“An Arabic Quran, without any crookedness (therein) in order that they may avoid all the evil which Allah has ordered them to avoid, fear Him and keep their duty to Him.” Surah Az-Zumar 39:28
Muhammad really should have thought twice about putting verses in Quran that attest it is pure Arabic. The more I read, the list of Hebrew words gets longer:
1a. Yom(Hebrew) means day. Example: Yom Kippur= Day of Atonement
1b. Yawm(Arabic) means day. Example: Yawm-ul-Jumuah= Day of Jumuah
2a. Ruach(Hebrew) means spirit, wind. Example: “…And the Ruach(spirit) of G-d was hovering over the waters.” Genesis 1:2
2b. Ruh(Arabic) means spirit. Example: “And they ask you concerning the Ruh(spirit)…” Quran 17:85
3a. Layil or Lel(Hebrew) means night. Example: “On this night(Lel) the Lord kept His Promise…” Exodus 12:42
3b. Layl(Arabic) means night. Example: “Those who spend their wealth by night(Layl)…” Quran 2:274
4a. Baracha/Berakka(Hebrew) means blessing. Example: “Esau said to his father,”Do you have only one blessing(hab rak ah)…” Genesis 27:38
4b. Baraka(Arabic) means blessing. Example: “We should have opened for the blessings(barakaatim)…” Quran 7:96
And on and on. Seems as though Allah needed to borrow alot of words from Hebrew to speak to the Arabs in a pure Arabic Hebrew Quran.
While I was cross-referencing some Arabic words, I noticed the name Esau in the Book of Genesis. As listed in 4a, the name Esau appears not only in Genesis but in many other places of the Torah/Bible. At first I thought I had stumbled upon the Hebrew spelling of Isa(Jesus). This is because English transliteration of the arabic word for Jesus uses Esa, Esau, and Isa interchangebly. But then I realized Esau wasn’t the same as Prophet Isa(Jesus) because he was being talked about in Genesis. Esau is one of the sons of Ishaq(Isaac). Muslims know Propeht Isa as the son of Maryam. Prophet Isa(Jesus) wouldn’t be discussed in Genesis which means Esau and Isa are two different people. This discovery led me down a path of startling revelation.
First things first
Note: I will be alternating alot between Isa, Esau, Iesou, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic from this point. I will try to keep a clear deleneation between all of them as much as possible.
Once I realized Esau[עֵשָׂ֖ו] wasn’t the same as son of Maryam, I went looking for the correct Hebrew spelling for Isa(Jesus). A google search revealed several articles that stated the actual name Jesus is Iesus or Iesous in the bible and that Christ is Christos or Kristos. It wasn’t until I tried to find Iesus in the New Testament that I learned it was originally written in Greek. I always thought both Old and New Testaments were written in Hebrew. Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find a Hebrew name for Isa(Jesus), all I found was Greek Iesou[Ἰησοῦ].
Why is this important?
Many times Muhammad has stated that proof of Islam being the truth is that he has narrated stories from People of the Book to show there is an agreement with Allah between Kitabs. One of the known stories adapted from the Bible into the Quran is the story of Isa(Jesus). The major difference is that Muhammad claimed to have the correct story of Isa(Jesus) and that Christians distorted it. Muhammad’s claim is that while he acknowledges Isa(Jesus) as a prophet, he wasn’t the final prophet. Some Jews rejected the idea that Isa(Jesus) was the prophet they were waiting for. Therefore Muhammad claimed that he was the last prophet to come with the truth. This was a very crafty move by Muhammad because not only was he trying to win the side of the Christians by acknowledging Isa(Jesus) but he was also trying to gain the devotion of the Jews by stating that he(Muhammad) was the prophet that the Jews were waiting for.
Muhammad also denounced the Trinity and stated that the Christians told a lie when they said Allah had a son. Muhammad stated Isa(Jesus) was the son of Maryam and not the son of God. By doing this he was re-establishing the Hanif of Ibrahim(religion of monotheism started by Ibrahim) which is mentioned several times in the Quran. Even though this move recognized the previous religions it still abolished them and commands Jews, Christians, pagans, and everyone else to follow Muhammad.
