No Elephants in the Quran

huruf

Sura 105 concerning ashab Al-fil has the same formulation " a lam tara" excatly as the speech in sura al Fajr, 89, where several peoples and rulers of the past are remembered as being destroyed or humbled just as the people of Al fil, in both cases it is stated "a lam tara".

I have not seen myself (lam ara) that that verb is used exclusively for physical seeing.

Salaam

sword_of_tashayyu

Which Arabic language are you talking about? Is it the language of Sibawayh and his Persian cohorts who invented the rules of grammar for you?

What is your enmity with Persians? There were many Arabic linguists who were Persian and Sibawayh is called the best Arab linguist. What were the Arabs doing? ask yourself.

The Quranic verse did not mention "Abraha". The significance of the Sura is to indicate that Allah All Mighty was able to annihilate an entire army of mounted Elephant riders with only birds. This is to indicate the greatness of Allah and also the significance of the birth of Rasul Al-Adham (SAWA).

Fil as was pointed out originated from Peel in Persian, so this will not go well with you because of its Persian origin. Put aside your racism.

huruf

F-y-l is a perfectly legitimate Arabic root and the meaning from it quite suitable to the meaning of the aya and sura. Also no gang of elephants es mentionned int he sura. If it is elephant it is talking about, then it is singular, a single elephant would be it. Ashab al-fil , not ashab al afial or al fuyul or any plural. Therefore it can hardly be talking about an army of elphants, and by the meaning of it, rather about a people who was filled with itself, pompous and arrogant.

Whether that people had some image of an elephant as an expression of their idea of their own greatness is something by the side. The arabic root itself defines the people, the name "elephant" comes from that root and it is logical to infere that it is because of its size demeanor that it gets a name from that root.

Salaam

unknownuser

Peace, huruf.

Very well said.

What I keep trying to say (and keep getting misunderstood) is that the meaning of words in the Quranic language does not necessarilly conform to the colloquial, common meanings we know and use, nor do the rules of grammar / punctuation / articulation invented long after the Quran, have any authority over its text.

For example, The word "SIKKEEN" used in the story of Joseph (surah 12) does not mean KNIFE. I will make a thread about this subject soon, to show that the wife of Azeez Misr did not give her female guests KNIVES so they could cut their hands when they saw the handsomness of Joseph. This is totally absurd, out of context, and based on a misunderstanding of the term "SIKKEEN", because they want to impose their current understanding of the term on the Quranic text itself. The same logic can be applied to the words "Tayr" (birds?) and Jinn (Demons?).

Just because FIL refers to elephant in your daily language, doesn't mean the Quran meant it this way.

What is your enmity with Persians? There were many Arabic linguists who were Persian and Sibawayh is called the best Arab linguist. What were the Arabs doing? ask yourself.

I don't have enmity against Persian people. My enmity is against the TAGHUUT of Persia, and the so-called "ULEMA" who lived in his courts, just as I have enmnity towards the murdering, deceiving, hypocrite dogs, like Muawiya and Hajjaj (the Arab Taghuut).

My reference to Sibawayh was meant to make you understand that the grammar rules he invented cannot be used as the authority over a Quranic text. The language of the Quran cannot be bound by the parameters of linguistic aids that were used by people of distant, future generations, to help them vocalize it.

As for the so-called "Arabs", 90% don't understand the Quran anyway.

Put aside your racism.

You call me a racist, eventhough I do not even believe that the term 'Arabi refers to a race. How ironic!

The so-called "Arabs" of today hijacked that term ''Arabi" from the Quran, just because they happen to speak a language that sounds "similar" to its text, and arrogantly proclaimed themselves as the ones being addressed...

Baseless accusations.

mmkhan

As for the so-called "Arabs", 90% don't understand the Quran anyway.

Peace,

I disagree with the above statement.
As per my own personal experience 99% of so called Arabs don't understand alQuraan.

You may not believe, when I visited masjid al nabwi in Madina there is something written in Arabic inside the mosque on an arc. I told the person who was with me that this is not the aayat of alQuraan. He didn't agree with me and called so called mullas and mutawwas almost 18 people, who said, we don't know, it might be the aayat of alQuraan or hadith.

From those 18 people some were giving dars to the groups of people in the masjid itself after Juma prayer. I was really surprised to see the response from them. They don't even know whether that is the aayat from alQuraan or hadith. brickwall

Finally a big mulla was called by all of these dars givers who gave juma khutba that day, he came and confirmed that it is not the aayat of alQuraan but it is the hadith. brickwall

May Allah increase our knowledge and guide us on His path pr
mmKhan

mmkhan

Sura 105 concerning ashab Al-fil has the same formulation " a lam tara" excatly as the speech in sura al Fajr, 89, where several peoples and rulers of the past are remembered as being destroyed or humbled just as the people of Al fil, in both cases it is stated "a lam tara".

