Where I come from, smashing up a museum exhibit constitutes vandalism, not an exhibition.
Kidding? I honestly don’t know if I would term my take on it “kidding” or not. I do think that it’s a mite extreme to leave one’s wallet behind while taking advantage of the facilities. I don’t consider it on par with keeping kosher at all. But I’m not a follower of either of those religions.
Dunno about you, but in my experience on cubicle farms, you have a drawer or two and a couple of overhead bins. Some people keep their valuables in one or the other, but most of the folks I’ve encountered carry their wallets into the bathroom whenever they feel it necessary to visit. Besides, it’s usually been my experience that simply keeping one’s valuables within a briefcase is adequate.
Well. . .okay. Good on them, I suppose.
Which means … they do have a place to secure their valuables?
I’m not saying that people do leave their wallets behind, or that they should or have to. My point is just that if they want to, it’s not very inconvenient to do so. If it’s so easy to do, from my point of view, it’s not really taking religious conviction to enormous lengths to do so. Especially in view of what some people do do in pursuit of their religious beliefs. That’s why I brought up kosher.
<tangental question>
I keep a translation of the Qur’an on my bookshelf in my classroom for reference. Would a Muslim object that it is next to a Bible, a copy of The Book of Mormon, and the Penguin volume of Hindu scriptures?
<end tangental question>
An associate here spoke to some muslims about it, and they said that they were used to being attacked physically and personally, but the Qu’ran being attacked was somehow a symbol of attacking their very core, their very essence.
IMO this is somewhat arse-about-tit, but it can be very hard to understand other cultural viewpoints. I would be jumping up and down about muslims held without trial in Guantanamo, or facing discrimination from the bigoted, than some stupid fk destroying a book, but apparently their view is more: “hurt us physically as much as you like, just don’t hurt our religion.” (This was how my associate paraphrased it).
Not particularly, and given that its a translation, whilst it should still be treated with respect, the ‘rules’ regarding its care (i.e. kept on a high shelf, wrapped up) don’t really apply. But keeping a reference translation on a bookshelf with other religious texts is OK.
Yeah, but it’s doubtful you’d see homicidal riots break out anywhere (these days, at least. In the Middle Ages, however…).
RE the OP, the best explanation I’ve heard is that the closest C’tian equivalent to the Quran AFA inspiring reverence is not a Bible but a Consecrated Host to Catholics & the Orthodox.
Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi, if you transliterate directly from the Arabic alphabet.
I thought there were two dhals in his surname?
Very good, bordelond, it’s delightful to see Dopers who are hip to Arabic. Ta‘allim al-lughah ma‘i, ya habibi. You are entirely correct, my dear. I’m glad you asked, but I wasn’t going to delve into this gnarly little nitpick hijack unless someone else brought it up. It’s the U.S. government panel who drew up the new transliteration guidelines that dumbed it down.
Apparently the panel had influential bigwigs on it who — although they didn’t actually, like, know the Arabic language — disliked the look of a doubled digraph. They said anytime the shaddah (consonant doubling) occurs with a digraph (two letters standing for one sound), only write it once. So instead of, say, the accurate spelling Bashshar (the Syrian president’s name), we have to write <Bashar>. :rolleyes: I know, it seems like a pointless dumbing-down to me too. Thus al-Qadhdhafi becomes <al-Qadhafi>. The rule is: transliterate shaddah as a doubled consonant, unless the consonant is <dh>, <gh>, <kh>, <sh>, or <th>. (Here’s my linguistic geekitude showing through: graphemes are shown between inequality signs; sounds are transcribed between square brackets, and phonemes between slashes.)
The other dumb-down is to collapse the transliteration of both ‘ayn and hamzah into a single sign: the straight single-quote apostrophe <’>. Previously, they had used two different signs. I can at least accept that there’s a need for limiting the character set to basic ASCII. That’s why the distinction between dal and dad, ha’ and ha’, sin and sad, ta’ and ta’, zay and za’ was lost: the latter letter in each pair needs a dot under it to tell it apart from the other one, but you can’t show those underdots in ASCII.