Since Muhammad claimed that Allah sent the stories from the Bible to him as revelation to prove that Islam was the truth, that means that names in the Arabic Quran should match the names in the Hebrew/Greek Bible. Since Isa(Jesus) was said to be sent to the Jews, I wondered why his name was in Greek and not Hebrew. I found that some Christians and Messianic Jews state that Isa(Jesus) does indeed have a Hebrew name and it is Yashua or Yeshua. They say that Greeks translated the Hebrew name Yeshua[ישוע] into the Greek name Iesous[Ἰησοῦ]. Greek Iesous[Ἰησοῦ] was then translated into Latin and that was translated into the English Jesus. Thus:
Yeshua[ישוע ] (Hebrew) became —– Iesous[Ἰησοῦ ] (Greek) became —– Iesus(Latin) became —– Jesus(English)
Okay, and…..?
The problem lies in how Allah decided to reveal the name of Isa(Jesus) to Muhammad. Muslims believe that Allah knows all the names of the prophets and revealed information to them via Jibreel. These revelations are the Torah, the Injeel, and the Quran specifically. Because of that, there shouldn’t be much difference in the names of people even if they are in Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic. Yet for one person we have Yeshua, Iesou, and Isa. What happened? Why did Allah give the same person three seemingly different names? The answer lies in the actual written letters of the name. Yeshua, Iesou, and Isa are merely transliterations to show what the name sounds like(phonetics).
Spoken language is not static. As history has shown, it grows and morphs into a wide range of sounds. Speech for ancient humans most likely started as a series of grunts, barks, and coos. Over time, those grunts formed themselves into words and those words matured into different languages. As people progressed, spoken language became more systematic with a structure applied to it. Even with structure the spoken word continues to grow and change. It is the written form of language that is more absolute and not as flexible as spoken language.
Because recorded language follows the saying ‘written in stone’, the system for writing sometimes doesn’t change fast enough to keep up with vocabulary. This is the problem that occurred with changing Yeshua over to Iesous. Some Christians state that the Christ was given the name Yeshua because it was a very common name during the time of his birth. However, Saul(Paul) couldn’t write Yeshua in Greek and it had to be changed over. The reasons why are:
– The Hebrew letter ‘yod’ or y doesn’t exist in Greek. Since this is the first letter in the name Yeshua, Greeks replaced it with the letter ‘iota’.
– The next letter in Yeshua is the Hebrew letter ‘tsere’ is a vowel that most represents the letter ‘e’. Greeks replaces this with ‘eta’.
– The next letter is the Hebrew letter ‘shin’. Greek doesn’t have a letter for ‘shin’ so they used the letter ‘s’ or ‘sigma’ as a replacement.
– The next letter ‘u’ sounds like ‘oo’ as in ‘blue’ and is the Hebrew vowel ‘qibbuts’ or ‘shureq’. Greeks changed this to the letter ‘omicron’ which has the ‘o’ sound in off.
– And the final letter in Yeshua is the ‘a’. The rules for this letter is too complicated to explain here. The most important note is that the Greeks replaced it with the letter ‘upsilon’ whuch sounds like the ”u’ in ‘put’.
If I paste all this together, then the Hebrew word Yeshua becomes the Greek word Iesou[Ἰησοῦ]. When I sound out Iesou, it sounds like ‘ee-soo-ah’. The more I say it(and the faster I say it), then Iesou sounds like Esa, better known as Isa(Jesus). To hear the sound, copy and paste [ Ἰησοῦ ] into translate.google.com. Select the option to let google detect the language(which should come up as Greek) and then click the speaker under the box to hear the pronunciation. Do not include the brackets, copy and paste the Greek letters only.
Grand finale
After I finally decoded both the Hebrew and Greek names for Jesus something dawned on me: If Allah supposedly reavealed the Quran and it is His speech, why the heck does He refer to Jesus as Isa in the Quran? The first answer most Muslims will say is because Allah called Jesus by the name Isa in the Bible(as has been proven). And since Allah is retelling stories from the Bible to Muhammad then it would only make sense Jesus be called Isa in the Quran. This is where Muhammad truly screws up with his claim that Allah spoke to him through Jibreel in pure Arabic.
