> Khaled, > Questions regarding the Quran, reading the Quran as a westerner > lacks > the understanding of just what it is. As I understand, > Islam in the purest, recites the Quran from memory in arabic > and has done so until recently due to the same reason of any > representation > Of God or his word is tainting it's holiness. To interpret the > Qu'ran, > Muslims use a form of exegesis known as tafsir. > Do you know anything about this process? > -X [Khaled] This is where the Ulama'a come in. the Scholars. they go over the Qura'an and interepert. Also the "Hadith" or "talk" of the prophet. Sort of like the gospel.
The good example of that would be when the people went to stone the prostitute and Jesus said " let he who is without a sin..." the Hadith is like that, not exactly the Prophet's interpretation, but his opinion on it. Another thing about the qura'an is that one fust follow the chronology of it. For example when the forbidding of drinking came down, first it was " do not approach prayers while drunk", then do not drink at all. So yeah, one can look at the first one and say look I can drink as long as I don't pray drunk. But one has to follow the chronology and see that later drinking was forbidden. Period. As for the translation, well here it is in nutshell. When god sent the Qura'an, it was intended for the people of Arabia. God did say that I sent throughout place and time ( adam, noah, jonah, jesus, moses, abraham, isaac and so on) but this is your book for you people. Here comes the punch line " the prophet is Arabic, the book ( qura'an) is Arabic and the tongue of the people in heaven is Arabic. [ better start learning up ;) [X] Odd you mention that, one of the few time I ever "hallucenated" I saw arabic patterns in absolutley everything man made. One of the many consequences to that is that Arabic, unlike English has not modernized. You don't see us speaking what Shakespeare wrote, and that is causing a lot of problems. The spoken Arabic and the written are 2 different animals. To the point that if you read the newspaper to an illiterate person, they may get 50% of what you are saying. As for the spoken language, that varies so much. That's why I laugh when I hear about the US intelligence lack of translators. The best way to exemplify it is as follows. You take a Mexican, send him to Alabama to learn English then you station him in Scotland to translate intercepted phone calls. [X] This tie's in with where I'm going with the language theme and your post is helping tremendously. [Khaled] Where I was raised, you can walk within the city about 10 blocks and encounter a different accent. So while a Muslim and the Philippines may do the prayers in Arabic, how much of that is heartfelt since it's not in their mother tongue. It's an issue that has not been addressed. Lastly, when you see a Muslim imam preaching, you will never see one holding a book in his hand. The "Poetry" ( and I say that of one who mastered 3 languages) is quiet moving and makes it so easy to memorize. It flows and has a very nice balance to it. It really make you say that it would be a shame to translate. [X} As I suspected, the Qurans true form is oral. [Khaled] It's Thursday noon,. I'll be gone for a few days, if you have any more questions ill get back on Sunday. [x} Is there a rite before the recital of the Quran? a mental orientation of sorts, a prayer/meditation perhaps?. Thank you for taking the time to educate me, it is very enlightening. moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
