4:15, 2:125, 3:96 Beit fixed!
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Peace all,
I think God's will I found humbly one of the biggest mistery in the Reading the meaning of AL BEIT.
By searching in FM, I found lot of different interpretations of the word, but none fits correctly in all verses.
First of all let's start with the basic meaning.
Bismillah arrahmani arrahim.
I seek refuge in God against Satan the banished.
Usually people translate BEIT by House.
But in the reading a house is called DAR.
6127
For them will be a Home of Peace in the presence of their Lord He will be their Friend because they practised (righteousness).see also 284, 285, 2881 all these verses use the word DAR
Taking that into account Beit should mean something else!
What gave me a clue of the meaning is 2941
The parable of those who take protectors other than Allah is that of the Spider, who builds (to itself) a house; but truly the flimsiest of houses is the Spider's house if they but knew.
and the verse 415
If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, take the evidence of four (reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way.The best meaning that fits here is "the social group they belong to" or "the social network they belong to".
For 415, this idea is supported by 243
Let no man guilty of adultery or fornication marry any but a woman similarly guilty, or an Unbeliever nor let any but such a man or an Unbeliever marry such a woman to the Believers such a thing is forbidden.
So 415 become clear
If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, take the evidence of four (reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them in "the social groups/networks they belong to" until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way.I think the other way is given by 243
Let's come back to 2941
The parable of those who take protectors other than Allah is that of the Spider, who builds (to itself) a "the social group/network"; but truly the weakest of "the social group/network it belongs to" is the Spider's "the social group/network " if they but knew.Why?
Because the spider live alone and not in group so the weakest "group/network" possible is the one composed of only one beeing!!!Now let's try this meaning with the verses that deals with Hajj.
2125
Remember We made "the social group/network " an assembly for men and a place of safety; and take ye the station of Abraham as a place of contact/prayer; and We covenanted with Abraham and Isma`il that they should sanctify My " social group/network " for those who visit it or use it as a retreat or obey humbly.396
The first " social group/network " appointed for men was that rassemble/with crowding (biBakkata) full of blessing and of guidance for all kinds of beingsTry it with all the other verses, it seems to fit perfectly.
Peace and God bless.
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Let's come back to 2941
The parable of those who take protectors other than Allah is that of the Spider, who builds (to itself) a "the social group/network"; but truly the weakest of "the social group/network it belongs to" is the Spider's "the social group/network " if they but knew.Why?
Because the spider live alone and not in group so the weakest "group/network" possible is the one composed of only one beeing!!!Pl brother give a second thought . The Spider has adopted a Bait. When you say it means "group/network" then she has joined it. There is no such thing "group/network" composed of only one being. When there is only one being there is no "group/network".
A particular female spider is referred in the Verse. And the thing that she adopts as house for her offsprings is surely the weakest of the houses.
http//haqeeqat.org.pk/English%20Tafsir%20e%20Haqeeqat/002.%20Meanings%20and%20Tabweeb%20of%20words/008.%20Baitil%20ankaboot%20Spider/00.%20Baitil%20ankaboot%20{word}.gif Perception and meanings; it is NOT Spider's Web.
http//haqeeqat.org.pk/English%20Tafsir%20e%20Haqeeqat/002.%20Meanings%20and%20Tabweeb%20of%20words/008.%20Baitil%20ankaboot%20Spider/08.%20Baitil%20Ankaboot%20Spider.htm -
Beit also means a verse. Was used as poetic term. Please keep this meaning then look at verses and your job will become easy. Meaning as house appears far later attribution. Originally also meant some thing to be done during night, anything not just sleep.
Peace,
Badar
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Peace all
That is close enough to my own opinion, as i have also tried the social side of "bayt" (family, core social group etc) but here is one problem
(1680)
w Allahu ja`ala lakum min buyuwtikum sakanan
and Allah made for you from your buyt (bayt in pl.) a rest/tranquility so far the idea of social group is good, then...wa ja
ala lakum min juluwdi AlAnami buyuwtan tastaKiffuwnaha
and made for you from hides (skins) of AlAn`am (usu. "cattle" your buyt you find/make them light (in weight) ...thus the idea of "social group/network" is not applicable here
who's going to take hides of cattle as his family? Otherwise, to take cattle's hide as a lightweight, portable shelter makes sense. Those who have ever spent some nights outdoor know it (of course we use synthetics today, the idea still holds). It's called tent -- a form of shelter.
As for "spider's bayt", i've glimpsed into this before Spiders live alone, right? Well, most do, but some species actually do form colonies. To support the idea of spider's "weak social network", however
"Social spider", from wikipedia
No social spider species has yet been seen to exhibit the eusocial organization of termites, ants, highly social bees or social wasps."Eusociality", from wikipedia
Eusociality (Greek eu "good/real" + "social" is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification.
