Arabic English Quran study guide

[SiiNii]

Guys I want to learn Arabic and at the same time learn about this religion of yours, is there something like a bilingual Quran students edition? If you don't know of one can you recommend a large Muslim forum or two that I should make this request?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Guys I want to learn Arabic and at the same time learn about this religion of yours, is there something like a bilingual Quran students edition? If you don't know of one can you recommend a large Muslim forum or two that I should make this request?

Look for my response tomorrow evening SiiNii Khan

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Look for my response tomorrow evening SiiNii Khan

SiiNii,

Here is the approach I took years ago and you can tell me what you think.

I am not sure which Arabic dictionary is the most superb out there, but the Quran is written in a classical style of Arabic. Some linguists say that it crystallized the grammer of the Arabic language for centuries thereafter. I used to refer to the Hans Wehr when I was studying.

http://www.amazon.com/Arabic-English...der_0879500034

Once you learn the root of the word in the modern sense, there is a set of dictionaries - called Lisan Al Arab that I heard was translated to English in recent years.

The Lisan is the gold standard from what I recall, for cataloguing the meaning of various words in classical Arabic.

So an approach where Hans Wehr is used to get the quick meaning and then referring to Lisaan for a more detailed discussion of what the word means from antiquity would be appropriate.

I think I agree with Joey about Yusuf Ali's translation. The original, prior to the Saudi Kingdom getting its hands on it is better and is still out there and easy to access. That being said, Yusuf Ali's opinions on interest and various concepts in Islamic theology (e.g. he proposed the theory that Jesus was saved from the cross but lived out the rest of his days) are somewhat variant from the majority orthodoxy interpretations. To his credit, he did not let these variant opinions seep into his translation and indicates in his footnotes that the reader may find his exegesis is different than that of certain orthodoxy. Nonetheless, his work is a masterpiece of the modern era. His footnotes show a wide breath of study and his prose attempts to capture some of the classical Arabic essence of the original.

And you can stagger that translation with the Marmaduke Pikthaal translation (both Ali and Pikthaal were contemporaries and amazingly accomplished people with divergent life trajectories - the back stories of these translators is fascinating and a discussion for a different day but Ali's biography Searching for Solace shows the fate of that tragic genius). The reason is this, if you want the exact literal word by word rendering then Pikthall does that. Ali acknowledges this about Pikthall's work but makes it clear that he thinks Pikthall misses out on capturing the beauty of the original.

It might be likened to the attempt to translate this Pashto verse:

Baylaa tha meh indishnaay da zraa maroona
Da Delhi takhtaa heromaa che rayadkrmaa zamaa da Shkolaay pashtunkhwa the ghra saroona

Literally Pikthall style:
Away from you, grief is on the heart like a snake
I forget Delhi's throne when I remember my beautiful Pashtun land's mountain tops

Yusuf Ali style:
In your absence, grief clings to the heart like a snake
I forsake the delhi throne when I remember my beautiful Afghanland mountain peaks

The example of why I think Yusuf Ali beats out the others is he understands those classical renderings in Lisaan. For example, the world illah means, most commonly "except." There is a verse of the Quran that mentions, when talking about the fall of Satan - fasajodoo illah ibleesa "They bowed (the angels) illah ibleesa." The verse goes on to say that he had a mind of his own unlike the angels in Islamic theology (angels in the divine schema are purely soldiers/executors of God's will and are not endowed with free will) Iblees (or Diabolis as you know him) and was a djinn (spiritual being apart from humans with free will). Therefore Ali translates "They bowed down, NOT SO Iblees." And he makes sure that the earliest encountering of a similar verse in the Quran where the discussion of his nature of not expounded upon, ie where the verse ends with illah ibleesa in the second chapter is translated exactly the same way because to say, "They bowed down except iblees" would render Diabolis/Satan an angel. He notes that in common parlance illah does more often refer to "with the exception of" indicating a like nature but also shows that in classical Arabic and the fact that the Quran itseld extends the verse elswhere, "Not so" is the proper translation. He does the same with sequence words like "thumma" which can mean "Then" but also can mean "Moreover."