Remember I said that the New Testament was originally written in Greek. The New Testament tells the story of Isa(Jesus). Christians say that Isa’s name in Hebrew is Yeshua. However, Yeshua could not be written in the New Testament in Hebrew(because the New Testament was not written in Hebrew). So the Hebrew name Yeshua was translated in to the Greek name Iesou [Ἰησοῦ ] which sounds like Isa. Hundreds of years later Muhammad receives revelation about Iesou or Isa and that is what Muslims call him today, prophet Isa(Jesus).
But why didn’t Allah just call him Yeshua in the Quran?
Hebrew and Arabic are close cousins so there is no reason to translate Yeshua into Greek for Muhammad. Hebrew has the letter ‘yod’, Arabic has the letter ‘ya’. Vowels were not written in Arabic so the short e sound didn’t have to be written. The Hebrew letter ‘shin’ corresponds with the Arabic letter ‘sin(sheen)’. The Arabic vowel ‘o’ is the damma which sounds like ‘oo’ in blue. And depending on Arabic grammar rules, the letter ‘alif’ can represent the last sound ‘ah’ in Yeshua. So from Hebrew to Arabic there is absolutely no need to change Yeshua to Greek.
Certainly Allah knows the names of His Prophets. Just like the Jews knew Jacob as Yakov, the Arabs knew Jacob as Yaqub. Just like the Jews knew Joseph as Yusef, the Arabs knew Joseph as Yusuf. Just like the Jews were known as Yehudi, the Arabs knew Jews as Yehoodi. So if the Jews knew Jesus as Yeshua, then the Arabs should have known Jesus as Yeshua.
Allah would have revealed his ayat about Jesus with the name Yeshua, not Isa. It is the only logical train of thought. The stories from the Bible preceeded the Quran therefore Allah would reveal the same thing to the Arabs that He did to the Jews. If Allah told the Jewish prophets about Yeshua then He would have told the Arab prophet Muhammad about Yeshua. So how did Isa find its way into the Quran instead of Yeshua?
See, what had happened was…
The only real way for the name Isa to make its way into the Quran is to admit that someone was helping Muhammad create ayat and reciting verses to him. Whoever this person was, they knew how to read the Greek New Testament. When they read the story of Jesus, they read the translated word of Iesou and therefore thought that Jesus’s name was Isa or Esa. They didn’t know that Iesou was merely a translation of Yeshua and therefore created ayat with the name Isa, son of Maryam. In simple words, they brought over the name Greek name Isa into the Quran when they should have been using the Hebrew name Yeshua.
If Allah was truly revealing ayat, He never would have made such a grave mistake. This is a mistake of human error that would have been corrected by Allah because He knows the names He gave to His prophets. If Allah went through the hassle of correcting the story of Maryam in the Quran why wouldn’t he correct the name of His prophet? Muhammad claimed the Christians got the story of Isa(Jesus) wrong and that Allah revealed the right version to him. So, why oh why didn’t Allah reveal to Muhammad that Isa’s name was really Yeshua and that it was translated in Greek as Isa? Because there was no Allah revealing the truth to Muhammad and someone was helping him out. Someone who knew how to read Greek.
Muhammad even addressed this in the Quran because the Quraish(and others) would accuse him of receiving help and forgery:
“And indeed We know that they(polytheists and pagans) say: “It is only a human being who teaches him(Muhammad)”. The tongue of the man they refer to is foreign, while this(the Quran) is a clear Arabic tongue.” Surah An-Nahl 16:103
Epilogue [ἐπίλογος ]
Isa is mentioned dozens of times in the Quran so I’m sure most Muslims would overlook the damning fact that Isa is a Greek word and not Arabic. They may stumble for a minute and blink their eyes rapidly at the harsh reality that Muhammad created the Quran. Just when you think you have released them from the clutches of Islam they will shriek ‘ALLAHU AKBAR” and drop into sujud. They will think it is a miracle of the Quran that Allah changed a Hebrew word into Greek then had it accepted by generations of people as Arabic and no one noticed. Never mind the fact that anytime someone notices these discrepancies they are silenced(sometimes for good). It is all seen as the miraculous nature of Allah and the Quran.
I know this because I know how the muslim mind works when it wants to cling desperately to belief in Islam.
