Jihad & Ijtihad

[MilesTogo]

Where do you find these articles?

Miracle of language in Quran —by Robert B Reich

The Quran in its Historical Context; Edited by Gabriel Said Reynolds
Routledge 2008
Pp294; Price £75
Available at bookstores in Pakistan

For Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century, the Nabataeans were the native inhabitants of Mesopotamia before the Islamic conquest of Iraq. Assyrians, Babylonians and Chaldaeans are called Nabataeans. They were renowned for their magical practices

No one has studied the Arabic language better than the Arabs in history. In the field of etymology they have done immeasurably better than the Iranians with regard to Persian and Pakistanis with regard to Urdu. In Pakistan, interest in lexicography excludes any interest in the origin of Urdu words. But the Arabs always showed inquisitiveness about the origin of the words of the Quran.

The first person who focused on the foreign words in the Quran was none other than Islam’s foremost exegete, Imam Al Shafei, who came to the conclusion that no one knew exactly how many words had come in from other languages. He says: “Of all tongues, that of the Arabs is the richest and the most extensive. Knowledge of this tongue to the Arabs is like the knowledge of the sunna to the jurists. We know of no one who possesses knowledge of all the sunna without missing a portion of it. In like manner is the knowledge concerning the tongue of the Arabs by the scholars and the public. No part of it will be missed by them all, nor should it be sought from other people; for no one can learn this tongue save he who has learned it from the Arabs.” (Al-Shafei, Risala, 27-8).

Persian words were soon discovered because of the Arab-Persian contact in Iraq. For instance, ‘istabraq’ meaning ‘silk brocade’; ‘barzakh’, meaning ‘barrier’, used three times; and ‘firdaws’, meaning ‘paradise’. Other Quranic words that were deemed derived from other languages included ‘tannur’ in the sense of ‘oven’; ‘jibt’ meaning ‘idol’; and ‘rahiq’ meaning ‘wine’.

Many languages are isolated by the classical grammarians and lexicographers as sources of Arabic words. Among them is Syriac. Syriac, referred to as suryani or nabati, appears to have been well-known as a spoken language according to anecdotes found in the works of Ibn Qutayba and Ibn Durayd, both living in the tenth century. The association of Syriac with Christianity is also clear in the work of the eleventh century writer Al Biruni.

For Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century, the Nabataeans were the native inhabitants of Mesopotamia before the Islamic conquest of Iraq. Assyrians, Babylonians and Chaldaeans are called Nabataeans. They were renowned for their magical practices. Other writers make it apparent that this designation was not linguistic exclusively but rather an ancient group of people distinguished by their agricultural practice, as opposed to pastoral or military life. (p.255)

Al-Suyuti, who died in 1505, edited in several different versions lists of foreign words in the Quran. One of his works is called al-Mutawakkil fima warada fil-Quran bil-lughat. The treatise, named after the caliph al-Mutawakkill who died in 943/1536 who ordered the author to compile the work, is a list of Quranic words that are ‘to be found in the speech of the Ethiopians, the Persians or any other people other than the Arabs’. (p.256)

Another list has nineteen Hebrew words, including two from the Suryani list. The vocabulary is as follows: ‘Ran’ meaning ‘river’; ‘taha’ meaning ‘O Man’; ‘annat’ meaning vineyard and grapes. ‘Hawn’ meaning ‘wise men’ ‘layta laka’ meaning ‘come here’; ‘wa-lata’ meaning ‘and there is not’; ‘ahwan’ meaning ‘tranquil’; ‘Sujjad’ meaning ‘with uplifted heads’; ‘qayyum’ meaning ‘one who does not slumber’; ‘asfar’ meaning ‘books’; ‘qummal’ meaning ‘fly, bee’; ‘shahr’ meaning ‘month’; ‘yamm’ meaning ‘sea’; ‘salawat’ meaning ‘synagogues’; ‘qintar’ meaning ‘bull’s hide full of gold or silver’, etc.

