How Did it Come to This? (Part 1)
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Peace Ayman,
Quote from Danish on Today at 092408 AM
What does Allah precisely translate into English and are there other connotations?"the god"
This has many implications for you. It is not Allah (a meaningless proper name) of Muslims (another meaningless proper name) that you are opposing. You have chosen to oppose and be hateful at the god. I hope that you can see the difference and seek peacefulness at Him.
Allah means The God (emphasized) and differentiates from al-ilah which means ?the god? (singular male form) in contrast to al-lat (singular female form) and alihatun meaning ?the gods? (plurality). When you capitalize ?the? and ?god? to become The God, then the ?The? signifies a rank in high esteem from the rest of ?the gods?. This then tells us there are/were many gods from which one god stands out, thus becoming The God. Pagan history tells us that were many idols representing gods that were worshipped in various cults, each having a supreme one or highest in ranking among other gods to become The God.
Each god (male or female) were then given a proper name and attributes respectively and as imagined. In the Quran, the statement, ?Bism Allah Arahman Arahim? reads as ?In the name of The God, most merciful, most gracious?. Here, the question then follows, that what was the name of that one particular god who is most merciful and most gracious among all other merciful and gracious gods who became The God. Once again, historical facts tell us that the name of The God was Hubal, who was raised to stand on top of the roof of Kaba (the cuboid structure) to attain the throne. The names of all such stone idols along with their attributes are given in the links I had provided earlier.
Looking from another angle, Arahman and Arahim could possibly be the names of gods themselves. Ahriman, which comes closest to the name Arahman, was the name of an evil idol deity countering Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism. Ahura Mazda was also known as Aramazd, the exalted, which comes closest to the name Arahman. We know that the Judaism, Christianism and Islamism, in part if not wholly, are descendents of Zoroastrianism.
Are all names in the Quran, such as Muhammad, Essa, Dawood, Jabrael, Abu Lahab and so forth, common names and that these named individuals never existed?
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Peace Danish,
Allah means The God (emphasized) and differentiates from al-ilah which means ?the god? (singular male form)
Both "allah" and "al-ilah" mean the same thing, "the god". In fact, the term "allah" is used in the great reading in passages such as 63, "and he is the god (allah) in the heavens and the earth..." where the meaning intended is "al-ilah".
in contrast to al-lat (singular female form)
The female form is "al-ilahat" not Al-Lat. In Chapter 53 we can see that the "T" at the end of the Al-Lat is an archaic form of the feminine taken from Nabataean. So this is the Nabataean name adopted without translation into Arabic. The same thing goes for Al-Uzza and Manat. Notice that similar archaism from Nabataean can be seen in the case of Manat with the medial "W". So unlike "allah" all those are names that were taken untranslated from Nabataean into Arabic.
and alihatun meaning ?the gods? (plurality).
Yes. Notice that the three letters of the Arabic root (A, L, H) are present in the Arabic singular (allah/al-ilah, al-ilahat, al-alihat) but not in the foreign Nabataean proper name Allat, which as a proper name was not translated.
When you capitalize ?the? and ?god? to become The God, then the ?The? signifies a rank in high esteem from the rest of ?the gods?.
There is no capitalization in Arabic. In English, I capitalize out of respect not because it is a proper name. It is the same reason why I capitalize "He" when I refer in the third person to The God. It is not because "He" is a proper name but it is because I do it out of respect. I am just as comfortable writing "the god" as I write "The God". It is a common noun. Had it been a proper name then like Allat was not translated from Nabataean to Arabic, I wouldn't have translated it from Arabic to English and kept it as Allah.
This then tells us there are/were many gods from which one god stands out, thus becoming The God. Pagan history tells us that were many idols representing gods that were worshipped in various cults, each having a supreme one or highest in ranking among other gods to become The God.
As I explained above, this only tells us that you don't know that there is no capitalization in Arabic. As for the definite article it does add special emphasis. This is why we hear in the great reading "there is no god except the god". It is to negate exactly the kind of argument that you are making.
Each god (male or female) were then given a proper name and attributes respectively and as imagined. In the Quran, the statement, ?Bism Allah Arahman Arahim? reads as ?In the name of The God, most merciful, most gracious?. Here, the question then follows, that what was the name of that one particular god who is most merciful and most gracious among all other merciful and gracious gods who became The God.
There is no proper name "given" to the god. A proper name is by definition a "given" name. The god, the truth doesn't need to be given a name by people as he doesn't need a proper name. The god is not an Arab who needs an Arabic name.
Once again, historical facts tell us that the name of The God was Hubal, who was raised to stand on top of the roof of Kaba (the cuboid structure) to attain the throne. The names of all such stone idols along with their attributes are given in the links I had provided earlier.
