The Ten readings
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Wow, I'm getting vertigo thinking on how I'm going to reply to these posts. There is so much mistaken information here from the errors of the quran to why 'arrahmaanu &allama al-qur'aana' doesn't sound right to a modern Arabic speaker.
I'm just going to make a few points
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If Arabic grammar can't explain the Quran it is because the grammarian is not skilled enough, or has a limited view from a previoulsy mistaken grammarian.
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That is not to say that grammarian works are to be thrown in the trash. That just means that sometimes they make a rule for a linguistic phenomeon and they were mistaken in their concept of that phenomenon and how it really worked. The grammarians are right on 98 percent of their works, although sometimes they didn't have the right concept of what they saw or didn't express it right. That happens with all sciences.
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Old school Arabic sounds strange to modern Arabs because Arabic has changed since those days. Tashkeel has alot of functional load in Old Arabic. In MODERN ARABIC or CREOLE INFLUENCED ARABIC it doesn't have much functional load. All Classical Arabic speakers today (unless they grew up in a non-Arab country) have CREOLE ARABICS as their first language. CREOLE ARABICS don't use tashkeel, so when they speak CLASSICAL ARABIC they often don't find much functional need for taskeel either.
4.Whether Classical Arabic was a street language or not, all languages follow rigid rules of expression. Sometimes they have exceptions, or the rules are more multi-faceted then what it may seem at first look. Sibaweiyah and other grammarians did their best to put on paper the rules that Classical Arabic followed when it was a street language. Whether he was persian doesn't mean anything. There have been many people of persian decent who grew up bilingual or in Arabic speaking areas. All grammarians of course are subject to making mistakes. Yes, Classical Arabic was a local, popular "street" language amongst the Arabs from the Arabian Penninsula but that does not mean that it was any less grammatical than any other language. Even street languages are highly grammatical, their grammar just differs from the "standard" language, which is usually just a prestigious dialect of the same language. Most times an old dialect that through time, history, wars, conquest and interests has now become the Classical Language. All languages have rigid rules for expression unless they are being influenced by outside languages and thus evolving. Modern Arabic is an evolving language.
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Ayman is right that that grammatical phenomon where the words take 'een' if plural or 'an' if singular is in other places in the Quran as well, where they don't "grammatically fit". In my opinion this case is a from of mubaalaghah or tashdeed, emphasis. Pointing to the especially important character of the word. It is a common feature of old school Arabic. I'm sure some of the "grammatical" mistakes of the hadeeth could probably clear this up as well. But as Ayman pointed out sometimes grammarians would rather prove the Quran wrong then their grammatical concepts.
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I would like to see the 'maliki yawmudeeni' passage. That doesn't seem right at all. There are alot of modern readings or reading that have continued after the vocalization of the Quran, and the readers show how they are influenced by their CREOLE ARABICS. You can find 'ni'badu' for 'na'badu' and tons of other variations in readings that are products of linguistic influences that have taken root in the common language of Arab peoples. That is one of the main reasons why most Arabs don't pronounce tashkeel.(the vowels, often called tashkeel or harakaat or al-a'raab.)
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As for the readings being wrong or corrupted because no text had tashkeel, I'll just say that maybe this was a statement that wasn't well thought out. The Quran took two forms, written and memorized. The memorized forms obviously had vowels, because all Arabic is spoken with vowels, spoken being the key word. Why wasn't it written with vowels? Because Arabic script was a very weak, undeveloped script back then, and it didn't have vowels. When recitations were compared to texts it was only done in a general way. A good way of getting the correct text, without its corruptions would be to compare all of the readings and strike out the verses that aren't in common. Texts were there to check corruption, and the deficient Arabic text could do this only in a limited way. That is why the Uthmanic text was formulated, a text that allowed the common sayings of the recitations. These mistakes were like when you accidently get some dots on the Arabic text (from mass print) that don't belong there. But instead since you are dealing with people's memory and reverence of people, the errors continue on. The errors of the Qur'an are minimal. And variant texts shouldn't exist, only variant verses. This shows the lack of scholarship to create a Quran without doubts. Everyone should have one Quran with variant verses stuck to the side. It's ashame how people did their best to distort the Quran, with good intentions or bad intentions. Good scholars long ago should have struck out every verse that has EXTRA words that don't conform with the majority of the the readings, and should have included variant verses alongside the common ones. But Islamic scholarship is too stuck in tradition and not progress. That is why, relying on the work of Orientalists as well, as grammatical sources is good, as long as they don't 1. Try to understand Arabic words THROUGH other semetic languages (comparing is okay) or 2. Give opinions that are not founded and try to undermine the Quran through them.
Godbless,
Anwar -
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Peace Anwar,
Wow, I'm getting vertigo thinking on how I'm going to reply to these posts. There is so much mistaken information here from the errors of the quran to why 'arrahmaanu &allama al-qur'aana' doesn't sound right to a modern Arabic speaker.