Early references to Arabic by Christians are traced. For example, fourth-century writer Uranius notes that the place name Motho means death ‘in the speech of the Arabs’ (he arabon phone). His near contemporaries Ipiphanius of Salamis and Jerome also make reference to Arabic, the former in connection with a virgin goddess whom the inhabitants of Petra and Elusa praise in the arabike dialektos and call her in Arabic Kaabou (‘buxom maiden’). And the Jewish Talmud adduces a number of words said to be from the speech of the Arabs, and a few Arabicisms enter the Syriac language of this period. (p.54)

It is noteworthy that the Quran itself is self-conscious with respect to the language in which it is written stressing that it is an ‘arabi recitation’ (12:2), an ‘arabi decree’ (13:37), composed in the ‘arabi tongue’ (20:195), which has been made easy for Muhammad (19:97, 44:58) and is the language of his people (14:4). (p.63)

When Muhammad (PBUH) had his first revelatory experience, his wife Hazrat Khadija took him to her cousin Waraqa bin Nawfal. The passage on this event is given in the Maghazi of the historian Ibn Ishaq (d. 150/767), in the section on Muhammad’s ‘invocation to mission’ or ‘call’ (al-mab’ath), within a longer narrative on his call, translated here according to the version (transmission) of Ibn Hisham (d. 218/834), in the account of the storyteller (qass) ‘Ubayd b. Umayr b. al-Laythi (d. 68/687). (p.91)

In another report Hazrat Khadija gives to Abu Bakr RA the order to go with Muhammad (PBUH) to Waraqa, and when Waraqa hears the account of Muhammad he cries: ‘All-Perfect! All-perfect!’ (sabbuh or subbuh). These events are given as proof of contact with a person who knew languages other than Arabic.

A great part of the technical terms on the Quran as a book are also not of Arabic origin, according to the book. The word ‘quran’ is a loanword, as is ‘mushaf’ (codex). One of the supposed collectors of the Quran, Salim bin Ubayd (or: bin Ma’qil), mawla of abu Hudhayfa, is supposed to have been the first to give the name ‘mushaf’ (codex) to the Quran as a collected book, a word he learned in Ethiopia. Finally, neither ‘sura’, nor ‘aya’ are of Arabic origin (Claude Gilliot on page 94).

The Quran’s evocation of the legend of the ‘Companions of the Cave’ comes close to the beginning of Surat al-Kahf (18:9-26), where Allah addresses Muhammad PBUH with the following question: “Do you reckon that the companions of the cave (ashab al-kahf) and of the inscription are wondrously among Our signs?”

The parable is also known through Jacob of Serugh in Syriac who called the story The Youths of Ephesus (p.122). The word ‘aya’ is a keyword in Islamo-Christian revelation. One finds it 77 times in the New Testament, especially in the Gospel of John, and 287 times in the Quran (however somewhat rarely in the first Meccan suras). (p.145)

It is the gnostic gospels where the echo of the Quran is felt more strikingly. 1) Jesus was not crucified; someone who looked like him was crucified in his place. 2) He is therefore not dead, but was raised up to God. 3) At the end of the world, he will return to earth, fight the Antichrist, proclaim Islam as the true religion. 4) He will proclaim the coming of the Hour of Judgement, and die. 5) He will be raised on the day of the final resurrection. The text most evocative of the Quranic passage is that of the Gnostic Judaeo-Christian Basilides, reported by Irenaeus of Lyon at the end of the second century.

Suleiman Nadwi was the Indian Muslim scholar who had enough knowledge of Arabic to write about the Sanskrit words appearing in the Quran. He thought that since these words occurred where the Quran describes Paradise, the idea of Paradise must be located in India. But the word Paradise was taken from the Persians by the Greeks, and as Muhammad Hussain Azad would confirm if he were alive today, the Aryans of Persia and the Aryans of India would agree on the very mundane Hindi word Pradesh also meaning a far-off country. But for us the word has become Firdaws, the best of the many versions of Eden described in the Quran.

