The Ten readings
-
Peace KGB,
Thank you for your encouragement. I really get lost when people who have command of the language do not agree on certain words. Please make it simple by coming to a mutual understanding of words. That will help me a lot to reach a definite decision.
This just shows that command of the language is not the main criteria for understanding the message.
- And had We made it a non-Arabic reading/"quran", they would have said "Had only its signs been detailed in non-Arabic and Arabic". Say "For those who had faith, it is a guide and healing. As for those who do not have faith there is deafness in their ears and it is blindness on them. These will be called from a place far away."
Now it doesn't matter if you are an Arabic speaker or not, for example, if you hear in 4144 "deafness" and "blindness" and understand them literally then you really haven't understood anything from the message. In fact, the message is full of such idiomatic expressions for intelligent people to ponder on regardless of whether they speak Arabic or not. On the other hand, a superficial person who takes such expressions literally, will not gain anything and the great reading will be blindness on him or her. Such extensive use of allegories levels the field between Arabic and non-Arabic speakers because the literal superficial physical meaning is mostly incorrect.
Peace,
Ayman
-
Peace Ayman
Thank you for taking time to reply to me. I clearly understand this verse. Blind and deaf is not literal. It simply means that the people who do not have faith in Allah (SWT) will not get the message no matter how many times they read it or hear it.
-
Peace ayman.Your post is very interesting...Any suggestions on how people can gain a good understanding of how to interpret the quran (idioms and all.) without studying in-depth arabic...? And how can they can keep away from 'dogmatic' literalism?...
-
Peace ayman.Your post is very interesting...Any suggestions on how people can gain a good understanding of how to interpret the quran (idioms and all.) without studying in-depth arabic...? And how can they can keep away from 'dogmatic' literalism?...
peace enquirer,
use common sense, maybe? ) -
Peace Anwar,
This is your bias speaking. In old Arabic for instance 'huwa yakhruju min al-baabi hadhaa' is different then 'huwa yakhruj min al-baab hadha' In old Arabic when you don't pronounce the case endings you change the meaning. the first is 'he leaves' the second is 'he may/would leave.'
The same exact thing can be said about languages that don't use vocalization marks such as English. We can say "put the box on the table by the window" and the "box" can end up on the "the table by the window" or "the box on the table" can end up "by the window". You change the meaning because of the lack of case endings in English. Of course, in "fusha" Arabic you wouldn't have this ambiguity because of the case endings. However, I hear no one suggesting that we should start having case endings for English because "you change the meaning"!
What you are saying about ambiguity is a normal part of all languages. You resolve ambiguity using context. Hence, when I read a story and I encounter the sentence 'huwa yakhruj min al-baab hadha', I know whether it is 'he leaves' or 'he may/would leave' based on my intelligent reading of the context. On the other hand, you treat people as unintelligent robots who must be spoonfed the exact meaning regardless of context. This idea came about when Arabic became a sacred religious language and fo course it appeals to religious clergy.
Your idea of free flowing Arabic comes from the fact that you are heavily influenced by the more recent Arabic creoles, which don't depend on these case endings. Old Arabic does.
This has nothing to do with creoles and as you admit, Old Arabic itself was a creole. This has to do with the fact that the context can be easily used to resolve ambiguities and hence those case endings have very low functional load. Thus, they are a useless inconvenience and are not used.
Allah allam al-quraan is a broken version of old classical Arabic which says 'allahu allama al-qur'aana.' The case endings point out the role of the words in the sentence, which allows for more playing with sentence order in Old Classical Arabic. For instance you can say 'al-qur'aana allama allahu' in Old Arabic and it has the same meaning as the above two phrases, that is, 'God taught the Quran (basically).' But if you say 'al-qur'aan allam allah' in the broken Old-Arabic that Arabs prefer today and view as 'free flowing' because it resembles their creolized Arabic dialects, that changes it in meaning completely and it now means 'the Quran taught God'. Do you see what I'm saying now? You think it is awkward and pretentious because the true Old Classical Arabic has taken on this social attribute (mainly because it has been the language of pretentious scholars who have isolated this language to their circle). It sounds awkward because it is not apart of your native register. Your colloquial doesn't emphasize these case endings and that carries into the way you speak Old-Arabic, meaning you slightly corrupt Old-Classical Arabic when you speak it, but you think you are making it more natural.
Again, there are similar ambiguities in English and yet no one is suggesting case endings in English to resolve them. For example, I "like annoying posters" can mean "I like to annoy posters" or "I like posters who are annoying".
If people are stupid enough to think that "the reading taught The God" is the correct meaning, then no amount of vocalization marks can help them. The only reason you would use case endings in "Al-rahman 3allam al-quran" is if you are a pretentious scholar who thinks everyone else who is not a so-called scholar is an idiot who can't intelligently figure out the meaning on their own without his useless scholarly help. Besides chapter 55 sounds so heavy and awkward with the case endings that even scholars regularly recite it as it is supposed to be recited without the case endings.
When I talk about tashkeel I'm not talking so much about the actual vowels in written form. I'm talking about those same vowels in oral form. The text doesn't concern me so much because writing represents what is (or in this case was) spoken.
But it is precisely in oral form where we see that many passages in the great reading do not flow smoothly with the case endings and thus many researchers have concluded that there were originally no case endings. Even those who oppose this and the most vehement defenders of vocalization marks routinely recite such passages without the case endings. So from an oral form point of view, there is no basis for case endings being part of the original recitation.
All languages are essentially creoles so don't get me wrong. You just need to recognize that your creole is different than the Old-Arabic creole. All languages are creoles because from what we know all languges come about from the mixture of different languages. With the old semetic languages it gets a little compiclated when it comes to who believes what because these langugaes are religiously charged. Hebrew is a creole of Canaanite and the language that the Hebrews spoke coming out of Egypt (most likely a highly Egyptianized language if not Egyptian itself). Remember that the twelve sons of Jacob settle in Egypt and obviously married egyptians. So they most likely spoke Egyptian, this language and the language of the cananites mixed to form Hebrew.
Arabic atleast when the Quran came about had loan words from old persian, greek, Ethiopian, etc. I'm sure there are a bunch of theories about where Old-Classical arabic came from, but I'm not going to begin to speculate. It is considered closest to the "original" mother of the Semetic languages. But only God really knows?
The word creole is usually used with languages that have formed in relatively recent history (usually as opposed to the history of its mother language (which in its beginning also was a creole)) and are clear mixtures of languages that still exist separately from the still recognizable parent languages, or atleast one of the still recognizable parent language. So try not to confuse the issue. Just becuase a language has loan words from other languages doesn't make it exactly a creole. Loan words are not the criteria for cosidering a language a creole.
All languages are "creole", even Old Arabic (which also had a parent language that was still recognizable at the time), so this is not the reason why case endings were dropped. The reason why they were dropped is that they are useless and the context is more important.
