One Word - One Definition?
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Peace.
I managed to read the thread, and it seems one word one definition is working out. Though I'm not adamant on it yet.
mquran What do you think of ritual prayer and pilgrimage? Seems you accepting and being critical of Aidid, which I really like.
Peace.
Natu on the line. -
Salaamun alaikum Natu,
Aidid Safar is a pioneer for me. When the hajj discussions started in mid-2002, Aidid triggered a massive 'evolution' in Quranic thought. One thing which struck me at the time was the amazing conceptual power of al-quraan emerging. Suddenly, if someone asked you, 'why do you believe this is to be God's teachings' , the answer was much clearer. If you read books by political thinkers like Aristotle, Plato, Locke, Hobbes etc, you will find that their thoughts simply do not measure up. Aidid catalysed this for me. He succeeded where the Sunnis and even Parwez failed.
However, the beauty about our 'camp' is that no man is the final word. While Aidid succesfully deconstructed the ritualistic hajj, I feel his own interpretation of 'house' , 'masjid' ,'kaaba' etc didn't fit the Quranic criteria.
To me 'salaat' is generally a link one builds wih God's system. For ppl without belief, salaat essentially means to be in alignment with Gods system. For believers, its about establishing a focus on your covenant with Allah twice daily in order to keep moving in His direction.
Hajj is the process of establishment of God's system on earth and umra is its culturation. Once we have done this, we call humankind 'with' the hajj (22/26) and they will come to us because they will benefit for themselves. (22/27).
hope that helps or least suffices for now )
thanks and peace
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Peace mquran
"For believers, its about establishing a focus on your covenant with Allah twice daily in order to keep moving in His direction."
It all makes sense to me now, if it doesn't take you too long, please could you tell me where this'twice daily' thing comes in and what its about. i just want to look into it myself. Thanks
Peace.
Natu on the line. -
Salaamun alaikum Natu,
The verse which tells me 'twice daily' is 11/114
And establish regular prayers at the two ends of the day and at the approaches of the night...
To me, this signifies that at ends of the day, we begin salat until night appears.
My salaat consists of washing myself, reading inspiring passages from the book such as those reflecting my own situation etc. I then focus on my own tasks ahead and ask Allah's help.
hope that helps.
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Peace.
That helps a lot, thanks mquran. Although, I have heard somewhere that this verse contains 'through' the two ends of the day. So up until now I had the impression that 11114 was basically telling us to uphold our commitments throughout the day and night, whenever we are awake. Don't know if the word 'through' is there or if I've mixed verses up. Thanks for your help.
Peace.
Natu on the line. -
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As a general comment, from what I have now researched and come across, it is clear to me that the one word one definition system is perfectly valid, and is the only real way to translate the Quran into different languages. Only then can we discuss differences in points of view through interpretation. So right now I'm waiting for Aidid Safar to get his translation complete, what is already available of it already is quite impressive (I think). Although I do accept that his footnotes are perhaps unneccessarily over-emotional, in terms of classing people who have made misinterpretations as enemies of God and Muhammad, I don't think many translators have this at the top of their to do list, and as far as classing people as idol worshippers or believers, I thinks that task is best left to the creator wink . I strongly recomment readers to check his translation out at http//aididsafar.com, it has solved a lot of problems for me, hope it does for others aswell.
Mquran - thanks for your help, for analysing analysis of analysis. ? , you get what I mean. I look forward to hearing from you regarding the word 'through'. I would be very grateful if you would provide a one word one definition translation of 11114, becuase Aidid hasn't got round to making one yet, and, well, lets say i'm a little impatient.
Any arguments to swing my position away from one word one definition would still be welcome lol, we shall never stop learning.
Peace.
Natu on the line. -
Salaamun alaikum Natu,
Al-Qur'aan tells us that Allah doesn't run out of words. Therefore, if He meant something else, He would have used another word. This is my take on the situation.