 

[muse]

Miles to go


I find these mostly in Pakistani newspapers - for instance the article above was published today in the dailytimes. I am always more interested in the Op/Ed section of papers.

 

[MilesTogo]

Miles to go


I find these mostly in Pakistani newspapers - for instance the article above was published today in the dailytimes. I am always more interested in the Op/Ed section of papers.

I usually read Dawn. May be I should start checking out daily times too. It was an interesting article, though. Keep it up.

 

[muse]

Thanks and I would recommend that you may put links to a bunch of papers together in a folder and this will allow you to review the OP/Ed sections pretty quickly - by the way, usually there is aemail address under the articles, please, please write, engage.

 

[muse]

For more than 10 years we have been highlighting to our readers that we see or understand the world, through a set of "lens", whether we call it our "training" or our "prejudice", the important thing is understanding that we apprehend the world, mediated.

A Piece from the NYT



September 14, 2010, 9:00 pm
The Meaning of the Koran
By ROBERT WRIGHT


Test your religious literacy:

Which sacred text says that Jesus is the “word” of God? a) the Gospel of John; b) the Book of Isaiah; c) the Koran.

The correct answer is the Koran. But if you guessed the Gospel of John you get partial credit because its opening passage — “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God” — is an implicit reference to Jesus. In fact, when Muhammad described Jesus as God’s word, he was no doubt aware that he was affirming Christian teaching.

Extra-credit question: Which sacred text has this to say about the Hebrews: God, in his “prescience,” chose “the children of Israel … above all peoples”? I won’t bother to list the choices, since you’ve probably caught onto my game by now; that line, too, is in the Koran.

I highlight these passages in part for the sake of any self-appointed guardians of Judeo-Christian civilization who might still harbor plans to burn the Koran. I want them to be aware of everything that would go up in smoke.

But I should concede that I haven’t told the whole story. Even while calling Jesus the word of God — and “the Messiah” — the Koran denies that he was the son of God or was himself divine. And, though the Koran does call the Jews God’s chosen people, and sings the praises of Moses, and says that Jews and Muslims worship the same God, it also has anti-Jewish, and for that matter anti-Christian, passages.

The regrettable parts of the Koran — the regrettable parts of any religious scripture — don’t have to matter.

This darker side of the Koran, presumably, has already come to the attention of would-be Koran burners and, more broadly, to many of the anti-Muslim Americans whom cynical politicians like Newt Gingrich are trying to harness and multiply. The other side of the Koran — the part that stresses interfaith harmony — is better known in liberal circles.

As for people who are familiar with both sides of the Koran — people who know the whole story — well, there may not be many of them. It’s characteristic of contemporary political discourse that the whole story doesn’t come to the attention of many people.

Thus, there are liberals who say that “jihad” refers to a person’s internal struggle to do what is right. And that’s true. There are conservatives who say “jihad” refers to military struggle. That’s true, too. But few people get the whole picture, which, actually, can be summarized pretty concisely:

The Koran’s exhortations to jihad in the military sense are sometimes brutal in tone but are so hedged by qualifiers that Muhammad clearly doesn’t espouse perpetual war against unbelievers, and is open to peace with them. (Here, for example, is my exegesis of the “sword verse,” the most famous jihadist passage in the Koran.) The formal doctrine of military jihad — which isn’t found in the Koran, and evolved only after Muhammad’s death — does seem to have initially been about endless conquest, but was then subject to so much amendment and re-interpretation as to render it compatible with world peace. Meanwhile, in the hadith — the non-Koranic sayings of the Prophet — the tradition arose that Muhammad had called holy war the “lesser jihad” and said that the “greater jihad” was the struggle against animal impulses within each Muslim’s soul.

Why do people tend to hear only one side of the story? A common explanation is that the digital age makes it easy to wall yourself off from inconvenient data, to spend your time in ideological “cocoons,” to hang out at blogs where you are part of a choir that gets preached to.