Because of that, I will go into the second part of the name is Isa and the Quran. However, it took a really long time to write this post and most likely will take a long time to compose the second so I will author it at a later date. It must be done for the sake of my children. They need to know without a shadow of a doubt that Islam was created by Muhammad. My long hours of research is my jihad for them and for the world.
evebitestheapple 
Hot damn indeed! Mind = blown. Thankyou so much for your insightful research and beautifully composed posts.
wowwww…what a great exposition. Truly honest and courageous, meticuluously detailed. The truth will set you free indeed!!
If you research a little deeper, you will find that Arabic and Hebrew are both semitic languages rooted in Aramaic. Therefore it is quite natural for them to have similar sounding words. I suppose this is similar to Italian and Spanish being rooted in Latin.
The examples you give all refer to words which were in the Arabic language long before the revelation of the Qur’an. So for example the word Leil ليل meant “night” or “evening” long before the arrival of the Qur’an. It was in normal everyday use and is rooted not in Hebrew but in Aramaic. The words “ruh” روح and “yawm” يوم also existed in Arabic for many hundreds of years before the arrival of the Qur’an.
So your suggestion that the use of these words is evidence of plagiarism is, to put it politely, clutching at straws.
I researched quite a bit before I wrote the post. It is the other way around: Aramaic evolved from Hebrew. The Bible is written in Hebrew and is purported to be at least 3,000 years old. Aramaic did not start showing up in the Bible until the books of Daniel and Ezra. This means 33 books of the Bible had already been written in Hebrew before Aramaic even came on the scene.
The Bible is said to have been around since at least 2000 B.C.(if not earlier) yet Aramaic doesn’t make any appearances in the Bible until at least 600 – 500 B.C.. Keep in mind B.C. years go down as time passes. This means 2000 B.C. was earlier than 500 B.C..
The “official” language of Arabic is said to have come from Ya’rab of the Qataban tribe of Yemen(which I planned to talk about later on). Fus’ha Arabic, or pure Arabic, is most likely what Ya’rab came up with. However, as time has shown, Ya’rab didn’t invent a pure language. It was a conglomeration of other languages(Aramaic) with his own little spice added to the mix. Yet Muhammad claimed that the Quran was a pure Arabic book when it fact there was no such thing as pure Arabic. And on top of that many of the words were taken from the Hebrew Bible and incorporated into Arabic.
If Arabic was a pure, unadulterated language there wouldn’t be a need to borrow any words nor for them to be similar in any way. The best way to look at it is consider a baby that is left to develop on its on without any outside influences of speech. As it grows it will not gravitate to english, Phoenician, Hebrew, or any other language. The child will develop its own set of sounds and names for things. It will be responsible for developing its grunts and coos into speech. If this were to continue on for a period of time and other babies are added to this group(whose speech hasn’t been influenced) then they will create their own pure language over time.
They will give names to things and those names will become accepted. Eventually someone will produce a written system by assigning symbols to sounds and a written language will come about. This is how a pure language comes. Muhammad wasn’t speaking a pure language even though he claims the Quran is written in it.
correction: Ya’rab is from the Qahtanites(although the Qataban are identified with them).
I get the impression that you are a little fixated with the word “pure” because you think that the Qur’an described the Arabic language as pure and, if you can demonstrate that the Arabic language is impure, then you have by extension proven that the Qur’an cannot be the word of God because it can be proven to be inaccurate. I can see the attraction of that line of argument, although I can’t see where the Qur’an describes the Arabic language as pure and unadulterated, therefore I can’t see a basis in logic for your strategy. The Qur’an, speaking of itself, says that it was revealed in a tongue that is “arabiyyun mubeen عربي مبين “. The word mubeen is related to clarity and ease of understanding. The clarity indicated by mubeen is derived from “bayyana بين ” meaning he clarified or explained or revealed, and is not related to purity in the sense in which you seem to understand it.
Verse 39-28 which you use as the basis for your argument also does not make any claim of purity for the Arabic language. The claim it makes is for a lack of crookedness in the Qur’an. Can you clarify what made you conclude otherwise?