There are errors in Classic Arabic grammar not in the great reading. I didn't see anything in what you wrote that addresses the fact that 'arrahmaanu &allama al-qur'aana' certainly sounds awkward compared to 'arrahmaan &allama al-qur'aan' to anyone who appreciates more free flowing eloquent style as opposed to artificially rigid pretentious style.
- If Arabic grammar can't explain the Quran it is because the grammarian is not skilled enough, or has a limited view from a previoulsy mistaken grammarian.
Agreed.
- That is not to say that grammarian works are to be thrown in the trash. That just means that sometimes they make a rule for a linguistic phenomeon and they were mistaken in their concept of that phenomenon and how it really worked. The grammarians are right on 98 percent of their works, although sometimes they didn't have the right concept of what they saw or didn't express it right. That happens with all sciences.
Agreed.
- Old school Arabic sounds strange to modern Arabs because Arabic has changed since those days. Tashkeel has alot of functional load in Old Arabic. In MODERN ARABIC or CREOLE INFLUENCED ARABIC it doesn't have much functional load. All Classical Arabic speakers today (unless they grew up in a non-Arab country) have CREOLE ARABICS as their first language. CREOLE ARABICS don't use tashkeel, so when they speak CLASSICAL ARABIC they often don't find much functional need for taskeel either.
Tashkeel doesn't have alot of functional load in Old Arabic. This is not just my opinion and I didn't come up with it. Linguists on both sides of the debate agree to this fact.
Vocalization marks have an equal or less functional load in Arabic than in languages that have no Tashkeel such as English. This is why in English, phonics only have limited usefulness and English learners eventually have to learn to recognize certain pronounciations by sight as opposed to trying to vocalize letters.
Another fact is that the real Classical Arabic was creole influenced and it bears much influence from Persian, Greek/Latin, Syriac/Aramaic, and Southern Arabian dialects. Thus, in terms of style and vocalization approach, I would say that modern colloquials have more in common with the real Classical Arabic (which is also a creole colloquial). The artificial formalized "Fusha" Arabic is merely a theoretical language that no one ever spoke in real life and it was made up when Arabic became a prestige language, hence it became necessary to formalize it.
4.Whether Classical Arabic was a street language or not, all languages follow rigid rules of expression. Sometimes they have exceptions, or the rules are more multi-faceted then what it may seem at first look. Sibaweiyah and other grammarians did their best to put on paper the rules that Classical Arabic followed when it was a street language. Whether he was persian doesn't mean anything. There have been many people of persian decent who grew up bilingual or in Arabic speaking areas. All grammarians of course are subject to making mistakes. Yes, Classical Arabic was a local, popular "street" language amongst the Arabs from the Arabian Penninsula but that does not mean that it was any less grammatical than any other language. Even street languages are highly grammatical, their grammar just differs from the "standard" language, which is usually just a prestigious dialect of the same language. Most times an old dialect that through time, history, wars, conquest and interests has now become the Classical Language. All languages have rigid rules for expression unless they are being influenced by outside languages and thus evolving. Modern Arabic is an evolving language.
The real Classical Arabic was also influenced by outside language and in fact contains many words that were borrowed from foreign languages, including non-sematic languages such as Persian and Greek.
- Ayman is right that that grammatical phenomon where the words take 'een' if plural or 'an' if singular is in other places in the Quran as well, where they don't "grammatically fit". In my opinion this case is a from of mubaalaghah or tashdeed, emphasis. Pointing to the especially important character of the word. It is a common feature of old school Arabic. I'm sure some of the "grammatical" mistakes of the hadeeth could probably clear this up as well. But as Ayman pointed out sometimes grammarians would rather prove the Quran wrong then their grammatical concepts.
The types of "errors" that I presented have nothing to do with plural or singular or mubaalaghah (exageration) or tashdeed (emphasis). The errors that I presented cannot be found in any of the much later Hadiths.
- I would like to see the 'maliki yawmudeeni' passage. That doesn't seem right at all. There are alot of modern readings or reading that have continued after the vocalization of the Quran, and the readers show how they are influenced by their CREOLE ARABICS. You can find 'ni'badu' for 'na'badu' and tons of other variations in readings that are products of linguistic influences that have taken root in the common language of Arab peoples. That is one of the main reasons why most Arabs don't pronounce tashkeel.(the vowels, often called tashkeel or harakaat or al-a'raab.)
I agree. This whole chapter doesn't flow right with the case endings and sounds awkward. This is why most people read "aldeeni" as "aldeen" and you actually see "nasta3in" without any case ending in the text.
