Does the Quran need a "mu3jam" or dictionary to be interpreted?
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Like many of us truth seekers I have been on the road of wanting to understand Quran as much as I can.especially that I don't have folklore and fairy tales to back me up it sorts of become a difficult journey.
reading through the forums i have witnessed so many points of views and they all have a positive outcome in terms of moving a step forward to learning more from our great teacher the Quran.
One topic seems to always come in-between most interpreters is always about the interpretation of words and grammar of the arabic language.
As a human being who understands in a comparative method I always compare so that i come to a conclusion ,what is right and what is wrong it is simple logic ,the famous if statement followed by a then. this is the mother of computer programming as well.
some would always refer back to the arabic language and history to interpret Quran,that is why i put the Question in front of you all,taking into consideration what if the arabic language was tempered with,what if the understanding of the language and its rules where slightly fabricated or flowed through time progression. After all this is all very normal.
I have found out some words we use today to have a different meaning all together than what we intend them to be.
so do i open my arabic dictionary up the "mu3jam" ? or do i refer back to the Quran?
I think If i refer back to the dictionary the "Mu3jam" then the "Mu3jam" would control my Quran,that is why i don't like to take any thing beside the Quran to Explain Quran.
It is as simple as this example" The Quran sates that one should not kill" so we open the Mu3jam up to really know what the word kill means. the Mu3jam would state the word kill means "eat" .by default the "Mu3jam" or dictionary took control of the subject and twisted it to what ever or whoever wants to control the situation. Be it on purpose or not. It could happen through negligence as well.
That is why i feel that only the Quran can explain Quran and not Arabs or arabic poetry or history or history of arabic language.
please let me know what you think. This is an open discussion.No right and wrong answers here.just points of view.
peace to you all. -
There is an aya in the Qur'an which says that we must take the best meaning of it, which it itself is very sensible. Whatever is understood from hte Qur'an or from any book or any speech or observation relaies on what we have inside us, on our width of experience or knowledge, in turns it acummulates to give us further experience. So what we understand rather than a measure from what we read is a measure of ourselves. In time many things become too limited for us. But a real divine revelation, far from becoming to narrow for us, expands and we never reach its limit.
Salaam
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Peace,
From what I have understood there is not much to know which was not already known before The Book (Qur'an) was revealed. The Message is very simple and the Torah of Moses and what was given to Jesus in terms of Lore are still valid as of today.
People tend to say there is difference but I would say it is not. The Book is just a bit more elaborated than what has been shown before by God so except for a list of rules you have an elaborate book so it becomes very detailed. So there is no longer any reason to rely on hadith because God revealed His own hadith finally in the 7th century. It is more than one Believer/Muslim needs really, but some people seem to love to make their religion harder.
God bless you
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yes so true there is a lot of what is obvious in the Quran and we should not really complicate it.most is very much known.It is truly a guide to what is better.
I still find a few meanings in the Quran that conflict with my older understanding and that gives the want to search and look at the Quran as a book i can continuously learn from.
Unlike modern curriculum books where you have certain material and you can go over and cover ,the Quran seems to have different criteria every time you look at it,it seems to have different angeles sort of speak.if i approach it from one topic the meaning would slightly differ in relation to if approach it from another topic.
At the end you would get a basic understanding ,and it would always keep you on the proper path.
i have come across a few words and phrases that seem to have a different meaning than what I was taught they would mean.
if i may share with you this simple word.
"al thul" commonly thought to be the shade or shadow for " althulumat" is clearly the darkness.
but what i understand of the word now would be the light .
i understand that the word "al thul " in the Quran means light.
i could be mistaken,but please look at the word in the Quran ,if you take all the "Ayas" containing this and compare them light seems to be the perfect meaning ,more sense .
i would like to have your feed back on this and any body who read this is welcome to write his or her feedback.
i am interested in every ones opinion and i would not approach this as a debate ,we are all learning .
peace -
Peace brother,
Check the as-salat as contact prayer for example. How are birds or other animals performing contact prayer? The word does not indicate the traditional way of interpreting it because God would not be so lame as to say animals perform contact prayer which practically have no sense of self-awareness at all.