I’m a bit pressed for time so I will have to address your question later. However, as the several ayat show below, Muhammad/Allah didn’t say ‘I revealed this in an Aramaic/Greek/Akkadian/Ethiopian revelation so you may understand…’. He made it plain and clear that it is an Arabic Quran. Tafsirs of the past have all stated the importance of relating the Quran in Arabic. When you go study Arabic at language schools in Egypt you are taught Fus’ha Arabic which is pure Arabic. You are only taught Fus’ha because it is the only way you will understand the language of the Quran. Everyday speakers of Arabic commonly report that they do not understand Quran Arabic because it is Fus’ha. They will say they don’t know what is being said at Hajj because the Arabic is Quranic Arabic or Fus’ha. So your issue is with why Muhammad is stuck on Arabic being pure. The problem is that it wasn’t pure:
And if We had sent this as a Qur’an 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 Qur’an) is blindness for them. They are those who are called from a place far away (so they neither listen nor understand).”
Verily, We have sent it down as an arabic Qur’an in order that you may understand.
And thus have We sent it (the Qur’an) down to be a judgement of authority in arabic. Were you (O Muhammad صلى الله عليه و سلم) to follow their (vain) desires after the knowledge which has come to you, then you will not have any Wali (protector) or Waq (defender) against Allah.
And indeed We know that they (polytheists and pagans) say: “It is only a human being who teaches him (Muhammad صلى الله عليه و سلم).” The tongue of the man they refer to is foreign, while this (the Qur’an) is a clear arabic tongue.
And thus We have sent it down as a Qur’an in arabic, and have explained therein in detail the warnings, in order that they may fear Allah, or that it may cause them to have a lesson from it (or to have the honour for believing and acting on its teachings).
In the plain arabic language.
An arabic Qur’an, without any crookedness (therein) in order that they may avoid all evil which Allah has ordered them to avoid, fear Him and keep their duty to Him.
A Book whereof the Verses are explained in detail – a Qur’an in arabic for people who know.
And thus We have revealed to you (O Muhammad صلى الله عليه و سلم) a Qur’an in arabic that you may warn the Mother of the Towns (Makkah) and all around it, and warn (them) of the Day of Assembling of which there is no doubt: when a party will be in Paradise (those who believed in Allah and followed what Allah’s Messenger صلى الله عليه و سلم brought them) and a party in the blazing Fire (Hell) (those who disbelieved in Allah and followed not what Allah’s Messenger صلى الله عليه و سلم brought them).
Verily, We have made it a Qur’an in arabic that you may be able to understand (its meanings and its admonitions).
The surahs to the above verses are:
1. Fussilat:44
2. Yusuf:2
3. Ar-Rad:37
4. An-Nahl:103
5. Taha:113
6. Ash-Shuara:195
7. Az-Zumar:28
8. Fussilat:3
9. Ash-Shura:7
10. Az-Zukhruf:3
Forgot one:
And before this was the Scripture of Musa (Moses) as a guide and a mercy. And this is a confirming Book (the Qur’an) in the arabic language, to warn those who do wrong, and as glad tidings to the Muhsinun (good-doers).
Al-Ahqaf:12
I appear to be struggling in getting my point across to you clearly and concisely, so please bear with me. In my understanding, a language is a collection of words which are put together according to a set of agreed rules in order to enable communication between people. Therefore, regardless of the origin of a word, it can be absorbed into a language, as long as the day-to-day users of that language accept and agree to the use of it. Take, for example, English words such as algebra, tamarind, captain and alcohol which were borrowed from Arabic, and many other words which are now regarded as English but originate in French, German or Latin.
Languages are not born complete and fully formed. They evolve over time and borrow from one another. The important thing in relation to your note is that the Qur’an did not introduce a new language called Arabic. Rather, it was revealed in an already existing language called Arabic, which had been in use for hundreds of years. It was revealed using words which would be recognized and UNDERSTOOD by people who regarded Arabic as their language. So when the Qur’an says to Quraish that they are being given an arabic Qur’an, what that means is that they are being given a book in the language that they speak so that they can understand it. I doubt that it was intended to be taken as a statement about the etymological root of the words that it contains!
