An Inivitation to all traditionalists/Quranists to use reason.
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Surah 11
Traditional Explanation The traditional linguistic explanation of Quran runs into problem right from start. This first verse of Quran supposedly has four nouns. All four of these nouns are written in a genitive state or . This is a problem that apparently can?t be explained according to linguistic rules. Arabic sentences are of two types ?a verbal sentence?, which starts with a verb or ?a nominal sentence? which starts with a noun. If they were to call it a nominal sentence? They would run into an immediate problem of trying to explain, which part of it is a subject? As the subject of a nominal sentence is supposed to be in ?nominative state or ?. Whereas, we don?t find it to be the case with any noun in this verse.
So traditionalist, resort by calling it a verbal sentence. However, they run into problem as there is no verb in this verse. So what is solution their solution? They say that verb is implied at the start. Hence, they translate verse as ?I start with the name of Allah?. However, they also very emphatically claim that ?Quran is supposed to be clear and in an easy language and for all times to come?. So how come someone who is now trying to understand just based upon what is written in text is supposed to understand it?
Their explanation runs into further serious linguistic problems. The next two words are . Both of these nouns are again in a genitive state or . So they say , actually is combination of a preposition followed by word, . The humza of the word is dropped. But question is why it is dropped here? We find that in four other verses is used in Quran with its initial humza (5674, 5696, 6952 & 961). Furthermore, their next explanation that in , word is in a genitive state or , because these two words form a phrase called . However, this claim is also far from truth. Why?
A , by definition is a phrase of two nouns where one noun is defined by the other. However, in this situation they have already said that , is a phrase and not a simple noun. Whereas, a is a combination of two nouns. The determined noun is called , the annexed the determining noun, that to which annexation is made. Nowhere, it is claimed in language rules that a can be a phrase, like it is claimed here by traditionalist.
Comments, are welcome.
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let me know if its a wrong sentence
in the name of person, munawar who is shahid
i used four nouns in this sentence ..
shahid literally means the one who witness
munawar literally means the one who give light -
Have you heard about elliptical sentences?
Yes I know well about elliptical phrases, which are created as apologetic response. Nowhere to be found in authentic grammar books as a type of sentence. Is that all your response? Care to respond to any other points?
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Yes I know well about elliptical phrases, which are created as apologetic response. Nowhere to be found in authentic grammar books as a type of sentence. Is that all your response? Care to respond to any other points?
These points are discussed in more detail in the thread "Grammatical Units of text of Qur'aan".
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By the way this term of Elliptical phrase was invented to justify Muslims mindless chanting of phrase Allah-O-Akbar. A phrase nowhere to be found in Quran. Also literally doesn't mean by linguistic rules, what Muslims are told it means.
Elisions
It is made explicit at the very outset of the Divine Discourse that Arabic is a pro-drop language. Taking care of elisions in the source text and incorporating it in target language text are important to correctly convey the perception embedded therein. Ellipses at the sentence level is distinguished from other types of omissions by the condition of recoverability. The basic principle of ellipsis is that nothing can be omitted unless it can be recovered. Recoverability is the essential condition put forward by Arab grammarians for ellipsis. Ellipsis is not allowed if there are no indicators to help the addressee to identify the elided elements.
Since Grand Qur'aan is for the humanity, its first audience were the people of Mecca and surrounding localities. Further, while reading Grand Qur'aan, it must be kept in mind that it was gradually-intermittently revealed to the Messenger who then communicated it to the people of those days. Therefore, while conveying an Ayah?unitary verbal passage wherein some element is elided, it was so because it was already in their knowledge and they were quite familiar about it. Its mentioning would have cost redundancy.
Arabs dislike using larger quantity of words and like to convey voluminous information by employing minimum words. It also reflects that the Arabic language regards its listener and reader as a responsible, attentive and intelligent person who focuses his listening and perception faculties on that which is being stated. Thus the placing of words which could compromise the literary par excellence of the text along with offence to the first listeners, it is elided. The elisions are conspicuous by grammatical structures; and for the readers of later time-frame the semantics of the elided element are also mentioned at another place with repetition of key words in the elliptical sentences.
It will be unfair on the part of the translator; it could even indicate that the translator has directly started translating without firstly having critically read the entire discourse, not to render the ellipses in the target language text because the reader is not aware about the nature and style of ellipses in Arabic. The reader is, however, conversant with the kinds of ellipses in English language which are found in dependent clauses. In Arabic, the ellipses also occur in the independent clauses. Lapse of translator in this regard can affect the semantic value of the original source text; and it can even distort the text, or render it vague.
Therefore, we will render the semantic content of elisions in the target language and will give the reference of Sura and Ayah from where the semantic information is taken by brackets, like . The key to understand ellipses is to always keep in mind that the message is geared to be consonant with the audience's prior knowledge and assumptions.
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Elisions
Ellipses at the sentence level is distinguished from other types of omissions by the condition of recoverability. The basic principle of ellipsis is that nothing can be omitted unless it can be recovered. Recoverability is the essential condition put forward by Arab grammarians for ellipsis. Ellipsis is not allowed if there are no indicators to help the addressee to identify the elided elements.
Is following, what you mean by recoverability? Then yes, however what traditionalist have done and keep insisting upon is "Ellipsis which is not allowed if there are no indicators to help the addressee to identify the elided elements."
Surah 11
Now let us unpack into its components.
Surah 11
Now let us rearrange it according to current and simple syntactic rules, where subject first is followed by predicate and other components of the sentence.
Surah 11
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