But when you try to seek the word's root meaning then you see that it can not mean what people generally say. Contact, connection, bond, tie etc, are all English words bound to the root. I use Communion because of the word's complexity. If animals simply keep the divine tie then the translation makes sense. Because animals obey God's system without questioning so they have the tie there all the time although animals seem not to have been blown into of the Spirit which made us humans into the special creatures we are. We need to manually perform Communion so to say because we have free will.
God bless you
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I wonder where does it say in the Quran that fasting/sawm is to abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours? There is none !
I believe fasting/sawm is about not to approach our wife during daylight hours in the month of Ramadhan (cf. mating season). It is not about to abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours.
and this is ridiculous (bold). .
It has been made permissible for you the night preceding fasting to go to your wives . They are clothing for you and you are clothing for them. Allah knows that you used to deceive yourselves, so He accepted your repentance and forgave you. So now, have relations with them and seek that which Allah has decreed for you. And eat and drink ( ا until the white thread of dawn becomes distinct to you from the black thread . Then complete the fast until the sunset. And do not have relations with them as long as you are staying for worship in the mosques. These are the limits Allah , so do not approach them. Thus does Allah make clear His ordinances to the people that they may become righteous.(2.187)
BLUE = wrong translation. It is actually about time permissible to approach our wife.. "consume"
Who would be crazy enough to make sex with his wife inside the mosque ? rotfl
p.s. However, I do like to abstain from eating and drinking and . . I do it anyway, for fun !
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man of prayer it is really amazing that you brought out the issue of "al sallat" .
please allow me to share with you what i think of it.all is for study purposes of course and in no way do i mean to insult any ones opinion here.
Al salat is mostly thought of as prayer as in every religion.and here we give it the translation of communion or connection,for it is based to be from the word silat or connection in arabic.
what confuses me is that Allah is always in connection, he never left .why would i need prayer to connect to him?
that of course put me on a course to study what is prayer and what is salat.
we now in every monotheistic religion there is prayer which i understand as DUA or to ask of Allah ,this is very evident in the Quran and Allah states that he will answer your prayer if you ask him"ujeebu da3wata al da3i is da3an"
great all is good for now,but where do the connection come in ,what is salat?
i simply understand that salat is not connection ,the connection is always there. i understand the word "salat" to come from "yasla" meaning to wait.
eg"yasla elnara el kubra"
the Quran mentions people who have patience in their prayer ,patience ,to wait.
but what does all that mean,why do i have to wait and wait for what?
man is all biological and is controlled by a nerves system,that same nerves system help him pretty much do what ever he does.from imagining to visualizing to remembering ,even reading Quran .but the decision making is separate. please look up mirror neurones and body maps.it is what makes us human they give us the ability to mimic and copy.but they can never compare or take decisions.
those are very much responsible for our feelings,they put pictures in our head and we create feelings for those pictures as well.it is all in the nerves system but for decision making and comparing seems to be separate.
now when a body stops moving the brain would think or subconcios or the mirror neurones or the body maps ,they all would think the body is asleep,and that only happens when the body does not move for half an hour with eyes shut as if there is a timing mechanism.that is when we go into dream mood.
but what has all this to do with salat.
see the salat in the quran has a timing it is during the beginning and end of the day but it is only in the time where there is light after sunset or before sunrise.
that time hardly reaches half an hour enough for the body to shut of its nerves system but not to go into dream mood,for if we go into dream mood we loose control and the subconscious and all that comes in or if you want to call it the dream state.
now if this process is continues on a daily bases for a few days what happens?