Fus-haa arabic is not a theoreical language that no-one spoke, it was a language that all of the ancient Arabs of early Islam and a little before this time spoke. It is the language that the Quran is in, the old Arabic poetries and then the Hadeeths. The real reason for the language becoming prestigious was the Quran, and the position of power that the Arabs came to occupy when they united and conquered the previously Roman, Greek, Persian and Ethiopian Areas. The grammarians took on the job of codifying that language which was constantly recited with the Quran, Poetry and the speech of the people, in particular the bedouin Arabs were referred to to ensure the same quality of speech of Muhammad's actual era as these people are more isolated from the linguistic mixing in the commercial centers.
But none of the early Arabic manuscripts display this "fusha" Arabic. Just read the manuscripts here and you will see that it is far from the language of Hadith and poetry
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/
On the other hand, they are closer to the language of the great reading. Notice for example, the extensive use of the letter "waw" as if it is a punctuation device between sentences, similar to what we see in the great reading. You don't see that in Hadith or poetry. Notice that all those mannuscripts don't have any vocalization marks and yet you are able to read them with little ambiguity, despite the fact that you are reading them for the first time and without any expectations as far as the content.
Like I said, I'm not so much concerned with the text, as texts represent what is actually spoken. Vocalization, not vocalization marks, has very high functional load in Classical Arabic. Saying vocalization has no functional load is saying that there is no real difference saying 'u' and 'a' in 'buck and back.' 'yukhriju' 'he expels or extracts' is very different in meaning from 'yakhruju' 'he leaves or exits'. I've seen Arabs equate yakhruju to yukhriju, in their attempts to speak Classical Arabic and letting their colloquials take over (where they mainly only say one form). English does have vocalization marks 'a, i, u, e,o' Vocals= Vowels, vocalization=vowelization. Consider what I'm saying here Ayman. I hope I said it clearly.
The analogy that you presented between "buck" and "back" (two different words) is false as relating to 'yukhriju' and 'yakhruju' (conjugation of the same verb). A more appropriate analogy is one of "left # 1" in "I left to work" and "left # 2" in "I left the trash outside" and "left #3" in "I turned left". In both the cases of 'yukhriju'/'yakhruju' and "left #1"/"left # 2"/"left #3" the context is what matters in resolving the meaning. Hence, if I just told you "left" you wouldn't know what I mean no more or less than if I told you 'y-kh-r-j'. Still no one is suggesting to use vocalization marks on "left" to disambiguate it.
Peace,
Ayman
-
I'm just to going to put some main points down. Please try to come to terms with these observations, as the sooner you can understand this the sooner we can make some real progress.
The same exact thing can be said about languages that don't use vocalization marks such as English
.I explained to you what vocalization is so that you wouldn't confuse the issue, as I saw you were starting to confuse it. Every language has vocalizations, because vocalizations are nothing but vowel sounds. Arabic text is one of the texts that USUALLY doesn't write them.
We can say "put the box on the table by the window" and the "box" can end up on the "the table by the window" or "the box on the table" can end up "by the window". You change the meaning because of the lack of case endings in English.
Word order, which is what you are pointing out here, has nothing to do with case endings. I think that is your point here. English doesn't have case endings, and word order is a grammar principle that languages without case endings depend on more, because you can only tell who is the subject, and what is the direct object, etc, by the order that it comes in in the sentence.
Of course, in "fusha" Arabic you wouldn't have this ambiguity because of the case endings. However, I hear no one suggesting that we should start having case endings for English because "you change the meaning"!
I'm glad you understand this. But it's not about suggesting that a language adopt case endings. It is accepting that Old-Arabic has case ending and they serve the language by clearing up this ambiguity. Every language has its own ways of dealing with ambiguity, but no language is completely free of it.
Hence, when I read a story and I encounter the sentence 'huwa yakhruj min al-baab hadha', I know whether it is 'he leaves' or 'he may/would leave' based on my intelligent reading of the context. On the other hand, you treat people as unintelligent robots who must be spoonfed the exact meaning regardless of context. This idea came about when Arabic became a sacred religious language and fo course it appeals to religious clergy.
You use your intelligence to tell what is the difference because you are following the rules of post-quranic, post-middle-age colloquial creole influenced Classical Arabic. There is currently a movement that is working to come to an accord on a Modern Arabic without case endings. This effort should make you happy, but it will never apply to the Quran. Old Arabic became a prestigious/sacred religious language because of the old-Arabic poems, fascination with the speech of the Arabs of old and the Quran. But your dislike or disdain for this language and its use of case endings has to do with you own cultural biases. Scholars tend to use Old Arabic in all of its case endings to stay more true to Old-Arabic. Because the scholars are pretentious you think that the case endings are pretentious too. That is extreme thinking. Why throw out the baby with the bathwater?
This has nothing to do with creoles and as you admit, Old Arabic itself was a creole. This has to do with the fact that the context can be easily used to resolve ambiguities and hence those case endings have very low functional load. Thus, they are a useless inconvenience and are not used.
Open your mind brother. This has everything to do with creoles, specifically the Arabic darajaat or aamiyaat (the Arabic creoles). Of course I admited that Old Arabic was a creole. But so what? What does that disprove? All languages are born as creoles. But not all creoles are made equal. The Old Creole of Old-Classical Arabic, is a creole that was established in the Arabian peninsula up until the time of the Quran and for a few centuries afterwards. It was then taken on as a literary language and a 'high' language, as other creoles between this Old-Classical Arabic and other languages (who also had their beginnings long before as creoles) continued to form into the various Arabic dialects that exist today.
The concept of Modern Arabic has to do with the reduction of the extensiveness of Classical Arabic and its words and choosing words and meanings that are more in line with commonly accepted words and meaings amongst the mainly colloquial speaking populations. So 'deen' now only means 'religion' because that is how it was used mosltly after the Quran because of Islamic circles and that is how it came to be used in the colloquials.
Again, there are similar ambiguities in English and yet no one is suggesting case endings in English to resolve them. For example, I "like annoying posters" can mean "I like to annoy posters" or "I like posters who are annoying".
This is not the issue. All languages will have ambiguities like that.
Besides chapter 55 sounds so heavy and awkward with the case endings that even scholars regularly recite it as it is supposed to be recited without the case endings.
As it is supposed to be recited in your, unfortunately very biased, view.
But it is precisely in oral form where we see that many passages in the great reading do not flow smoothly with the case endings and thus many researchers have concluded that there were originally no case endings. Even those who oppose this and the most vehement defenders of vocalization marks routinely recite such passages without the case endings. So from an oral form point of view, there is no basis for case endings being part of the original recitation.
