3:7 A MATTER OF PUNCTUATION MARKS. WHICH IS CORRECT?
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salam br idolfree,
well so much for ending the discussion huh? ) haha well i dont blame you or me since it is interesting. heck i'm gonna miss you if we stop discussing.
anyway, about the analogy I gave, my point that I was trying to say was that indeed Allah did reveal truth to other people through time, probably every civilization and people.. but the problem is that it was not preserved and it was distorted. So we cannot use any of those teachings as our primary sources of knowledge, only the Quran. Now once we have established our Quranic views, THEN we can look at outside sources to see what pieces of knowledge they may have. No one disagrees with that... but like in this case, I dont think I would take description of vibrational universe from a hindu philosopher and apply that to Islam... i would do the reverse, i.e. FIRST get an understanding of the universe in the islamic viewpoint then look at his teaching.
Did I say that writing about something makes it a book? But when the God says "be" and it is to ALL CREATED THINGS, that means ALL CREATED THINGS are a collection of words. This is what a book/scroll is, a collection of words.
Didn't He create heaven and hell? And the angels? By the way, you cant just say it so directly.. there is no direct conclusion that since something is created therefore it is a collection of words. There is nothing that gives us that rule. Not logic, nor the Quran.
Thats unacceptable and I proved it incorrect with another verse, but it is your understanding, so I respect your ability to make choices for your own self.
Actually bro I proved the meaning of 22 GRAMMATICALLY. As far as the other verse, as I explained, it is just a description of how the heavens will end like the rolling of a scroll. There is no contradiction in this interpretation. In your interpretation, we are forced to accept a grammatically incorrect statement in 22, AND there is no corroborrating evidence to support your proposed meaning of 21104. AND there is no lexicographal support to your proposed meanings.
AND, where this discussion all began was that you claimed that al-kitaab does not even mean al-quraan. Quick question, does kitaab EVER refer to Quran? If it does in some places refer to Quran, then who are you to tell where it refers to quran and where it refers to something else, when the meanings are totally understandable actually MORE understable by keeping kitaab meaning quran.
wassalam
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Peace be upon you,
I don't know what more to say about EVERYTHING vibarting, thus producing sound(word).
Regarding "kitaab", I see no indication where it refers to a physical book with the title "Koran". Do you have a verse that will connect the two?
I am sorry that my post is this short, I like to respond to others point by point according to thier posts, but I am learning that when it is not getting across, that I have to start concerning myself with my own state of Peace and not always worry about if I can figure out a way for another to understand.
I guess what I am saying is that there is no compulsion.
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salam idolfree,
i totally respect that and i agree with you. forums have a way of making you a little crazy when you get into these kinds of discussions that are standoffs. well i will inshallah start a new topic at some point about the quran at some point when i get time, AFTER i respond to bro zlatan's request. But i will just say, find out from other people or study arabic grammar yourself and then determine the true meaning of 22.
wassalam
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Peace be upon you Shuiab,
If there is more info to present, please continue, I was only stating that I may not answer as detailed as I like. Before I felt compelled to do so, now, I think I may be exerting to much of myself. The only job is to make it clear.
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Salam br Zlatan,
You asked for a literal translation of 37. As you know, Arabic has tremendous depth to each word, therefore a word for word translation is impossible.
- He is the the one has revealed the book to you, within which some verses are muhkamaat and form the basis and foundation of the book. Some are mutashaabihaat. So those whose hearts is a sickness, will pursue those ayaat that are mutashaabihaat in order to create fitna and attempt to learn its ta?weel. Despite the fact that no one knows it?s ta?weel except Allah and those who are knowledgeable, saying that this is all from our nourisher. The truth can only be understood by those who think and reflect.
In this I left some words untranslated, muhkamaat, mutashaabihaat and ta?weel. I will now provide their meanings.
Hakama means a horses bridle, and it is such that it keeps the horse from going wild or out of control. Muhkam means firm, resolute, and one who makes clear decisions. But in this instance, we can also derive another meaning. Since mutashaabihaat and muhkamaat have been brought in contrast to each other, that which is not mutashaabihaat is also muhkamaat and vice versa.
Mutashaabihaat are things that have a similarity amongst each other. That is why tashbeeh is similitude since if there is an unknown object, it can be explained in terms of a known object that is similar to it.
From this we can see that one of the primary meanings of muhkahamaat is a verse in which the words mean exactly what they say. For example, 463 forbids us from marrying our umm, mother, the woman from whose womb we were born. But the same word umm is used in 37 to explain that muhkamaat are the ummul kitaab. Now does this mean that kind of mother? Of course not, it has been used figuratively and means basis and foundation. This is the ta?weel of the word.
