Quran is Quran, the only reason for it being in Arabic is because the Prophet Pbuh happened to be an Arab. To say God choose Arabic because of this or that special characteristic of the language is laughable for one simple reason, God would have made the Quran equably beautiful and awe inspiring in Esperanto if He wanted to. People we are talking about God, he was not and is not constrained by anything let alone a small matter of a language.
The reason for Quran being in Arabic is very clearly mentioned in the Quran.
And if We had sent this as a Quran in a foreign language other than Arabic, they would have said: "Why are not its Verses explained in detail (in our language)? What! (A Book) not in Arabic and (the Messenger) an Arab?" Say: "It is for those who believe, a guide and a healing. And as for those who disbelieve, there is heaviness (deafness) in their ears, and it (the Quran) is blindness for them. They are those who are called from a place far away (so they neither listen nor understand). Quran 41:44
And if you still have doubt
And We sent not a Messenger except with the language of his people, in order that he might make (the Message) clear for them. Then Allah misleads whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise. Quran 14:04
Hence the only reason behind the Quran being in Arabic was for clarity of understanding and that is exactly what every Muslim should do, understand the Quran in their respective language for clarity of understanding.
For those who believe its not translatable I have this to say;
Bukhari Alone type say that a lot, it is their way of saying that only Arabs can truly understand the Quran. Read: since the Arabic of today is not the same as 1400 years back and that was not exactly similar to the Arabic of other regions at the time. What they are really getting to is that it has already been "understood" and the matter is "settled". We (traditionalist who I call Bukhari Alone for their stance that Bukhari was infallible) will tell you what it means. To their dismay the Arabic of the time is perfectly preserved in literature of the time for anybody to research and make sense of and translate for all to see. In reality the only people who claim this myth are those who are incapable of understanding any other language well enough to express themselves properly after they have understood the Quran :) It won't make sense, if you understood something perfectly in Arabic and then if you are equally proficient in another language, you should be able to express yourself perfectly. No excuses :) You just use more words or you include hard to translate words along with translations, it encourages people both Arabic speakers and others to properly research the original meaning of a word at the time of revelations of the Quran
Have you ever listened to a good interpreter (let alone a good translator) in a conference or UN session, the good ones are able to do a fantastic job in real time. Given enough time to formulate your thought, there should be no excuses, besides God would never have chosen Arabic if he knew that the language is not translatable 100%. If the Quran can only be understood 100% in Arabic alone then why is there so much variation in understanding it among the Arabs :), its very obvious that the problem is related to ones ability to understand and not the language of understanding.
Yes you need to research the translators and the translations but that you do for any other domain. The trick is to have the process open to not only your peers but everybody to verify and validate. The dozens of innovations among the Muslims are not as a result of not knowing the Arabic language but in spite of it.
Then there is that small matter of the earlier revelations, they were not in Arabic and yet God declared it's the same religion that was given to the earlier messengers.
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Thus, the use of the term "interpretation of the meaning" is also a euphemism for the same idea of non-translatable, if that is what you want to say then you should say approximate translation of the Arabic text or something to that effect and not "interpretation of the meaning" , which meaning? the Arabic meaning or the English meaning or French meaning, there can only be one meaning as such, expressed in different languages, including Arabic. If the message was perfectly understood by earlier messengers in their own respective language then this is truly a non-issue.
There are a couple of aspects related to Arabic worth mentioning, the first is that a translated text is unable to capture the eloquence of the language of the Quran. Neither does Arabic tafsers. The second issue is knowing Arabic facilitate to memorize the Quran.
You forgot a huge advantage to learning Arabic: the ability to memorize the Qur'an easily in its original language. I suppose one could memorize the meaning of the entire Qur'an, but I think that would be as rare as that one guy who memorized the Iliad and the Odyssey.
ReplyDeleteI don't just mean learning the alphabet and memorizing the phonetic sounds -- that would just be silly. (And, yes, I know people who do this.) I mean learning enough so that the meaning of the verse comes with the recollection.
But you're totally right in pointing out the ethnocentric tones coming from some Muslims. They don't like it when I point out annoying things about Arabic (like the Levantine use of Farsi and Aramaic words -- "omg our language is NOT polluted" [reminding me of the "pure Hindi" movement led by Hindi speaking Hindus who claim that their usage excludes all non-Sanskrit words, which is absolutely absurd and easily refuted]).
College starts in one week. Must wait for linguistic anthropology class before writing another tangent like this one....
Revertive@ Thanks for pointing it out. Indeed a very important quality of the Quran is that it can be memorized word for word by people with average memory skills. This very important attribute seems to be tied to the Revealed Arabic version. The fact that several dozen companions memorized the entire Quran during the life of the messenger, one can assume that the process played a crucial part in preserving the Quran in its original form (but we must not take this as a weakness in God's design but rather as part of His plan) and it is one of the many defenses employed by the Quran for preserving itself and the only one in need of an outside element. The rest of defenses are checksum based hence one can conclude that Quran is the only entity known to man that is truly stand alone.
ReplyDeleteHowever this particular subject is not a condition of understanding the message of the Quran. This particular post had to do with determine whether Arabic is a must for understanding the message of the Quran.
But you are right in pointing out the omission of this very important issue from the post. Thanks again.