- As for the readings being wrong or corrupted because no text had tashkeel, I'll just say that maybe this was a statement that wasn't well thought out. The Quran took two forms, written and memorized. The memorized forms obviously had vowels, because all Arabic is spoken with vowels, spoken being the key word. Why wasn't it written with vowels? Because Arabic script was a very weak, undeveloped script back then, and it didn't have vowels. When recitations were compared to texts it was only done in a general way. A good way of getting the correct text, without its corruptions would be to compare all of the readings and strike out the verses that aren't in common. Texts were there to check corruption, and the deficient Arabic text could do this only in a limited way. That is why the Uthmanic text was formulated, a text that allowed the common sayings of the recitations. These mistakes were like when you accidently get some dots on the Arabic text (from mass print) that don't belong there. But instead since you are dealing with people's memory and reverence of people, the errors continue on. The errors of the Qur'an are minimal. And variant texts shouldn't exist, only variant verses. This shows the lack of scholarship to create a Quran without doubts. Everyone should have one Quran with variant verses stuck to the side. It's ashame how people did their best to distort the Quran, with good intentions or bad intentions. Good scholars long ago should have struck out every verse that has EXTRA words that don't conform with the majority of the the readings, and should have included variant verses alongside the common ones. But Islamic scholarship is too stuck in tradition and not progress. That is why, relying on the work of Orientalists as well, as grammatical sources is good, as long as they don't 1. Try to understand Arabic words THROUGH other semetic languages (comparing is okay) or 2. Give opinions that are not founded and try to undermine the Quran through them.
Since the vocalization marks have very low functional load, there is no such thing as "two forms" of the great reading. Whtever ambiguity resulting from the absence of vocalization marks is minimal and is no more than in languages without vocalization marks scuh as English. Even such rare minimal ambiguities can be easily resolved using context and an intelligent reading of the text.
Peace,
Ayman
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Peace be upon you Ayman, Ahmed Baghat, Anwar
You guys are not helping someone like me who have no knowledge of Arabic. I can follow Anwer advice and pick up a good classic Arabic dictionary but that really will not make me a Arabic Language scholar (aalim). I look at you all because of your command on Arabic language. It is very frustrating for me to reach to a definate conclusion when you all do not agree on verses. Please just when you are discussing a topic reach to a mutual understanding without trying to prove others wrong.
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Peace be upon you Ayman, Ahmed Baghat, Anwar
You guys are not helping someone like me who have no knowledge of Arabic. I can follow Anwer advice and pick up a good classic Arabic dictionary but that really will not make me a Arabic Language scholar (aalim). I look at you all because of your command on Arabic language. It is very frustrating for me to reach to a definate conclusion when you all do not agree on verses. Please just when you are discussing a topic reach to a mutual understanding without trying to prove others wrong.
Peace bro
I was not trying to prove anyone wrong bro, brother Ayman posted a note regarding an alleged grammae error "Sabin and Sabun issue", what i posted in Arabic was the reply of a very knowleadgable Arabic langugae expert to this specefic allegation, I will try to summerize an english version to it mate sometime later
Take care
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Peace be upon you Ayman, Ahmed Baghat, Anwar
You guys are not helping someone like me who have no knowledge of Arabic. I can follow Anwer advice and pick up a good classic Arabic dictionary but that really will not make me a Arabic Language scholar (aalim). I look at you all because of your command on Arabic language. It is very frustrating for me to reach to a definate conclusion when you all do not agree on verses. Please just when you are discussing a topic reach to a mutual understanding without trying to prove others wrong.
Peace be with you KGB,
Actually bro, it would be so much better for you if you learn the Arabic Language. That way, you would be able to read the Arabic Qur'aan and make your own conclusions and not have to worry about relying on others for understanding. Who knows, if you study hard enough maybe others here at this forum will be asking you for some helpful advice about the Arabic Qur'aan.
To borrow a saying from Wakas....Why ask another student when you can learn directly from The Teacher?
Peace be with you Bro,
Damon.P.S. This is a very interesting thread guys.
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Peace be upon you Damon
I will never reach to the level of native Arabic speakers even if I try to start learning the language. I progressed a lot in past four years atleast I can read Arabic words and learn the meaning of very simple words. But when I see debate going on certain words and Ayman, Anwer, Ahmed Bahgat and now we have a sister Samia coming up with different meanings that means Arabic is a very rich language which has many different meanings depending upon how it is written.
Thank you brother. I will keep growing slowly on my Arabic.
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Peace KGB,
I will never reach to the level of native Arabic speakers even if I try to start learning the language. I progressed a lot in past four years atleast I can read Arabic words and learn the meaning of very simple words. But when I see debate going on certain words and Ayman, Anwer, Ahmed Bahgat and now we have a sister Samia coming up with different meanings that means Arabic is a very rich language which has many different meanings depending upon how it is written.
Thank you brother. I will keep growing slowly on my Arabic.
I know many native Arabic speakers who understand the great reading much less than any non-Arabic speaker. Many so-called scholars have spent their entire academic and professional career studying Arabic and yet they don't understand much of what the great reading is actually saying. You may be at an advantage because sometimes it is better to start with a blank sheet of paper without any preconceptions than to start with a false modern understanding that is completely different to the understanding of a pre-quranic Arab hearing the great reading for the first time.
Peace,
Ayman
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Peace Ayman
Thank you for your encouragement. I really get lost when people who have command of the language do not agree on certain words. Please make it simple by coming to a mutual understanding of words. That will help me a lot to reach a definite decision.