These are typical atheist Sunni arguments that rely completely on Sunni mythology. There is no evidence in any of the stone blocks in Arabia of an idol of Hubal on top of any of them. In all those instances, the stone block itself was the idol.
Looking from another angle, Arahman and Arahim could possibly be the names of gods themselves. Ahriman, which comes closest to the name Arahman, was the name of an evil idol deity countering Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism. Ahura Mazda was also known as Aramazd, the exalted, which comes closest to the name Arahman. We know that the Judaism, Christianism and Islamism, in part if not wholly, are descendents of Zoroastrianism.
This is false and this can be seen in your confusion about Zoroastrian mythology and hanging at straws. We can see on several South Arabian Abraha inscriptions the description "rahmanan" referring to the god. Abraha was an Abassynian Christian and Abassynians were the enemies of the Persians. Moreover, by blindly copying and pasting from those links you are exposing your ignorance and lack of critical thinking. Had you thought objectively about the word "al-rahman", you would have seen that in fact the word of interest is "rahman" because you need to take away the definite article, which doesn't factor in the etymology. So Aramazd and "rahman" are completely different words that are not even close. Also, their meaning is entirely different since "rahman" doesn't mean "exalted".
Are all names in the Quran, such as Muhammad, Essa, Dawood, Jabrael, Abu Lahab and so forth, common names and that these named individuals never existed?
It is easy.
The words "quran/reading" and "muhamed/one who praises", "abu lahab/one with the flame" are common nouns.
On the other hand, words that are untranslated from the other foreign languages that they originally came from into Arabic such as Essa, Dawood, Jabrael, Adam, Ibrahim are proper names.
Peace,
Ayman
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Peace brother Ayman,
I have two questions for you based on your last reply
Firstly, in 4829 "muhammed" could be translated as "one who praises" as the meaning fits but how would you translate 3340 and 472 keeping "muhammed" as the common name ? According to context of those verses and the overall meaning it can only be a proper name in those verses. For the benefit of all the readers I will quote the free-minds translation of all the three verses
4829 Mohammed is the messenger of God, and those who are with him are severe against the rejecters, but merciful between themselves..............
Here I agree with you that "mohammed" can be translated as "one who praises" also, so the meaning would be "the messenger of the god is one who praises..........."
3340 Mohammed was not the father of any man among you, but he is the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets. And God is fully aware of all things.
472 And those who believe and do good works, and believe in what was sent down to Mohammed, for it is the truth from their Lord, He cancels for them their sins, and relieves their concern.In these two verses, according to the full meaning and the context "muhammed" can obviously only mean the name of the prophet and not "one who praises".
Secondly, in 616 is "ahmed" common name or proper name ?
616 And when Jesus, son of Mary, said "O children of Israel, I am God's messenger to you, authenticating what is present with me of the Torah and bringing good news of a messenger to come after me whose name will be "ahmed"." But when he showed them the clear proofs, they said "This is clearly magic."
Looking forward to your reply,
Peace,
Asad
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Peace brother Asad,
Thank you for you excellent questions.
Firstly, in 4829 "muhammed" could be translated as "one who praises" as the meaning fits but how would you translate 3340 and 472 keeping "muhammed" as the common name ? According to context of those verses and the overall meaning it can only be a proper name in those verses. For the benefit of all the readers I will quote the free-minds translation of all the three verses
4829 Mohammed is the messenger of God, and those who are with him are severe against the rejecters, but merciful between themselves..............
Here I agree with you that "mohammed" can be translated as "one who praises" also, so the meaning would be "the messenger of the god is one who praises..........."
3340 Mohammed was not the father of any man among you, but he is the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets. And God is fully aware of all things.
I don't think that 3340 is an issue. It can be rendered as follows
3340 One who praises was not the father of any man among you, but the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets (is). And God is fully aware of all things.
3340 The father of any man among you was not one who praises, but the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets. And God is fully aware of all things.
472 And those who believe and do good works, and believe in what was sent down to Mohammed, for it is the truth from their Lord, He cancels for them their sins, and relieves their concern.
In these two verses, according to the full meaning and the context "muhammed" can obviously only mean the name of the prophet and not "one who praises".
Now you are right that in 472 it seems like it is a proper name. This is because of the absence of the definite article, i.e., it should have been "...and believe in what was sent down to the one who praises." So because of the absence of "the/al" in 472 and unless we are translating it wrongly, the word could very well be a proper name and I am perfectly OK with that. The criteria for proper name are as follows
- It is an untranslated foreign name that doesn't fit in the context.
- It is an Arabic word that doesn't fit in the context.
Secondly, in 616 is "ahmed" common name or proper name ?
616 And when Jesus, son of Mary, said "O children of Israel, I am God's messenger to you, authenticating what is present with me of the Torah and bringing good news of a messenger to come after me whose name will be "ahmed"." But when he showed them the clear proofs, they said "This is clearly magic."
