If god did write the Quran, why did he use so many Arabic idioms? This makes me doubt the Quran is from god, because it sounds more like an Arab living in an Arab land wrote it.
So, Iâm a teacher guy thing. I know, I donât understand why they would let me do that either, but, just go with it, so Iâm a teacher:
If I explained things to my students, without them knowing the things I needed to teach them, would it work very well? I mean, sure, I could just throw out terms without explaining them, and Iâm sure those are the types of teachers that we love the most.
Now, maybe youâre thinking âbut in our language classes our teachers are always like.â
âNo, no, no Sergio solamente en Espanol!â And theyâd have their hands on their hips, and their head off to the side, but youâre begging them to call the Ghost Busters because there was a Ghost that clearly just passed through the classrooms and you forgot how to say âwho you gonna call?â in Spanish and itâs a terrible situation. Wait, where am I going with this?
Oh, right.
So when youâre learning a language, you donât know the idioms. Like, when I think someone is really cool, in Arabic, I say (literally) that their blood is light. This makes no sense. If I just ran up to you with this huge smile and said âHAY! YOUR BLOOD IZ LIGHT! CIAO!â and then ran away, I mean, first, youâd ask âwhy did he say âciaoâ? Who does he think he is?â and youâd be right, me saying âciaoâ would be annoying, but, you also wouldnât understand the phrase, because it doesnât translate.
My mother would always remind us that languages were not just language, she would tell us that learning a language is learning a culture, and she was so right. So, when I use a language, Iâm communicating to you about things that make sense to you and speak to things that sometimes are difficult to articulate. So, how would I translate the whole âlight bloodâ thing into English? Maybe say they have a good sense of humor, or that theyâre fun to be around, but in learning a few languages, Iâve come to realize that human beings share a lot of emotions across cultures, we just donât necessarily have the ability to articulate them with phrases or words.
So why would God use Arabic idioms? Because God is communicating to humanity, and humanity uses languages, so whatever language would be used, it would necessarily have to utilize the idioms and nuances of the language chosen.
Like, letâs put it this way: letâs say God swooped down and gave us The Qurâan in a super language that reflected The Perfection of God, would we, puny human beings, be able to understand it? No. Or, letâs say that God put all these things that we know now, but people didnât know back then. I mean, letâs remember, people back in the day used to think that stars were like tear drops from a dragon or whatever. And we can laugh right now, but our stupid perceptions of things will most certainly be laughed at too.
Like, light is the fastest thing in the universe. And while they thought they found something faster, they didnât (Iâm repeating something an actual super scientist Muslim guy told me who does work with this at Harvard and now I seem like I know things, the Ummah at work, *happy sigh*) but letâs say that they did. People will be like:
âStupid 21st century idiots, they thought LIGHT was faster than OSAMATRON! NOTHING IS BETTER THAN OSAMATRON WHICH GAVE US LIGHTSABERS AND THE FORCE!â Yes, in the future it will be called Osamatron, just roll with it.
But back to the question: if God puts in stuff like âDNA is in a double helix and itâs what make you you, and genes, and (Iâm running out of science facts and I canât bother other scientists right now)â but what do you think a 7th century nomad is going to think? âYeah, that makes sense.â
Or, would they be like you just were, doubting the AMAZINGNESS of Osamatron? Osamatron sounds ridiculous. And youâd imagine the same for those who came before us.
However, the use of idiom, for your grievance, is odd, because I wonder, what should The Qurâan sound like? Can you even use a language without the use of idioms? Would it even work? I donât really think so.
But more importantly, I think weâve misunderstood the significance of The Qurâan to begin with. Itâs the nature of miracles themselves that we lose sight of when we look at The Qurâan.
You see, Ibrahim (Abraham), he was thrown into a fire, because the people at the time couldnât think of anything worse than a fire, so they threw him in there to show him what they could do. God protected Ibrahim from that fire, and displayed His power over what humanity could do.
If you look at Musa (Moses), magicians were the most powerful thing they had. Why do you think Pharaoh brought them out? We donât think of magicians as anything spectacular, but they did, so when Musa throws down his staff, and God turns it into a real snake, the magiciansâknowing what is an illusion and whatâs realâturn to Musa and say that they believe. God, again, underlined that whatever people can do, His power is always greater.
If you look at Eisa (Jesus), the most prominent people (akin to magicians before) were the healers, so when God allows Eisa to cure the blind and raise the dead, again, God underlines that His power is greater than anything humanity may create.
So when we get to The Prophet Muhammad, weâre dealing with a very different reality. Poets at the time were the coolest thing, and so God gave perfect poetic language to an illiterate man. Since poetry uses idioms, metaphors, and other devices, it would follow that this Perfect Speech would utilize these same mechanics to illustrate Godâs Dominion. It was the use of these idioms (and other things) that underlined that Muhammadâs Message was indeed from God.
This was The Prophetâs miracle, but, there is a difference between these miracles. Ibrahimâs miracle was for those people at that time, as was Eisaâs, as was Musaâs, but Muhammadâs miracle was not made for the people in Arabia at the time, it was for all of humanity. Ibrahimâs miracle was only for that period, as was Eisaâs, as was Musaâs, but The Qurâan is a Miracle we hold in our hands, that we have access to every day, and in that, we see Its power, the power of ideas.