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Peace Ayman
Thank you for your encouragement. I really get lost when people who have command of the language do not agree on certain words. Please make it simple by coming to a mutual understanding of words. That will help me a lot to reach a definite decision.
Sadiqi
This mutual understanding can be achived with ease when trying to understand the Quran as literal as possile unless it states otherwise or unless it is obvious to an average human that a specific verse(s) should not be taken literally
salam
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Peace Ayman,
Talking about using vowel endings with Old-Classical Arabic you said,
'as opposed to artificially rigid pretentious style
.'This is your bias speaking. In old Arabic for instance 'huwa yakhruju min al-baabi hadhaa' is different then 'huwa yakhruj min al-baab hadha' In old Arabic when you don't pronounce the case endings you change the meaning. the first is 'he leaves' the second is 'he may/would leave.' Your idea of free flowing Arabic comes from the fact that you are heavily influenced by the more recent Arabic creoles, which don't depend on these case endings. Old Arabic does.
Allah allam al-quraan is a broken version of old classical Arabic which says 'allahu allama al-qur'aana.' The case endings point out the role of the words in the sentence, which allows for more playing with sentence order in Old Classical Arabic. For instance you can say 'al-qur'aana allama allahu' in Old Arabic and it has the same meaning as the above two phrases, that is, 'God taught the Quran (basically).' But if you say 'al-qur'aan allam allah' in the broken Old-Arabic that Arabs prefer today and view as 'free flowing' because it resembles their creolized Arabic dialects, that changes it in meaning completely and it now means 'the Quran taught God'. Do you see what I'm saying now? You think it is awkward and pretentious because the true Old Classical Arabic has taken on this social attribute (mainly because it has been the language of pretentious scholars who have isolated this language to their circle). It sounds awkward because it is not apart of your native register. Your colloquial doesn't emphasize these case endings and that carries into the way you speak Old-Arabic, meaning you slightly corrupt Old-Classical Arabic when you speak it, but you think you are making it more natural.When I talk about tashkeel I'm not talking so much about the actual vowels in written form. I'm talking about those same vowels in oral form. The text doesn't concern me so much because writing represents what is (or in this case was) spoken.
Another fact is that the real Classical Arabic was creole influenced and it bears much influence from Persian, Greek/Latin, Syriac/Aramaic, and Southern Arabian dialects. Thus, in terms of style and vocalization approach, I would say that modern colloquials have more in common with the real Classical Arabic (which is also a creole colloquial). The artificial formalized "Fusha" Arabic is merely a theoretical language that no one ever spoke in real life and it was made up when Arabic became a prestige language, hence it became necessary to formalize it.
All languages are essentially creoles so don't get me wrong. You just need to recognize that your creole is different than the Old-Arabic creole. All languages are creoles because from what we know all languges come about from the mixture of different languages. With the old semetic languages it gets a little compiclated when it comes to who believes what because these langugaes are religiously charged. Hebrew is a creole of Canaanite and the language that the Hebrews spoke coming out of Egypt (most likely a highly Egyptianized language if not Egyptian itself). Remember that the twelve sons of Jacob settle in Egypt and obviously married egyptians. So they most likely spoke Egyptian, this language and the language of the cananites mixed to form Hebrew.
Arabic atleast when the Quran came about had loan words from old persian, greek, Ethiopian, etc. I'm sure there are a bunch of theories about where Old-Classical arabic came from, but I'm not going to begin to speculate. It is considered closest to the "original" mother of the Semetic languages. But only God really knows?
The word creole is usually used with languages that have formed in relatively recent history (usually as opposed to the history of its mother language (which in its beginning also was a creole)) and are clear mixtures of languages that still exist separately from the still recognizable parent languages, or atleast one of the still recognizable parent language. So try not to confuse the issue. Just becuase a language has loan words from other languages doesn't make it exactly a creole. Loan words are not the criteria for cosidering a language a creole.
The artificial formalized "Fusha" Arabic is merely a theoretical language that no one ever spoke in real life and it was made up when Arabic became a prestige language, hence it became necessary to formalize it.
Fus-haa arabic is not a theoreical language that no-one spoke, it was a language that all of the ancient Arabs of early Islam and a little before this time spoke. It is the language that the Quran is in, the old Arabic poetries and then the Hadeeths. The real reason for the language becoming prestigious was the Quran, and the position of power that the Arabs came to occupy when they united and conquered the previously Roman, Greek, Persian and Ethiopian Areas. The grammarians took on the job of codifying that language which was constantly recited with the Quran, Poetry and the speech of the people, in particular the bedouin Arabs were referred to to ensure the same quality of speech of Muhammad's actual era as these people are more isolated from the linguistic mixing in the commercial centers.
Since the vocalization marks have very low functional load, there is no such thing as "two forms" of the great reading. Whtever ambiguity resulting from the absence of vocalization marks is minimal and is no more than in languages without vocalization marks scuh as English. Even such rare minimal ambiguities can be easily resolved using context and an intelligent reading of the text.
