What is needed to understand the message of the Quran?

The objective of today's blog post is two-fold; one to try and determine what do we need to keep in mind when attempting to draw conclusions from the verses of the Quran. And the second is to try and address the issue of Arabic once again. The latter was prompted by one of you leaving a message challenging my understanding of the issue and since it was done anonymously, which is perfectly acceptable, I am not able to address the person directly but if you are reading this please do comment and propose an alternate take to what my understanding of the issue is. Thanks

In order to help us put our God-given faculties of observation, reason, and logic to good use, the Quran draws our attention to a number of parameters. While our first duty is to verify and validate the fact that Quran is indeed a Revealed Book (several verifications on offer) but once done we also must ensure that we understand the message of the Quran, failing which makes the former useless. God, the author of the Quran helps us towards that end by clearly pointing out the following parameters that deal specifically with understanding His message.

1. It is easy to remember/understand as a general rule Quran 54:17 and repeated four times in the same chapter.
2. You need to research and give thought and acquire specialist knowledge if you want to understand everything in the Quran. This point becomes evident from the verse Quran 3:07 where those who have realized the vastness of the message proclaim that even though they don't understand everything yet, they know enough to determine that the entire Quran is from God.
3. God has made it abundantly clear that Quran is a book (with all its connotations, including the English translated "book" one) The implication as I see is to define a beginning and an end of the message, exactly as one would find in a book. Remember, just because Kitab (كتاب) may have other connotation does not give us the option to negate the one we popularly associate with the English "book" both in English and Arabic.
4. Quran was revealed in the Arabic language as per the Quran. The implication here is that the message should be interpreted by considering the words within the context of the Arabic language only. By that I mean if a Quranic word sounds like something in another language with a different meaning then that is a mere coincidence. This does not mean the Quran cannot be understood in another language. If it were so then the message would go against its Universality claim and that would be a contradiction. There are none in the Quran as one would expect from a Divine Being.
5. That brings us to the most important parameter, there are no contradictions in the Quran, including all the self-referenced rules we can throw at it. Why is this significant? Because it prevents us from settling for conclusions that are wrong. In practice, if anyone of our conclusion is contradicting some other conclusion of ours than either the first conclusion is wrong or the second conclusion is wrong or both are wrong. A fantastic aid to prevent reaching wrong conclusions.

The above parameters force us to draw on all the different domains within our individual and collective knowledge base. Hence, we cannot just restrict ourselves to one particular methodology like looking uproot words or reading "reviews" of others or even logic or science or indeed maths. We should employ all of them and then draw our own conclusions. Given the fact that God Himself has declared that He has explained everything, Quran 17:12, it stands to reason that we cannot hope to understand everything without knowing something about a particular subject matter. The fantastic thing about the Quran is that it caters to every individual's particular comprehension level. The more we know the more we are able to benefit.

 Although it is desirable to know Arabic to some minimum level for checking and cross-checking words used in the Quran, Arabic is not a prerequisite in order to understand the message of the Quran. If we were to assume that Arabic is a must then invariably we will be opting for the notion that without specialist knowledge it is not possible to understand God's message. In addition to this notion clashing with Universality claim and easy understanding of the message, the other problem that needs to be taken into consideration is that a vast segment of our knowledge base is currently not in the Arabic language. 

In practice, we either first acquire a particular understanding of a subject matter in another language or rely on others to first understand it in another language and then translate their understanding into Arabic for our benefit. Our understanding of the world around us is not restricted to one single language's advantages or constraints.

Let me add a few more points; if we are to assume that the Quran can be understood in the Arabic language only. In that case, we have only two options, either force anybody who wishes to become a Muslim to learn Arabic or we tell them not to try and understand what is in the Quran but instead just do as told by an Arabic speaker.

Let us first try and think through the first approach. First up, Quranic Arabic is not exactly the colloquial Arabic as spoken by most Arabs today, in fact, it is not even the formal literary Arabic. (which in itself is a descendant of the sixth century Arabic and modified along the way by the influence of the Quranic text). So now we have the Classical Arabic, purely Quranic Arabic, the Modern Standard Arabic and the colloquial or dialectal Arabic to consider and we need to make sense of which one to master and to what extent? The problem here is two-fold, the first one is to understand the Quran by mastering the Quranic Arabic. The second is to be able to know other forms of Arabic enough to be able to sync that understanding with the colloquial peculiarities needed to communicate with newcomers.

If we were to go along with the notion that the Quran cannot be translated then we will need to take it to its logical conclusion which is that it cannot be translated Period. That would mean not only that it cannot be translated into other languages but that it cannot be translated into another form even within the above classifications of the Arabic language. That would now leave only one and only one avenue open, to understand the Quran we must master the Quranic Arabic first and foremost. Secondly, the only way left in order to convey its meaning/message intact to others will be reduced to simply quoting the Quran verbatim and to only those who are also masters in Quranic Arabic. That would, of course, render all the Arabic tafsirs irrelevant to start with. In fact, most of the latter-day dictionaries will lose their relevance to a greater degree and so on.