ALLah has told us in the Quran that AL Salat " tanha 3an el fahsha wal munkar " it will keep the decision maker here in control ,not to have his neurosis control him .
that way man can stay on the right path ." sirat el mustakeem"
of course we can do our prayer at night which is dua and during any hour.
but it would not be Salat.
i hope this sheds some light on the matter ,please i don't mean to claim that i am right of course.
i only say what i think.
excuse me if i have mistaken,and we all learn together.
peace you all. -
In other words ("" = prayer )and salat are two different things all together.prayer does not need but salat or does. Prayer has no timing but salat does ,so that it does not of set the seratonin melanin cycle and cause insomnia . In prayer you speak and ask of Allah, but in salat you don't you are supposed to keep silent no movement closed eyes. Often prophets finish their salat and perform a Do3a or prayer after .
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Use an Arabic lexicon. This is a a far better way than using a dictionary.
- Parallel Arabic, Hebrew, Greek Lexicons www.Quranse.org/QueryEngine/
- Lane's Arabic Lexicon (www.tyndalearchive.com/tabs/lane/)
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thank you that is a great idea ,lexicon can help when it contains Ayas from the Quran,it is great for research ,but i would rather not use the other material in it that do not have a Quranic approach .
still i see no harm in using it when only Quran Ayas are derived from it,and not all lexicons are similar.
i hope you get my point ,i would only use Quran for it is the only proof of the real arabic language.
as for common arabic dialect well i see it as flowed .and common arabic is used in lexicons and that might tip the meaning of an Aya and explain it in a wrong way.
peace to you and thank you. -
Study the root of Arabic of the Quran in the lexicons, and see their usages. The Quran is made of around 80,000 words, but these 80k words are made of around 2,000 roots, thus You don't really need to be a scholar of Arabic. Look at the roots and see the usages/derivatives of the roots. The nice thing about Arabic as well as other Semitic languages is, words made of the same root have a similar meaning (most of the time). A basic example is the root K-T-B.
KaTaBa = He wrote
KiTaaB = Book
KaTaB = Decreed
KaaTiB= WriterTwo other good websites to do this are
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http//corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp
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If you have some questionable word, then I suggest using Parallel Arabic, Hebrew Lexicons at www.Quranse.org/QueryEngine/
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True that is a great tool indeed and many thanks to you for bringing it up . Although I have never used it before but I realize that I should . Thank you
Still some times you need to look closer at the root words and the lexicon might refer to different words .
I'll give am example " salla" in lexicon it's root is sila or connect or connection and that is wrong because the real root of the word from the Quran would be " yasla" meaning to wait .
Still my basic lexicon would be only the Quran as for other references one can definitely use but should not take at face value with out clarification from the great teacher the Quran .
Peace and thank you -
Another example I stumbled upon that has a wrong root in lexicon and is to sound different in the Quran is mostly misunderstood for shade or shadows the true meaning would be light . As the word means the darkness. This could be a new way to approach Quran all together .
I like the example of the KTB and would like to seek it in the Quran.
there are a few approaches that one can really look at here.
we all understand that Kitab in essence is a book ,and the root word is to write a verb of course.
now looking at the Quran this word KTB might have a slightly different meaning that would not change our understanding but might give us more clarity into the essence or the Intention of the teacher "Quran".
from what i have read in the Quran a Kitab might fit any object that holds information.a lot of things would fall under the Category of a Kitab.
a computer chip is a Kitab ,DNA in some form or another is a Kitab, a book is a KITABAN MASTURA ,meaning a with lines or a data device with lines.
see the Quran is not so much different than what we think but our thinking that the Arabic present today is what makes us understand Quran is wrong.
Only the the Quran alone will do. that is why we need to take all the possibilities that are in the Quran from the Quran Alone. we cannot really on poetry ,they fall short.
peace to you please tell me what you think.
i need help on this. if any one can tell us their experience with this as well, please do. -
Most of the roots in the Arabic Lexicon are actually correct, mainly because from them come about many derivatives (i.e from KTB we see KaTaBa, KiTaaB, KaaTiB, etc). Moreover, Many of the roots can be traced to cognate roots in Semitic languages (Mainly Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic) Hence, KTB is also a root word in Hebrew and Aramaic.
