Original Language of the Quran
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Asalamu Alaykum,
I'm just wondering what the original language the Qur'an was written in was. Was it Arabic? I'm quite sure it was Arabic, but I was told that there were no vowels when it was written, which is why people think that the Qur'an was changed. However, we Muslims believe the Qur'an was never changed. Is there a way to refute those types of people?
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I want to know how to refute people who say that the Qur'an is CHANGED because it was being translated from NO VOWELS to VOWELS (the Qur'an we read today has vowels. I'm not even sure if the original Qur'ans were written with vowels or not).
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Dear that is a fact, that there were no vowels and many other grammatical markers, in Qur'an written originally. In this regards, yes Qur'an is changed a lot. Why do you want to refute established facts? This is my question.
Badar
Ok. Has the meaning of the Qur'an been changed at all? If so, how can one verify this and explain to others that the meaning of the Qur'an has never been changed.
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When script is changed, the change in understanding of meanings of script naturally follows the path. Hence, that is a real problem too. Therefore, please read my repeated calls on this very forum to join hands to revive script/language of Qur'an and it's meanings.
Peace.
Badar
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Peace OurIslamic,
I'm just wondering what the original language the Qur'an was written in was. Was it Arabic? I'm quite sure it was Arabic, but I was told that there were no vowels when it was written, which is why people think that the Qur'an was changed. However, we Muslims believe the Qur'an was never changed. Is there a way to refute those types of people?
There are three separate issues in your question
- Language.
- Script.
- Meaning.
Language and meaning are independent from script. For example, we all understand each other when we talk despite having no script in an oral conversation.
Even when reading the written word, we can understand meaning despite using different scripts for the same language. For example, you should be able to clearly and easily understand the Arabic language phrase "bism allah alrahman alrahim" despite it being written in a foreign English script.
What we call right now the Arabic script is actually a foreign Aramaic script that was used to transliterate the great reading. This is why dotting was used to disambiguate the script since Aramaic has only 22 letter whereas Arabic has 28. This would be equivalent to putting a dot on the "h" in "alrahman" to differentiate the English script for the Arabic letters and .
As for vowels, Semitic languages lacked vowels because writing was not as easy back then as it is today. It took considerable effort to carve on rock or draw on expensive animal skins or papyrus. Therefore, the writers had to be very efficient and do away with writing sounds that can easily be guessed from the context.
If you read a modern Arabic newspaper today, you will see that it completely lacks short vowels (vocalization marks). Yet you are able to perfectly understand what the newspaper is saying and if there is some ambiguity it can be easily resolved from the context. By the same token you can also read the great reading/"quran" without any short vowels and even many long vowels and you would be able to clearly understand it and any ambiguity can be resolved from context. So the short vowels are completely useless and are anyway not needed. Changing them or even completely removing them is irrelevant.
Peace and all best wishes,
Ayman
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Peace,
One can easily view earlier scripts which there was no standard at the time and compare to modern.
The Uthman Qur'an, Kufic script, 7th Century, Sura 7 (Ala'araf), verses 86 & 87
786http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Kufic_Quran_7th_Cent.jpg
Qur'an 1st/2nd centuries; Chaper 60 part of verse 4 to 8 and part of 9
http//i49.tinypic.com/2rw3mro.jpg
Hamza alone, above/under alif, alif hamza, ya hamza, wa hamza dots added later including to distinguish letters.
Old Qur'an copying date 1st/2nd centuries Surah Yusuf
Verses From verse 120 of Surah Hud to verse 3 from Surah Yusuf and part from 4
http//portal.unesco.org/ci/photos/showphoto.php/photo/3454/size/bighttp//i26.tinypic.com/fy0dcp.jpg
Notice Al-Qur'na was written. The marks are important to distinguish between words transcribed from the vocal spelled often times alike yet have differences separate meanings; E.g.
411 Lildhdhakari (to the male)
5417 Lildhdhikri (to the remembrance)
The recital is preserved similar to the song "My Way" although one can debate who sings it better Elvis or Sinatra.
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Peace Noon,
Notice Al-Qur'na was written. The marks are important to distinguish between words transcribed from the vocal spelled often times alike yet have differences separate meanings; E.g.
411 Lildhdhakari (to the male)
5417 Lildhdhikri (to the remembrance)Actually, the marks are not important to understand the meaning. The context is what Arabic readers naturally use to determine the meaning.
For example, even without vocalization marks, one is able to easily figure out the difference between the two
Even if you put the vocalization mark as follows
The remembrance gets the portion of two females
Despite using the vocalization for "remembrance", people will naturally ignore the vocalization and understand it from the context as
The male gets the portion of two females
So as I said, vocalization is irrelevant and context is what matters.
In fact, not only is the vocalization irrelevant but it can be grossly wrong, as in the case endings. It is abundantly clear from the great reading that like modern vernaculars, the language of the great reading didn't have vocalization case endings. This is why everyone says
alrahman alam alquran
and no one ever says
alrahmanu alam alqurana
With the vocalization marks for case endings, the rhythm of the great reading disappears and it sounds terribly ineloquent and pretentious so certainly vocalization case endings were not part of the language of the great reading and the marks are false.
Peace,
Ayman
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Peace OurIslamic,
There are three separate issues in your question
- Language.
- Script.
- Meaning.
Language and meaning are independent from script. For example, we all understand each other when we talk despite having no script in an oral conversation.
Ayman
Dear Ayman, you raise a lot of important issues. In my experience even lot of good intended people like yourself overlook these. This is not due to any malice, but just being not familiar with issues involved.
- A simple definition of language is. How we communicate information to others.
- Eternal medium for this transfer of information is by sound symbols. This is called speech.