The lower levels of social organization, presociality, were classified using different terms, including presocial, subsocial, semisocial, parasocial and quasisocial.The most familiar examples are insects such as ants, bees, and wasps (order Hymenoptera), as well as termites (order Isoptera), all with reproductive queens and more or less sterile workers and/or soldiers. ...
Also, you must've heard some claims about the spiderweb material (some kind of silk) to be relatively stronger to today's synthetic material. Again from wikipedia (what can i do? i'm not an arachnologist, only a casual layman on this matter ),
Spider silk provides a combination of lightness, strength and elasticity that is superior to that of synthetic materials, ...It will be great if a knowledgeable arachnologist somehow got stuck to this thread and discuss things with us...
t.b. cont`d on the very next post ...
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As i have attempted to present in a few other threads, the "bayt" does not mean only the physical (house, shelter, nest etc) or the social (family, core social group, etc), nor that it means merely the event of "spending the night", but the "bayt" includes all of these concepts.
And the closest approach where i could put all those meanings into a single word in English is to understand "bayt" as "home".
note let's not only observe the exact same spelling of Albayt, but let's observe every word derived from its root in AQ.
Peace
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And the closest approach where i could put all those meanings into a single word in English is to understand "bayt" as "home".
note let's not only observe the exact same spelling of Albayt, but let's observe every word derived from its root in AQ.
Peace,
Home is were the heart is...
6611
And an example God gave to those who believe a woman (descendant/daughter) of Pharaoh when she said "My Lord build for me at You a home in the Paradise and rescue me from Pharaoh and his deed, and rescue me from the nation the unjust." -
Peace,
In tribal (vernacular arabic of the desert) where I was born, Beyt means Room, so I could ask if I am invited to a house (Daar) in which Beyt (room) am I going to sleep.
How many beyts (rooms)does this daar (house) have?
It is said that the sahraoui arabic was the closest to the vernacular arabic used in the Quran (owing to the double migrations of arab muslims fleeing from spaniards and before when they went to expand towards spain and some joining afterwards fleeing persecution from Umayads then Abassids... -
peace,
From http//www.studyquran.co.uk/PRLonline.htm
= Ba-Ya-Ta =
by/in/at night (excluding sleep), entered upon or passed the night
tent, house, home
Thinking about something and its end result
Concealed or conceived something in the mind
A structure of clay or any structure signifying a habitation, an abode or dwelling.
Buildings, uninhabited houses, shops, ruins, bazaars, places where the entering is allowed by the owners.
Ark of Noah, Mosques, places of worship, Kaabeh or Jerusalem
A grave
Household or family
Nobility
Sudden attack in the night or a surprise attack in the night
Remaining through the night (e.g. bread or water that stays out and becomes stale) -
Peace,
In tribal (vernacular arabic of the desert) where I was born, Beyt means Room, so I could ask if I am invited to a house (Daar) in which Beyt (room) am I going to sleep.
How many beyts (rooms)does this daar (house) have?
It is said that the sahraoui arabic was the closest to the vernacular arabic used in the Quran (owing to the double migrations of arab muslims fleeing from spaniards and before when they went to expand towards spain and some joining afterwards fleeing persecution from Umayads then Abassids...Thanks theNabster for sharing the info, it got me looking and found similar result here
http//www.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2263/4366/1/determinants%20of%20house%20form%20and%20layout.pdf
The daywan is bayt alrojal (men?s house), and the rest of the house is bayt alniswan. (Bayt is house, rojal men, niswan women). When the word bayt is mentioned it can be understood as the women?s domains within the house. This is probably due to the fact that this is the center of their world whereas the public spaces are the domain of men. Thus, the daywan, even though it is within the house, has a more public than private function.
Houses are built by men, yet inhabited mainly by women as they spend the most time in them and carry out most activities within the confines of their own house or the houses of relatives, neighbors, friends. That is including social rituals. Women maintain the daily rhythm of life. Men?s areas of habitation extend beyond the boundaries of the house to include the mosque, the streets and the public spaces. Various social groups may use the same place but at different times (Donley-Reid 115), thus the daywan for example can be used by the women during the times that the men are away or during occasions when the men may use the street or a neighboring house.