Like I said, I'm not so much concerned with the text, as texts represent what is actually spoken. Vocalization, not vocalization marks, has very high functional load in Classical Arabic. Saying vocalization has no functional load is saying that there is no real difference saying 'u' and 'a' in 'buck and back.' 'yukhriju' 'he expels or extracts' is very different in meaning from 'yakhruju' 'he leaves or exits'. I've seen Arabs equate yakhruju to yukhriju, in their attempts to speak Classical Arabic and letting their colloquials take over (where they mainly only say one form). English does have vocalization marks 'a, i, u, e,o' Vocals= Vowels, vocalization=vowelization. Consider what I'm saying here Ayman. I hope I said it clearly.
Godbless,
Anwar -
Peace all,
Thanks Ayman and Anwer for well summarizing the development of the Arabic language, which was partly a continuation role in expanding my topic on "Quran - Word for Word" down to its scriptural messaging exegesis.
Please also check the following out as few may be aware of
Both Islamic tradition and Western scholars agree that there was no complete collection of the revelation during the Prophet's lifetime, but there were fragments of all kinds of material, on which parts of the messages were recorded. The actual collection of all these fragments took place after the death of the Prophet. According to the tradition, the third caliph, 'Uthmaan (r. 25/644-35/656), ordered the establishment of an authoritative codex of the Qur?aan . He entrusted this edition to Muhammad's scribe Zayd, who had already been involved in the recording of the text during the Prophet's lifetime. When the work was finished, the codex was sent to the important centres of the Islamic empire, where it was to replace all existing alternative readings. Acceptance of this text, usually called al-mu S Haf, was slow, and non-canonical variants continued to be transmitted; but eventually, by the end of the second century of the Hijra, the 'Uthmaanic text had become the basis for religious teaching and recitation almost everywhere. In the first grammatical treatise of Arabic, Seebawayhi's (d. 177/793) Kitaab, all deviations from the consonantal text of the codex are rejected and only some divergence in the vocalisation of the text is allowed. Around the variant readings ( qiraa?aat ), a massive literature arose which at the same time contributed to the linguistic study of the text and the language of the Qur?aan .
Do read this link and pages that follow in its entirely http//arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=17.
I am well aware of several other similar and unparallel findings regulating Quranic originalilty, development, messaging, compilation, vocalization and finally its current enigmatic, puzzling and somewhat unintelligible presentation to have simply become "The Best Hadith" of "Muhammad's words", let alone alleging Allah's.
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Peace KGB,
Thank you for your encouragement. I really get lost when people who have command of the language do not agree on certain words. Please make it simple by coming to a mutual understanding of words. That will help me a lot to reach a definite decision.
This just shows that command of the language is not the main criteria for understanding the message.
- And had We made it a non-Arabic reading/"quran", they would have said "Had only its signs been detailed in non-Arabic and Arabic". Say "For those who had faith, it is a guide and healing. As for those who do not have faith there is deafness in their ears and it is blindness on them. These will be called from a place far away."
Now it doesn't matter if you are an Arabic speaker or not, for example, if you hear in 4144 "deafness" and "blindness" and understand them literally then you really haven't understood anything from the message. In fact, the message is full of such idiomatic expressions for intelligent people to ponder on regardless of whether they speak Arabic or not. On the other hand, a superficial person who takes such expressions literally, will not gain anything and the great reading will be blindness on him or her. Such extensive use of allegories levels the field between Arabic and non-Arabic speakers because the literal superficial physical meaning is mostly incorrect.
Peace,
Ayman
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Peace Ayman
Thank you for taking time to reply to me. I clearly understand this verse. Blind and deaf is not literal. It simply means that the people who do not have faith in Allah (SWT) will not get the message no matter how many times they read it or hear it.
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Peace ayman.Your post is very interesting...Any suggestions on how people can gain a good understanding of how to interpret the quran (idioms and all.) without studying in-depth arabic...? And how can they can keep away from 'dogmatic' literalism?...
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Peace ayman.Your post is very interesting...Any suggestions on how people can gain a good understanding of how to interpret the quran (idioms and all.) without studying in-depth arabic...? And how can they can keep away from 'dogmatic' literalism?...
peace enquirer,
use common sense, maybe? ) -
Peace Anwar,
This is your bias speaking. In old Arabic for instance 'huwa yakhruju min al-baabi hadhaa' is different then 'huwa yakhruj min al-baab hadha' In old Arabic when you don't pronounce the case endings you change the meaning. the first is 'he leaves' the second is 'he may/would leave.'
The same exact thing can be said about languages that don't use vocalization marks such as English. We can say "put the box on the table by the window" and the "box" can end up on the "the table by the window" or "the box on the table" can end up "by the window". You change the meaning because of the lack of case endings in English. Of course, in "fusha" Arabic you wouldn't have this ambiguity because of the case endings. However, I hear no one suggesting that we should start having case endings for English because "you change the meaning"!