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true true ,mostly that is the case.and that is why put forward this question ,can we trust all that.
can we derive what the lord have told us in his Quran from what we know through those languages.
or can we let the Quran do the translation as well.
my opinion would be that the Quran is the best source,as for any thing else even as a language decoder would make us fall in false interpretations.
this is the whole point of the discussion here.
i see your point though and i cannot say it is wrong.
but do you see what i mean.
lets look at the word salat again.derived from the word silat meaning connection ,i think this is a mistake because the word salat is from the verb yasla meaning to wait.
there is an aya in the Quran saying "yasla el nara " meaning waiting for the hell fire .if that is the case then the word salat does not mean connect and would mean to wait in patience .i have written about this earlier in the thread please refer to it.
that is why i don't really think that to follow a language decoder would do it.then if we do that then the Quran would be subject to the interpreter and the tools used to interpret.
Quran is more superior to this and would not need tools for interpretation. i think only the Quran can derive words and nothing else.
peace. -
From what I see,
S-l-w
is the root of the word that is known as meaning ritual prayer.
The root that means basically "connection" is w-S-l, from which words such as transportation, attainment are derived.
Then there is the root
S-l-y which means warm, roast...
For root S-l-w all the meanings I can see in the dictionnary are related to ritua prayers, which is weird. There should be some basic meaning form which such meaning should be drived, I feel. I am not convinced by w-S-l being the source of S-l-w.
Salaam
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true huruf,
mostly if one looks at the word and how it is used or how most scholars have translated its meaning ,then one would give in to the conventional explanation.and then again if one gives in more space to try to discover if there is a possibility that this could have some other meaning here starts a new research which of course could lead to a total new discovery or nothing.
it is never too bad to keep an open mind and look things up.
that is why i put this question in the first place as to if we need the dictionary,or can we rely on the Quran as the only source even when it comes to language.
as for prayer ,"dua" it is clear in the Quran for there are many Suras and Ayas with "Dua" in it and that we should be doing it,and how prophets have done it before us,it is even encouraged BY Allah.
that is why i put this question ,Could the "Salat " have a totally different meaning ,could it be different from " DUA" which mean to ask good or implore from him or in other terms prayer.
could.now "salat " would have a totally different meaning and a totally different function than prayer?
from what i can sum up i think i can make a separation here ,prayer or "dua" is different from "sallat".
we can approach this by seeking out the word and its derivatives as we mostly do and then we will have to put it in context and go with the best explanation.still we have to make our mind up first do we use any other tools that are not Quran.
and if you Use a dictionary or a lexicon won't that be the same as using hadeeth?won't that narrow the search to only a few remaining criteria and possibly hide the truth?
peace.
please let me know what you think. -
true huruf,
mostly if one looks at the word and how it is used or how most scholars have translated its meaning ,then one would give in to the conventional explanation.and then again if one gives in more space to try to discover if there is a possibility that this could have some other meaning here starts a new research which of course could lead to a total new discovery or nothing.
it is never too bad to keep an open mind and look things up.
that is why i put this question in the first place as to if we need the dictionary,or can we rely on the Quran as the only source even when it comes to language.
as for prayer ,"dua" it is clear in the Quran for there are many Suras and Ayas with "Dua" in it and that we should be doing it,and how prophets have done it before us,it is even encouraged BY Allah.
that is why i put this question ,Could the "Salat " have a totally different meaning ,could it be different from " DUA" which mean to ask good or implore from him or in other terms prayer.
could.now "salat " would have a totally different meaning and a totally different function than prayer?
from what i can sum up i think i can make a separation here ,prayer or "dua" is different from "sallat".
we can approach this by seeking out the word and its derivatives as we mostly do and then we will have to put it in context and go with the best explanation.still we have to make our mind up first do we use any other tools that are not Quran.
and if you Use a dictionary or a lexicon won't that be the same as using hadeeth?won't that narrow the search to only a few remaining criteria and possibly hide the truth?
peace.
please let me know what you think.Thanks for your exhaustive explanation. I get your point of view which seems very reasonable and the question you close it with. In fact I got it before, but as it happens often with me, I went off some other thought and did not answer properly.
