conversation about the movie "Inception." The movie is basically about lucid dreaming up to three layers deep, i.e., a "dream within a dream."
Anyway, I am interested in the so-called seven layers of understanding of the Quran, the first of which is mostly concerned with Arabic letters, words and semantic root meanings. The second layer of understanding is more spiritual/less material and based on our level of faith. This is progressively true as we move from layer 1-7, the wisdom we gain is more and more in our heart and less and less in our head.Any believer has the right to make an interpretation based on his/her level of faith and wisdom, without intermediaries between oneself and God. Sometimes people do look to others who are more wise/educated for help, however, this is a choice and not technically necessary.
My interpretation of Al Fatihah fom personal experience is There is something on the horizon and it is coming this way. Later on I read the following from the Quran and the two were somehow linked in my mind
8123 And he has already seen Gabriel in the clear horizon.Thanks for starting this thread and I think it is a VERY ambitious undertaking!
Thank you so much! Sorry for the delay in my response! That is some very cool stuff you mentioned! My email is [email protected] and my Skype is abrahimesker if you want to keep in touch more closely in case I don't frequent this website too much.