Let me ask you if this would make sense in the tribal/vernacular Arabic you're used to
As you said, the "bayt" is inside the "daar". There are two possible ways to see the bayt as part of the daar
1 "bayt" as "room", i.e., a space, a locus, with defined physical boundaries (floor, walls, roof etc)
2 "bayt" as "place", i.e., when the space/locus has been/is being inhabited by its inhabitor(s) (person/people experiencing the place), sensed, felt, lived and ultimately ingrained in the memory of the inhabitors as a place (esp. of their own).consequently i'd like to ask you if the second meaning makes sense in your conversations, esp. in the context of visiting someone's daar/house.
Could it be that you are asking
'In which bayt am I going to sleep?'
'In which place am I going to sleep?''How many buyut does this daar have?'
'How many places does this house have?'Thanks for your feedback
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Peace
Beyt is a dwelling unit where one can reside (in relative protection), it has physical boundaries, this is how I see it.
Interesting example in the animal kingdom
Some octopus make a beyt out of coconut shells
http//i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/12/15/article-1235801-079A5927000005DC-485_634x512.jpg
Link http//www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1235801/Intelligent-octopuses-recycle-coconut-shells-discarded-humans-portable-shelters.html
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Peace
Beyt is a dwelling unit where one can reside (in relative protection), it has physical boundaries, this is how I see it.
Interesting example in the animal kingdom
Some octopus make a beyt out of coconut shells
Thanks. that's in line with the view that bayt is the place where one lives/resides.
For example, If there were no "octopus" (dweller/inhabitor) in the "coconut shell", then the coconut shell is just that, an empty "shell" and not a "bayt". The moment the octopus dwell in the shell, it becomes "bayt Al-octopus". In other words, "bayt" is attached to the "inhabitor". "Daar" on the other hand, is independent of its inhabitor.
It fits for most of the "bayt/buyut" and "daar/diyaar" (Daar AlSalaam, Daar AlAkhirat comes to mind) concordance in AQ. The difficult part being "bayt AlHaram".
That's it for now...
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Thanks. that's in line with the view that bayt is the place where one lives/resides.
For example, If there were no "octopus" (dweller/inhabitor) in the "coconut shell", then the coconut shell is just that, an empty "shell" and not a "bayt". The moment the octopus dwell in the shell, it becomes "bayt Al-octopus". In other words, "bayt" is attached to the "inhabitor". "Daar" on the other hand, is independent of its inhabitor.
It fits for most of the "bayt/buyut" and "daar/diyaar" (Daar AlSalaam, Daar AlAkhirat comes to mind) concordance in AQ. The difficult part being "bayt AlHaram".
That's it for now...
Salam,
what do you then with 2429
It is no fault on your part to enter houses not used for living in, which serve some (other) use for you and Allah has knowledge of what ye reveal and what ye conceal.
peace
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Peace Mazhar,
Actually this octopus did better than that, it built its dwelling out of fragments of coconut shells, which shows levels of rudimentary intelligence and skills!
Languages can become complicated when they evolve past the nominalising basics, and you can get overloading of meanings for words.
That being said, for a native speaker, some words feel right and others do not in a grammatical construct, say a sentence.
For me it does not feel right to call a house a beyt, a beyt is the smallest unit one can use as a base to dwell in, however, and this is the ambiguity, it can be as big as need be, but without external boundaries it is not a beyt, if it is divided internally it is not a beyt either, but rather a collection of beyts or buyuts (which then become a home or a house I guess).
Indeed a house, or a home, or a beyt can be empty, but they do presuppose ownership (e.g. if I see the web of a spider, I know a spider made it, even if the spider is not there, and so it is its owner).
Now will a cave be a beyt? that's debatable... but potentially it is if it can be made as a base to live/rest/sleep/operate from...
I think as always context needs to be taken into account anyway, if one wants to prove that there are overlapping meanings for a word, or even a meaning overload... -
Salam,
what do you then with 2429
Peace, thank you for that,
What i said previously ...an empty "shell" and not a "bayt"... seems to have given a wrong impression. Well that was a shell, what can i say, i don't normally use coconut shell to rest in (i'd definitely consider it when i get shrunken down to octopus' scale and see one empty ;D). The analogue for us would be of a scale more fitting for human (thanks theNabster for the "cave" example). @Mazhar i don't really get your tone so i'll take that literally -- right, the octopus must have seen it as a potential "bayt" while no other beings could see just how comfortable it is...
Other examples shoebox (mice!), the little hole on the back of my old speaker (an insect), the Magic Bus (Christopher McCandless) etc
In my view, 2427-29, suggest ethics re entering "bayt/buyut". In verse 27, we are suggested to ask the inhabitant/owner of the "bayt/buyut" (ahliha) for permission and to wait for greeting/answer before entering. Verse 28, i believe, explained the case when the bayt is physically empty (of visible living beings -- especially humans and dangerous animals i think). And when 2429 defined "buyuutan Gayru maskuunatin", it gives me the impression where the (potential) "bayt/buyut" is not/no longer used for resting (~sakana) by anyone, but still comfortable/enjoyable (mataa`un) to be in (the shell/cave examples above apply here). Strong relationship between "bayt/buyut" and the inhabitants can be seen more clearly in 2461.