I used to work with a veteran American Arabist who consulted on that panel. He was very unhappy about the dumb-downs and argued eloquently against them, but the Arabic-ignoramus bigwigs had their way. Never mind, I told you it was nitpicky. I’ve just been reading Lynne Truss on the subject of punctuation sticklers, and yes, I’m one of those who wants to take a permanent marker and fix all the badly punctuated signs, and add the dots under the Arabic transliterations while I’m at it.
</hijack>
But you could be even geekier and insist on single guillemets instead of less than/greater than signs.
To some extent, FriarTed has it right.
The Qur’an contains the literal word of God. Muslims believe that every letter was revealed by God. The entire text is sacred and holy.
One might also make the point that amongst certain Muslims, the physical book has a somewhat supernatural quality to it. When I was young and was scared at night, my mother put an open Qur’an in my room. It was believed that this would reassure me, calm me, and protect me.
From somewhere online, my mother bought miniature Qur’ans. Each decorated box had a miniaturized Qur’an in it: the whole text. She gave it to each of us, her children, to hang on our cars for protection.
I recently read an article in a newspaper in Pakistan discussion damaged and old copies of the Qur’an. They were called “‘shaheed’ Qur’ans,” meaning “‘martyred’ Qur’ans.”
The same applies to actual writing from the Qur’an. Verses are used as amulets or rituals of protection.
Verses are recited for the same reasons. I still remember my grandmother muttering Ayat al-Kursi while in bed before going to sleep. Then she would clap three times: the protection of the recitation would extend to however far the soundwaves went. I still remember, when being very young, reciting Ayat al-Kursi every night and then running, blowing into every room to protect it. Even today, before leaving for a trip, my mother will pause at the house’s door, recite Ayat al-Kursi in a whisper, then blow into the house to protect it.
Amils (one who knows about spells and rituals and stuff like that, a bit like a witch-doctor, as it were) often make tawizes (a tawiz is an amulet) using verses from the Qur’an. When I was diagnosed with diabetes, my maternal step-grandmother instructed my mother to recite a certain verse from the Qur’an, blow onto water, and give me the water to drink. (She didn’t comply, but receiving such instructions is in no way out of place.)
Even today, when brides are sent off to their new home (at least in South Asian Sunni customs), one of her relatives holds a copy of the Qur’an over her head while she walks from her chair to the door of the car. She is given the Qur’an to keep: it will protect her and her marriage.
So, when some Muslims see a copy of the Qur’an, they do not see a book. They see a powerful object, connected with God, with power and abilities.
WRS
Must… contain… rage…
Doesn’t this make the system absolutely and utterly useless for indicating which Arabic phonemes are being represented?
And how come nobody ever uses “c” for `ayn? It’s not used for anything else in Arabic transliteration, and even almost looks like the initial form of that letter.
yBeayf, what’s your beef? Have you tried decaf?
I agree that losing the diacritics (besides the underdots, the macrons over the long vowels are lost too) does break the neat one-to-one correspondence that the Library of Congress and Board of Geographic Names transliterations use. The U.G. government honchos — not knowing Arabic, nor caring to — saw no use in sprinkling dots and dashes into the text which for all they knew could have been ice-cream jimmies.
In actual practice, the ambuguity thus introduced is not likely to precipitate any serious security disasters, though I hope everyone involved recognized that it is a tradeoff which sacrificed accuracy and transparency for the sake of simplified data transmission. The Library of Congress transliteration, with its one-to-one symbol correspondence, allows reversibility — i.e., a transliterated text could be used to reconstruct the original Arabic script with 100% accuracy. The new, dumbed-down system will present some homographs that would need context to be disambiguated. For example matar with two short vowels means ‘rain’, while matâr with the second vowel long means ‘airport’.