- Since, sound dies as soon as it is uttered from speakers. It could not be preserved until modern times, unless it was preserved in the form of script. Hence, Language, meanings and script are very interdependent.
- Furthermore, languages change overtime. All aspect of language that is, Lexical (meanings/concepts associated with words), grammar, phonology, semantics and syntax, all of these.
- Hence, in the face of changing landscape, preservation in the form of script is/was very important and related.
I shall continue to address other issues, as time permits.
Peace.
Badar
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The context is what Arabic readers naturally use to determine the meaning.
I agree. A couple of examples came to mind
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In 14 it is customary to imagine a "dagger alif" ( ة in the word malik, though I'm not sure why. If you look at all the occurrences of the word, it is never spelled with an alif (http//corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?root=mlk#(141)) and in the well known chapter 114 we say, "malik al-nas" with a short vowel sound.
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At the beginning of chapter 30 we hear about the Romans either losing then winning, or winning then losing, depending on how the words are read. The historical record should clear this matter up, though I have not sufficiently studied the matter to comment. The point is that identifying the point in history will help us read it correctly, not the vocalizations.
Peace,
-David
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I agree. A couple of examples came to mind
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In 14 it is customary to imagine a "dagger alif" ( ة in the word malik, though I'm not sure why. If you look at all the occurrences of the word, it is never spelled with an alif (http//corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?root=mlk#(141)) and in the well known chapter 114 we say, "malik al-nas" with a short vowel sound.
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At the beginning of chapter 30 we hear about the Romans either losing then winning, or winning then losing, depending on how the words are read. The historical record should clear this matter up, though I have not sufficiently studied the matter to comment. The point is that identifying the point in history will help us read it correctly, not the vocalizations.
Peace,
-David
Please, share your understanding of, what do you mean by vocalizations?
Peace
Badar
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Peace David,
- In 14 it is customary to imagine a "dagger alif" ( ة in the word malik, though I'm not sure why. If you look at all the occurrences of the word, it is never spelled with an alif (http//corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?root=mlk#(141)) and in the well known chapter 114 we say, "malik al-nas" with a short vowel sound.
In ancient times, normally not just short vowels but also long vowels wouldn't have been shown. The showing of long vowels in Semitic languages is a device called Matres Lectionis ( http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mater_lectionis ). The majority of the great reading doesn't use Matres Lectionis in the medial position but it does show some erratic use of Matres Lectionis even in the Medial position. For example, the word Sa7iBh in 940 shows no long vowel while in 7184 it shows a long vowel SaA7ibhim.
http//www.salamiran.org/Religion/Quran/PAGE173.GIF
http//www.salamiran.org/Religion/Quran/PAGE193.GIFWhat is even more strange is that not only the long Alif vowels are sounded but not written but some Alif are written but not sounded. For example, the final Alif in words like are silent and are not sounded at all. In this case the final Alif is not serving as a letter (whether consonant or long vowel) at all but almost like a vocalization mark indicating that the final Waw is pronounced as a long "ou" as opposed to a consonantal "w".
So back to your comment about "mlk", I agree that in this case, whether it is "malik" or "maAlik" can be ambiguous, especially since, as far as I know, both would fit in the contexts. I would say that unless the context and common sense clearly suggests otherwise then there is no reason not to accept the present shown vocalization of "malik" and "maAlik" but there would be nothing wrong if one deviates from it.
- At the beginning of chapter 30 we hear about the Romans either losing then winning, or winning then losing, depending on how the words are read. The historical record should clear this matter up, though I have not sufficiently studied the matter to comment. The point is that identifying the point in history will help us read it correctly, not the vocalizations.
I actually don't think that the historic record would clear this up in the way that you think by finding for example a neatly inscribed and detailed record of every battle won and lost by the Romans. This would be a rather optimistic and highly unusual thing to expect. What we need to do is to look at how the historic record interrelates not just from the military stand point but also from the social and religious points. As with any long-term conflict, the Romans undoubtedly won and lost several times. What we know historically is that in the end they lost and had to completely abandon their Eastern empire. We also know historically that after the Nicene and into the 6th century CE the Romans were intolerent of other creeds and even other sects within Christianity that they viewed as heretic. On the other hand, the Persians at that time were more tolerant of other creeds and therefore Jews and Christian sects such as Nestorians, which were viewed by the Romans as heretic took refuge in the Persian-affiliated Lakhmid areas of Arabia. The Romans in their writings about the war complain about being invaded and defeated by an alliance of Arabs, Jews and heretic Christians who took refuge in the Arabs' territory (see Hoyland, "Seeing Islam as Others Saw it". Another interesting thing that a Roman chronicle mentions is that the Arab kingdom that conquered them began when Heraclius, king of the Romans, was in his eleventh year and Khusrau, king of the Persians, was in his thirty-first year and the Arabs began to carry out raids in Palestine. This translates to 620-21CE when according to traditions the prophet hadn't even emigrated yet! So the traditional chronology is probably skewed by about a dozen years and it is entirely possible that the chapter of the Romans is talking about battles where the prophet himself fought against the Romans.
What we also know historically is that the Romans were Trinitarians. We know for sure that the word Christian is never mentioned in the great reading. Trinitarians are mentioned in 573 and are condemned as unappreciative rejecters. So when the great reading is talking about the "nasara", most likely this refers to the Nestorians who believed that Jesus is the human son of god but didn't believe him to be god like the Monophysites (572) and didn't believe in a Trinity like the Roman Trinitarians. So there is absolutely no reason for those who have faith to be happy when the Roman Trinitarians who are unappreciative rejecters win. So the context points to winning then losing.
Peace,
Ayman