Again you are looking at the issue with your biased lenses and expecting me to take it for granted that you have the right prescription. Why do you insist on looking at Old-Classical Arabic from and Modern/Colloquially influenced Arabic? I understand that sometimes the colloquals resemble Old-Classical Arabic in ways that Modern "fus-haa" doesn't. But the colloquials definitely don't resemple Old-Arabic in how they ignore case endings, vowel placings and Old-Arabic conjugations and forms (the awzaan). Just because the grammarians had to invent names for these phenomenons doesn't mean that they made them up. Scientists have to invent names for natural processes all the time so that they can reference it, classify it correctly and teach it. Like all people they can make mistakes, but they don't have to be liars just because they invented the nomenclature. The original recitations are what are in the vowel texts, because the recitiations were recited. Old-Arabic texts didn't have vowels, meaning that the scribes had no way to write the vowels sounds that they were hearing from the reciters. Imagine if English didn't have the letters 'a,i, o,e, u'. So I would write like this ' y r hr t sy hll t m mthr' but what I say, all the time, is 'yoo ar heer too sai hellow tu mai mothur' or 'you are here to say hello to my mother'. No matter how I write it, vowels are always pronounced in every langauge. If you take the texts as the original recitations you would have 'hw allah al-ahd al-smd lm yld w lm ywwld' all in consonants, instead of a clear huwa allaahul-ahadusamawdu lam yalid wa lam yoolad' And there would be no way to tell if yukhrij or yakhrij are the same, context doesn't always work as sometimes millions of possibilities can fit into a context. Ahmad ykhrju al-bait min al-mintaqati could be that Ahmad is taking the house out of the neiborhood or it could be that he is leaving the house. If it's ykhrija or ykhrij, he might be moving it, and it is not something that is definitely going to happen. Ayman you can be happy with your context guessing, but Old-Classical Arabic had done away with that with the use of case endings. What you are doing is like trying to undestand Old-Greek through new-Greek just because they are both called greek and the the second derives heavily from the first.
When it comes to the papyri as opposed to the Hadeeth and the poems, are you talking about style or grammar, because although they might have different styles they all follow the same grammar. Case endings are highly helpful and far from useless. In this case you would rather make your grammar right over the truth of the Quran. Do you have some wish to be able to interpret the Quran without case endings so that you can have more control over how ou can understand the verses of the Quran? That is the only real reason behind which I see you trying to deny the truth that these case endings are an embedded part of Classical Arabic. The difference between yukhrij and yakhruj is the awzaan and is like the difference between tick and tack, both of them stick into something but they mean two different things, and these words are related as well. But English doesn't have the same system of measures or forms that Classical Arabic does.
Godbless,
Anwar -
Danish, quick question If you don't accept Al-quraan's allegations, what makes you so certain of what 'islamic scholars' say? thanks
Who's talking about certainty in what only 'islamic scholars' has to say? Perhaps your question needs rephrasing and the answer an elaborated one, but I will summarize.
The conjugated and collaborated findings from both external and internal relevancy of Quran speaks for itself. It is 1400+ years old book to begin with, which makes it historical/antique and that doesn't need scholarly advice. This book's "origin" must be studied and acknowledged in order to comprehend the who's, how's and what's of it back then, only to read, understand and reflect upon it. The Quran consists of its prior, the then present and continuous form in which it was presented/conveyed/narrated to THEIR PEOPLE IN THEIR TIMES (as talked about), not to mention the repetition of equivocal events which leads to contradictions, the inconsistencies of presentation and overall layout of meccan and medinan surahs and verses, etc. All you and others do is pick and choose only those verses that suits the "then present and continuous form" narrated back then to automatically become enforced and apprehensible to suit our present times without giving much thought, which to some extent becomes applicable and some impertinent. Take any old book for that matter and pick out the sentences that are in ?continuous present form? and viola, it becomes our present form. Quran is a man-made entity and anything that is man-made CANNOT become GOD-made.
-
Peace Anwar,
I'm just to going to put some main points down. Please try to come to terms with these observations, as the sooner you can understand this the sooner we can make some real progress.
But what you are making are not neutral observations. They are opinions and conclusions. One can make observations of the evidence. The only physical evidence that we have are the manuscripts from the era (both quranic and non-quranic manuscripts).
I explained to you what vocalization is so that you wouldn't confuse the issue, as I saw you were starting to confuse it. Every language has vocalizations, because vocalizations are nothing but vowel sounds. Arabic text is one of the texts that USUALLY doesn't write them.
So do other Semitic languages. Yet no one is suggesting that those other languages are incomprehensible without those marks.
Word order, which is what you are pointing out here, has nothing to do with case endings. I think that is your point here. English doesn't have case endings, and word order is a grammar principle that languages without case endings depend on more, because you can only tell who is the subject, and what is the direct object, etc, by the order that it comes in in the sentence.
No. It is not about word order. The word order in the English example that I gave is the same in both cases but can be understood differently.
Of course, in "fusha" Arabic you wouldn't have this ambiguity because of the case endings. However, I hear no one suggesting that we should start having case endings for English because "you change the meaning"!
I'm glad you understand this. But it's not about suggesting that a language adopt case endings. It is accepting that Old-Arabic has case ending and they serve the language by clearing up this ambiguity. Every language has its own ways of dealing with ambiguity, but no language is completely free of it.
Some ambiguity is a natural and acceptable part of any human language. Usually such ambiguities are easily resolved with an intelligent reading of the context. What you are suggesting (zero ambiguity) is unnatural as you admit.
Hence, when I read a story and I encounter the sentence 'huwa yakhruj min al-baab hadha', I know whether it is 'he leaves' or 'he may/would leave' based on my intelligent reading of the context. On the other hand, you treat people as unintelligent robots who must be spoonfed the exact meaning regardless of context. This idea came about when Arabic became a sacred religious language and fo course it appeals to religious clergy.
You use your intelligence to tell what is the difference because you are following the rules of post-quranic, post-middle-age colloquial creole influenced Classical Arabic. There is currently a movement that is working to come to an accord on a Modern Arabic without case endings. This effort should make you happy, but it will never apply to the Quran. Old Arabic became a prestigious/sacred religious language because of the old-Arabic poems, fascination with the speech of the Arabs of old and the Quran. But your dislike or disdain for this language and its use of case endings has to do with you own cultural biases. Scholars tend to use Old Arabic in all of its case endings to stay more true to Old-Arabic. Because the scholars are pretentious you think that the case endings are pretentious too. That is extreme thinking. Why throw out the baby with the bathwater?
This has nothing to do with "post-middle-age colloquial creole influenced Classical Arabic". As they say, the truth is in the pudding. If YOU and I are able to read first century AH manuscripts devoid of ANY vocalization marks (see the link that I provided in my previous post) 14 centuries later with no problem, then you can be sure that 1400 years ago vocalization marks had very low functional load.
This is empirical observation that we can see, verify and experience for ourselves. On the other hand, what you are saying is a guess based on the traditional view of so-called Fusha Arabic or the existence of a parallel poetic formalized language.
Open your mind brother. This has everything to do with creoles, specifically the Arabic darajaat or aamiyaat (the Arabic creoles). Of course I admited that Old Arabic was a creole. But so what? What does that disprove? All languages are born as creoles. But not all creoles are made equal. The Old Creole of Old-Classical Arabic, is a creole that was established in the Arabian peninsula up until the time of the Quran and for a few centuries afterwards. It was then taken on as a literary language and a 'high' language, as other creoles between this Old-Classical Arabic and other languages (who also had their beginnings long before as creoles) continued to form into the various Arabic dialects that exist today.
