Things in Islam I am curious about...

Grace Seeker said:
I suspect the following has no answer, but it will serve to move us to at least a new area of discussion.


I understand that the Qur'an is in Arabic because Allah sent his message to the Arabs. But Muslim feel that Muhammad was the last prophet and thus his message must be for all time and all nations. Why then, since the message is not meant just for Arabs but for all nations as well, would not Allah also send Gabriel to return and provide the exact translation of the original message that he gave to Muhammad in all of the other languages of the world in to which it is translated? Why leave the Qur'an open to misinterpretation and mistranslation so that one has (I don't know exactly, perhaps) hundreds of different translations of the Qur'an in English alone?
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Which is why we do not accept any translation as being the Qur'an.

Yes, this does seem to be an obstacle, yet it is also a safeguard that protects the integrity of the orignal word and allows for easy reference back to the original.

At first glance it does seem that ideally Alaah(swt) would have the word to be revealed and corrected in all languages.But, being humans would probably get into an argument over which language is most accurate. I can not explain why Allaah(swt) does what he does, but I do accept it works and his reasons always come out to be the best, even when we do not know why.

Yes, the message is meant for all people in all places and all times. Translations and interpretations are tools that can be used to help spread the word, but they must always be understood to be simply tools.

I also find very beautiful justice that the Qur'an was revealed in this manner. It does place all people as equals in needing to put forth a dedicated effort to show love of Allaah(swt). The difficulty was there, even at the time Muhammad(PBUH) was alive. Arabic had just become a written language and virtually the entire world was illiterate in terms of reading and writing it. No person has or had any real advantage or disadvantage in understanding the Qur'an.
 
Imam said:
It is a good idea to move to new area of discussion,though I don't think such Question related the title of the thread (Things in Islam I am curious about),as the arena of discussion should be things exclusive to Islam,as I can ask you the same question:

But christians feel that the message of the New Testament must be for all time and all nations. Why then, since the message is not meant just for Hebrews but for all nations as well, would not Allah also send the holy spirit to return and provide the exact translation of the New Testament of the other languages of the world in to which it is translated? Why leave the NT open to misinterpretation and mistranslation ?


The Question is not exclusive to Islam, isn't it?
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Similar question could surely be put to any religion that has sacred texts translated into other languages. The reason I asked it of Islam is because an English translation of the Qur'an is NOT the Qur'an, but only an interpretation. And the only true form of the Qur'an is understood to be that which is in Arabic. Yet not all Muslims speak Arabic. If the message is for them and important enough to get an angel to deliver it verbatim, surely the translation would need to be just as accurate as well.

There are other issues with understanding what the Bible is -- it isn't a verbatim message but includes a human element in the writing -- so that while their are similar issues, they are not exactly the same.


Do you have a motive to study the book?
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Yes. One of my daughters is Muslim (born and raised). I love her very much and my initial interest in studying Islam arose specifically as a means to better understanding and appreciating her, her culture, and the faith that she holds dear. At times when she comes to me for advice, I have learned that it is imperative that I have a proper understanding of how her faith intersects with her life if I am to truly help her. Six years ago I asked her to get me a copy of the Qur'an in English -- this she procured from her aunt who runs a bookstore in Turkey. I may not consider it one of my most sacred books, but I do consider it among my most special. (I hope you can appreciate the distinction.)


if so being in another language you don't speak, is not problematic as long as ,you are you honest with yourself, take the matter seriously and consult the big old dictionaries.....this can be said about the Quran and about the Bible as well.........
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I would agree.
 
I have a question concerning the Jinn, or what Christians would call devils or demons. Is it true that the Quran's message is even applicable to them? Meaning, that the Jinn can come to know God and follow after his ways? If this is true, what's to stop the Jinn outright from abandoning following Satan and following Allah? I guess what I'm basically trying to say is: why would a Jinn who follows Satan continue doing so when they have a better understanding of Allah and judgement than collectively blind humans?
 
