Ramadhan inevitably a proper noun?
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Hi runninglikezebras,
Some messenger must have been sent to the Korowai tribe of New Guinea for them to have this belief
Kembaren and I spend the morning talking to Lepeadon and the young men about Korowai religion. Seeing spirits in nature, they find belief in a single god puzzling. But they too recognize a powerful spirit, named Ginol, who created the present world after having destroyed the previous four. For as long as the tribal memory reaches back, elders sitting around fires have told the younger ones that white-skinned ghost-demons will one day invade Korowai land. Once the laleo arrive, Ginol will obliterate this fifth world. The land will split apart, there will be fire and thunder, and mountains will drop from the sky. This world will shatter, and a new one will take its place. The prophecy is, in a way, bound to be fulfilled as more young Korowai move between their treehouses and downriver settlements, which saddens me as I return to our hut for the night.
Emphasis mine.
http//www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/sleeping-with-cannibals-128958913/?page=5
Peace
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I think you are making a mistake interpreting ummah as nations/communities not associated with the tribes of the descendants.
You can easily check if this is true. What messenger was sent to eg cannibals in papua new-guinee? Another example would be tribes in the Amazon that never heared about the abrahamic faith whatsoever.
Peace
why go that far when you can look at the present day muslims and say what messenger if any came to these people so they bow to a building and go around it and stay hungry one month in a year to please God! and believe everything is written only that happens what god wants!
confused
The Quran and revelation simply tell us to be better human beings and to observe the commands - which are basically regarding how we interact with others, Its all about our behaviour towards others nothing else.
Not here to teach anybody anything but simply to question some of the things people are doing and why.
peace
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Hi runninglikezebras,
Some messenger must have been sent to the Korowai tribe of New Guinea for them to have this belief
Emphasis mine.
http//www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/sleeping-with-cannibals-128958913/?page=5
Peace
Hi truthseeker11,
We are carrying this debate pretty far off topic don't you agree? I don't recognize an abrahamic faith in the Korowai tribal tradition. If you want to we can discuss this in a proper thread of its own in which I'm willing to further elaborate why I don't consider those forms of paganism compatible with abrahamic monotheism.
Peace
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Firstly, let us define the term "proper name." A proper name, in the words of the grammarian AzZamakhshar (died 1144), is "what is attached to a thing itself without extending to what resembles it."
Now, let us define the term "generic noun." A generic noun is "what is attached to a thing and to all that resembles it."
In other words, a proper name is a name that is applied to a single individual of a genus, whereas a generic name is applied to all individuals of a genus.
Example, horse is a generic noun that is applied to every individual of the genus of horses, whereas was the proper name of a single horse that lived and died in pre-Islamic Arabian history. Another example, human is a generic noun that is applied to every individual of the genus of humans, whereas , , , , and are proper names that are only applicable to specific individuals within the genus of humans.
Similarly, month is a generic noun that is applied to all months, whereas is a proper name that is applied only to a specific month, namely, the ninth lunar month of the Hijr calendar.
Native proper names occurring in the Quran are as follows
- Raman (2185), a proper name for the ninth lunar month of the Hijr calendar
- so-and-so (252, a metonymic proper name used in place of someone's real name
- Zayd (3337), a proper name for a male human
- All numeral nouns etc. (1121, 5106, 2228, etc.), the Classical Arabic language spells out its numerals as "one," "two," "three" etc. all of which are considered to be proper names of numerals
- Amad (616), if not used as a superlative epithet, otherwise, if used as a superlative epithet, then it is not a proper name
- glorification (1210, a proper name for the verbal noun of (please note, is always necessarily inflected in the accusative case due to the action of a suppressed verb, it is inflected here in the nominative case for illustrative purposes)
- the Pleiades (531 and 556), if used to refer to such, otherwise, if used with the meaning of plant or star, then it is not a proper name
- Friday (629), a proper name for the sixth day of the week in the Hijr calendar (please note, the sixth day of the Hijr week corresponds to the fifth day of the Gregorian week)
However, I regard the Quran's use of proper names as only one piece of evidence in understanding the mode of their use. Other evidence that I deem just as admissible are corpora formed from texts composed proximate to the century of the Quran's revelation to Muammad.
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Firstly, let us define the term "proper name." A proper name, in the words of the grammarian AzZamakhshar (died 1144), is "what is attached to a thing itself without extending to what resembles it."
Now, let us define the term "generic noun." A generic noun is "what is attached to a thing and to all that resembles it."
In other words, a proper name is a name that is applied to a single individual of a genus, whereas a generic name is applied to all individuals of a genus.
Example, horse is a generic noun that is applied to every individual of the genus of horses, whereas was the proper name of a single horse that lived and died in pre-Islamic Arabian history. Another example, human is a generic noun that is applied to every individual of the genus of humans, whereas , , , , and are proper names that are only applicable to specific individuals within the genus of humans.
Similarly, month is a generic noun that is applied to all months, whereas is a proper name that is applied only to a specific month, namely, the ninth lunar month of the Hijr calendar.
Native proper names occurring in the Quran are as follows
- Raman (2185), a proper name for the ninth lunar month of the Hijr calendar
@uq don't you think understanding Raman as a proper name for the ninth lunar month is highly problematic considering the Hijri calendar is a post-quranic design (authorized by caliph Umar never Muhammad)?
I also like to add, you still haven't proven the significance of the non-full inflection to be allowed for proper nouns. So far you only provided evidence of non-quranic words - showing a similar symptom - of which you claim they are proof of Classical (Quranic) Arabic. I feel you are still deceiving, at the least yourself and at the worst the reader.
Peace
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I'm surprised by your minimalist reaction. So how were those who were first recited Quran to supposed to understand Ramadhan as a month when the hijri calendar didn't even exist yet?
Peace