This "high" language is the Fusha Arabic language, which you confuse with Old Arabic. The Old Arabic language was not Fusha as can be seen from those early manuscripts.
The concept of Modern Arabic has to do with the reduction of the extensiveness of Classical Arabic and its words and choosing words and meanings that are more in line with commonly accepted words and meaings amongst the mainly colloquial speaking populations. So 'deen' now only means 'religion' because that is how it was used mosltly after the Quran because of Islamic circles and that is how it came to be used in the colloquials.
The word "deen" also means religion in Fusha Arabic. On the other hand, it doesn't mean religion in the great reading. You need to apply what you are saying not just to vocabulary but also to grammar.
Again, there are similar ambiguities in English and yet no one is suggesting case endings in English to resolve them. For example, I "like annoying posters" can mean "I like to annoy posters" or "I like posters who are annoying".
This is not the issue. All languages will have ambiguities like that.
No this is precisely the issue because while you admit that all languages have ambiguities like that, you want to impose an artificial case ending system that attempts to completely disambiguate Old Arabic. As you admit, this is unnatural. This whole idea is based on the false premise that Nomadic Arabic tribes used such cumbersome system. This was in turn based on the romanticization by urbanites of anything that comes from the desert. Such tales may appeal to you but I don't see that desert nomads were any more or less eloquent or precise than others, if anything quite the opposite.
Besides chapter 55 sounds so heavy and awkward with the case endings that even scholars regularly recite it as it is supposed to be recited without the case endings.
As it is supposed to be recited in your, unfortunately very biased, view.
It is not a biased view. The chapter doesn't flow and is hard on the ears with the case endings. Even without understanding Arabic, anyone who appreciates rhythm can see this fact. This is a phenomenon present in much of the great reading. On the other hand, in alleged pre-quranic poetry (which is really not pre-quranic), you see the exact opposite. You see that case endings are an integral part of the rhyme and flow of the poem.
But it is precisely in oral form where we see that many passages in the great reading do not flow smoothly with the case endings and thus many researchers have concluded that there were originally no case endings. Even those who oppose this and the most vehement defenders of vocalization marks routinely recite such passages without the case endings. So from an oral form point of view, there is no basis for case endings being part of the original recitation.
Again you are looking at the issue with your biased lenses and expecting me to take it for granted that you have the right prescription. Why do you insist on looking at Old-Classical Arabic from and Modern/Colloquially influenced Arabic? I understand that sometimes the colloquals resemble Old-Classical Arabic in ways that Modern "fus-haa" doesn't. But the colloquials definitely don't resemple Old-Arabic in how they ignore case endings, vowel placings and Old-Arabic conjugations and forms (the awzaan). Just because the grammarians had to invent names for these phenomenons doesn't mean that they made them up. Scientists have to invent names for natural processes all the time so that they can reference it, classify it correctly and teach it. Like all people they can make mistakes, but they don't have to be liars just because they invented the nomenclature. The original recitations are what are in the vowel texts, because the recitiations were recited. Old-Arabic texts didn't have vowels, meaning that the scribes had no way to write the vowels sounds that they were hearing from the reciters. Imagine if English didn't have the letters 'a,i, o,e, u'. So I would write like this ' y r hr t sy hll t m mthr' but what I say, all the time, is 'yoo ar heer too sai hellow tu mai mothur' or 'you are here to say hello to my mother'. No matter how I write it, vowels are always pronounced in every langauge. If you take the texts as the original recitations you would have 'hw allah al-ahd al-smd lm yld w lm ywwld' all in consonants, instead of a clear huwa allaahul-ahadusamawdu lam yalid wa lam yoolad' And there would be no way to tell if yukhrij or yakhrij are the same, context doesn't always work as sometimes millions of possibilities can fit into a context. Ahmad ykhrju al-bait min al-mintaqati could be that Ahmad is taking the house out of the neiborhood or it could be that he is leaving the house. If it's ykhrija or ykhrij, he might be moving it, and it is not something that is definitely going to happen. Ayman you can be happy with your context guessing, but Old-Classical Arabic had done away with that with the use of case endings. What you are doing is like trying to undestand Old-Greek through new-Greek just because they are both called greek and the the second derives heavily from the first.
I think that the evidence speaks for itself. I am not biased because a long time ago I used to think like you that vocalization marks are an essential part of the text. Since then, I progressed and learned otherwise.
What you are saying about vowels applies to other Semitic languages. Yet no one is suggesting that languages such as Sabaic had vocalization marks. People just knew how to pronounce the word like English speakers know how to pronounce the O in "once" as a WA (not O) without vocalization marks.
The gradual appearence of vocalization marks over the span of a couple of hundred of years between the 3rd and the 4th centuries AH suggests that there was no full vocalization system already in place that people merely started to note on paper.
When it comes to the papyri as opposed to the Hadeeth and the poems, are you talking about style or grammar, because although they might have different styles they all follow the same grammar. Case endings are highly helpful and far from useless. In this case you would rather make your grammar right over the truth of the Quran. Do you have some wish to be able to interpret the Quran without case endings so that you can have more control over how ou can understand the verses of the Quran? That is the only real reason behind which I see you trying to deny the truth that these case endings are an embedded part of Classical Arabic. The difference between yukhrij and yakhruj is the awzaan and is like the difference between tick and tack, both of them stick into something but they mean two different things, and these words are related as well. But English doesn't have the same system of measures or forms that Classical Arabic does.
If you say that they follow the same grammar then the fact that you can understand those ancient papyri despite the complete absence of vocalization marks proves that vocalization marks have very low functional load. As I said, the truth is in the empirically verifiable NOT in opinions. This is empirically verifiable. Your Hadeeth and Poems are much later than those papyri. We can't find any Hadith or poem on papyri for at least another couple of hundred of years.
I am only after the truth. If the original great reading didn't have case endings then be it and if it did then it is fine too. So far, all the evidence points to it not originally having case endings. What are the implications? I don't know to what extent it will change our understanding, if any. One passage that immediately comes to mind is the one at the beginning of Chapter 30 where an alternate more logical meaning is more probable in the context without the vocalization marks.
Peace,
Ayman
-
Danish Who's talking about certainty in what only 'islamic scholars' has to say? Perhaps your question needs rephrasing and the answer an elaborated one, but I will summarize.
Great. Here's an example instead
DanishBoth Islamic tradition and Western scholars agree that there was no complete collection of the revelation during the Prophet's lifetime, but there were fragments of all kinds of material, on which parts of the messages were recorded.I ask you, why do you believe this 'islamic tradition and western scholars'? If al-quraan were to deny this allegation, whom would you believe and why?
The conjugated and collaborated findings from both external and internal relevancy of Quran speaks for itself. It is 1400+ years old book to begin with, which makes it historical/antique and that doesn't need scholarly advice.