Ta?weel means the ultimate reality or final conclusion of a thing. The Quran was revealed to provide a system of life for mankind to adhere to. Obviously, the rules and ideals of that system should be explained in a way that it can be understood in a clear and definite way. For example, the verse that forbids us from marrying our mothers. But in the Quran, there are also verses that deal with things that are beyond the sphere of our experience and beyond the capabilities of our senses. For example, Allah?s personality and his ACTUAL being, the life we will have after we die (afterlife), Heaven or Hell. Obviously, for anyone to explain these things to us, it would have to be done through mutashaabihaat of things that we DO relate to (from this world).
For example, 117 refers to Allah?s throne on the water. Obviously, by throne, a piece of wooden furniture used to physically sit on, is not the intent here. Nor does water actually literally mean on top of water.
Furthermore, those things that are beyond the capabilities of our senses and beyond space-time itself, that is we cannot understand it?s ta?weel. But from the mutashaabihaat that are given to us about them, we can gain some understanding about it. For example we can understand that the word arsh also refers to control and authority. And water may symbolically represent the source of life 2130. So we can then understand the intended meaning here is that Allah has authority and control over the source of life.But we still cannot understand HOW Allah brought the source of life under his control. In this regard, we have not been given full knowledge 1785. However, using whatever we have been told, we can reach the guidance that we need in order to establish the system of life called Islam.
So the ayah explains that one the one hand you have people who will pursue the mutashaabihaat in order to create fitna. That is instead of reaching the intended guidance of those verses, they indulge in philosophical hypothetical discussions and arguments. Then you have people who will think and reflect upon these mutashaabihaat and derive the understanding that is intended to them.
As far as ambiguity is concerned, it is clear that in mutashaabihaat there is an element of ambiguity in that something is explained in similitude, for example gardens of heaven. People of knowledge will understand what is intended and gain the knowledge intended by Allah, but still may not REALLY know what heaven is like, indeed it will be beyond what we can imagine. And hell will be worse than what we can imagine. Those who want to create fitna will ignore the guidance and pursue the similitudes and try to determine the dimensions of hell and what kind of houses are in heaven and what the rivers are made of.
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and thus almost on the monthly universary of the last post of this thread here`s my response, Best regards, zlatan
Peace shuaib...., all!
Unfortunately you didnt presented the translation i have asked of you...and this is imo a reflection of your understanding hanging in the air and not being able to make the simple and visible link with the actual meanings of the words but being only a religious interpretation -a subjective one...which is more specific and widely ramified in meaning than the words used in the verse are capable to be....
I agree that sometimes the translation, or at least word-for-word translation, can not fully convey the intended meaning, thus i understand your reluctancy to present it it, however, on the other hand the translating by sense or by more words for a single word has other risks one of them being, to paraphrase respected yourelf, becoming participant in insert-desired-meaning-into-Arabic-word game
But in this case, any of the two solutions would be equally suffice to show, or to help you to see for yourself, that your understanding and/or translation is subjective and illogical(doesnt fit into the rest of the book)and/or that any translation can not convey such a specific meanings as you have assigned to the words in 37(and can not convey such a specific , unique and complex understanding of 3/7)
Amazingly enough, reading your understanding, inspite of my poor English, I have found in no short supply the words which would pretty well summarise your understanding.muhkamat being straightforward and mutashabihat symbolical or muhkamat being literal and mutashabihat non-literal or allegorical or ones using examples, symbols, allegories, metaphors, parables and so on and so on
I hope you agree with this translation.if not do say as I have already stated though I find it incorrect based on my knowledge of Arabic, I am not on that stage of Arabic knowledge to denie it with 100% assurance so I must accept it while considering which meaning of the words fit best in 37
However, based on this translation theres no way to extract, without subjective additions and patching and stretching of the words, the very specific meanings of your understanding or explanation of 37
Here are summarised the reasons that prevents me from accepting the understanding that you have suggested
1.there are verses or utterances of the book which uses symbols allegories or methaphors and are dealing with this wordly life and The God ( and you claim only the hereafter
s and the Gods matters/attributes and so on are expressed in allegories)and vice versa
2.there are verses or utterances dealing with hereafter or the God`s being which are very straightforward or literal and/or its reality or exact meaning could be easily understood
- it is not sensible to say that hell and heaven or attributes of the God are the matters which are not of the basics, fundamentals or essentials of the book or ummul-kitabi(as implyied in your explanation).on contrary they are the very essence and fundamentals of it
4.the best, and thus the most delusional, that your explantion has to offer is explanation of why the taweel of some ayats belongs exclusively to the God however this element also is imo (as pointed also by point 2)very subjective.who is to say that we understand 100% of the realities or exact form or details of this word, or sayings not related to the herafter?