I have not seen myself (lam ara) that that verb is used exclusively for physical seeing.

Salaam

Salaam,

Thanks. I will look into that. But still I believe that ara and tara is derived from the same root and refers to physical seeing with an eye.

I will go through with the details you mentioned and will come back inshaAllah.

May Allah increase our knowledge and guide us on His path pr
mmKhan

es

Salaam,

Peace,

I disagree with the above statement.
As per my own personal experience 99% of so called Arabs don't understand alQuraan.

You may not believe, when I visited masjid al nabwi in Madina there is something written in Arabic inside the mosque on an arc. I told the person who was with me that this is not the aayat of alQuraan. He didn't agree with me and called so called mullas and mutawwas almost 18 people, who said, we don't know, it might be the aayat of alQuraan or hadith.

From those 18 people some were giving dars to the groups of people in the masjid itself after Juma prayer. I was really surprised to see the response from them. They don't even know whether that is the aayat from alQuraan or hadith. brickwall

Finally a big mulla was called by all of these dars givers who gave juma khutba that day, he came and confirmed that it is not the aayat of alQuraan but it is the hadith. brickwall

May Allah increase our knowledge and guide us on His path pr
mmKhan

Wow, that's so interesting.

huruf

Salaam,

Thanks. I will look into that. But still I believe that ara and tara is derived from the same root and refers to physical seeing with an eye.

I will go through with the details you mentioned and will come back inshaAllah.

May Allah increase our knowledge and guide us on His path pr
mmKhan

Of course it is from the same root. It is the same verb, first person and second person.

But the "a lam tara" apears in both suras in exactly the same description of past great kingdoms or peoples that were obliterated. It is the verb ra'a, which means to see but which in those two cases, obviously does not mean something that is saeen materially with the eyes, since it is referring to the phenonmenon of the obliteration of past civilisations or societies. Obviously the person addressed did not see it with his eyes, but sees it with the mind.

Salaam

sword_of_tashayyu

Muawiya and Hajjaj (the Arab Taghuut)

One point i agree with you 100%. The enemies of my Master Ali (alaihisalam)

Armanaziz

Muawiya and Hajjaj (the Arab Taghuut)

One point i agree with you 100%. The enemies of my Master Ali (alaihisalam)

Wow! So you do acknowledge Ali to be your Master! with a Capital "M"!
Perhaps that's quite natural - I just didn't get to hear someone say this so explicitly before.

May I ask, what is your take on the below verse?

364 Say, ?O! Fraternity of the book - (let us) come to a common term between us and between you ? that we do not be slave to (anyone) except Allah and that we do not associate any partners with Him, and that some of us do not take the rest as masters (arbaban) from beside Allah.? Then if they turn away ? then say, ?Bear witness that we are submissive (muslimun).?

(My personal translation, cross checking recommended.)

Would you say here "arbaban" means something different than "masters", or perhaps this verse only applies for the Jews and Christians? I am just curious.

May Allah guide us all to the straight route.

Regards,
Arman

sword_of_tashayyu

Ameer al Mumineen Ali bin Abi Talib (AS) being my Master is not the same with the Mastership of Allah the Lord of the Lords. The Quranic terminology here is Rubibiyah from the word ?Rab?. I never called my Imam as Rab but rather Sayedi or Mawla.
Refer to Surah 555

Certainly your MASTER is Allah and His Messenger and those who believe who establish prayer and give charity while they bow. And who ever takes Allah and His Messenger and those who believe as a guardian, so surely the party of Allah will be victorious. (Quran 555-56)

Guardian and Master being used. Allah is my Master and to him I worship but a slave of a person (ie Muslim) is not allowed to pray to his master.

Armanaziz

Salamun Alaikum.

555 uses the word "wali" - which I would usually translate as Guardian / Patron. But I guess ... how we translate different words can vary from person to person.

We can have many guardians / patrons (Wali) - but we should have only one Master (Rabb). To me that means our conscience and intellect - which is our direct gift from and obligation to Allah is inviolable - because Allah is our only Master. With that being said - we can have guardians and patrons who can guide us, help us and inspire us to stay on right course. As long as this understanding is correct - I guess choice of word hardly matters.

May Allah guide us all to the straight route.

Regards,
Arman

hicham9

The Quranic term wly (&#1610 simply means ally, supporter
The Quranic term for guardian, protector is nyr (&#1585

... I never called my Imam as Rab but rather Sayedi ...