Being 'antique' as you put it doesn't make something 'historical' (if by historical you mean its content points to a narrative prior to ourselves). Would you call a maths book from the 1950s to be 'historical'? In the same way, al-quraan deals with constants but uses unseen narratives (nabaaul ghaib) to convey its points.
This book's "origin" must be studied and acknowledged in order to comprehend the who's, how's and what's of it back then, only to read, understand and reflect upon it.
Must be studied? That's a personal judgement. The book itself clearly repudiates any such attempts. As for the 'whos, hows and whats', if an example of these is the quote at the top of this post, then you should know that there are dozens of versions of these stories.
The Quran consists of its prior, the then present and continuous form in which it was presented/conveyed/narrated to THEIR PEOPLE IN THEIR TIMES (as talked about),
I'm sure it was, but it asserts to its reader that it alone is enough to fulfil its mission. How someone else understood it isn't my business, especially if that person's dead and I have no way of knowing if that person really did understand it as such.
not to mention the repetition of equivocal events which leads to contradictions, the inconsistencies of presentation and overall layout of meccan and medinan surahs and verses, etc.
May I ask you, which VERSION of the meccan/medinan scheme are you picking from? You know that there are many. No need to dig deep, just look at Von Denfer's 'ulum al-quraan' and you'll see the many versions.
All you and others do is pick and choose only those verses that suits the "then present and continuous form" narrated back then to automatically become enforced and apprehensible to suit our present times without giving much thought, which to some extent becomes applicable and some impertinent.
Correction What I do is read al-quraan as if its being revealed to me today. Whatever I read are signs which point to signs in my horizon and my self. This is what gives me faith in the book, its continous connection to a reality of a person a human author could never have known.
If you find that impertinent, what more can I say. Good luck to you in what you choose instead.
Take any old book for that matter and pick out the sentences that are in ?continuous present form? and viola, it becomes our present form. Quran is a man-made entity and anything that is man-made CANNOT become GOD-made.
If you mean 'man-authored', then I respect your assertion but I ask you to look over your analysis if you like. It's making some unfounded assumptions.
-
Salaam all,
Bro AB, could you please translate the arabic articles you posted? My arabic is read only (
Quran verse 4144
I can "read" the above verse.
But I cannot "read" the latter one.
My question for those who speak arabic (it has nothing to do with verse 4144)
- Which text do you prefer to read?
- How much can the latter cause divergencies among the readers?
-
If they read it like the above it is mainly because they are already familiar with what it says. The lack writing vowels can create confusion even amongst Arabs. Alot of Arabs learn the Quran as children. So I'm not sure if you'll get the answer you want. You'll have to question Arabs who didn't learn the Quran as children, or Christian or Jewish Arabs to see how they would vowel this passage when they read it. I'm looking forward to see if there are any Arabs here who didn't have Quranic school as children and who would answer you honestly.
Godbless,
Anwar -
I agree with brother Anwar that you might get a biased answer because people here are already familiar with the passage. What you can do is give people Arabic texts without vocalization marks that they have never read before. For example, give them early Arabic manuscripts to read (all early Arabic manuscripts didn't have vocalization marks). I already gave the following link to brother Anwar
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/
You can see many documents there such as
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/enlp12.html
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/enlp13.html
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/enlp14.html
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/enlp15.htmlIf you can read the above ancient documents that have no vocalization marks, then you must agree that vocalization marks had very low functional load back then. This is an empirically verifiable fact that you can experience for yourself no matter what people say.
Peace,
Ayman
-
Salaam all,
Bro AB, could you please translate the arabic articles you posted? My arabic is read only (
Quran verse 4144
I can "read" the above verse.
But I cannot "read" the latter one.
My question for those who speak arabic (it has nothing to do with verse 4144)
- Which text do you prefer to read?
- How much can the latter cause divergencies among the readers?
Good Morning Andy
It is 530 AM sydney time and I promise i will translate it in the bery near future, as i have been flat out, the article is simple refuting the Sabin and Sabun alleged grammar error, and the one who wrote the article is a top class arabic language professional as well a minister in the egyptian government, please be patiet with me and i will translate
regarding your question or which one is easier to read, mate, an arabic native speaker can read both with ease, in fact a native arabic speaker does not need the tashkil to read arabic, the context can be used to figure out the pronounciation
cheers
-
Danish Who's talking about certainty in what only 'islamic scholars' has to say? Perhaps your question needs rephrasing and the answer an elaborated one, but I will summarize.
Great. Here's an example instead
DanishBoth Islamic tradition and Western scholars agree that there was no complete collection of the revelation during the Prophet's lifetime, but there were fragments of all kinds of material, on which parts of the messages were recorded.You conveniently added my name to someone else?s quote I provided. That was a reference to ?check it out? for which I gave the link, in case you didn?t bother to check it out. That was just one link and several other findings point in the same direction. Besides, if it wasn?t for the worldly scholars and other scientists and historians of both past and present to bring about such discourses in evaluating and determining the development of Quran, where else would you look for? Would you expect any Tom, Dick and Harry on streets to give you answers?
I ask you, why do you believe this 'islamic tradition and western scholars'? If al-quraan were to deny this allegation, whom would you believe and why?
Once again, you misquote and twist words. First you ask me a question to ascertain ?certainty? having ONLY the words ?islamic scholars? as in If you don't accept Al-quraan's allegations, what makes you so certain of what 'islamic scholars' say? and then you twist around to add ?western scholars? and remove the word ?certain?, as in I ask you, why do you believe this 'islamic tradition and western scholars'? If al-quraan were to deny this allegation, whom would you believe and why?. You not only make yourself confused but twist and play games with words to bring about further confusion.
Now the other part of your question which states
If al-quraan were to deny this allegation, whom would you believe and why?
Deny what allegation, such as?Being 'antique' as you put it doesn't make something 'historical' (if by historical you mean its content points to a narrative prior to ourselves).
Antique Belonging to, made in, or typical of an earlier period. Of or belonging to ancient times.
Historical Of or relating to the character of history. Based on or concerned with events in history.Antique and historical are symmetrically and synonymously interlocked. What are you talking about and why such deviations from subject matter, nitpicking on words? Do you have anything substantial to talk about?
Would you call a maths book from the 1950s to be 'historical'? In the same way, al-quraan deals with constants but uses unseen narratives (nabaaul ghaib) to convey its points.
Comparing a math book to a religious book is baseless and unwarranted, rather a dodo. You might as well believe in code 19, code 7, code 666, etc. An event, circumstance or an order/command in quran are not constants (once again depending on what verses you pick and choose) but 2+2=4, square root of 9 = 3, 2 to the power 3 = 8, are. Your understanding of Quran is [minus (?) LOL to the power 10) is variable.
Must be studied? That's a personal judgement. The book itself clearly repudiates any such attempts.