With the issues of identity/ownership/inhabitants (actor, personality), resting/inhabiting (activity) glimpsed above, i think it's quite easy for us to see "bayt/buyut" as "place/places". Or maybe it's just me. Is/was anyone else into architecture/spatial design? I could use some more opinions...
@theNabster, taking bayt as "house" does not really fit for me either. "Home" is more acceptable. "Place" however, may be even more fitting (i'm still not sure). A room is of obviously can be seen as a place. Though certain boundaries need to be defined, a place needs not be rigidly-walled or totally enclosed. For example, "the grandpa's corner in our family's home garden" is one of his favorite places. Then it would be natural for a guest, after knowing that it is someone's place, to ask permission to have a rest there. An issue of privacy.
evidence for possible plurality of one's b-y-t, we can see from 2461
buytikum
buyti b'ikum
buyti ummahtikum
buyti ikh'wnikum
buyti akhawtikum
buyti ammikum
buyti ammtikum
buyti akhwlikum
buyti khltikum
aw m malaktum maftiahuPeace
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Peace san,
With your last quote, unbeknown maybe, I think you answered your own queryaw m malaktum maftiahu
A place for it to be a beyt needs to have some kind of protection or safety, boundaries of some sorts that can afford privacy too,
this is why Allah refers to mafatihahu which are the keys for entrance to an enclosed (therefore secure) space.I think in some arabic slang the word beyt has been expanded to mean daar too interchangeably, but since I do not interact
too much with my arabic brethren at the moment (long story - I am now British), apart form family, I cannot double check, but there is a word specifically for room that I know in use in the ME, and that is 'urfat, but that is for humans exclusively -
Peace theNabster,
Peace san,
With your last quote, unbeknown maybe, I think you answered your own queryaw m malaktum maftiahu
A place for it to be a beyt needs to have some kind of protection or safety, boundaries of some sorts that can afford privacy too,
this is why Allah refers to mafatihahu which are the keys for entrance to an enclosed (therefore secure) space.Beknown for sure, and i was waiting for this response.
"Keys" are made a possibility, as you said, a possible measure of protection/safety/privacy. Now, must a bayt be locked up?
Don't forget 2427-29. We're suggested to ask for "permission", not "keys". Isn't this correct Having the "keys" presupposes having "permission" given by the "Ahl Albuyut" (owner of "buyut"--yourself or other people who gave you their keys)?
Now don't ask me if the keys were stolen (i don't think they'd pass as "malaktum" though)...
btw i deleted this in my above "grandpa's spot in the garden example" fenced but not roofed. Trellised, maybe, but not necessarily totally enclosed. Even a room can have a window, can't it?
Peace
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Ah, but thx for your inputs!
apparently there is logic in the lingo of AQ p
... min buytikum
aw buyti b'ikum
aw buyti ummahtikum
aw buyti ikh'wnikum
aw buyti akhawtikum
aw buyti ammikum
aw buyti ammtikum
aw buyti akhwlikum
aw buyti khltikum
aw m malaktum maftiahu
...
aw
orAnd the point is... not everyone has such a complete family (that'd be nice tho)
Considering "by/in/at night (excluding sleep), entered upon or passed the night", my garden example above is faulty unless it's inhabited as such.
Considering "places where the entering is allowed by the owners", some homeless ppl seem to have made public gardens their "buyut".
Don't get me wrong, your idea of "bayt" as "shell" is by far the strongest opinion on this thread, at least as far as "human" is concerned. Anyone familiar with the term Ekistics will recognize "shells" as one of its five elements (the other four "nature", "men/anthropos", "society", "networks".
However on the other hand and nevertheless ... at this moment i failed to see any concrete relationship between "bayt AlAnkabut" (spider's bayt) and "mafatiHa" (keys). Or that between "bayt Al`ankabut" and "roof" or "walls" or the "door" where the "keyhole" is supposed to be. Unless i'm missing something very obvious here. Clues, anyone?
Or maybe we've just found why "bayt Al`ankabut" is called the "weakest bayt". Still a bayt, but weak. Simple, eh? ta-daa...! Congratulations! handshake No?
peace
Interesting sidetrack maftiu'l-ghaybi (659) (keys to the Unseen, or access to the Unseen?, or invisible keys to the Unseen?)
