Is man capable of producing a chapter like one in the Qu'ran?

Great Debates
21

Yes, I am aware of them.

Indeed, my allusion to the above was indirect.

I am afraid that I am not a classical textual scholar. I can read the stuff, but for me to pretend to comment on the differences and their meaning would be going beyond what I can really claim knowledge of.

What I can say is intellectually I don’t find it surprising. There was a period of what, 60 years of ferment with competing visions of the religion. In an era of oral transmission, it would not be at all surprising if subtle differences arose. Indeed it would be genuinely miraculous if they did not.

But they did. Clearly. Says nothing really - if one is a believer in God, then one more occasion where God let men transmit ‘the word’ within their own fallible context can hardly be surprising. If one is not, you just have to say, hey, yet again…

Now, the problem really occurs for the Salafistes. The true hard core fundies for whom the transmission issue is always glossed over. The rest of the Islamic world will get over it, I mean okay so we got some wrinkles in transmission. They’re not too bad, pretty small gap, maybe a few probably technical theological points of difference. Nothing to truly shake the religion. The Salafiste movements, however, this is very bad. No diff. really than the fundies in Xtianity and their bogus literalism (I add some handwaving apology for the characterization, but really the translation problems are so self-evident I have a hard time having any intellectual respect for the hyper-literalist crowd in re the bible).

In anycase, this will be something that will take 50 years to digest.

22

That article in the Atlantic tried to play it up as some sensational new discovery. In fact, these minor variant readings had always been acknowledged, from the very beginning. Qur’an recitation from the Prophet’s time onward allowed for dialectal variants in the reading, conforming to the various dialects spoken in different parts of Arabia. So this is a non-issue. In the early Islamic centuries, there developed several distinct schools of Qur’an reading (7, I think), each with its own set of variants. Their effect on meaning was considered insignificant, or rather, each different reading helped to bring out sightly different nuances inherent in the words. So the small range of variation was welcomed as a positive thing. Over time, most of the schools fell into disuse, as only two remained current into later centuries: that of Warsh, which is used in North and West Africa, and Hafs, which is used in the whole rest of the world. The news about ancient variant readings would come as a shock only to those who didn’t know the Qur’an’s textual history.

I’ve never heard of a mathematical analysis of the number of syllables in a line. There is no regular poetic meter in the Qur’an at all. Each verse has a different number of syllables and a different rhythm. The complexity, AFAIK, defies any quantitative formula, though if any mathematical analysis has been done, that would be interesting to know. Some verses read like flat prose. Other verses are intensely poetical. Without hearing it in classical Arabic, and understanding the language, there’s no way to get a feel for its aesthetic effect, which, by earwitness accounts, is stupendous.

Beastal, where did you find that atrocious translation? With all the interpolations into the text, the English becomes utterly unreadable. It looks like the translation pushed by the Salafis, whom Collounsbury so rightly derides.

Please compare with the translation of the same verse (2:23) by A. J. Arberry, an Oxford don, who tried to bring out the beauty and natural rhythm of the English language.

And if you are in doubt concerning that We have sent down on Our servant, then bring a sura like it, and call your witnesses, apart from God, if you are truthful.

In the original Arabic it goes:

wa-in kuntum fî raybim mimmâ nazzalnâ ‘alâ ‘abdinâ fa-’tû bi-sûratim mim mithlihî wad‘û shuhadâa’akum min dûnillâhi in kuntum sâdiqîn.

In performance, the relative lengths of long syllables and short syllables have to be precise in order to get the right rhythm which sounds good. There are a lot of sonic nuances that cannot be captured by a transcription like this.

23

A hijack…

Collounsbury, a question; is the Arabic of the Qur’an (Arabic of the 6th century, CE) understandable to modern Arabic speakers?

I’ve heard from various Jews that modern Hebrew is largely based upon ancient Hebrew (with lots of modern words thrown in) but is sitll basically the same language. I was wondering if this is the same with Arabic? Or is it like the difference between Old English (of say the 10th century, CE) and modern English; nearly incomprehensible?

24

Freyr, modern Hebrew is a special case. The language had effectively died out as a primary language, being used on in a religious context, and was re-created as a primary tongue only with the establishment of Israel. The re-creation was directly based on Biblical Hebrew, and it has had only 50-odd years to drift, so it still is the same language.