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Fedos said:
Is it true that the Quran's message is even applicable to them?
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Greetings

Jinns are mentioned in the Qur'an, wherein a whole chapter is named after them (Al-Jinn). They can be both good and evil. Evil jinns are said to be one of the tools that lead humans astray.

Surat Al-Jinn (Arabic: سورة الجن ) is the 72nd sura of the Qur'an with 28 ayat. In the second ayat the Jinn recant their belief in false gods and venerate Muhammad for his true monotheism. The Jinn apologize for their past blasphemy and criticize mankind for either neglecting them or encouraging their disbelief. Ayats 20-22 are especially important as true monotheism among the Jinn is reaffirmed, violence as a means of conversion is rejected, and the inescapable wrath of Allah is emphasized. The Judgement in ayat 7, and the Punishment in ayat 25, are both references to the Islamic Judgement Day, . Ayat 25-28 establish that Judgement Day is known only to Allah and that Allah takes into account all the deeds of a man when judging him.

"I know not whether the (Punishment) which we are promised is near, or whether my Lord will appoint for it a distant term."



Fedos said:
why would a Jinn who follows Satan continue doing so when they have a better understanding of Allah and judgement than collectively blind humans?
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They have better understanding of God than humans ?
I don't think so ,I think they are as just as humans in such arena......

Grace Seeker said:
Yes. One of my daughters is Muslim (born and raised). I love her very much and my initial interest in studying Islam arose specifically as a means to better understanding and appreciating her
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It would be nice and interesting ,If you invite her to the forum.......
 
Fedos said:
I have a question concerning the Jinn, or what Christians would call devils or demons. Is it true that the Quran's message is even applicable to them? Meaning, that the Jinn can come to know God and follow after his ways? If this is true, what's to stop the Jinn outright from abandoning following Satan and following Allah? I guess what I'm basically trying to say is: why would a Jinn who follows Satan continue doing so when they have a better understanding of Allah and judgement than collectively blind humans?
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I believe this been answered in sevaral of the above post. However, to either clarify or confuse. I am adding

Jinn need not be devils or shaytans. Any creature with free will can be a shaytan.

Iblis was a shaytan, since Angels do not have free will we know he was not an Angel. Adam and Eve were the only humans, so by process of elimination Iblis was a Jinn.
 
Woodrow said:
I believe this been answered in sevaral of the above post. However, to either clarify or confuse. I am adding

Jinn need not be devils or shaytans. Any creature with free will can be a shaytan.

Iblis was a shaytan, since Angels do not have free will we know he was not an Angel. Adam and Eve were the only humans, so by process of elimination Iblis was a Jinn.
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To confuse--

OK, since Jinn can be either good or bad they must have free will. True?
And if they have free will, and angels do not have free will, then they must not be angels?

Also, there is not one shaytan, but many shaytans?

And Iblis would in English be, who? The devil? Satan? Lucifer? The "Evil One"? The anti-Christ? Some people think these are all synonymns in Christianity, but really they are not? So, I don't assume that there even is an equivalence of another name for Iblis. But, if there is, what other name might I know Iblis by?
 
Bismillah: Assalamo Alikum.

Grace Seeker

OK, since Jinn can be either good or bad they must have free will. True?
And if they have free will, and angels do not have free will, then they must not be angels?
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Yes they are not angels.

Also, there is not one shaytan, but many shaytans?
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Yes there are many Satans/SHAYATEEN/Evil ones, among JINN and also among human being also, the Qur’an states:

“Likewise did We make for every Messenger an enemy, - evil ones/SHAYATEEN among men and jinns… Qur’an 6:112

And Iblis would in English be, who? The devil? Satan? Lucifer? The "Evil One"? The anti-Christ? Some people think these are all synonymns in Christianity, but really they are not?
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Iblis is the NAME of the devil himself.

Satan is Shaytan, the production of the devil, which is also called the Evil one.

The anti Christ is AL MASSIH AL DAJJAL in Arabic.

So, I don't assume that there even is an equivalence of another name for Iblis. But, if there is, what other name might I know Iblis by?
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In Arabic there is only one name for Iblis, that is Iblis…

Salam
Serving Islam.
 