The letter c for ‘ayn is regular practice in Somali orthography. For example, the Somali form of ‘Abdallah is Cabdille. I’ve seen manually-typewritten Arabic manuals and dissertations from the 1950s and 60s that used lowercase c for ‘ayn, but they would move the paper roller down one notch to make a superscript c, to mimic the look of ‘ayn. (Coincidentally, the shape of ‘ayn in Arabic script actually does resemble a Roman letter c.) But most people would for sure be confused by c if you tried to use it for ‘ayn. They would try to pronounce it like a k. “‘Kabdallah’? Huh? What kinda name is dat?”
Uh-oh, did I get carried away with a hijack again? Sorry. About the Qur’an: Folk religion will always use practices that the official orthodoxy decries as heresy. The magickal protective powers attributed to the Qur’an in places like Pakistan might amount to bibliolatry in the theological academy, but this usually goes over the heads of the populace. It goes beyond the physical bound volume of the Qur’an being used as a magick charm. The Qur’an says about itself that it contains “healing,” so Indian and Pakistani faith healers treat the sick by writing a Qur’an verse on a plate with ink made of saffron dissolved in rosewater. Then they wash it off into a bowl and give the liquid to the sick person to drink. It can’t hurt, and as in the well-known placebo effect, the mind is capable of producing curative effects in the body when the faith is strong enough. I’ve heard of this being done, though I haven’t seen it done with my own eyes.
My beef is with those who willingly introduce these sorts of inaccuracies, when they can so easily be avoided. And never shall a drop of decaf touch my lips!
I’ve always wanted to be an amil. Well, not always. In any case, being an amil would be cool. Not that it would help my reputation in the family any. “He’s a what now? Can’t this boy be something normal, like a doctor?”
I have always found this to be an interesting incident (bolding added):
The sacrality of the Qur’an goes a long way back.
WRS
I’m not even a believer, and yet there’s a part of me that reads this and cries, “Evil! Folly! Superstition! Idolatry! Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Witchcraft!”
Yeah, but according to the hadith, the Prophet did it, so it’s ok.
Another thing I should mention: the Qur’an is seen as a spiritual shield, as it were, and a protection.
It is said that when one is standing in lines before God on the Day of Judgment, the sun will be shining unbelievably hot. A copy of the Qur’an will miraculously open above the head of each faithful Muslim, and shade/shield him/her from the sun.
It is also said that if someone is faithful in reciting the Qur’an, when one dies, the Qur’an will protect the deceased in the grave from some unpleasant creatures (I think it was snakes and/or scorpions) coming to torment sinners. Of course, if one was a grave sinner and not faithful in reading the Qur’an, one would be attacked by these unpleasant creature(s).
For this and other reasons, many Muslims recite some of the Qur’an every day. Christians may read the Bible for spiritual guidance and education. Jews study Talmud (or other stuff if Conservative or Reform, I guess) for the same reasons. Muslims, on the other hand, recite the Qur’an for its own sake. Many people - I would venture to say most Muslims - who recite the Qur’an do not understand what they are reciting. It is not recited to learn anything or be educated or to study it. People do not read the Qur’an: they recite it. The very words and sounds are supposed to have an affect. Muslims are supposed to think the Qur’an is the most beautiful-sounding book in existence. Those who understand the Arabic are supposed to think it is the most sublime composition. Only a fool would dare disagree.
There is a story about the conversion of Umar ibn Khattab (who would eventually become the second Sunni caliph). His sister, if I remember correctly, converted to Islam. He was very much against Muslims. He came to her house to beat her. But suddenly her husband arrived. Umar hid. Umar’s brother-in-law began reciting the Qur’an (forget for a moment that the Qur’an was never compiled or finalized under after Muhammad ibn Abdullah’s death). Upon hearing the recitation, Umar felt so moved, he converted to Islam.
There is also a story about Muslims going to Abyssinia and reciting Surat al-Mariam (The Chapter of Mary, referring to Mary the mother of Jesus) to the ruler there. He was impressed, although I forget whether he converted or not.
All of this, I think, gives a clearer view of what the importance of the Qur’an is for Muslims.
WRS
yBeayf - I am so happy to see you around! I missed seeing you in Islam-related threads. You add a level of expertise I envy.
WRS