Makes sense to me. But, however big a role the Internet plays, it’s just amplifying something human: a tendency to latch onto evidence consistent with your worldview and ignore or downplay contrary evidence.

This side of human nature is generally labeled a bad thing, and it’s true that it sponsors a lot of bigotry, strife and war. But it actually has its upside. It means that the regrettable parts of the Koran — the regrettable parts of any religious scripture — don’t have to matter.

After all, the adherents of a given religion, like everyone else, focus on things that confirm their attitudes and ignore things that don’t. And they carry that tunnel vision into their own scripture; if there is hatred in their hearts, they’ll fasten onto the hateful parts of scripture, but if there’s not, they won’t. That’s why American Muslims of good will can describe Islam simply as a religion of love. They see the good parts of scripture, and either don’t see the bad or have ways of minimizing it.

So too with people who see in the Bible a loving and infinitely good God. They can maintain that view only by ignoring or downplaying parts of their scripture.

For example, there are those passages where God hands out the death sentence to infidels. In Deuteronomy, the Israelites are told to commit genocide — to destroy nearby peoples who worship the wrong Gods, and to make sure to kill all men, women and children. (“You must not let anything that breathes remain alive.”)

As for the New Testament, there’s that moment when Jesus calls a woman and her daughter “dogs” because they aren’t from Israel. In a way that’s the opposite of anti-Semitism — but not in a good way. And speaking of anti-Semitism, the New Testament, like the Koran, has some unflattering things to say about Jews.

Devoted Bible readers who aren’t hateful ignore or downplay all these passages rather than take them as guidance. They put to good use the tunnel vision that is part of human nature.

All the Abrahamic scriptures have all kinds of meanings — good and bad — and the question is which meanings will be activated and which will be inert. It all depends on what attitude believers bring to the text. So whenever we do things that influence the attitudes of believers, we shape the living meaning of their scriptures. In this sense, it’s actually within the power of non-Muslim Americans to help determine the meaning of the Koran. If we want its meaning to be as benign as possible, I recommend that we not talk about burning it. And if we want imams to fill mosques with messages of brotherly love, I recommend that we not tell them where they can and can’t build their mosques.

Of course, the street runs both ways. Muslims can influence the attitudes of Christians and Jews and hence the meanings of their texts. The less threatening that Muslims seem, the more welcoming Christians and Jews will be, and the more benign Christianity and Judaism will be. (A good first step would be to bring more Americans into contact with some of the overwhelming majority of Muslims who are in fact not threatening.)

You can even imagine a kind of virtuous circle: the less menacing each side seems, the less menacing the other side becomes — which in turn makes the first side less menacing still, and so on; the meaning of the Abrahamic scriptures would, in a real sense, get better and better and better.

Lately, it seems, things have been moving in the opposite direction; the circle has been getting vicious. And it’s in the nature of vicious circles that they’re hard to stop, much less reverse. On the other hand, if, through the concerted effort of people of good will, you do reverse a vicious circle, the very momentum that sustained it can build in the other direction — and at that point the force will be with you.

Postscript: The quotations of the Koran come from Sura 4:171 (where Jesus is called God’s word), and Sura 44:32 (where the “children of Israel” are lauded). I’ve used the Rodwell translation, but the only place the choice of translator matters is the part that says God presciently placed the children of Israel above all others. Other translations say “purposefully,” or “knowingly.” By the way, if you’re curious as to the reason for the Koran’s seeming ambivalence toward Christians and Jews:

By my reading, the Koran is to a large extent the record of Muhammad’s attempt to bring all the area’s Christians, Jews and Arab polytheists into his Abrahamic flock, and it reflects, in turns, both his bitter disappointment at failing to do so and the many theological and ritual overtures he had made along the way. (For a time Muslims celebrated Yom Kippur, and they initially prayed toward Jerusalem, not Mecca.) That the suras aren’t ordered chronologically obscures this underlying logic.