And the book itself asks to verify the self ?authenticated repudiated attempts, which brings the whos, hows and whats of it. Notice the contradiction.I'm sure it was, but it asserts to its reader that it alone is enough to fulfil its mission. How someone else understood it isn't my business, especially if that person's dead and I have no way of knowing if that person really did understand it as such.
Any similar books or handful of books (historical or recent) can be read, understood and reflected upon to fulfill ones? mission. NO biggie there. I?m sorry to say, the entire Quran is not by any means for all times and one can extract plentiful of verses out this antique book put together by men, only to find its relations to our times.
May I ask you, which VERSION of the meccan/medinan scheme are you picking from? You know that there are many. No need to dig deep, just look at Von Denfer's 'ulum al-quraan' and you'll see the many versions.
Do you even know which surahs are Meccan and which are Medinan? Do you know that in Meccan surahs there are Medinian verses mixed in and vise-versa? Do you also know that the entire Quran is a mish-mash of its literal presentation, meaning not consistent with its precise revelation? And finally, do you know that even the message has the implications of being altered by the very men who took efforts to put the methods of its collection and compilation in a book form, by its very grammatical lexicography, vocalization and vowelizing?
Correction What I do is read al-quraan as if its being revealed to me today. Whatever I read are signs which point to signs in my horizon and my self. This is what gives me faith in the book, its continous connection to a reality of a person a human author could never have known.
That is your dogmatic and corrupted view. Faith and belief in truth is not dependent entirely on Quran. As mentioned earlier, one can pick and choose the phrases and sentences out of any historical/antique book and make it happen. It is as simple as that.
If you mean 'man-authored', then I respect your assertion but I ask you to look over your analysis if you like. It's making some unfounded assumptions.
I have read studied and exercised much reason and logic as to what Quran is all about, both internally and externally. Quran IS and will remain man-authored in which it speaks. There?s no doubt about it and there?s nothing you or anyone can do about that, but live your ?divine wonderland? in blind faith. Enough said.
Finally, if one were to collect and collate some of most beautiful wisdom quotes in a book form, it will become far, far superior to Quran. A thousand years from now people may call such a book, GOD?s Words. Do you know why this book will exceed in its superiority over Quran???
-
DanishYou conveniently added my name to someone else?s quote I provided.
ADD your name? YOU quoted it!
Try to be reponsible. If you quote it, then please don't expect to not be associated with it.That was a reference to ?check it out? for which I gave the link, in case you didn?t bother to check it out. That was just one link and several other findings point in the same direction. Besides, if it wasn?t for the worldly scholars and other scientists and historians of both past and present to bring about such discourses in evaluating and determining the development of Quran, where else would you look for? Would you expect any Tom, Dick and Harry on streets to give you answers?
Ah, the new Sunnism rears its head!
Sunnis If you don't learn from the scholars of Islamica, how can you understand al-quraan?
Danish If you don't learn from the 'both muslim and western scholars', how can you know of the historicity of al-quraan (as per Danish's 'This book's "origin" must be studied and acknowledged in order to comprehend the who's, how's and what's of it back then, only to read, understand and reflect upon it.)
Well, Al-quraan has set out for its reader a method of acquisition of meaning. Your biasness prevents you from accepting it.
Once again, you misquote and twist words. First you ask me a question to ascertain ?certainty? having ONLY the words ?islamic scholars? as in If you don't accept Al-quraan's allegations, what makes you so certain of what 'islamic scholars' say? and then you twist around to add ?western scholars? and remove the word ?certain?, as in I ask you, why do you believe this 'islamic tradition and western scholars'? If al-quraan were to deny this allegation, whom would you believe and why?. You not only make yourself confused but twist and play games with words to bring about further confusion
A typical Danish response. If you can't answer Danish, just say so.
Fact remains You accept your quote. You do not accept Al-quraan's rejection of your quote. I ask Why?
Can you let the discussion be about knowledge as opposed to being an exercise in your ego's aggrandisement?
Deny what allegation, such as?
Well for one thing, the study of its 'historicity'. It clearly asserts that it's detailed and that no other text is necessary for its acceptance and conveyance of its guidance.
Antique Belonging to, made in, or typical of an earlier period. Of or belonging to ancient times.
Historical Of or relating to the character of history. Based on or concerned with events in history.Antique and historical are symmetrically and synonymously interlocked. What are you talking about and why such deviations from subject matter, nitpicking on words? Do you have anything substantial to talk about?
Well then, if you apply the adjective 'historical' to al-quraan, you would be wrong because al-quraan asserts that it's contains the mentioning of its reader (see 21/10, look for phrase 'dhikrkum'.
Comparing a math book to a religious book is baseless and unwarranted, rather a dodo. You might as well believe in code 19, code 7, code 666, etc. An event, circumstance or an order/command in quran are not constants (once again depending on what verses you pick and choose) but 2+2=4, square root of 9 = 3, 2 to the power 3 = 8, are. Your understanding of Quran is [minus (?) LOL to the power 10) is variable.
Good, stick to the ad homoniems. You're best at that. Give up the polemic game and go do stand up. The guy pelting tomatos at you would be me.
I used mathematics to build the following analogy
Mathematics contains a set of propositions given the right conditions, are true any time and any place.
Al-quraan contains a set of proposition about the human condition that are just as true at any time and place.Any similar books or handful of books (historical or recent) can be read, understood and reflected upon to fulfill ones? mission. NO biggie there. I?m sorry to say, the entire Quran is not by any means for all times and one can extract plentiful of verses out this antique book put together by men, only to find its relations to our times
If you don't get it, that's fair enough. I'm quite tickled though, by how you keep quoting suralikeit.com but don't know a single word of its content. I hear the sound of scraping....
I have read studied and exercised much reason and logic as to what Quran is all about, both internally and externally. Quran IS and will remain man-authored in which it speaks. There?s no doubt about it and there?s nothing you or anyone can do about that, but live your ?divine wonderland? in blind faith. Enough said.
Ok, peace in your journey. A word of advice, when you read al-quraan, open your eyes. Asking questions about inheritance laws betrays a pathetic analysis.
Finally, if one were to collect and collate some of most beautiful wisdom quotes in a book form, it will become far, far superior to Quran. A thousand years from now people may call such a book, GOD?s Words. Do you know why this book will exceed in its superiority over Quran???
I don't dwell in thousand-year scenario but I can see why you do and follow 'both muslim and western scholars'. You can't think for yourself. Oh well, good luck to you.
-
Sometimes I'll write a beautiful reply and something goes wrong and I have to write it over again. Something I know will not be as good as the first. This happened to me yesterday when I was responding to Ayman. So I'm going to suck it up and try to write something that somewhat resembles what I wrote before.
I'm just going to make some points on where I disagree with you
-
now one is trying to say that other languages need case endings because they don't have them. All I'm saying is that Old-Arabic had them and you can't disprove that.
-
Old Arabic is Traditionial Classical Arabic and it is not pretentious just because pretentious scholars are mostly the ones who utilize this language.