I am not sure if it is a proper name or a common noun. What was the language of Jesus? If it was Aramaic and there is a proper name Ahmed in Aramaic then it could be a proper name. Otherwise, it would be a common noun for certainly Jesus would not have told them a name that would have sounded as gibberish to them as "bla bla bla".
Peace,
Ayman
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Peace brother Ayman,
Thank you for the reply.
I don't think that 3340 is an issue. It can be rendered as follows
3340 One who praises was not the father of any man among you, but the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets (is). And God is fully aware of all things.
3340 The father of any man among you was not one who praises, but the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets. And God is fully aware of all things.
I think in 3340, similar to 472, "muhammed" can be a common noun only if the article "the/al" was present making it "THE one who praises was not the father of any man among you, but........."; otherwise it would mean that
a. ANY/EVERY person who praises is the messenger of God and the seal of prophets !
b. ANY/EVERY person who praises cannot have sons !The second rendering would be logically inaccurate, as then it would mean that
a. No one with sons could be one who praises !
b. ANY/EVERY father of ANY/EVERY man is messenger of God and seal of prophets !Now you are right that in 472 it seems like it is a proper name. This is because of the absence of the definite article, i.e., it should have been "...and believe in what was sent down to the one who praises." So because of the absence of "the/al" in 472 and unless we are translating it wrongly, the word could very well be a proper name and I am perfectly OK with that.
Agreed !
I am not sure if it is a proper name or a common noun. What was the language of Jesus? If it was Aramaic and there is a proper name Ahmed in Aramaic then it could be a proper name. Otherwise, it would be a common noun for certainly Jesus would not have told them a name that would have sounded as gibberish to them as "bla bla bla".
I am not familiar with the Aramaic language. Do you or anyone else on this forum happen to know or can do research if there is a proper name Ahmed in Aramaic ?
Actually, there does not have to be a proper name "Ahmed" in Aramaic for it to be a proper name. A proper name is a proper name in any language even if it sounds gibberish to the speaker. For example, Asad would be a proper name in the Chinese language when used by a Chinese person in a sentence talking about the person named Asad, even if "Asad" sounds gibberish to the Chinese and even if there is no proper name "Asad" in Chinese !
Regards and Peace,
Asad
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Peace brother Asad,
I think in 3340, similar to 472, "muhammed" can be a common noun only if the article "the/al" was present making it "THE one who praises was not the father of any man among you, but........."; otherwise it would mean that
a. ANY/EVERY person who praises is the messenger of God and the seal of prophets !
b. ANY/EVERY person who praises cannot have sons !The second rendering would be logically inaccurate, as then it would mean that
a. No one with sons could be one who praises !
b. ANY/EVERY father of ANY/EVERY man is messenger of God and seal of prophets !Keeping in mind that the passage addresses the people of the prophet and is in the past tense, the above doesn't present the kind of difficulties that generalization would imply. Many passages in the great reading such as 2170, 5104, etc. condemn the "fathers". I am sure that this doesn't mean that all fathers are bad!
Also, as a proper name, this would mean that the prophet cannot have sons, which is the same logic as your 1(b) and 2(a) above.
I agree with you that it is most likely to be a proper name based on 472, unless we are translating the word wrongly.
I am not familiar with the Aramaic language. Do you or anyone else on this forum happen to know or can do research if there is a proper name Ahmed in Aramaic?
I am not familiar with the Aramaic language either. There are also several variations of the Aramaic language (such as Syriac and Nabataean Aramaic). I am not sure what language Jesus spoke but if it were Aramaic, then it must have been whatever form of Aramaic was prevelant at his time and place (another two variables that are not exactly known).
Actually, there does not have to be a proper name "Ahmed" in Aramaic for it to be a proper name. A proper name is a proper name in any language even if it sounds gibberish to the speaker. For example, Asad would be a proper name in the Chinese language when used by a Chinese person in a sentence talking about the person named Asad, even if "Asad" sounds gibberish to the Chinese and even if there is no proper name "Asad" in Chinese !
If I tell you now that in the future someone named Xyhgy will be a messenger, this will not mean anything to you. If this became a name 600 years from now in some future language and indeed someone by that name became a messenger then it would become meaningful to the people of the future but not to you.
From the passage we can see that Jesus gave this info to his followers. If this info was actually transmitted to future generations then we would have seen an explosion in babies who are named Ahmed after the time of Jesus in the hope that one of those would be the prophet. Since we don't observe such phenomenon, then this info was not propagated to the later generations, which are the people who this might have been meaningful to.
So there are two possibilities
- It is a common noun.
- It is a proper name that Jesus gave to his followers but was completely forgotten and thus served no purpose.
At this stage I don't know which it is and it can go either way.