What you are saying about ambiguity is a normal part of all languages. You resolve ambiguity using context. Hence, when I read a story and I encounter the sentence 'huwa yakhruj min al-baab hadha', I know whether it is 'he leaves' or 'he may/would leave' based on my intelligent reading of the context. On the other hand, you treat people as unintelligent robots who must be spoonfed the exact meaning regardless of context. This idea came about when Arabic became a sacred religious language and fo course it appeals to religious clergy.
Your idea of free flowing Arabic comes from the fact that you are heavily influenced by the more recent Arabic creoles, which don't depend on these case endings. Old Arabic does.
This has nothing to do with creoles and as you admit, Old Arabic itself was a creole. This has to do with the fact that the context can be easily used to resolve ambiguities and hence those case endings have very low functional load. Thus, they are a useless inconvenience and are not used.
Allah allam al-quraan is a broken version of old classical Arabic which says 'allahu allama al-qur'aana.' The case endings point out the role of the words in the sentence, which allows for more playing with sentence order in Old Classical Arabic. For instance you can say 'al-qur'aana allama allahu' in Old Arabic and it has the same meaning as the above two phrases, that is, 'God taught the Quran (basically).' But if you say 'al-qur'aan allam allah' in the broken Old-Arabic that Arabs prefer today and view as 'free flowing' because it resembles their creolized Arabic dialects, that changes it in meaning completely and it now means 'the Quran taught God'. Do you see what I'm saying now? You think it is awkward and pretentious because the true Old Classical Arabic has taken on this social attribute (mainly because it has been the language of pretentious scholars who have isolated this language to their circle). It sounds awkward because it is not apart of your native register. Your colloquial doesn't emphasize these case endings and that carries into the way you speak Old-Arabic, meaning you slightly corrupt Old-Classical Arabic when you speak it, but you think you are making it more natural.
Again, there are similar ambiguities in English and yet no one is suggesting case endings in English to resolve them. For example, I "like annoying posters" can mean "I like to annoy posters" or "I like posters who are annoying".
If people are stupid enough to think that "the reading taught The God" is the correct meaning, then no amount of vocalization marks can help them. The only reason you would use case endings in "Al-rahman 3allam al-quran" is if you are a pretentious scholar who thinks everyone else who is not a so-called scholar is an idiot who can't intelligently figure out the meaning on their own without his useless scholarly help. Besides chapter 55 sounds so heavy and awkward with the case endings that even scholars regularly recite it as it is supposed to be recited without the case endings.
When I talk about tashkeel I'm not talking so much about the actual vowels in written form. I'm talking about those same vowels in oral form. The text doesn't concern me so much because writing represents what is (or in this case was) spoken.
But it is precisely in oral form where we see that many passages in the great reading do not flow smoothly with the case endings and thus many researchers have concluded that there were originally no case endings. Even those who oppose this and the most vehement defenders of vocalization marks routinely recite such passages without the case endings. So from an oral form point of view, there is no basis for case endings being part of the original recitation.
All languages are essentially creoles so don't get me wrong. You just need to recognize that your creole is different than the Old-Arabic creole. All languages are creoles because from what we know all languges come about from the mixture of different languages. With the old semetic languages it gets a little compiclated when it comes to who believes what because these langugaes are religiously charged. Hebrew is a creole of Canaanite and the language that the Hebrews spoke coming out of Egypt (most likely a highly Egyptianized language if not Egyptian itself). Remember that the twelve sons of Jacob settle in Egypt and obviously married egyptians. So they most likely spoke Egyptian, this language and the language of the cananites mixed to form Hebrew.
Arabic atleast when the Quran came about had loan words from old persian, greek, Ethiopian, etc. I'm sure there are a bunch of theories about where Old-Classical arabic came from, but I'm not going to begin to speculate. It is considered closest to the "original" mother of the Semetic languages. But only God really knows?
The word creole is usually used with languages that have formed in relatively recent history (usually as opposed to the history of its mother language (which in its beginning also was a creole)) and are clear mixtures of languages that still exist separately from the still recognizable parent languages, or atleast one of the still recognizable parent language. So try not to confuse the issue. Just becuase a language has loan words from other languages doesn't make it exactly a creole. Loan words are not the criteria for cosidering a language a creole.
All languages are "creole", even Old Arabic (which also had a parent language that was still recognizable at the time), so this is not the reason why case endings were dropped. The reason why they were dropped is that they are useless and the context is more important.
Fus-haa arabic is not a theoreical language that no-one spoke, it was a language that all of the ancient Arabs of early Islam and a little before this time spoke. It is the language that the Quran is in, the old Arabic poetries and then the Hadeeths. The real reason for the language becoming prestigious was the Quran, and the position of power that the Arabs came to occupy when they united and conquered the previously Roman, Greek, Persian and Ethiopian Areas. The grammarians took on the job of codifying that language which was constantly recited with the Quran, Poetry and the speech of the people, in particular the bedouin Arabs were referred to to ensure the same quality of speech of Muhammad's actual era as these people are more isolated from the linguistic mixing in the commercial centers.
