Blogging The Qur'an - Part 1 - al-Fatihah

The Opening

We start! Tarif Khalidi has rendered the opening basmala rather poetically and very generously, conveying the deeper meanings of the ‘Arabi words. He opens thusly:

In the name of God,
Merciful to all,
Compassionate to each!

This sounds rather good and certainly brings out the implied sense of the words ar–Rehman and ar–Rahim. However, as we shall soon discover as we travel through the Qur’ân, allah really doesn’t show compassion or mercy to all, despite repeated protestations that it does.

Since the surah itself consists of but a few lines I shall render the opening here:

Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds:
Merciful to all,
Compassionate to each!
Lord of the Day of Judgement.
It is You we worship, and upon You we call for help.
Guide us to the straight path,
The path of those upon whom Your grace abounds,
Not those upon whom anger falls,
Nor those who are lost.

Sounds lovely and a bit like the Lord’s prayer, doesn’t it? Yet herein we already encounter difficulty and trouble. The orthodox Islâmic view on the Qur’ân maintains it as the literal word of god. allah’s own words directly transcribed. As I explained in another, earlier post of mine, it actually amounts to third– or fourth–generational hearsay because allah told Gabriel to tell Muhammad, who then told his followers to memorise the passages or write them down on scraps lying around, which after Muhammad’s death the Khalifah (Caliph) had collected, and an official canonical copy made under the auspices of the 3rd Khalifah. So… not quite the direct word of allah.

As we shall discover, numerous passages sound as though Muhammad himself stated them. Others have little hedges and additions that try to circumvent this. Later redactors must have added words like “Say:” to the start of certain passages because they would otherwise sound like the words of a man, and not god itself. You can tell these form later interpolations because they sometimes missed a few, which I shall discuss in due course. You can usually identify those passages in English translations because the interpreter writes ‘say’ in parentheses, to denote the original ‘Arabi does NOT contain that word.

This opening represents a great summary and table of contents for the rest of the Qur’ân, and forms one of the passages that muslims who pray the ritual salah prayer recite at least 17 times a day. It OBVIOUSLY does not come from god, but marks a prayer that a human has recited with which to worship god. And yet the orthodox view consists of the fact that allah ‘sent down’ this prayer to give muslims something meaningful to recite over and over again. Sounds a bit arrogant, doesn’t it? Here, I’ll send you something with which to remember me, and it goes: “Praise to you, god of all the worlds!” Sheesh, how much of an ego trip can a divine entity go on?

Mind you, it actually sounds rather decent in this translation to me, and can sound extremely beautiful when recited. However, the last lines mask a veiled attack against other religions. You see, the otherwise normal–sounding plea to have allah guide muslims to the straight path and not the wrong ones refers in fact to Jews (upon whom god’s anger falls), and Christians (who have lost their way after deifying Jesus). Already you have hostility against other monotheistic religions, and stereotyping of peoples. What a start to a Holy Book…

Blogging the Qur'an

So I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon of blogging the Qur’ân, which a lot of folks have done and continue to do. I had ordered a specific ‘new’ translation of one version for fairly cheap from amazon.co.uk by a chap called Tarif Khalidi. He wrote a book called The Muslim Jesus, which collects sayings ascribed to and actions by Jesus as perceived in Islâmic history down the ages. His introduction repays careful reading and approaches the subject in a very objective and secular, yet respectful way.

And so I decided I would like to blog my reactions to the Qur’ân, note my thoughts on it, and suchlike as per this particular translation. It looks beautiful in hardback, by the way:



I have only started reading its introduction, and already it has impressed me with its detailed history of the context of the ‘revelations’, and the fact that Khalidi does point to certain problems with the traditional muslim narrative about the Qur’ân’s descent.

My favourite English translations of the Qur’ân come from Muhammad Abdel Haleem, which remains eminently readable, filled with detailed notes and discussions on the meaning of words, as well as a few corrections of misinterpreted words, and one by E. H. Palmer, which captures something of the fierce eloquence of the ‘Arabic original (though sometimes renders it incomprehensible).

I’ll see how I go with Khalidi’s version!

The origins of Mehrab

More references to Islam’s cribbing of the culture and religion of ancient Persia.

clipped from www.experiencefestival.com Ab-e-Hayat or Ab-e-Zendegi (Persian) (from Persian ab, Avestan ap, Pahlavi av, water, purity, brilliance, honor, bliss, fortune) The ancient Iranians believed that the first created was Mithra (Mehr), the reflection of Being, the essence of light, in the water of life; so the creation was the synthesis of these two, named Mehrab. Mehrab later became the sacred place of worship in mosques among Moslems. It is noteworthy that the same letters are used in the words Abraham (ABRHM), Bahram (BHRAM), and Brahma (BRHMA).

Allah has said…

challengeyoursoul.com wrote: allah has said Let me stop you right there. Of course people say that the Qur’ân represents the true word of god but it clearly doesn’t. Plenty of passages obviously come from a human since they talk about allah in a reverential way. Even if they didn’t (which they do), you still can’t say ‘allah has said’ because allah has not said. The correct phraseology would go a little something like this: “Allah told Gabriel told Muhammad to have his followers commit this passage to memory or write it down on the scapulæ of oxen or the shoulderblades of camels until a committee appointed by the third rightful khalif could collect it in order to stem the spread of alternative rescensions.” Once you start to use that phrase every time you want to write ‘allah said’ (all of it factually accurate according to muslim sources) you will see how the Qur’ân sounds less like the word of allah and more like fourth generational hearsay.

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