So far we are not even past the textual understanding of the Quran. Even if we force everybody to master the Quranic Arabic that will still not solve the issues routinely brought up whenever the issue of translations of the Quran is opposed. Such as which meaning of a particular word should be adopted where multiple meanings are on offer? In our zeal to declare that the Quran is not translatable, we have by definition closed all other aids to understanding the message of the Quran. Ironically the issue is even further complicated when we do allow secondary sources to dictate the meaning of the Quran. The scores of sects with their own set of secondary sources on one hand and their own preference of certain meaning of a particular word on the other are the ground reality. Hence, this fuzzy approach is not even an option in spite of mastery of the Quranic Arabic.

Furthermore, we will need to school every potential Muslim in at least the classical Quranic Arabic and Standard Arabic as discussed above. It also reasonable to assume that during this process also make them aware of the evolution of the language and the development of the language as a whole. In essence, ensure that every Muslim both of Arabic origin and newcomers become experts in linguistics with the focus on Quranic Arabic. By now it is pretty much clear that somebody to even claim to have achieved the mastery of the Quranic Arabic can only make that claim after a minimum of ten years (scientific fact determined through the development of expert systems) and in most cases close to twenty.

The cost alone of such an education will be prohibitive to start with and who should pay for it? Not to mention the resulting confusion of those who are interested in becoming specialists in other fields, in order to fully understand the meaning of the Arabic text. That would include both pertaining to a particular domain contained in the Quran or all the domains covered in the Quran. Hence, one will have to have more than one specialization, further slowing one's progress. That would rule out anybody over fifty or sixty (depending on their individual origin, health state, genes etc) comfortably. And what about those who are not able to (intellectual or opportunity constraints) acquire sufficient knowledge to be declared specialists?

Obviously, there are other issues central to our Deen that must also be weighed in before forcing people to clock thousands of hours mastering Quranic Arabic. The question to be asked; shouldn't that time be better utilized to do good deeds instead? Let us not forget, understanding the basics of our Deen, which are Universal, to begin with, and can be explained to even middle school student in minutes. The focus has to be on the very elements we are striving to instill within us by adopting the Deen, the very elements that will make us righteous, good deeds. When we look up the definition of righteous in the Quran there is nothing that even hints at acquiring specialist knowledge.

The only course open to most will be to take the second option of relying on Arabic speakers. Only God knows why would somebody do that in this day and age, especially at an advanced age. Furthermore, one will have to in turn solely rely on other Arabic experts to first determine that the one teaching him or she is up to the mark to claim he or she qualified to understand the Quran. And now we have an elite group controlling the process of understanding the Quran, a clear contradiction of the Quran. So the real question is; if we are not to become experts in half a dozen disciplines, what are we supposed to do?

And as I have often pointed on my posts, God's solution to the dilemma is to pull us back to the fundamentals and repeatedly reminded us to use our power of observation, reason and logic to the point that not even invoke a God unless you have proof (Quran 23:117) and there is great wisdom in this insistence.

The principles of sound reasoning and correct inference are universal. The big advantage of the rational route as opposed to the taqleedy order (the teacher is always right), is that irrespective of the material at hand or the language of its discourse, the conclusions reached are repeatable.. Moreover, they are verifiable independent of any additional specialist knowledge or "titles" earned. Even if we lack expertise in a particular domain, one can rationally test the premises upon which a particular discipline is based and then try and plug in the specialist knowledge, including the translated Arabic language. The robustness of the rational approach is further validated by the fact that non-Arabic speakers are routinely able to find flaws in the translations that are not accurate or theological positions adopted by experts in the Arabic language.

Besides, the responsibility of explaining the Quran has been taken by God Himself Quran 75:19 and God obviously is not restricted by an individual's efficiency of the Arabic language. After all, the previous revelations are not in Arabic and the Quran itself in large parts is a translation.

In fact, the core message of the Quran is not only crystal clear but there are no two opinions even possible, irrespective of the language of understanding. Those who claim Arabic cannot be translated should consider this the following Arabic words; بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم would have translated at least twice and back again twice before appearing on your screen, word for word without losing an iota of its Arabic meaning. (figure it out :)

Please don't take my posts to mean not to acquire knowledge of the Arabic language but to keep things in perspective as explained in the Quran.

I have covered the issue of Arabic 

here https://lifecheat.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-arabic-must.html and here https://lifecheat.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-it-possible-to-undersand-quran-with.html