"We" vs God Alone
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In Urdu language too "I" and "We" is used by one person, when giving command, instructions, orders or telling about some thing big done by him. Some people commonly use "We" instead of "I" even in ordinary conversation.
Brother! i recommend , that you go through the whole thread.(for royal we)
siki
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Just to revisit this thread, can it be said that if the quran uses its own grammatical constructs, that it is wrong?
In 7156, either the case is made for a trinity, or polytheism, or simply, there is a royal We in use. Since when did other books restrict quranic grammar?
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Just to revisit this thread, can it be said that if the quran uses its own grammatical constructs, that it is wrong?
In 7156, either the case is made for a trinity, or polytheism, or simply, there is a royal We in use. Since when did other books restrict quranic grammar?
The quraan was revealed in a spoken language. Spoken Arabic does not respect grammar.
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The quraan was revealed in a spoken language. Spoken Arabic does not respect grammar.
The quran itself disagrees with that? I.e. in 121-2, 413. But more importantly, 4612 is related to the topic, mentioning Moses directly and again, describes it as a book, not just a recital. Evidently it is primarily a book.
So why the hubbub, either way? You have one God equated with a plural, and your answer is that it doesn't follow grammar, why the different case for the other instances of "We" or "Our"?
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peace
i'm very interested in this 'We','Us',or 'Our' topic.
in some verses it does imply that 'We' does not refer to God359 And God is the One who sends the winds so it stirs up a cloud, then We drive it to a town that is dead, and We revive with it the land after it had died. Such is the resurrection.
3527 Do you not see that God sends down water from the sky, thus We produce with it fruits of various colors? And of the mountains are peaks that are white, red, or some other color and intense black.
but what about these verses
1526 And We have created man from a clay hardened and shaped.
2021 He said "Take it and do not be fearful, We will turn it back to its previous form."
4380 Or do they think that We do not hear their secrets and private counsel? Yes indeed; and Our messengers are with them, recording. -
Peace,
Samia said
The quraan was revealed in a spoken language. Spoken Arabic does not respect grammar.
This is falsehood of the utmost. Just pure and utter falsehood. The written Arabic today was the spoken Arabic of then. (Just as the people during Shakespeares age and the King's James Bible actually spoke that way (on the streets and everything, as opposed to now) The spoken Arabic of today is an invention of the Creolization era where Arabs through contact with non-Arabs formed a creole Arabic which spread and evolved within each different country. Please do not speak these untruths Samia, it cries ignorance. I'm sorry. What you have said above is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Please go listen to Shiekh Sha'rawi or somone from whom you can gleam some truth on these lingustic issues.
Godbless,
Anwar -
Peace,
I concur with Tarikh. My take on it is that I's with no sign of quote is Angel Gabriel (God bless him) for instance ("I am the servant of this land" I believe which is in Chpt. 29). Quoted I's are usually God (quotes in Classical Arabic don't have to begin with 'he said or he says' different ways to quote are the use of wa, an, the obvious qaala and just going into the quote after you have mentioned the subject. See the passages of Abraham's quotes (God bless him) in Chpter 2 of the Quran.
Godbless,
Anwar -
Samia said
Quote
The quraan was revealed in a spoken language. Spoken Arabic does not respect grammar.This is falsehood of the utmost. Just pure and utter falsehood. The written Arabic today was the spoken Arabic of then. (Just as the people during Shakespeares age and the King's James Bible actually spoke that way (on the streets and everything, as opposed to now) The spoken Arabic of today is an invention of the Creolization era where Arabs through contact with non-Arabs formed a creole Arabic which spread and evolved within each different country. Please do not speak these untruths Samia, it cries ignorance. I'm sorry. What you have said above is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Please go listen to Shiekh Sha'rawi or somone from whom you can gleam some truth on these lingustic issues.
Godbless,
AnwarThis is the first time during my stay on this forum that I felt disappointed. A man like me , a non Arab with little knowledge of Arabic, after going through the Quran even once, realizes immediately that it is an address/speech by One in front of whom is the gathering of everyone in time and space. A speaker addressing a very large crowd uses spoken language which conveys the message/perception/thought of the Speaker to everyone in a distinct manner.