For example, the god says we have send the messengers of which we didnt talk to you aboutdo we know all of the details of this stories and yet they are not allegorical? Also, are we fuly aware and fully understand the nature of this word, the matters of the human soul, spirit the whole universe etc( this in response to your example of us not knowing exactly the nature and all the details of the Garden)
Best wishes, Zlatan
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salam br zlatan,
I think we are having a communication barrier here. I had a very hard time understand what you were saying in your post.
Unfortunately you didnt presented the translation i have asked of you
I have no idea what you mean by this. I posted my interpretation/translation of the verse 37, with in-depth analysis of the key words (i didn't simply say muhkamaat=straightforward, I gave the entire reasoning behind it). There was nothing left out.. there was no room for "insert desired meaning" because I explained all the meanings. Perhaps you should take another look or explain more clearly to me what you mean.
1.there are verses or utterances of the book which uses symbols allegories or methaphors and are dealing with this wordly life and The God ( and you claim only the hereafter
s and the Gods matters/attributes and so on are expressed in allegories)I dont recall ever saying that metaphors are ONLY for the hereafter. We use metaphors in talking to each other all the time... the point was that the concepts of e.g. heaven and hell can only be explained metaphorically because we have no experience of them.
there are verses or utterances dealing with hereafter or the God`s being which are very straightforward or literal and/or its reality or exact meaning could be easily understood
If you gave an example perhaps I could understand what you mean. Like for example, Allah being all powerful... of course, we can understand the idea of power and someone being the MOST powerful, but still there is no way to imagine infinite power... our minds our bound to finitude.
it is not sensible to say that hell and heaven or attributes of the God are the matters which are not of the basics, fundamentals or essentials of the book or ummul-kitabi(as implyied in your explanation)?.on contrary they are the very essence and fundamentals of it
Well then perhaps we differ... the UMM-UL-KITAAB in my opinion refers to how to put Islam into practice. Because Islam is a din and a din is meant to be put into action in THIS world. We need to understand things about Allah and Heaven and Hell too of course, but whatever we needed to know has been explained to us through mutashaabihaat.
4.the best, and thus the most delusional, that your explantion has to offer is explanation of why the taweel of some ayats belongs exclusively to the God however this element also is imo (as pointed also by point 2)very subjective?.who is to say that we understand 100% of the realities or exact form or details of this word, or sayings not related to the herafter?
It is very hard to understand what you mean here.
For example, the god says we have send the messengers of which we didn?t talk to you about?do we know all of the details of this stories and yet they are not allegorical?
I dont know what you mean here either. What does this have to do with anything? I never said that all details of every matter is contained in the Quran.
Also, are we fuly aware and fully understand the nature of this word, the matters of the human soul, spirit the whole universe etc?( this in response to your example of us not knowing exactly the nature and all the details of the Garden)
Bro, the point is that anything in this physical world, EVEN if we don't know it at this point, we can strive to learn about it.. experience it, examine it, explore it. We cannot do anything like that with the hereafter, and hence allah has to explain it in metaphor/similitude for us.
wassalam
look forward to your response next month -
Peace shuaib, how are you doing..
salam br zlatan,
I think we are having a communication barrier here. I had a very hard time understand what you were saying in your post.
Unfortunately you didnt presented the translation i have asked of you
I have no idea what you mean by this. I posted my interpretation/translation of the verse 37, with in-depth analysis of the key words (i didn't simply say muhkamaat=straightforward, I gave the entire reasoning behind it). There was nothing left out.. there was no room for "insert desired meaning" because I explained all the meanings. Perhaps you should take another look or explain more clearly to me what you mean.
I have explained it clearly and YOU DID understand it well.... however ill repeat it again.....what i was saying is that you havent provided word for word translation because there is no such a word or two( or even a sentence!) that would cover all the meanings of your interpretation and their ramifications......the words, or meanings that we basically agree these words have, are not capable of covering or denoting or cono(ta)ting your interpretation...
Of course you havent said that muhkamat = straightforward or mutashabihat=allegorical...its because of the fact that from that very moment the understanding would become inconsistent with the rest of the book and would have gone in undesired directions...some of which i have demonstrated....your understanding/translation might serve well for explaining why the taweel is known only to God but it would have side efects and run into contradictions that would make it false.....
I have also given you few examples of such side efects that would produce contradictions with the rest of the book....which you have understood as well...but you wasnt ready to accept them....
1.there are verses or utterances of the book which uses symbols allegories or methaphors and are dealing with this wordly life and The God ( and you claim only the hereafter
s and the Gods matters/attributes and so on are expressed in allegories)I dont recall ever saying that metaphors are ONLY for the hereafter. We use metaphors in talking to each other all the time... the point was that the concepts of e.g. heaven and hell can only be explained metaphorically because we have no experience of them.