As for translations, I'm not too happy with it being the end point of one's Quranic education. Allow me to explain why.
Lets take the word 'deen'. From the Quranic contexts we can see that 'deen'
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is a signifier to the 'aaliha' (gods) whom one gives 'ibada' (worship) to (10/109)
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is about following certain ahkaam (laws)..12/40
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is realised when one believes and acts rightesously (24/55)
and so on.
So the word 'deen' becomes like 'x' in 'x= 2y + 4z ...'. A loaded word in one's mind to be used at decoding the world and our selves.
This is what I think we need to be going for.
thanks and peace.
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Peace mquran.
Correct me if I'm wrong, do you believe in the one word one definition method, but you also assert that the same definition canbe applied in different ways in different verses of the Quran? This make more sense to me instead of trying to force the same 'definition' on all verses of the Quran. But the one thing I do not approve of in the totally changing the meaning of a word to suit previous knowledge. For example, I really like what people have do to define rasool and nabi, using the Quran.
Peace.
Natu on the line. -
peace be upon you Natu, all,
I hate to break it to you but I'm afraid Aidid Safar's translation, like ALL others, will contain good points as well as bad points. Some of the errors in his translation/understanding have been pointed out several times. Please see the following thread for some examples
http//www.free-minds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=840Without going further than the first few signs/verses (ayatin) of his translation, I would comment on the following
rahman = gracious? ? see 1945 or this article
AAalameena = plural ~ beings/creations, see 4432, 26165
yawmi al ddeeni = "the day of the order", I understand why he chose this. Its a power-relation, I would have said its closer to "obligation" however.
If he's going for one word = one definition, then he messed up straight away with mustaqeema = "observant" (16) & muttaqeena = "observant" (22). They are from different roots, QWM & TQW respectively. Unless he means two different words can have the same meaning as long as its one meaning for each, but then why would the reading use two different words that mean the exact same thing?
salat = singular, thus it should be "commitment" NOT "commitments". Each has a different meaning.A simple word of advice would be to verify what you read, its a slower process but I can guarantee you, its much more fruitful.
Wakas
references used for this post
http//mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/think-786/Quran_study_tools.htm
http//www.openburhan.com/index.html -
Peace Wakas and all
I understand your concerns wakas, that I'll start following Aidid Safar. I appreciate your help, but when I read aidid's translation of 11 I realised that he has made a mistranslation already, becuasde I had previously read an article on quran-islam.org. The reason I am more comfortable with Aidid's literature is that I have read and understood many criticisms made of it. Initially I thought, well, he's alone by the looks of other peoples views, but thats shouldn't mean that he is wrong. I looked into it and I now believe I have found greater truths in his translation that perhaps in some others. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying his translation is right, (its just daft to say that about any translation in fact), its just that I approve of Aidid's approach becuase he initiated the defining of words using the quran itself, much like Rashad Khalifah made some kind of formal initiation of 'God alone' (although there were ahl-al-quranb people before). The reason I am pleased with what this guy is doing is because when I first found the real islam, I was tending to believe anyone who brought out a verse from the Quran, and I relied on them becuase I was a non-arab, but now I have access to dictionaries and translations (still looking to get lexicon), and I am more independant in my research. So don't be under the impression that I am taking 'Aidid Safar' as the truth, I wouldn't take anyone as the truth, except God, who is the one that inspires the truth to me when I look for it.
Wakas - have a read of my first post at http//www.free-minds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3141
Peace.
Natu on the line. -
Salaamun alaikum Wakas, Natu,
Wakas, good to see you brother. Have u recieved 'coherence in the quran' yet ?
Natu, Aidid may be alone in terms of PUBLICATION, but he's certainly not alone in terms of general direction. Do learn the language , brother. Trust me, it will bring a lot of positive effects because then, you can check for yourself.
thanks and peace.