But for you to suggest that the Qur’an used Hebrew words for “day” and “night” would suggest that the then-existing Arabic language either did not have words for day and night, or that it did, but for some unknown reason Muhammad PBUH chose not to use them. Either way, that sounds like a preposterous suggestion which doesn’t stand up to even the most superficial scrutiny. You also overlook the fact of the the common root of Hebrew and Arabic, as well as the fact that Hebrew had been extinct as a social language for hundreds of years at the time of the revelation of the Qur’an. For what reason would Muhammad PBUH borrow words from an extinct language in order to communicate everyday concepts such as day and night?
But in any case, for you to say that this or that word is not “arabic” in origin misses the point entirely. This is because every mature and established language, which is able to express complex ideas in literary form, must necessarily have existed for a considerable period of time. It follows, therefore, that the users of that language must have also absorbed and adapted words and concepts from other civilisations and cultures. This is all part of the human experience, and I see it more as a strength rather than a weakness of a language.
I have some comments about your theories surrounding the name of prophet Isa PBUH, but it’s getting late and I need to be up early tomorrow.
You have merely re-iterated what I have said. I stated in my original post that language isn’t static, that it evolves, so you are only repeating what I wrote.
Muhammad/Allah is the one who goes on and on about the Quran being in an Arabic language so everyone(from the Arabs) can understand. The scholars and the shahyuk are the ones who harp on the magnificence of Arabic, its eloquence and that there is nothing like it. They were not thinking about evolution of language. They were thinking we have been granted this unique, individual language and Allah has selcted it out of all the other languages to speak to the Arabs. Can you then imagine the blow Muslims receive when they learn that there is no plain ol’ Arabic but that quite of bit of it is derived from Hebrew and the Jews?! Is there any wonder Muhammad would get angry when he caught someone reading the Torah or the Bible because they would be able to discover his secret?
I personally do not have a problem about languages adopting other words. My question is: WHY DOES ALLAH NEED TO BORROW WORDS FROM OTHER LANGUAGES TO GET HIS POINT ACROSS TO HIS OWN CREATION?
There are “obscure and unknown” words in the Quran that people during Muhammads time didn’t know the meaning of. Why in the world would Allah put words in the Quran that the Arabs had no clue what they meant? Why didn’t Allah just replace the word with something that He, the All-Knowing, would know they would understand? To say there are borrowed words from the Quran is to say that Allah sent the Quran in Arabic. Then Allah decided to borrow some words from another language and stick them in the Quran. Meanwhile Allah knows the Arabs he sent the borrowed, obscure words to DID NOT UNDERSTAND the borrowed words.
This is absolutely absurd for someone who claims to have created everything in existence. As an English teacher, I would not tell you we will have a test on Friday and when you sit down to take the test, some of it is in English and some of it is in Japanese. What would be my reason for giving you words that you have absolutely no clue to the meaning? Yet Allah does this time and time again, put words in the “clear” Quran that no one knows the meaning without having to use supplementation.
Herein lies my point that Muhammad was merely reading the Torah and the Bible, listening to stories passed down and incorporating them into the Quran. He was implementing strange words that no one knew because he was getting them from other sources. As for the common everyday words, it is merely to show that there was no special Arabic, that much of it derived from Hebrew, and Muslims can stop acting like they are a Godsend because of this language.
And as far as your comments about my theories, I was already anticipating them(from any Muslim). I was Muslim for quite awhile so I know your train of thought. Most likely ‘Part Two’ would have covered everything you plan to write(and then some). So go ahead and list them. However, I may not reply for a day or two because replying to comments can become time-consuming.
It has already been shown that the Quran did have Aramaic beginnings. It is controversial but people are showing changes that have been made. They also think this is why some verses are incomprehensible, because we are trying to understand them in Arabic, and they were originally intended to be in Aramaic. So yea, I can see your argument Eve.
“I stated in my original post that language isn’t static, that it evolves,”
“My question is: WHY DOES ALLAH NEED TO BORROW WORDS FROM OTHER LANGUAGES TO
GET HIS POINT ACROSS TO HIS OWN CREATION?”
OK, so where shall I start?
On the one hand, you acknowledge that languages evolve, and you also say that you have no problem with languages borrowing from one another.
I think we’re in agreement so far.