-
Just because a text doesn't write vowels is not proof that they don't exist. In the word kasara there are no fat-has written in the Arabic but you still say them. So how is it that you would try to prove that the word is just kasar when the two fathas that you pronouce aren't written either. Don't you think that that is hypocritical and intellectual dishonest?
-
Pointing to the early history of a script when it was still developing and didn't even have way to distinguish non-vowel consonants like 'ra' and 'za' or 'jeem', 'haa' and 'meem' is only going to undermine your points and your opinion in the eyes of those who know better. In those old scripts that you point to as proof that there were no case endings in Arabic there is also no difference between khalaq or halaqa, because there were no dots to distinguish the jeem, or khaas. So would you conclude that the reading of khalaqa is really halaqa in Old-Arabic? Why do you use their oe-side, biased conclusion to try to prove wrong points?
-
The corruption of Classical Arabic into dialects and even Modern Classical Arabic is a reduction of the words into roots, using foreign or simple forms. So of course if you know how to read and are familiar with alot of Arabic roots (from your colloquial or from a dictionary) you can figure out what those old texts are saying. But what I don't understand is why you are exposing those facts that I just put above? The fact that old texts habitually didn't use dots to distinguish between key letters. There was no way to recognize the difference between qaf and fa either.
Now if I saw a texts that say Alllah khala(mystery letter)man. I could understand it from context as 'God created creation.' but I could als interpret it as 'God will take man's place.' Yeah you can guess, and some people can guess write, but reading is not about figuring out how to guess right which is why the Arabic texts developled to be able to write vowels, especially to keep people from trying to mistinerpret the Quran on purpose because of a lack of clarity in the Arabic writing system.
Whether you would like to believe it or not Arabic in its early stages was preserved through oral traditons (Quran memorization schools), poetry schools, etc. old-Arabic speech always had case endings and vowels. The grammarians did their best to classify the rules of this language but just because they were subject to make mistakes doesn't mean that their works shouldn't be trusted or was fabricated (only to be imitated by later scholars). Don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
Last but no leastly, I wonder if you are doing this so that you can open up the Quran to purposeful distortion, or if the idea that the Arabic of Old is not the Arabic of now disturbs your sense of nationality and of belonging to a long, preserved tradition of Arabic, because you find these case endings foreign, alien or frustrating.
Old Arabic depending on these case endings, and that has nothing to do with Hebrew or Aramaic or any other semetic language. Amaharic uses vowels and its a semtic language as well. The writing of Arabic came out of an elitist writing culture of the Hebrews, where text were memorized and the texts only served as a general guide (most people couln't read anyway). It is because of this Judeo tradition that Arabic doesn't like to use vowels and expects a certain education level and mental acuity of it readers.
Good or bad the possible distortions that can happen in any given text from a reader were eliminated with the Quran an dthat is why it was vowelled completely. But that is the writing system. Old Arabs always spoke with these case endings and vowels, and as Arabic became more influenced by other languages the misunderstading of these case endings became more and more widespread, which is why they are preferably not used, because Modern Arabs often make mistakes with these case endings.
As it concerns Modern Arabic, which is a reduction of Old-Arabic there are two camps. On camp wants Modern Arabic to follow all of the rules, vowel wise as traditional Classical Arabic, this is the traditional camp. The new camp wants to do away with all case endings, and accept all modern meanings. I don't have an opinion of whether this is good or not, but my job is to make clear the difference between pure Old-Arabic, Traditional Classical Arabic, Modern Classical Arabic and Colloquials. I can see that you have ideas from both of these camps in your head buty you are trying to make modern Classical Arabic, traditial classical Arabic, by denying facts. In doing so, you are trying to change the language by claiming that most of Arabic grammar is a figment of grammarians imaginations. This is wrong. So I will never agree with you, because I know better. I hope no one comes to believe you, and I hope you realize your error.
I know you hate the fact that I use the word 'creole colloquial Arabics', and distinguish it so stronly from Traditional Classical Arabic but your ideas can only be accepted if you deny evidence and I am not willing to do that and will do my bes to make sure people understand what you are hiding to make your conclusions.
Godbless,
Anwar -
-
Peace Anwar,
I'm just going to make some points on where I disagree with you
I was hoping that you would have first pointed out the points where we agree. I think that there is probably a lot more that we agree on than what we disagree on.
- now one is trying to say that other languages need case endings because they don't have them. All I'm saying is that Old-Arabic had them and you can't disprove that.
First of all, let me say that there is no 100% way to prove your or my assertions because we don't have recordings of people speech from 1400 years ago. We can only make inferences based on the physical evidence to propose various scenarios. At the end, we can only say that a certain scenario is more likely than the other one.
The scenario that Old Arabic and hence the great reading had case endings is disproved by comparing the post-quranic invented Jahilya poetry and the great reading. You see that case endings are an integral part of the rhyme of poetry but not of the great reading. Quite the opposite, you see case endings distracting from the underlying rhyme and eloquent flow of the great reading. So we can conclude that the most likely scenario is that the great reading was vocalized without case endings.
- Old Arabic is Traditionial Classical Arabic and it is not pretentious just because pretentious scholars are mostly the ones who utilize this language.
Chapter 55 without the case endings has a naturally flowing recitation with a beautiful rhyme that is appreciated by everyone, even those who don't know Arabic. When you forgo this nicely flowing and smooth recitation for a heavy sounding non-eloquent recitation then this is prententious. In fact, it is so prententious that even pretentious scholars don't do it. Yet here you come and propose that we recite it with the case endings for no reason other than to conform to your idea of how vital case endings were 1400 years ago.
- Just because a text doesn't write vowels is not proof that they don't exist. In the word kasara there are no fat-has written in the Arabic but you still say them. So how is it that you would try to prove that the word is just kasar when the two fathas that you pronouce aren't written either. Don't you think that that is hypocritical and intellectual dishonest?
We can equally say that just because the English text doesn't write WA in "once" is no proof that the sound WA doesn't exist. In the word ONCE there is no WA written in small letters over the O but you still say it. So how do you prove that "once" is pronounced WANCE and not O-NCE? Would you accuse me of being "hypocritical and intellectual dishonest" for pronouncing it as WANCE despite the absence of vocalization marks to show us that this is how it is pronounced?
We regularly read Arabic words that don't have vocalization marks and that we have seen for the first time without any difficulty. This is why people didn't write vocalization marks 1400 years ago as evident from manuscripts and they don't write them now. They are cumbersome and useless. The pronounciation can be easily figured out from the context.
-
Pointing to the early history of a script when it was still developing and didn't even have way to distinguish non-vowel consonants like 'ra' and 'za' or 'jeem', 'haa' and 'meem' is only going to undermine your points and your opinion in the eyes of those who know better. In those old scripts that you point to as proof that there were no case endings in Arabic there is also no difference between khalaq or halaqa, because there were no dots to distinguish the jeem, or khaas. So would you conclude that the reading of khalaqa is really halaqa in Old-Arabic? Why do you use their oe-side, biased conclusion to try to prove wrong points?