Sua

25

A difficult question. Islamiste(Salafistes) make the claim yes. I would say yes and no. Familiar suraat, yes more or less. Certain passages which are oft cited, and used, the language is familiar. But much of it is hard for someone who is not quite literate in Arabic to follow fully.

As I mentioned, I think, the language has changed over the centuries. Words have picked up meanings, some are no longer in use at all outside of the Quran and religous writing.

I think a good analogy might be to Shakespeare or the KJ bible. Modern Standard, which itself is no one’s native language, is not quite the same as the Quranic language, there are subtle changes etc. A literate native arabic speaker can follow it, in my experience and opinion, in the same manner that I can follow Shakespeare’s language. An illiterate person, well that’s another matter.

26

BTW, just an ignorant question here seeking resolution, but who do we think did write the Qu’ran? IIRC, Mohammed himself was illiterate, so he couldn’t have personally written it (I recall Muslims making this claim themselves, so it isn’t intended as a racial insult or anything like that.) So if you’re a Muslim, you think God wrote it, but if you aren’t, then who do we think wrote it?

27

You misunderstand the situation.

Muhammed is considered to be the source of the revelation (laying aside some questions).

The Quran was recited orally for a full generation. It was then written down when the last of Muhammed’s companions began to die off and the survivors began to be worried about emering variations in the recitations.

Of course there are scholars who may raise the issue of contamination etc., but the general story line is clear. One generation or so of purely oral recitation by large number of reciters (the traditional means of maintaining literature in the society) then when concern arises about transmission, collaboration on standard version with cross-checking between the modes, where the final product was written down.

The efficacity of the process and perhaps the detials in some areas may be disputed in the future of course, but the writing down by scribes is not particularly controversial I believe, although again I don’t pay much attention to this kind of thing, I’m no classicist.

BTW, how would Muhammed’s illiteracy be a ‘racial’ insult?

28

Looking within the actual historical context in which the Qur’an originated, the challenge makes more sense. I think much of the carping in this thread is not quite fair, because it ignores the context.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, master poets were highly regarded, highly rewarded, and highly competitive. Every year at the annual market gathering, there was a poetry competition bringing in contestants from all over Arabia. The winners had their poems inscribed in gold ink and hung from the Ka’bah. To the culture of that time and place, who were highly discriminating judges of poetry, only the top champions could make the cut. (In our modern American or English culture, poetry just does not have as prominent a place, and when we do experience poetry, it’s usually reading it silently in a book. In old Arabia, it was a public, spoken-aloud affair with a big audience registering its appreciation communally. We really can’t judge the situation from such a cultural distance unless we put ourselves in the place of the original hearers.)

For the Qur’an to issue such a challenge in such an environment was to take on the top champions. By all accounts, no poet ever succeeded in winning acclaim for any of his poetry comparable to that of the Qur’an. By this criterion, the Qur’an really did win the challenge. It won a unique status among a large audience of very exacting poetry connoisseurs.

BTW, in the Arabic verse I quoted, note all the repeated m sounds. When recited aloud, those m’s are hummmed at length, with melody. It adds a lot to the sonic effect on the listeners. It is comparable to the vibrational quality of Hindu mantras like OM, in which the humming vibration supports meditation. It reaches into a nonverbal, subconscious or superconscious realm of the human awareness that has a profound effect on a person. Reading it silently off a page doesn’t give any idea of the effect. The Qur’an was always meant for aloud, aural performance, which is a large part of its appeal.

29

Collounsbury & SuaSponte, both, thank you for your responses. Most enlightening!

**Collounsbury wrote:

The Quran was recited orally for a full generation. It was then written down when the last of Muhammed’s companions began to die off and the survivors began to be worried about emering variations in the recitations.

Of course there are scholars who may raise the issue of contamination etc., but the general story line is clear. One generation or so of purely oral recitation by large number of reciters (the traditional means of maintaining literature in the society) then when concern arises about transmission, collaboration on standard version with cross-checking between the modes, where the final product was written down. **

THANK YOU! I didn’t know that it’s wonderful to find out!