Peace,
Ayman
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Peace,
Ayman. I read over your article and I find it very logical. Naturally I am a skeptic only because there are alot of different situations that could have happened so that the North Arabic script would have been used in Central Arabia. I still believe that Mecca is Macaroba. That makes sense to me. I don't agree fully with the nasaara just being nestorians. I think they are all christians but the name may have orignally been for nestorians and evolved to mean all Christians (followers of Christ) because generalization by the old Arabs.
I also think your map is too high as the Arabs were not in those northern territories but on the southern edges of asham.
I like the analysis about the middle persian loan words which would have indicated an Arabic closer to persian territories, as well as the choice of early script which would have indicated an area dominated by Aramaic influence. I agree with your conclusions. However, I have trouble agreeing with the impossibility of Mecca being the "birthplace" of the Quran and Muhammad (God bless him). But I respect your conclusions.
My objections (though I don't oppose you) are
- Macaroba still sticks out to me as being able to be Mecca
- I don't see a need to find an alternative origin of the Quran as it does not help in the universalist approach to the Quran.
3.Early scripts may lie but you may also not know about some movement of people or influence that would have made this Aramaic influence possible even in the middle of Arabia. - I'm sure you are right about the paganistic rituals of the pilgrimage. You have known me to agree that the pilgrimage does not have to be done there.
- I believe in the multiplicity of meanings, so to me Makkat can mean Mecca and destruction, etc. etc. So it does not take away from the univeralism of the Quran that this and other words refer to places as they have meanings that can apply to these places and a message that transcends the place.
To me there were active minds and hands involved in the early days of the Muslim Arab empires that tried to make Muhammad (God bless him) the center of the Quranic religion, that tried to make Mecca the religion capital of the Quranic religion, and that tried to purify the image of the Arabs by denying the idol worship that continued there, creating an extreme contrast between pre-Quranic Arabs and post-Quranic Arabs and that even strove to eradicate non-Muslims from the Arabian peninsula.
Let me say that the Persian also invaded the south of Arabia, Yemen and the Himyarites, which would have contributed linguistically, that is why southern Arabs are not completely black. It is because of the mixing with Persians. Secondly, south Arabia had a strong Jewish and Christian influence which could have introduced this Jewish/Christian script from the south creating a rival script to the old Ethiopic script introduced long before by the old Ethiopian empires in the south of Arabia.
Just some thoughts. But I appreciate your work it is well though out.
Godbless,
Anwar -
Peace Bahman,
https//youtu.be/OxjvNgjza6k
bravo bravo bravo
Shivers ran down my spine when all the mosque directions converged on one spot!
I downloaded this video because I am pretty sure it will disappear!
Peace
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Peace
How Ragmu is written in Arabic?
https//en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrahttp//www.amnh.org/exhibitions/petra/the-great-earthquake/
According to the letter, "nearly half" of Reqem (the Nabataean name for Petra) was destroyed by a quake "at the third hour, and partly at the ninth hour of the night," on May 19, AD 363. Cyril tells us, in other words, the date and time not just of the main quake, but of its powerful aftershock.
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Salaam Alleikum Dr. Ayman,
Thank you for explaining "ywm al-jum3a(t)". This makes more sense than gathering once in a week on Friday like Christians Sunday service. When the call for prayer is announced gather for prayers daily.
Thank you again.
I did not read anything about "sunday service" in the Gospel.
Strange.
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I did not read anything about "sunday service" in the Gospel.
Strange.
As far as i know there is nothing about friday, saturaday or sunday services in any of the scriptures.
p.s christians observe a service on sunday because they believe it is 'the lords day', as according to them, jesus rose on the sunday.. though i do not know how they get this information (which day of the week it is)
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Some very interesting stuff and the video was quite shocking.
Had no idea that the Kaaba was known to be in Jerusalem in the muslim world.
I always thought the Kaaba was in Mecca since the beginning
Nevertheless, the hypothesis about it not even being in Jerusalem but in Petra is quite interesting. -
Some very interesting stuff and the video was quite shocking.
Had no idea that the Kaaba was known to be in Jerusalem in the muslim world.
I always thought the Kaaba was in Mecca since the beginning
Nevertheless, the hypothesis about it not even being in Jerusalem but in Petra is quite interesting.Peace, i think regardless of the viewpoint, it does seem that 'the sacred house' (i cant remember the exact arabic whether al-bayt al-maqdoos maybe, or whether i am confusing that with what it is know as in hebrew, as they are so close) and hence, the 'standing place of abraham' etc are in jerusalem, by the weight of evidence..
it would seem al-masjid al-haram is there too, but as you say, petra is an interesting, and still possibly plausible case..
i havent watched the video, as i cant/dont watch videos, but i have read alot of material on it.
summaries for those of us without a decent internet?? haha?
Peace