-
The corruption of Classical Arabic into dialects and even Modern Classical Arabic is a reduction of the words into roots, using foreign or simple forms. So of course if you know how to read and are familiar with alot of Arabic roots (from your colloquial or from a dictionary) you can figure out what those old texts are saying. But what I don't understand is why you are exposing those facts that I just put above? The fact that old texts habitually didn't use dots to distinguish between key letters. There was no way to recognize the difference between qaf and fa either.
Now if I saw a texts that say Alllah khala(mystery letter)man. I could understand it from context as 'God created creation.' but I could als interpret it as 'God will take man's place.' Yeah you can guess, and some people can guess write, but reading is not about figuring out how to guess right which is why the Arabic texts developled to be able to write vowels, especially to keep people from trying to mistinerpret the Quran on purpose because of a lack of clarity in the Arabic writing system.
You are mistaken. In the early manuscripts that I showed you there are diacritical dots. For example, you will see that the name "Qr(t)" has two dots on the Q from F. However, what you see is that diacritical dots are added sparingly because they were only used when there is a risk of ambiguity. Do not confuse the issue with the vocalization marks with that of the dotting. In fact, there are pre-quranic inscriptions that have dotting that date as early as 267CE
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/raqush.html
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/jramm.html
http//www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/sakaka.htmlWhether you would like to believe it or not Arabic in its early stages was preserved through oral traditons (Quran memorization schools), poetry schools, etc. old-Arabic speech always had case endings and vowels. The grammarians did their best to classify the rules of this language but just because they were subject to make mistakes doesn't mean that their works shouldn't be trusted or was fabricated (only to be imitated by later scholars). Don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
I have nothing against grammar and I think that it is definitely useful. What I am against is using vocalization marks as the only proof for a certain interpretation regardless of context.
As for "preserving the Arabic language through oral tradition", I don't think that there was a tradition of preserving the sounds of Arabic language no more than there is a tradition of preserving that 'once" is pronounced "wance". People just agree at a certain point of time on a certain standard for communication. We don't even know exactly how the consonantal text sounded. For example, the Q could have been sounded as G so "qalb" (heart) could have been "galb" back then. Similarly, there are indications that the K was sounded as Ch.
Last but no leastly, I wonder if you are doing this so that you can open up the Quran to purposeful distortion, or if the idea that the Arabic of Old is not the Arabic of now disturbs your sense of nationality and of belonging to a long, preserved tradition of Arabic, because you find these case endings foreign, alien or frustrating.
There is no motivation other than finding the most likely scenario.
Old Arabic depending on these case endings, and that has nothing to do with Hebrew or Aramaic or any other semetic language. Amaharic uses vowels and its a semtic language as well. The writing of Arabic came out of an elitist writing culture of the Hebrews, where text were memorized and the texts only served as a general guide (most people couln't read anyway). It is because of this Judeo tradition that Arabic doesn't like to use vowels and expects a certain education level and mental acuity of it readers.
Arabic was written using various scripts such as Nabataen and Musnad scripts long before it became a prestige script. There is no evidence of Arabic being written in Hebrew script.
Other Semitic languages don't use vocalization marks either and rely heavily on consonantal text. For example, you will see that Sabaic and Safaitic are very similar to Arabic in that regards. Also, Western Semitic languages such as Aramaic and Nabataean Aramaic make scarce use of vowels too.
People are able to routinely read Arabic texts that they have seen for the first time without any difficulty regardless of their "education level and mental acuity". This is reality so quit trying to erect a language barrier.
Good or bad the possible distortions that can happen in any given text from a reader were eliminated with the Quran and that is why it was vowelled completely. But that is the writing system. Old Arabs always spoke with these case endings and vowels, and as Arabic became more influenced by other languages the misunderstading of these case endings became more and more widespread, which is why they are preferably not used, because Modern Arabs often make mistakes with these case endings.
Vocalization marks appeared late and were added gradually over the span of hundreds of years. If there was already a system where Old Arabs always spoke with the case endings and vocalization marks, this wouldn't have been so late and gradual. So again the most likely scenario is that the vocalization system underwent gradual development and refinement until it became what it is.
As it concerns Modern Arabic, which is a reduction of Old-Arabic there are two camps. On camp wants Modern Arabic to follow all of the rules, vowel wise as traditional Classical Arabic, this is the traditional camp. The new camp wants to do away with all case endings, and accept all modern meanings. I don't have an opinion of whether this is good or not, but my job is to make clear the difference between pure Old-Arabic, Traditional Classical Arabic, Modern Classical Arabic and Colloquials. I can see that you have ideas from both of these camps in your head buty you are trying to make modern Classical Arabic, traditial classical Arabic, by denying facts.
With respect to vocalization marks in Modern Standard Arabic, there are no "two camps". MSA has no vocalization marks period. Yet even people with low "education level and mental acuity" are able to read the newspaper everyday without difficulty.
In doing so, you are trying to change the language by claiming that most of Arabic grammar is a figment of grammarians imaginations. This is wrong. So I will never agree with you, because I know better. I hope no one comes to believe you, and I hope you realize your error.
I am not saying that Arabic grammar is imaginary. All I am saying is that making interpretations based solely on the later added vocalization marks without regards to context is wrong.
I know you hate the fact that I use the word 'creole colloquial Arabics', and distinguish it so stronly from Traditional Classical Arabic but your ideas can only be accepted if you deny evidence and I am not willing to do that and will do my bes to make sure people understand what you are hiding to make your conclusions.
I don't hate or like any particular words. What you are missing is that there are other more accurate ways to distinguish Arabic
- The Arabic of the great reading (pre-quranic Arabic).
- Medieval Fusha Arabic (this is what you refer to as Classical/Quranic Arabic, when it is not).
- Regional Arabic colloquials.
- Modern Standard Arabic. This is a formal language that no Arab speaks at home.
Where we differ is that you see 1 and 2 as the same while I see them as different. You only have your opinion and the opinion of scholars as proof. I have the physical evidence of manuscripts and internal evidence from the great reading
- The very low functional load of vocalization marks not just in the quranic text but also in mundane early Arabic manuscripts. One can verify this empirically because we have no difficulty reading those documents for the first time without vocalization marks.
- The fact that passages in the great reading sound like they were meant to be recited without case endings, and in reality this is how they are regularly recited even by the most ardent defenders of Fusha Arabic.
- The fact of the existence of what are considered grammatical "errors" in the great reading by the Medieval Fusha Arabic standards.
Based on the evidence, the classification that I propose is the most likely scenario.
Peace,
Ayman
-
And finally, do you know that even the message has the implications of being altered by the very men who took efforts to put the methods of its collection and compilation in a book form, by its very grammatical lexicography, vocalization and vowelizing?
Here are some links for you
http//www.islamicperspectives.com/Preservation.htm
http//www.free-minds.org/books/wadud_05.htm
http//www.tolueislam.com/Bazm/Mansoor/MA_history_3.htmPeace