But none of the early Arabic manuscripts display this "fusha" Arabic. Just read the manuscripts here and you will see that it is far from the language of Hadith and poetry
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/
On the other hand, they are closer to the language of the great reading. Notice for example, the extensive use of the letter "waw" as if it is a punctuation device between sentences, similar to what we see in the great reading. You don't see that in Hadith or poetry. Notice that all those mannuscripts don't have any vocalization marks and yet you are able to read them with little ambiguity, despite the fact that you are reading them for the first time and without any expectations as far as the content.
Like I said, I'm not so much concerned with the text, as texts represent what is actually spoken. Vocalization, not vocalization marks, has very high functional load in Classical Arabic. Saying vocalization has no functional load is saying that there is no real difference saying 'u' and 'a' in 'buck and back.' 'yukhriju' 'he expels or extracts' is very different in meaning from 'yakhruju' 'he leaves or exits'. I've seen Arabs equate yakhruju to yukhriju, in their attempts to speak Classical Arabic and letting their colloquials take over (where they mainly only say one form). English does have vocalization marks 'a, i, u, e,o' Vocals= Vowels, vocalization=vowelization. Consider what I'm saying here Ayman. I hope I said it clearly.
The analogy that you presented between "buck" and "back" (two different words) is false as relating to 'yukhriju' and 'yakhruju' (conjugation of the same verb). A more appropriate analogy is one of "left # 1" in "I left to work" and "left # 2" in "I left the trash outside" and "left #3" in "I turned left". In both the cases of 'yukhriju'/'yakhruju' and "left #1"/"left # 2"/"left #3" the context is what matters in resolving the meaning. Hence, if I just told you "left" you wouldn't know what I mean no more or less than if I told you 'y-kh-r-j'. Still no one is suggesting to use vocalization marks on "left" to disambiguate it.
Peace,
Ayman
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I'm just to going to put some main points down. Please try to come to terms with these observations, as the sooner you can understand this the sooner we can make some real progress.
The same exact thing can be said about languages that don't use vocalization marks such as English
.I explained to you what vocalization is so that you wouldn't confuse the issue, as I saw you were starting to confuse it. Every language has vocalizations, because vocalizations are nothing but vowel sounds. Arabic text is one of the texts that USUALLY doesn't write them.
We can say "put the box on the table by the window" and the "box" can end up on the "the table by the window" or "the box on the table" can end up "by the window". You change the meaning because of the lack of case endings in English.
Word order, which is what you are pointing out here, has nothing to do with case endings. I think that is your point here. English doesn't have case endings, and word order is a grammar principle that languages without case endings depend on more, because you can only tell who is the subject, and what is the direct object, etc, by the order that it comes in in the sentence.
Of course, in "fusha" Arabic you wouldn't have this ambiguity because of the case endings. However, I hear no one suggesting that we should start having case endings for English because "you change the meaning"!
I'm glad you understand this. But it's not about suggesting that a language adopt case endings. It is accepting that Old-Arabic has case ending and they serve the language by clearing up this ambiguity. Every language has its own ways of dealing with ambiguity, but no language is completely free of it.
Hence, when I read a story and I encounter the sentence 'huwa yakhruj min al-baab hadha', I know whether it is 'he leaves' or 'he may/would leave' based on my intelligent reading of the context. On the other hand, you treat people as unintelligent robots who must be spoonfed the exact meaning regardless of context. This idea came about when Arabic became a sacred religious language and fo course it appeals to religious clergy.
You use your intelligence to tell what is the difference because you are following the rules of post-quranic, post-middle-age colloquial creole influenced Classical Arabic. There is currently a movement that is working to come to an accord on a Modern Arabic without case endings. This effort should make you happy, but it will never apply to the Quran. Old Arabic became a prestigious/sacred religious language because of the old-Arabic poems, fascination with the speech of the Arabs of old and the Quran. But your dislike or disdain for this language and its use of case endings has to do with you own cultural biases. Scholars tend to use Old Arabic in all of its case endings to stay more true to Old-Arabic. Because the scholars are pretentious you think that the case endings are pretentious too. That is extreme thinking. Why throw out the baby with the bathwater?
This has nothing to do with creoles and as you admit, Old Arabic itself was a creole. This has to do with the fact that the context can be easily used to resolve ambiguities and hence those case endings have very low functional load. Thus, they are a useless inconvenience and are not used.
Open your mind brother. This has everything to do with creoles, specifically the Arabic darajaat or aamiyaat (the Arabic creoles). Of course I admited that Old Arabic was a creole. But so what? What does that disprove? All languages are born as creoles. But not all creoles are made equal. The Old Creole of Old-Classical Arabic, is a creole that was established in the Arabian peninsula up until the time of the Quran and for a few centuries afterwards. It was then taken on as a literary language and a 'high' language, as other creoles between this Old-Classical Arabic and other languages (who also had their beginnings long before as creoles) continued to form into the various Arabic dialects that exist today.