Do we find the details of "Arabic Grammer" written somewhere before the revelation of Quran? -
Salaam Aleikum,
Here are my 2 cents on the Plural use in the Quran
http//ourbeacon.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=113
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Salaam Aleikum,
Here are my 2 cents on the Plural use in the Quran
http//ourbeacon.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=113
That was generally my view. Thanks, it was a good read.
This is the first time during my stay on this forum that I felt disappointed. A man like me , a non Arab with little knowledge of Arabic, after going through the Quran even once, realizes immediately that it is an address/speech by One in front of whom is the gathering of everyone in time and space. A speaker addressing a very large crowd uses spoken language which conveys the message/perception/thought of the Speaker to everyone in a distinct manner.
Do we find the details of "Arabic Grammer" written somewhere before the revelation of Quran?It is both a recital and a book. That implies no division between the language into "spoken" and "unspoken". Also, the messenger is declared as a commoner. Unless you wish to say God's usage of "kitab" is erroneous.
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Also, the messenger is declared as a commoner.{OPF}
Quran does not describe the Messengers of Allah as "a commoner". It is the perception of the arrogant rich people of the societies who tried to convince the people under their influence that the Messenger was a "commoner" like them. In front of their people they even never said "Messenger is like us". they told ordinary, common people "He is like you" and dear OPF today you have also started talking in their tone and manner.
If the speech of a speaker is recorded and written that will also be called a Book. Had the Book not been recorded as a speech none would have ever been able to remember it by heart. Where were the principles of grammer recorded/determined/written before or at the time of revelation of Quran? Any reference!! Who taught the Arabic Grammer to Non Arabs/say people of Persia of that time?
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Peace,
Samia said
This is falsehood of the utmost. Just pure and utter falsehood. The written Arabic today was the spoken Arabic of then. (Just as the people during Shakespeares age and the King's James Bible actually spoke that way (on the streets and everything, as opposed to now) The spoken Arabic of today is an invention of the Creolization era where Arabs through contact with non-Arabs formed a creole Arabic which spread and evolved within each different country. Please do not speak these untruths Samia, it cries ignorance. I'm sorry. What you have said above is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Please go listen to Shiekh Sha'rawi or somone from whom you can gleam some truth on these lingustic issues.Godbless,
AnwarSalaam Anwar
I would have appreciated seeing "evidence" that the quraan is in classical Arabic, instead of reading accusations from you, and repetition of "wrong, wrong, wrong" without any explanation why it is wrong. We had a similar discussion before and I asked you where you could find a pre quraanic document written in classical Arabic. The only thing you could think of was the so claimed pre islamic poetry! Even if it were really pre islamic, does its language resemble the language of the quraan? I would say spoken Arabic is much nearer to the language of the quraan than this forged pre islamic poetry. The most important proof is the non conformity of the quraan to the rules of grammar set by classical Arabic linguists, as well as the rules for the dual, which are in conformity with the spoken language. Also remember this reply to your questioning of the usage of "maa" in opposition to "lam" to negate a verb
Here I can tell you with confidence that this is the negation used in colloquial arabic for all tenses. Maybe you're right, apart from "maa yazaalu" I can't think of something. But thank you! You just put a further nail on the notion that the qur'aan is in classical Arabic!!
As for spoken Arbic being a "creole", I am really surprised! Do you understand what a creole is? It is not about borrowing words, it is a completely mixture with a different language. We can say "Maltese" is a creole of Arabic. Arabs would not be able to understand it. But saying spoken Arabic is a creole, my question is creole with which language? Does every Arab country has its spoken Arabic mixed up with the languges of its neighbours/colonisers? Then we would not be able to understand each other (with the exception of North African Arabic, which might be nearer to a creole, hence rarely understood by other Arabs). Borrowing in a language does not make it a creole, otherwise we would consider the language of the quraan as "creole" too, since it borrows vocabulary from Greek, Hebrew, Farsi...
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Why is everyone here having such a hard time with a royal we? Maybe its because most of the people here are from western backgrouds hence the use of such language confuses you. Even in Urdu we use words like "Hum" (we) when the speaker is denoting supremacy over the readers or listeners that are being addressed. Its not that confusing, the angels did not create the world and neither can they forgive sins, when God creates something he says "be" and it is. Allah (swt) is the only one that can forgive peoples sins ad create something from nothing. Angels are not "creators", not even close. peace
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Salaam Truthonly
First, welcome to the forum!