But then you go on to ask a curious question: why does Allah need to “borrow words from other languages”? I can’t get my head around the concept of God “borrowing” anything from anyone, so I think this is where we begin to part company. Surely, the correct way to see this is that it was the Arabs and not God who did the borrowing of words from other languages (if indeed they did). He merely communicated with them in the language that they understood and regarded as their own and called Arabic.
What I am puzzled about is why you have such a problem with Arabs who may previously have spoken Aramaic or Syriac or Phoenician or whatever, carrying words across from their previous mother tongues into Arabic, their new mother tongue. Your attitude is especially strange in light of the fact that you acknowledge that languages evolve, and that there is no problem in them cross-pollinating one another. Do you include Arabic in that opinion? why would you not accept that these words became part of the Arabic language, in the same way that “regard” is now officially part of the English language despite the fact that it probably arrived into English from French following the Norman conquest of 1066?
“(if indeed they did)”
Aboo Bakr ibn al-Anbaaree(d. 328 A.H.) said:
There are numerous narrations from Companions and the Successors concerning their explaining the obscure and rare words in the Quran with poetry. …..we have not made poetry a primary source over the Quran but rather we wish to clarify the meanings of the obscure and rare words in it”
Why does Allah put “rare and obscure words” in the Quran? It is suggested that Muslims familiarize themselves with poetry of the Arabs in order to understand the Quran. Why? Because there are words in it that the Muslims during the time of Muhammad did not understand. The Quran is supposed to be the speech of Allah sent to Muhammad through Jibreel. So, again, why would Allah put an unfamiliar word in the His Speech that the Arabs didn’t understand? If the Quran is mubeen then why did the Companions need to resort to poetry to understand it?
If these words were already in circulation by the Arabs then why did they need to use Tafseer of Pre-Islamic Arab customs to understand what Allah was saying? If the words were already being used by Arabs then why did the Companions have to resort to the hadeeth of Israa’eeliyat to understand them? Allah created mankind, why would He put words in the Quran that would cause the Arabs to go on a wild goose chase trying to find the meaning?
If Allah knew languages evolved, why did he bother going to such great lengths of pointing out that the Quran is in Arabic? This is a moot point if, as the Creator, you know Arabic will get washed out into new dialects as time passes. It also doesn’t make any sense for the Creator to decree languages to evolve and then send Islam in one static language 1,400 years ago.
“why would you not accept that these words became part of the Arabic language…”
What you do not understand(or are refusing to understand) is that it is not me who has the problem with words fusing into another language. It is your Prophet who has the problem with anything other than Arabic. It is your Shaykhs who have the problem with anything other than pure, clear, classical Arabic. It is your scholars that have a problem with anything other than Arabic. It is your Imams that have a problem with anything other than Arabic.
They all state that Arabic is the best language. They say it is the most perfect language, They say it is the language that is superior to all other languages. They say this because they believe Allah revealed the Quran to the Arabs in the Arabic language. They say it because they believe that Arabic is the language of Paradise. They say this because they believe that the last Prophet was sent with this language. Therefore they don’t believe that language evolves. They believe that it, especially Quranic language, should stay the same. And so they reject any notion that Arabic ever came from Hebrew to Assyrian to Aramaic because they do not believe the evolution of language would allow the speech of Allah to be contaminated with the speech of the Jews.
Muhammad believed(and your scholars believed) that Allah sent each group of people with their own specific set of languages and that Allah chose Arabic to be esteemed. It is only during recent times during studies in linguistics, the studying of deaf people and how they speak, that Arab Shayhks have been forced to admit that language evolved and that there wasn’t any pure, clear, special, holy, specific Arabic language destined just for them.
This causes a problem for them. They can longer potray Islam as this unque religion sent to everyone through the Arabs and Arabic. Why? Because they must admit that Allah didn’t reserve Arabic as special and unique. They must also admit that Arabic’s linguistic foundation rests on the shoulders of the Jews, the very people that Muslims hate.