What you fail to understand is that QA rab (&#1576 = MSA sayyed (&#1583

SLM

Aladin_from_Azra_tribe

The million dollar question is where exactly is this region or location called Al-Feel?

Who's offering

I read one good writing here about the meaning of the word El-Feel

Al Feel The group of people who were puffed with feel of mangificence-ag?gran?dize?ment.

But, let's try to tell about whole surah.

Elem-tere from its start is a question for all of us. So, we all have to be able to see what happened to these people. This is very important to understand (as all places where elem-tere is used)
We can see that they had some plan, but their plan "gone astray".
It's obvious that the verb "ersele" has Allah as its subject and we should know that its object as passive is "mursel" or "murseloon" in plural.
What was sent are some "thayr", which is in general flying creatures, mostly understood as birds. What we should always know is that we should think about words in general, then and only if we find for sure that word is used with its particular meaning, we should turn towards it. For now, these are some flying creatures (don't forget that ants are tayr, for example).
After "thayr" comes word "ebabeele". I know that most of the people are like horses and they think only within some bounderies made by the people, in this case they think as some dictionary told them. But, if we discard all informations outside the Qur'an, we should notice that this word is from the root "Ba-Ba-Lam", which is obvious. This word is w/o "noon" (n) at the end and we should understand that it's possible some foreign word or it describes something which is not where Muhammed's sawa qawm lived. There is only one word with same root and it's word "Babil" as Babylon.
Verb "termihim" has something feminine as its subject (action doer), but there's nothing feminine in whole surah. Is something wrong?

We'll stop here and think about another story... Some guests came to Ibrahim a.s., Allah's friend, and he went to his family and brought them some meat to eat. He noticed that they are not touching it and he felt fear, but they told to him these words

"La tekhaf, Ena URSULNA ila qawmi Loot" (Don't fear, we are sent to the people of Lut)

Then they left to the people of Loot. When they came to him, his people planned to do even worse sin then one which nobody before them done they planned to do sin with "his guests". Loot a.s. offered them his daughters instead and asked them to behave nice. Anyways, they were punished and if we read about their punishment we'll find that it's the same punishment as for Ashabul-Feel from 1054.

We can see what happened to Ashabul-Feel if we read the Qur'an and think about its ayets. Otherwise, we can't see it.
People of Loot a.s. had plan to make even worse sin then they already were doing, but their plan was not successful, they were punished instead.
Birds cannot be "murseloon", they're humans, djinn, Kutub or angels.
Thayr are angels here.
Angels came from Ibrahim a.s. home, which was in Babylon, as said in here.
Angels are described with feminine noun, and they are doers of this action.

So, this surah is about the people of Loot a.s., but many people will believe in batil, no matter if they see haqq clear.

Selam to ones who are not accepting deen of homosexuals, nor any other deen except Islam.

janet

Salaam,

Surah 105 is referring to a battle of some kind. The clue lies in ayats 3-4.

Tay-Ya-Ra = flew, hasten to it, outstripped, become foremost, fled, love, become attached, famous, conceive, scatter/disperse, fortune.

signifies, accord. to some, A company in a state of dispersion (M) or dispersed companies, one following another (Msb) or distinct, or separate, companies, (Akh, S, Msb, K,) like leaning camels (Msb) or companies in a state of dispersion. (AO, Msb.) One says, Thy camels came in distinct, or separate, companies. (Akh,S.)And (Akh,S) birds in companies from this and that quarter or following one another, flock after flock (Zj, T) or (assumed tropical) birds in companies; (Bd, Jel likened to great bundles, in respect of their compactness.

The word "tayr" can be translated as anything that can fly. The word "ababeel" shows us that the flying objects are coming in distinct or separate portions or are following one another in companies.

This suggests a volley of projectiles being fired simultaneously.

http//www.thefreedictionary.com/volley

The next ayat describes these projectiles as being made from stones like baked clay.

Siin-Jiim-Lam = to pour out, spill (liquid), write a paper or a scroll, decide judicially.
sijil - written scroll, writing-roll, deed, writ, judicial record, scribe.
sijjil - hardened and petrified clay, stones of clay which had been written or decreed for them that they should be punished therewith, scroll of writing, scribe.

Armies used artillery in battles and catapults were the weapon of choice during these times.

https//sites.google.com/site/physicsofcatapults/home/history-of-catapults

https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_thermal_weapons

The missiles/projectiles used were able to breach defences laying waste to the land.

In conclusion, the surah appears to be describing a battle between two forces using straightforward weaponry and not elephants and birds.

Hope this sheds some light on the topic.

Regards,
Janet.