The concept of Modern Arabic has to do with the reduction of the extensiveness of Classical Arabic and its words and choosing words and meanings that are more in line with commonly accepted words and meaings amongst the mainly colloquial speaking populations. So 'deen' now only means 'religion' because that is how it was used mosltly after the Quran because of Islamic circles and that is how it came to be used in the colloquials.
Again, there are similar ambiguities in English and yet no one is suggesting case endings in English to resolve them. For example, I "like annoying posters" can mean "I like to annoy posters" or "I like posters who are annoying".
This is not the issue. All languages will have ambiguities like that.
Besides chapter 55 sounds so heavy and awkward with the case endings that even scholars regularly recite it as it is supposed to be recited without the case endings.
As it is supposed to be recited in your, unfortunately very biased, view.
But it is precisely in oral form where we see that many passages in the great reading do not flow smoothly with the case endings and thus many researchers have concluded that there were originally no case endings. Even those who oppose this and the most vehement defenders of vocalization marks routinely recite such passages without the case endings. So from an oral form point of view, there is no basis for case endings being part of the original recitation.
Again you are looking at the issue with your biased lenses and expecting me to take it for granted that you have the right prescription. Why do you insist on looking at Old-Classical Arabic from and Modern/Colloquially influenced Arabic? I understand that sometimes the colloquals resemble Old-Classical Arabic in ways that Modern "fus-haa" doesn't. But the colloquials definitely don't resemple Old-Arabic in how they ignore case endings, vowel placings and Old-Arabic conjugations and forms (the awzaan). Just because the grammarians had to invent names for these phenomenons doesn't mean that they made them up. Scientists have to invent names for natural processes all the time so that they can reference it, classify it correctly and teach it. Like all people they can make mistakes, but they don't have to be liars just because they invented the nomenclature. The original recitations are what are in the vowel texts, because the recitiations were recited. Old-Arabic texts didn't have vowels, meaning that the scribes had no way to write the vowels sounds that they were hearing from the reciters. Imagine if English didn't have the letters 'a,i, o,e, u'. So I would write like this ' y r hr t sy hll t m mthr' but what I say, all the time, is 'yoo ar heer too sai hellow tu mai mothur' or 'you are here to say hello to my mother'. No matter how I write it, vowels are always pronounced in every langauge. If you take the texts as the original recitations you would have 'hw allah al-ahd al-smd lm yld w lm ywwld' all in consonants, instead of a clear huwa allaahul-ahadusamawdu lam yalid wa lam yoolad' And there would be no way to tell if yukhrij or yakhrij are the same, context doesn't always work as sometimes millions of possibilities can fit into a context. Ahmad ykhrju al-bait min al-mintaqati could be that Ahmad is taking the house out of the neiborhood or it could be that he is leaving the house. If it's ykhrija or ykhrij, he might be moving it, and it is not something that is definitely going to happen. Ayman you can be happy with your context guessing, but Old-Classical Arabic had done away with that with the use of case endings. What you are doing is like trying to undestand Old-Greek through new-Greek just because they are both called greek and the the second derives heavily from the first.
When it comes to the papyri as opposed to the Hadeeth and the poems, are you talking about style or grammar, because although they might have different styles they all follow the same grammar. Case endings are highly helpful and far from useless. In this case you would rather make your grammar right over the truth of the Quran. Do you have some wish to be able to interpret the Quran without case endings so that you can have more control over how ou can understand the verses of the Quran? That is the only real reason behind which I see you trying to deny the truth that these case endings are an embedded part of Classical Arabic. The difference between yukhrij and yakhruj is the awzaan and is like the difference between tick and tack, both of them stick into something but they mean two different things, and these words are related as well. But English doesn't have the same system of measures or forms that Classical Arabic does.
Godbless,
Anwar -
Danish, quick question If you don't accept Al-quraan's allegations, what makes you so certain of what 'islamic scholars' say? thanks
Who's talking about certainty in what only 'islamic scholars' has to say? Perhaps your question needs rephrasing and the answer an elaborated one, but I will summarize.
The conjugated and collaborated findings from both external and internal relevancy of Quran speaks for itself. It is 1400+ years old book to begin with, which makes it historical/antique and that doesn't need scholarly advice. This book's "origin" must be studied and acknowledged in order to comprehend the who's, how's and what's of it back then, only to read, understand and reflect upon it. The Quran consists of its prior, the then present and continuous form in which it was presented/conveyed/narrated to THEIR PEOPLE IN THEIR TIMES (as talked about), not to mention the repetition of equivocal events which leads to contradictions, the inconsistencies of presentation and overall layout of meccan and medinan surahs and verses, etc. All you and others do is pick and choose only those verses that suits the "then present and continuous form" narrated back then to automatically become enforced and apprehensible to suit our present times without giving much thought, which to some extent becomes applicable and some impertinent. Take any old book for that matter and pick out the sentences that are in ?continuous present form? and viola, it becomes our present form. Quran is a man-made entity and anything that is man-made CANNOT become GOD-made.