When someone uses the royal "we" in a speech this person does not shift to "I" or "he". What made people here discuss this is this feature in the quraan (i.e shifting from the "we" to "he" and/or "I".
And BTW, having a western background does not imply ignorance of the "royal we". After all, westerners have kings and queens and the term "royal we" itself is English, so they know it. It is not invented by Arabs or Urdu speakers.
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Dear Brother yasin, salam o alekum.
I read your article, it is a good comprehensive effort, however i do not agree with you on couple of points,
1, A Royal "we" is out of question, it simply has zero possibility.
- I did not understand your " God and his Kalimat" term. From where did you get this?
In my opinion when HE uses WE, there are definitely other entities involved, The catch being 2-34
234 And We said to the Angels "Submit to Adam," so they submitted except for Satan, he refused and became arrogant, and became of the rejecter's.
The above gives us an important clue regarding un-described "entities" other than angles and shayateen, who are part of the system, and probably were/are responsible for handling angles and jinns , but now are/ were in the previous/parallel/hidden universe.
Because at this point in time we are not directly concerned/influenced by those entities, so probably any further clue/mention of them in quran was out of the scope for us humans.
siki
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Peace,
What about 'we' as the entities (minus God), is that a possibility?
It does seem to make much more sense. It very much seems like that God is spoken of in the third person. Just throwing out an idea - that's all.
Isn't Gabriel the narrator, in any case
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Salaam Samia,
You said
I would have appreciated seeing "evidence" that the quraan is in classical Arabic, instead of reading accusations from you, and repetition of "wrong, wrong, wrong" without any explanation why it is wrong. We had a similar discussion before and I asked you where you could find a pre quraanic document written in classical Arabic. The only thing you could think of was the so claimed pre islamic poetry! Even if it were really pre islamic, does its language resemble the language of the quraan? I would say spoken Arabic is much nearer to the language of the quraan than this forged pre islamic poetry. The most important proof is the non conformity of the quraan to the rules of grammar set by classical Arabic linguists, as well as the rules for the dual, which are in conformity with the spoken language. Also remember this reply to your questioning of the usage of "maa" in opposition to "lam" to negate a verb
First it is your opinion that pre-Islamic poetry is forged. If you put the Quran to the same test you could essentially say it was forged too. As I have tried to explain to everyone over and over again. Besides a few partial scraps that we have left of the Quran that are not even from the 6th century the Quran and pre-Islamic poetry were preserved through classes of narrators. I have given sources to you before and you choose to not to accept and forget. That is the truth reject if you will or accept and research if you will. Also as I have explained over and over again, you don't know what Classical Arabic is. You think that it is the language spoken on the news. That is not Classical Arabic. That is MSA; whether you want to accept that term or not. Classical Arabic was revised in the 1900's and turned into MSA, where the use of maa is looked down upon because it is used so much in dialects as well as other words and uses, some used in dialect some not. You are not reading Classical Arabic grammar books you are reading MSA grammar books. As I have stated to you over and over again both are called Fushaa mistakenly.
Quote from Samia on August 27, 2007, 015559 PM
Here I can tell you with confidence that this is the negation used in colloquial arabic for all tenses. Maybe you're right, apart from "maa yazaalu" I can't think of something. But thank you! You just put a further nail on the notion that the qur'aan is in classical Arabic!!
This reply was completely irrelevant (to be nice). I'm really sick of sounding like a broken record. Classical Arabic is Old Arabic, MSA is Modern Arabic and Dialects are relatively modern creole Arabics. Maa yazaalu is a Classical expression that has been cemented into MSA. That is why it can be exchanged with laa yazaalu. In Old Classical Arabic this is correct. In MSA it is considered incorrect despite cemented archaism like maa yazaalu. Consider the use of expressions that mean (may God bless him and save him) sallaa allahu &alaihi was sallam or dumtum bikhairin, These are expressions that have no grammatical explaination in MSA and you will not find them in MSA grammar books which you are mistaking for Classical Arabic grammar books. However you will find them in Classical Arabic grammar books like Wright or Sibaweyah. As well as the use of maa for present tense negation. It is in Wright's Grammar book and I'm sure it is in Sibaweyah. You are looking at the wrong grammar books. Again there is a difference between Classsical and Modern despite the fact that they are both called Fushaa.