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That all being said, I think its good to re-read the biblical text alongside of this. The translation that I prefer is James Moffatt's translation of the Bible. Moffatt was an amazing figure in that he was a truly honest translator and works in great footnotes on the ancient greek, aramaic, etc. His approach of honesty is what sparked a backlash against him but eventually led to teh New revised version (NIV).

Why do I think this is important to do? Its because for centuries now, as the theological understandings of Christianity from antiquity and from its early roots as a semi semitic religion have faded from practitioners knowledge bases to be left with the few academicians locked up in seminaries - this has caused the Western public to view the judeo christian faiths in the context of greco roman and sometimes pagan veins.

This in some ways has led to the very misinformed way that the Western public views Islam and its practices.

As I read the Bible, I became fascinated with the commonalities amongst the three revealed religions in a way that validated my own faith.

For instance:
The public in the West sees Muslims bowing in prayer onto their face and covering in a certain way and growing their beards and praying multiple times a day and wonder about this being extreme or completely ludicrous and foreign.

As one reads the Biblical text, one sees the semitic links:
Abraham "falls onto his face" in prayer and bows
Moses does the same

In Daniel's book, he faces Jerusalem and prays three times daily (Muhammad and his early followers praid initially toward Jerusalem and three times and this is documented in the Quran when an order is given to the Muslims to redirect their faces to Makkah).

Jesus falls to his face in the garden of gethsemane in prayer.

Moses and Jesus fast in the semitic tradition 30 to 40 days at a time.

As they greet their followers they advocate the saying of "Shalom" or peace be with you.

David or one of the Kings (I forget) was infuriated when his emissaries beards were forcefully shaven and viewed it as an indignity.

Semitic gender roles are also interesting.

In summary, reading the two side by side, Moffatt's Bible and Ali's translation of the Quran will lessen the shock factor that many have when first approaching the Quran. The reason being, so many in the West have no even baseline knowledge of their own religion, and as Mike Scheuer points out, practice a sort of paganistic version of it so much so that they feel completely disoriented as if they have entered an Eastern world they never knew before. Carlisle was perhaps more familiar with the King James Bible but even still, despite his admiration for Muhammad, he found the Quran's organization troublesome because he expected a story book.
The Quran does not read like that.. rather it is written in the form of a constitution or manual with directions and codified laws and answers from God on various matters. Parables and certain aspects of the stories of the Prophets and events are interspersed therein only as an adjunct but generally do not trump the instructive verses.

As an example, the bible starts off with "In the beginning" and to an extent continues almost as a written story.

Contrast this with the Quran which begins as an instruction manual of sorts after the initial chapter which is a prayer:

"Alef, Laam, Meem... This is the Book, in it is guidance, sure without a doubt, to those that are conscious of God"... and then it lists the virtues of such believers in an instructive format so as to say they 1. Believe in the unseen and 2. Pray etc.

To overcome this sensation, I advise finding the words of Christ in the New Testament and noting that in the absence of the filler work done by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, these teaching verses do not all flow into eachother but are instructive in nature.

[randolph85]

Barakzai, what is different about the yusuf ali prior to the saudis getting their hands on it?

[یاسمینه]

The Hans Wehr's dictionary is still considered the best Arabic-English dictionary. It is here: http://www.pashtunforums.com/other-b...-~-wehr-30482/

I think that this dictionary http://www.pashtunforums.com/other-b...usage-~-30518/ can also be helpful.

[یاسمینه]

SiiNii, something for you: http://www.pashtunforums.com/other-b...97/#post682201

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Barakzai, what is different about the yusuf ali prior to the saudis getting their hands on it?

Randolph

Salamoona

They took his mushaf and basically removed a number of his hypothesis driven footnotes that are so very informative.

For example, Muslims today, including myself, know next to nothing about the seven ahruf in which the Quran was revealed. These are alluded to in the hadith literature and there is a lot of interesting debate about them.