Grace Seeker said:
I suspect the following has no answer, but it will serve to move us to at least a new area of discussion.


I understand that the Qur'an is in Arabic because Allah sent his message to the Arabs. But Muslim feel that Muhammad was the last prophet and thus his message must be for all time and all nations. Why then, since the message is not meant just for Arabs but for all nations as well, would not Allah also send Gabriel to return and provide the exact translation of the original message that he gave to Muhammad in all of the other languages of the world in to which it is translated? Why leave the Qur'an open to misinterpretation and mistranslation so that one has (I don't know exactly, perhaps) hundreds of different translations of the Qur'an in English alone?
Click to expand...

And, why didn’t God, deliver the message in writing, as he did with Moses? If God wanted to deliver a clear, unambiguous and unarguable message, why didn’t he give it on tablets of stone as he (wisely) did with Moses?

And, why didn’t Mohammed, after dictating it to various scribes, collect from theme the many pieces and keep them all in one place?

And, why did Uthman destroy all those pieces? Today there are Muslim ready to kill someone who would burn a copy of a Qur’an printed last week, yet Uthman felt he was right to destroy the original text – how do we reconcile that?
 
Grace Seeker said:
I suspect the following has no answer, but it will serve to move us to at least a new area of discussion.


I understand that the Qur'an is in Arabic because Allah sent his message to the Arabs. But Muslim feel that Muhammad was the last prophet and thus his message must be for all time and all nations. Why then, since the message is not meant just for Arabs but for all nations as well, would not Allah also send Gabriel to return and provide the exact translation of the original message that he gave to Muhammad in all of the other languages of the world in to which it is translated? Why leave the Qur'an open to misinterpretation and mistranslation so that one has (I don't know exactly, perhaps) hundreds of different translations of the Qur'an in English alone?
Click to expand...

Greetings. There is indeed an answer to this, given to me by one of the local imaams. The reason why it was sent in arabic is because that is the only language capable of carrying the TRUE message of the Qur'an. Anything else is a mere translation of the meaning behind the Quran. To answer your bit about the misinterpretation; there is a method to prevent this: the scholars or imaams who have studied the actual Arabic.

Thinker said:
And, why didn’t God, deliver the message in writing, as he did with Moses? If God wanted to deliver a clear, unambiguous and unarguable message, why didn’t he give it on tablets of stone as he (wisely) did with Moses?
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Remember; God tried that and it didn't work :)

And, why didn’t Mohammed, after dictating it to various scribes, collect from theme the many pieces and keep them all in one place?
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Don't know what you mean by this. Could you clarify this a little more?

And, why did Uthman destroy all those pieces? Today there are Muslim ready to kill someone who would burn a copy of a Qur’an printed last week, yet Uthman felt he was right to destroy the original text – how do we reconcile that?
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I believe this particular point has been already covered on this forum.
 
Thinker said:
And, why didn’t God, deliver the message in writing, as he did with Moses? If God wanted to deliver a clear, unambiguous and unarguable message, why didn’t he give it on tablets of stone as he (wisely) did with Moses?
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First of all, the Qur'an is from Allah, so Allah knows best who to deal with it.

Secondly, as far as information delivery is concerned, there's no difference. If you write to a buddy: "The sun is shining" or you call him on the phone and tell him the same, there's no difference.

Thinker said:
And, why didn’t Mohammed, after dictating it to various scribes, collect from theme the many pieces and keep them all in one place?
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What's the point? Does it proove the Qur'an is not authentic?
 
Thinker said:
Uthman felt he was right to destroy the original text – ?
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Greetings

it seems you haven't read enough material on this topic

What original text you're talking about?

take a look at the following links, and then tell me your conclusion..either here or the thread you started about the same topic....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_and_development_of_the_Qur'an#Standardization


http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/earlyquran.html

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/


http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/vowel.html

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ISLAM/QURAN.HTM

Have a nice readings

peace
 
Thinker said:
And, why did Uthman destroy all those pieces? Today there are Muslim ready to kill someone who would burn a copy of a Qur’an printed last week, yet Uthman felt he was right to destroy the original text – how do we reconcile that?
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Actually, if someone was trying to offend Muslims by burning a Quran - I'd laugh! That's possibly one of the least disrespectful things they could have done. Muslims routinely burn the Quran when they want to dispose of it, otherwise they can bury it. You can't just through the Quran in the rubbish - that is disrespectful. But burning is not disrespectful at all.
 
