For all Believers and Non-Believers
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Dear all, it is not my place to write an exegesis of Quran. I feel that I am nobody; as well I do not want to clutter the translation with my personal understanding. Therefore, I have refrained from such practice so far. However, this Surah although only consists of four verses is conceptually of paramount importance. Its words are difficult to translate in English without having to increase length of translation and using additional words in translation. However, I have tried to stick to syntactic, grammatical and lexical constrains as much as possible. Meanwhile, I feel it is no justice to such profound concepts. Therefore, I am going to try to explain, as I understand it personally.
This is more for believers of Quran. There are many who will receive it. Please ponder, comment or even yell if you like. Unfortunately, a pitch silence helps nobody.
I would like all, especially believers of Quran to respond to refute the concepts understood based upon language in order to defend their traditional concepts and beliefs.
- The verse is instigating all thinking beings to use their minds to contemplate. It is further imparting concept of an entity that most either believe to be a God, which conceptually is an object or deity for human worship or doesn't even exist. Quran while acknowledging in this verse existence of an entity, thereby denying atheistic claims of nothingness, at the same time is denying existence of concept God altogether. Hence, it is making all religions of the world as null and void. For ease of comprehension, I have unpacked the word Allah in Arabic.
Furthermore, the claim about this entity is that it is unique or one and only. Thereby, eliminating any claims of gender orientation. Therefore, third person pronoun ?one? is used in translation, instead of traditional ?he?.
1122 The verse is describing this entity as everlasting and not a God.
1123 The verse traditionally is translated as ?he begets not nor shall he be begotten?. However, questions that come to mind are.
- Why does it make any sense that after describing it just in verse 1 as unique, a mention of ability to reproduce or not is made. There are ample things in this universe that we know can and can?t reproduce. What is the uniqueness about this fact?
- Does this translation of begetting makes any conceptual or syntactical sense in relation to previous verses?
- Do we know any entity that is everlasting? If not, how could we understanding any physical characters even if it has some described to us except may be as a fairy tale.
Therefore, this verse is re-emphasizing the concepts in previous 2 verses. It is telling that this entity has never reinvented itself ever from what it has been, nor anyone shall try to reinvent, from what it is?
What is one? One is not at all an object for worship or god, who is everlasting.
- The verse reiterates One?s uniqueness. Just imagine how concept of Allah as god, instead of NOT GOD is different? All gods of all religions are conceptually entities or deities for human worship. The difference is only created by rituals of worship but not at conceptual level of understanding of God.
Therefore, any traditional believers of Quran please tell how conceptually their concept of Allah is different from all other gods, besides difference in rituals of worship.
- Isn?t the concept presented by Quran as ?One who is not at all a deity for worship?, unique?
- Has anybody in history of mankind ever presented this concept before?
- If accepted and adopted wouldn?t it solve a lot of conflicts faced by humans since eternity?
Regards,
Surah 112 1
Surah 1121
You reflect then express without any falsehood that one, who is not at all an object for worship is unique.
Syntactical Explanation
There is a verbal sentence. It is followed by a nominal sentence.
This is a verb and a verbal sentence.
This is the subject or the nominal sentence that follows the verbal sentence.
This the predicate of sentence or .
This is called about predicate or
Grammatical/Lexical Explanation
This is second person imperative verb from root . A verb in Arabic is a full sentence. It is verb of class called meaning verbs of mind. Root?s literal meaning is ?he lied or said something that was false?. Add meanings or second person imperative as well it being a verb of mind. One gets the meanings above.
This is third person pronoun. This is traditionally translated as ?he?. This wrong, why? Just by virtue of this very verse. It is claiming a total uniqueness; therefore, a better choice of third person pronoun in English is ?one?, as the gender is not discussed for the one.
Please see write up ?linguistic riddle solved for those who want to learn? for detailed explanation of this fundamental concept.
This is common noun from root meaning ?one and only or unique?
Surah 112 2
The eternal is one who is not at all a deity for worship.
Syntactical Explanation
This is a nominal sentence. In fact in this sentence Subject is at the end or
This the subject of sentence or
This is predicate or
Grammatical/ Lexical Explanation
Please see ?Linguistic riddle solved for those who want to learn?.
This a definite noun from verb root difficult to translate into one word noun in English. Besides several other meanings it has meanings of ?everlasting?.
Surah 112 3
One has never introduced himself anew, nor shall one ever be introduced as anew.
Syntactical Explanation
There are two forceful negative sentences.
Negative particle when used with imperfect forceful negation ?nothing at all?.
Imperfect verb as a whole sentence
As above
Imperfect verb as a whole sentence.
Grammatical/Lexical Explanation
This a negative particle. When used with Imperfect verb it gives meanings of negation with intensity, hence translated as ?nothing at all?. Additionally, it gives its imperfect verb Jussive state or Jezm.
It is from root . It is third person active mood. It usually means ?to beget?. This what traditionalists use as its meanings. However, they are absolutely wrong, why? Someone that is claimed to be unique in the beginning, he is not going to beget as there lot who do beget. This root has also tropical meanings of ?he innovated?. This is difficult concept and expression to convey in English without adding more words. Therefore word ?anew? is used. This means ?in a new different way?.
As above only this is in passive mood.
Surah 112 4
Nothing at all could have likeliness to one in uniqueness.
Syntactic Explanation
This is a verbal sentence. It has verb of class Kana. Kana although a verb, but its sentence components are labelled just like nominal sentence; its subject is called Kana?s noun and its predicate is called Kana?s predicate.
This a negative particle with meaning of forceful negation when used with imperfect.
This the verb of sentence.
This is the subject or agent of the sentence or . It has a preposition attached to it at the beginning.
This is predicate of Kana, due being in Nasab.
This called Kana?s noun or Ism.
Grammatical/Lexical Explanation
Two particle together meaning "and not"
An imperfect verb ?Kana? in jussive mood due to presence of negative particle in front. This would mean ?can have?
A particle followed by 3rd person pronoun translated as ? to one?.
It is a common noun from root . Its root meanings are ?like, equal or match?.
This is common noun from root meaning ?one and only or unique?
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Excellent post!
Thank you so very much!
Peace