But thats what we get if we accept your translation/understanding of 37 .. and thats why i called your interpretation a religious or a subjective one and not capable to be covered by or infered from the actual meanings of the words...
there are verses or utterances dealing with hereafter or the God`s being which are very straightforward or literal and/or its reality or exact meaning could be easily understood
If you gave an example perhaps I could understand what you mean. Like for example, Allah being all powerful... of course, we can understand the idea of power and someone being the MOST powerful, but still there is no way to imagine infinite power... our minds our bound to finitude.
Relatively speaking all powerfull or most powerfull is easy to understand... and i do not see anything allegorical in it....He can do anything and thats all...absolutely speaking, i wonder can we say that we do know absolutely and/or perfectly anything at all....our minds are bound to imperfection.....
you asked for example...we are said there is a torment for disbelievers in the hereafter....or that it will last forvever...whats allegorical there or what is it there that we can not fully grasp? we are told that disbelievers will regret... whats impossible to grasp there? etc.
it is not sensible to say that hell and heaven or attributes of the God are the matters which are not of the basics, fundamentals or essentials of the book or ummul-kitabi(as implyied in your explanation)?.on contrary they are the very essence and fundamentals of it
Well then perhaps we differ... the UMM-UL-KITAAB in my opinion refers to how to put Islam into practice. Because Islam is a din and a din is meant to be put into action in THIS world. We need to understand things about Allah and Heaven and Hell too of course, but whatever we needed to know has been explained to us through mutashaabihaat.
thats exactly what i was talking about ..."in your opinion"- a subjective and religious interpretation......ummul kitabi means mother/basis/prototype/place of comprehension/place of comprisal and similar ...it does NOT mean(nor its explained somewhere else in the book that it mean) "how to put islam into practice in this world"....besides, "how to put Islam into practice in this world" depends very much of understanding mutashabihat (according to you-hell ,heaven, absolute Power of God etc)
4.the best, and thus the most delusional, that your explantion has to offer is explanation of why the taweel of some ayats belongs exclusively to the God however this element also is imo (as pointed also by point 2)very subjective?.who is to say that we understand 100% of the realities or exact form or details of this word(it was a typo), or sayings not related to the herafter?
It is very hard to understand what you mean here.
It means that your translation might seemingly offer some help(but thats all)... for example to explain why taweel is known only to The God...truth or reality or all the details of herefter are known only to God -you say... but this could be claimed for this world as well...who is to say that he knows all the details and particularitries of this world exactly ...
For example, the god says we have send the messengers of which we didn?t talk to you about?do we know all of the details of this stories and yet they are not allegorical?
I dont know what you mean here either. What does this have to do with anything? I never said that all details of every matter is contained in the Quran.
but you did say that only God know all the details and exact happening in hereafter....and i only add that this is the case with this world as well and thus your translation is inconsistent
Also, are we fuly aware and fully understand the nature of this word, the matters of the human soul, spirit the whole universe etc?( this in response to your example of us not knowing exactly the nature and all the details of the Garden)
Bro, the point is that anything in this physical world, EVEN if we don't know it at this point, we can strive to learn about it.. experience it, examine it, explore it. We cannot do anything like that with the hereafter, and hence allah has to explain it in metaphor/similitude for us.
but we CAN understand these similtudes and thats contrary to what you claim....
btw chemical , physical and mathematical(for example) formulas describing this world are only the similitudes of science... we are not able to comprehend the reality of this world as well...at the end of the day ALL the words are methaphors and thus your division of book into the non-methaphorical and methaphorical and is false......
look forward to your response next month )
and here it is a half of a year later )
best wishes, Zlatan
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1.there are verses or utterances of the book which uses symbols allegories or methaphors and are dealing with this wordly life and The God ( and you claim only the hereafter
s and the Gods matters/attributes and so on are expressed in allegories)I dont recall ever saying that metaphors are ONLY for the hereafter.
now that you have given subjective meaning/interpretation to the words you cant stop them anymore...they are out of control and they are running into problems very soon....according to your transaltion of 3/7 metaphors could not be fully understood... its not possible to translate mutashabihat as "methaphors relating only to hereafter or heaven or hell (and not any other of the methaphors)" and thats exactly what you want to do now.....
trying to explain why "nobody knows taweel of mutashabihat" and why mutashabihat is to be understood as methaphorical and not ambiguous you have found escape in claiming that these things are related to hereafter and thus impossible to fully comprehend....
however it has by default placed and classified in the same box all affairs of this world expresed by methaphors as imposible to fully comprehend....
for example "your woman are gardens to you"....this is obviously fully understandable and comprehendable, however its not according to your transaltion of 37 ie. that mutashabihat means methaphors/similitudes/allegories
best wishes
Zlatan