Itâs not just that The Qurâan challenges those who doubt It to simply write something of equal character, itâs just not possible. Those who fetishize pre-Islamic Arabic poetry always seem to omit the simple fact that that poetry is terrible, and when you compare the opening of Surat Az-Zalzalah, or Ayat An-Nur, you realize you are reading something that is clearly Divine. There is simply no comparison, and thatâs why those pre-Islamic Arabs had accepted The Qurâan as they did, It challenged them in what they loved and soundly defeated it.
But The Qurâan is a Miracle for all people, because it speaks to our human condition, it addresses how we treat the weakest in society; how we must deal with our spouses, children, and parents, not with empty maxims, but with legal directness; it commands us to confront our hypocrisies and stand up for justice; The Qurâan is Godâs Final Miracle in the form that is the most lasting in its impact: how we think and deal with each other.
The fact that it uses idioms is simply a result of our human need for them, in any language, so whatever language would be chosen would be subject to this objection of yours. If God bestowed other languages, foreign and unknown to The Prophet and his people, they wouldâve thought he was âspeaking in tonguesâ or whatever, or just making stuff up, I mean, wouldnât you?
In sum, God is Perfect, but humanity is not, and thus, God must communicate to us in the medium that reflects our limitations, but even considering that limitation, That Perfection is astonishing.
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Salam. What makes you so sure that God exists? And even if God exists, what makes you so sure that the Qur'an is from God? I struggle a lot with this...
Wa alykum as-salaam,
I struggled too, so donât worry, thatâs the first thing Iâd say. I talked about my own struggles (here) if you want to read, but besides those points Iâd have to say that my belief in God comes from The Perfection that is The Qurâan.
The beauty of the language in The Qurâan is truly astounding, and there are little parts, like...
Let me give you an example of a Qurâanic Miracle:
The beginning of Surat Ar-Rum refers to something that doesnât make that much sense if youâre just reading it, even in Arabic (waaaaoooowwww).
The first few ayahs go:
âDefeated have been the Byzantines
in the lands close-by; yet it is they who, notwithstanding this their defeat, shall be victorious
within a few years: [for with God rests all power of decision, first and last.*And on that day will the believers [too, have cause to] rejoiceâ [30:2-4]
So, uh, what do you do with this? Allow me to explain, utilizing resources, like Muhammad Asadâs Tafsir!
So at the time, the Byzantines (Ar-Rum or the Romans) are fighting the Persians. The Romans are Christians, so theyâre monotheistic, and the Persians are pagans, so they are polytheistic. The war isnât going so well for the Romans.
So this war is happening during this time. So in 613 the Persians took Damascus, in 614 they took Jerusalem, around 615-616 they take Egypt, and at the same time, the Persians are laying siege to Constantinople, the capital of the Romans. These Ayahs were revealed around 616, in the seventh year of Hijrah. Things arenât looking good for the Romans.
Now, why is this important? Because the Muslims are cheering on the Romans, and the pagan Arabs are cheering on the Persians, because they are championing their worldview (monotheistic vs polytheistic) and the superiority of the Persians made the pagans feel superior to their Muslim counterparts.
When these ayahs came out, the Romans looked like they were about to be destroyed. So, the Muslims are cheering for their âteamâ and the pagans are cheering for their âteamâ and itâs like the Lakers/Celtics vs. Celtics/Lakers (whoever you prefer, I made this mistake in LA) and so these ayahs are like God saying:
âHey, I know the Lakers/Celtics are losing by 3,000 points with 15 seconds to go, but the Lakers/Celtics are actually going to beat the Celtics/Lakers.â
What would you say to that?
âPffffffffffffffffffffffffffft yeah right!â
Right?
So, you see how I put a * in the fourth ayah? Well in The Qurâan, God uses the word bidâ which is commonly referred to as âa few.â The word, in Arabic, denotes any number between three and ten, and in 622âsix or seven years after The Qurâanic predictionâthe tide turned for the Romans. By 624 the Roman Emperor had carried war into the Persian territory, and by 626, ten years after this ayah was revealed, the Persian armies were completely defeated by the Romans.
So, yeah, for me, itâs things like that. That sort of perfection
Now, what works for me, might not work for you. Some people do the whole âscientific proofs of za Izlam!â That doesnât really do anything for me, mostly because I know six scientific facts and seven of them are wrong, but the reality is that your approach to belief in God has to be rooted in knowing yourself.
Why?
Because youâre the one who has to navigate that relationship with God, and I think whatâs beautiful about Islam is that pathway to God is different for everyone, and even better, is that Islam provides those avenues.
Some people are really spiritual, in that, they truly feel Godâs presence and connect with God on that level.
Iâll be honest with you, Iâm not the type of person, to me, belief in God is rooted in knowledge and so my process was different. And the awesome part is that Islam does not have the dogmatic approach to how you attain to belief, because the pathways to God are infinite.
But I think you have to know yourself first so that you can approach God in a way that will actually make sense to you. You have the desire, itâs the reason you sent me a question. Maybe youâre confused, maybe you feel you are leaning to another direction, but the desire is there--many times we are afraid of not believing in God, but itâs really about us not believing God in the way that others people have framed it, and when those people are close to us (parents, family, etc) it can seem scary and daunting.
The reality is that you have to make that relationship and that belief make sense to you and your mindset.
Does that make sense?
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