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peace be upon you mq,
No, I haven't received CIQ yet, will you stop asking me that! wink Even if I do, I most likely wont be able to read it for a while anyway, so you'll have to hold out a little longer lol
On a positive note, I am currently getting my mind blown by my study of al bayt, which began in part because of our conversation ages ago in which you discussed 7128 with me. I'm going to write an article on it, unless The God wills otherwise.Wakas
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Salaamun alaikum Wakas,
No, I haven't received CIQ yet, will you stop asking me that! Even if I do, I most likely wont be able to read it for a while anyway, so you'll have to hold out a little longer
On a positive note, I am currently getting my mind blown by my study of al bayt, which began in part because of our conversation ages ago in which you discussed 7128 with me. I'm going to write an article on it, unless The God wills otherwise.Sorry about that, big guy ) Just anxious to hear you sing its praises, heheh.
Ah, please do write on al-bait. So far, its just Ayman's work and Aidid's work. I'm eager to see some stuff. Keep me posted !
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Peace.
I've bin wanting to learn quranic arabic for a while now, even before I went Quran alone, but websites don't teach you much apart from 'hello', and 'Could I have a sandwich please'.
I just wanna get the hang of sentence structure, so then I can use dictionaries and lexicons for independant use. Any suggesstions on how I can learn arabic sentence structure?
Peace.
Natu on the line. -
Salaamun alaikum Natu,
Man, are you sure you're not on msn yet ?
About Quranic Arabic, check out this site
http//emuslim.com/quran/lughat.asp
i went through this book in 3 months back in 1999 and it gave me the foundation for the basic arabic which i know.
thanks and peace.
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Peace mquran
I'm desperate to get get back on MSN myself, but my computer is messed at home, I can't get on the internet, so I spend my lunch breaks on this forum when I'm at college, but msn is blocked at college. Trust me, I'll get somebody to sort it out and I'll tell you when I'm back. Trust me bro, I'm not trying to avoid anyone, I wanna get on myself.
Peace.
Natu on the line. -
Peace All,
I have a few comments about Aidid's translation.
Aidid never intended for the translation on the website to represent a finished product. It is only a very very rough draft. He decided that it was important to put it up anyway with the hopes of breaking the idols of the traditional translations and so-called Islam. He is still learning as we all are and revising his work. He is always open to suggestions and believes that we all can make contributions to the understanding of the reading. Anything that wakes up the masses can only be positive.
I found Edip?s remarks condescending and some of his comments reflect a kind of competition and had no basis. He has an abrasive style which may put off some but I can see past that, however his position on the number 19 and ritual prayer gives me some insight into his limited understanding of the reading. I take the best of what he says and leave the rest. If I put the best construction on his and the remarks of others I would say that since many authors are glory seekers and their work represents what they believe is unchallengeable that commentators or critics who disagree immediately go on the offense. This is not the case with Aidid. He is a genuine student of the reading and has one agenda, that is to break idols. The disclaimers used by writers like brother Ayman keep it real. We are all learning. The difference between many and those like Aidid and Ayman and Layth is that they announce their findings to the people and keep increasing their knowledge, changing their understanding and again announcing it to the people. I am grateful for them all whether I agree or not. They are not self-proclaimed scholars or seeking blind followers to enhance their position in this low life like the mullahs. The other types of comments attributing racism to Aidid are ridiculous. They are actually offensive to anyone with any sound or firsthand knowledge of what is racism. If this is what they think racism is they will never eliminate it. They are fostering the politically correct media hype. The God has told us about the munafiq arabs AND those among them who have conviction. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it?s a duck. Aidid simply calls a ?spade? a ?spade? and I?ve used up my quota of clich?s for the day. lol
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Peace Irhazi,
Dr. Shahrour has a method based on "There are no synonyms in any human language" and his results are immpressive. I am currently invloved in an eefort to translate his fascinating book into English... maybe you ll get to read it someday
I am so anxious to read this. Get a move on. D