Imam said:
Greetings

it seems you haven't read enough material on this topic

What original text you're talking about?
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Hi, Thanks, yes I have read this material. I refer specifically to the below copied Hadith (and there are others) in which Zaid ibn Thabit was ordered to collect all the pieces from various scribes. He delivered what he had collected to Uthman who formed a committee to consolidate the pieces into a book before destroying all the origical writings.


(Bukhari 6:60:201) Zaid ibn Thabit, said . . . . . .By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me . . . concerning the collection of the Quran . . . so I started locating the Quranic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leafstalks of date palms and from the memories of men
 
Malaikah said:
Actually, if someone was trying to offend Muslims by burning a Quran - I'd laugh! That's possibly one of the least disrespectful things they could have done. Muslims routinely burn the Quran when they want to dispose of it, otherwise they can bury it. You can't just through the Quran in the rubbish - that is disrespectful. But burning is not disrespectful at all.
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Is there a special ceremony for doing this?

Is it the same with a translation of the Qur'an? Here I am specifically thinking of a tattered paperback English edition I have that I might want to replace, and then dispose of the old dogeared one.
 
In addition to Grace Seeker's question, what would be a reason to want to dispose of a copy of the Qu'ran?
 
glo said:
In addition to Grace Seeker's question, what would be a reason to want to dispose of a copy of the Qu'ran?
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Heres a snippet of the answer.

During the caliphate of Uthman there entered the fold of Islam peoples whose mother tongue was not Arabic, and who were not able to speak the language with the proper accent and pronunciation. Even the various Arab tribes themselves had different accents and pronunciation. Hence the variations in the recitation of the Qur’an. The result was that the Qur’an, too, began to be written according to varying pronunciations. Ibn Qutayba writes that the Bani Huzayl tribe used to pronounce ‘hatta’ as ‘atta’. Since Ibn Masood belonged to this tribe, its members saw no reason to deviate from this pronunciation. Such differences in recitation came to be reflected in the transcription of the Qur’an, this being only one of many such examples. Given this state of affairs, Uthman, as advised by Huzayfa ibn Yaman, had copies made of the volume prepared by Abu Bakr, then sent one copy each to all cities. This task was again entrusted to Zayd ibn Thabit Ansari, who was provided with eleven people to assist him. As per the order of the third caliph, the committee wrote down the Qur’an in accordance with the spelling of the Quraysh, so that it should conform to the accent (lehja) of the Prophet of Islam. Caliph Uthman subsequently ordered that all other copies of the Qur’an, which people had written on their own, should be handed over to the government. These were all then burnt by his order.

By this method, all the copies of the Qur’an were made uniform as far as writing was concerned. However, taking natural differences into consideration—since all the people were not able to pronounce the Qur’an uniformly—permission was given for the Qur’an to be recited with seven different pronunciations and accents. The collection prepared by Abu Bakr was done one year after the death of the Prophet. The copies ordered by Uthman were produced fifteen years after the Prophet’s death.




There are plenty of sites that give the answer.
One is this http://www.alrisala.org/Articles/quranworld/preservation_of_quran.htm
 
That makes sense, KarateKid. Thank you. :)

What reasons might people have nowadays to want to dispose of a copy of the Qu'ran?
 
glo said:
That makes sense, KarateKid. Thank you. :)

What reasons might people have nowadays to want to dispose of a copy of the Qu'ran?
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The copy may be damaged/torn or the print is faded so you cannot read it. Wear and tear reasons usually. Should mention, the burning ritual isn't just for the Quran though - rather anything with Allah's name on. So like Islamic pamphlets, or dua books - stuff of that nature.
 

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