Ali, for instance had a footnote with respect to one of the verses in which the wives of the Prophet are called mothers of the believers. He goes on to rightfully inform his readers that hadith literature conveys in the ahruf that Ubai ibn Kaab recited also occured wa huwa ablahum (and he {the prophet} is as a father figure unto them {believers}). The likely reason for abrogation was that the Seal of the Prophethood, Muhammad Al Mustafa, is also discussed as not being a father to any of the contemporary sahabaa.

Admittedly, Uthman ibn Affan did a wonderful thing for the Muslim people by committing the other ahruf to the flames and leaving behind the single ahruf and its various qiraat. I wholeheartedly love the man for that single decision in which he ensured trouble makers would never render the Quran at odds with itself in anyway.

But the issue is that this knowledge was known to Bukhari, Muslim and others for the sake of academic Islamic rigor. At this point, Muslims know less than their German orientalist counterparts about the ahruf and this has allowed missionaries to create a lot of unecessary mischief. There are some qari that know various ahruf and their potential recitals to this very day. One for instance told me of a way read by ibn abbas using the words "in the presence of death" in a particular location.

And I think Ali's goal of informing his reader of such matters is to enlighten them and arm then with a breath of knowledge that would cause them to then read into these ancient and informative matters.

Another example is the clear removal of some of his thoughts that were controversial regarding economics. In some sunni circles the publishers left these commentaries intact and just added their own disagreements which I thought was more honest.

Then there is their desire to at least feel like they contributed to the original masterpiece by altering a word here or there. I think that this caused a lot of damage. The key places they changed words that Ali had researched in depth resulted in those words, for instance illah and thumma being replaced by common modern definitions that rendered the verses central idea at odds with the other key verses.

They also removed his appendices conjecturing about Zul Qarnain because he suggested Alexander. Ali traveled far and wide and may have speculated but he made sure that his appendix did not influence his translation. It was merely and adjunct.

In more recent times, various American Orientalists have sough to have it banned from being used in universities and other places because they feel Ali was anti semitic and flavored his footnote and translations that way. I strongly disagree with this in any way.

On a personal level, I do not agree with many of Yusuf Ali's choices that he made in life and admire Pikthall more as a person for his standing up to British authorities and not lettiing himself be used against the Turks.

That however doesnt really affect my view of Ali's effort and work ethic as well as his product.

Was Ali at times sympthatic to the shiite viewpoints on Imams and other matters? Yes of course:

http://shiatext.blogspot.com/2010/07...post_4857.html

But I think even that was tempered by his eventual endorsement of sunni philosophy.

The Saudi edition deleted some of the thoughts he had on Hasan and Hussain... and quiet frankly as an avowed sunni, I did not find the originals that troubling. I think its perfectly fine to have a love for the meritocratic struggles of Hassan and Hussain to save the merit driven Majlis e Shuraa approach to Caliphate that Yazid's appointment had put in dire jeapardy.

At times when they saw the word imam they didnt realize Ali was referring to the Prophet and assumed he meant the Shiite chain of command and deleted the whole sentence.

There were occasions when that Saudi committee did make a few helpful additions such as referring to direct hadith literature to elucidate an instance... but overall I think it was guided by their internal paradigms and political thought processes that want schism with shiites instead of trying to heal that ancient rift.

Truth be told, radical shiites have done similar in the past and even attempted to abridge the Quran with two exposed forgeries (the now debunked Waliyaah and Nurain surahs in the single mushaaf), so I dont want to make it seem as if those guys havent done their fair share of damage.

[randolph85]

yusuf ali was an interesting man, his work is a huge contribution to islam but his politics seemed to be against islamic interests.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

yusuf ali was an interesting man, his work is a huge contribution to islam but his politics seemed to be against islamic interests.

I agree. Fascinating dichotomy. I think he honestly believed his actions were for the better. Yet the other dichotomy is the difference in outcome between Pikthall and him. Pikthall was a convert and refused to be used as a pawn by the British to translate against the Ottoman Caliphate (unlike Ali). They took away Pikthall's pension etc but he remained steadfast. Ali on the other hand lost it all by the end. His British wife committed adultery and his children loathed him. He died alone and was found in a delerium outside his hospital.