Arabic is the foundation of Islam. In some fatwas, it is considered a sin to pray in anything but Arabic. Allah created everything so why would He create people(Irish, Native Americans, Aborigines, African, Maori, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesians, Malaysians, Indians, Afghans, Greeks, Egyptians) to speak so many different languages and then decide that He would send His last revelation in Arabic? Why not just hardwire everyone to be born speaking one dialect of Arabic? That would be an easy thing for Allah. He decreed for everyone to have an autonomous human system that works without even having to think about it. If humans had to think about breathing, we would all die within a few minutes after birth. So if something that incredulous can be created by Allah, why would He create dissession and confusion by decreeing in His Book of Decrees that everyone speak different languages? Only to turn around and say that the very Book that will save you from Hellfire in written in a language that most people, and even some of the Companions, do not understand.
Islam will be lost if the original, classic, language of the Quran is lost. Why? Because language is still evolving. So much so that even present-day Arabs who speak Arabic don’t understand the Quran. Why did Allah alllow Arabic to continue evolving at the risk of losing the understanding of the basis of Islam(Quran)? Again, this is something easy for Allah, to stop the languages from growing so that classical Quran can be learned and understood by everyone. All He has to do is say “Be” and it is so. Why send a last Prophet and Messenger as saviour to my soul only to decree for it to be taken away. Because it was not revealed by Allah. Islam and the Quran was created by Muhammad. These are the problems of religion, not of God. Religion isn’t created to keep up with the times and that’s why there are all these problems. That is why you need an army of scholars for something that is supposed to be easy to understand. Because it is man-made but people keep trying to insist it is not.
These are the hard questions you need to honestly ask yourself. I already know it is scary to face up to these things. Islam comes into peoples lives at a point where they feel it helps them. So to entertain the idea that Islam is false is not something Muslims welcome. I get it, trust me, I do. But at the end of the day, you are wasting your time on falsehood. Stop turning a blind eye to all the truth staring you squarely in the face. Stop putting your logic in prison for the sake of letting your eman run free. If you are from the lucky people who do not live in a Muslim country then enjoy the freedoms you have as a human to live life. Other people do not have that option. Keep away from the community and indoctrination and see Islam for what it is so you can get on with your life and stop wasting away serving a God in hopes of getting into a Jannah that doesn’t exist.
Hence, the death threats being made toward the German guy who was on National Geographic talking about how the Quran has been touched by human hands, and he has proof to back it up.
I read about this guy a couple of months ago(at least he sounds like the same one). There was a man who was a Muslim professor at a school of some sort. He knew someone who had old pages from the Quran but the person wouldn’t release them. Something happened(a war maybe) and the person was forced to release the copies to which this Muslim professor was finally able to examine them. Sometime after that he apostated. The article didn’t state what he read in the scripts but whatever it was it was enough to convince him that Islam was false. I think his last name was Kilasch or something like that.
Does it sound like the same story?
I’ve been trying to relocate the story and see if there were any updates but haven’t been able to find anything. I can’t even find the original articles I read. I’ve dug all through my browsing history looking for the old links but to no avail. I wanted to blog about this guy but I need to find him again. Do you remember his name? Even after I read the article, I tried googling more information about him and it seemed as though he just dropped off the face of the earth. I imagine after his discovery his life was on the line. How tragic.
I blogged about it once, I will look through my archives and see if I can find it.
Hey ok found the guy that I was talking about. He is non Muslim so I don’t think we are referring to the same story, but here is what I was talking about, if you’re interested.
http://almostclever.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/christopher-luxenburg/
Thanks for checking and the link-back. It’s not the same guy so I will have to keep looking. I’ve read some things about the mistranslation of houri and raisins but never read the whole story so your article was a good read. I see in the comments someone pounced on the author for writing Quran the “wrong” way and decided to toss his entire argument out the window based on that. The things belief can make a person do and say…..
That particular person is someone I have a bit of a problem with. Her views get pretty prejudice and hateful when you just sit back and let her speak. But anyway, you’ll have to post something about it when/if you remember the person you were thinking about.
Finally found it. The guy’s name is Muhammad Kalisch but the story I was looking for is here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA15Ak03.html
Apparently there is a ‘Corpus Coranicum’ taking place based on the hidden texts that are discussed in the article. Interestingly I can’t find much on this Corpus, the latest article I found was 2008. Something is awry in this whole story but what else is new as such is the case with Islam.