You said
As for spoken Arbic being a "creole", I am really surprised! Do you understand what a creole is? It is not about borrowing words, it is a completely mixture with a different language. We can say "Maltese" is a creole of Arabic. Arabs would not be able to understand it. But saying spoken Arabic is a creole, my question is creole with which language? Does every Arab country has its spoken Arabic mixed up with the languges of its neighbours/colonisers? Then we would not be able to understand each other (with the exception of North African Arabic, which might be nearer to a creole, hence rarely understood by other Arabs). Borrowing in a language does not make it a creole, otherwise we would consider the language of the quraan as "creole" too, since it borrows vocabulary from Greek, Hebrew, Farsi...
Yes the hell i do!!! I studied creoles in college! (And I happen to be in love with them!) It is actually a hobby of mine to study them. Of course creolization is not about just borrowing words, it gets down to the grammar of the language. The Arabic dialects spoken today are a creolization with Aramaic, Egyptic, Himyarite and to some degree persian and Turkish (Aramic dialects are probably the heaviest contributor). You will find that Arabic dialects have alot in common with Hebrew and Aramaic pronunciation and grammar patterns. There were two major breaks in this creole; Eastern and Western. That is why most Eastern dialects Saudi, Yemeni, Egyptian, Gulf, Iraqi, Levant have a similar vein and the Maghribi dialects have similar vein (although they all can differ substantially). Your Eastern branch of Arabic dialects went through the same phase as the Magribi dialect just at an earlier stage, the already creolized Arabic that they recieved now had to deal with Berber accents and corruptions, in addtion to Aramaic and Coptic ones. Western Arabic is also known for its influence from Hassaniyah Arabic which comes from a Yemeni tribe that migrated there. The dialects were first formed in the first territories conquered by the Arabs ( you can see this from Lane's introduction of how the first generation of children of the Arab occupiers when they came to Mecca were not understood by native Meccans) and spread as the Arab territories spread. It seems also that it took root mostly with languages that are of the same family branch as Arabic, the Afro-Asiatic langauges, which is why persian did not transform into an Arabic dialect or turkish despite heavy Arabic influence.
Listen in all essence I am exasperated from trying to tell this to you Samia. It has been months and almost years. I am starting to sound like a broken recored to myself and I feel like I am talking to a brick wall. Mazhar mostly likely will not understand this either. I suppose that you go talk to some very well known sheikhs as well as linguistic professors that major in Old Arabic literature at some prestigious university where you can figure out what I am saying. Because as of now I think that you have no clue of what I'm saying when I talk. You will not believe me nor will you understand what I am saying when I speak to you. The use of maa can be likened to the use of t for past tense in English dialects. It is an archaism that is correct in some cases in Modern English and incorrect in many. But many dialects put it on everything. In both Modern English and dialects it is remnant of Old School English where it could be used that way or the Modern way. So in Old English you could say kilt or killed. But in Modern English you must say killed and in the dialect kilt is prefferred. This goes for many other words as well. The analogy carries over to Arabic with the use of laa and maa in the present tense.
Godbless,
Anwarp.s. Mostly all langauges are creoles from Older Languages mixing with their counterparts. Latin and Celtic dialects made Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan. Latin and other Italic counterparts made all of the Italian dialects. Gaulish and Latin made French, and so on and so on. You can take any langauge no matter how classical and you will find that it is a combination 2 or more languages that came before it. These combinations can also vary in degree and they create new substratum within a language for it to begin evolve. No langauge evolves without a foreign substratum being introduced. Atleast not since we all spoke one langauge. If we ever did. Its possible that we were all telepathic in the beginning hmm Or maybe we spoken simple sign languages with whistles and clicks. So when human communites branched off and actually decided to start to speak their was a possiblity for variablity because we we started of with basically nothing and then go split up. Oh, well. This last bit is just speculation anyway.