Myself I am very fond of freedom of research. I mean that no means should be discarded out of hand, but also that no means either should be cannonised and taken as authoritative. We must not forget one basic thing that knowingly or unknowingly the final authority on what we get out of the Qur'an is each reader. I am my final authority and every one is his or her final authority, whatever they might say that they follow this or that, in last instance, it is they who decide to follow this or that, therefore EVERYBODY acts as her or his final authority, no matter what they say.
Bearing that in mind, better for each of us to be clear for ourselves on what we relie to get to our convictions. If we believe in the Qur'an it is because at some point we have become conviced that the Qur'an is authoritative, so, yes, for us the Qur'an would be the ultimate certifier of our understanding of it. To reach that end of course we may use dictionnaries, hadith, islamophobic criticism, whatever helps. Finally we can discard anything at will, but why have qualms about usign anything? Of course, we know that islamophobic blabber rarely pans out anything useful, but who knows, as the portuguese saying goes, God writes straight with crooked lines.
That said, I agree that dictionnaries themselves are hadith. I have a lot of questions of when many expressions used in the Qur'an came to mean what they are deemed to mean today, starting with the famous d-r-b. For me in 4.34 it is a blanket expression which means "bring clarity from them into the question" or make them clarify their aims position or set the community's mind at peace in regard to them, but do not intrude on them either. This is born out by the expression "leave them in their abode (don't pester them)"... and then if they comply with the request and clarify, just forget it and do not trouble them any more. In fact, from the qur'an, that is the basic meaning of d-r-b, to make things defined, clear, so that one knows what one has in his or her hands. And that is also what makes sense in that sentence, where people fear this or fear that (that the women may not fulfill their part of the pact) and do not know where they stand. So what is what is done in those cases? The obvious bring clarity. Hitting anybody is not likely to do that but to compound it, because under threat of hitting or hitting itself is is fear and not truth what is likely to come out. so it does not make sense in any way. But as I have already pointed out in some other messages, to put a hint of hitting in that phrase while at the same time insinuating the idea that it is the husbands that are addressed and not the community, worked out the miracle of bringing into the Qur'an the marital authority of the husband, which otherwise is notoriously absent. So it is a very profitable exegetical operation, but also a lie, which fills many mens heads of hot air and brings discredit to a book which is the most revolutionnary piece of women's apology I know of.
So, to summ up, yes dictionnaries are hadith. Yes we should use them but not obey them, be of them as critical as necessary. They are at our service not the other way around. And the same with any other material.
And my experience no matter how far we may go in claiming truth and justice, the Qur'an is always ahead od us, just we have to loose all veneration for "authorities" and follow our own thirst for truth, justice and knowledge.
Salaam
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Peace,
One issue is the obsession with the physical book rather than its Message. And its Message is not confined to it either and you can "keep it in the air" so to say. You do not have to understand that much of its Arabic text to follow the Message because it is practically so simple. But men have made it more complicated by inventing intricate meanings from simple words with 2-3 syllables which has no logical explanation.
God bless you
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Peace,
One issue is the obsession with the physical book rather than its Message. And its Message is not confined to it either and you can "keep it in the air" so to say. You do not have to understand that much of its Arabic text to follow the Message because it is practically so simple. But men have made it more complicated by inventing intricate meanings from simple words with 2-3 syllables which has no logical explanation.
God bless you
Everything that is in the book is the message. It is a whole world and worlds of knowledge neatly packed in a small volume, but it really is full of wisdom in every single word. I doubt that anybody ever gets even a tenth of the wisdom and depth embedded in the words of the Qur'an.
I think that what you refer to, MofF, is the spirit of the Qur'an as opposed to splitting hairs on little words such as in born out by the story of the heifer to be sacrificed. In that sense it is simple indeed as all the messages to humankind from their Creator has been alsways very simple we are His, we are out of His grace and we will return to Him, the only thing that endures and is by itself. And as conscious beings we must be aware of our dignity and duty to Him and his creation. In a few words everything can be said. But then we get more specific knowledge of human nature, of the nature of things and of the nature of God Himsef, and for those so minded the opportunity of splitting hairs.
Salaam