Is the Quran a rhetorical miracle (a linguistic miracle)

Is the Quran a rhetorical miracle (a linguistic miracle)


The original Arabic text could be found at Schizophrenia's blog

The Author of the original text is: Schizophrenia

Quranic verse translation is adopted from the translators understanding of Arabic language as a mother tongue, guide for certain verses is from Yousuf Ali's Quran meanings.

Translated By: Areo

From Muslims point of view we find two groups, one that consider the Quran non-miraculous, and that Arabs did provide us with more complex and eloquent text compared to the Quran, and in light of this they interpret the challenge mentioned in Surat Al Israa Ayah # 88 as miraculous, based on the fact that in spite of their ability they were distracted to pursue the challenge, this is namely called (Alsirfah) the distraction, one such group to embrace this idea was Al-Motazilah (an Islamic Cult which means the disassociated or separated form) headed by Al-Nizam and his prodigy disciple Al-Gahez, who was considered the spokesman of Al-Motazilah for quite a long time, it is said that Al-Gahez has authored 360 books of which only few has made it to us.

The rotation of the earth between science and religion- by Hairan

The rotation of the earth between science and religion

The original Arabic text could be found at The Forum of Arab Areligionists*

The Author of the original text is: Hayran

Quranic verse translation is adopted from Yousef Ali's Quran meanings and from the translators understanding of Arabic language as a mother tongue.

Translated By: Areo

* Areligionists is the translators attempt to translate the Arabic word Ladeeni which describes those who don't believe in a religion, such broad classification is not found in the English literature as far as my knowledge, the classification expands to include Atheist, Agnostics, Deists, while it might seem that an Agnostic is a similar description, the fact is Agnostics (especially from the Arabs perspective) could have a neutral stance towards religion, while Areligionists are quite sure on their stance towards religion as being from a human source. Additionally such broader description allowed for inclusion of other walks of thought including atheism and deism, which in my opinion is needed at the start of an Arab movement against religion.

To start with and before I delve into translating the article I shall feed you back on some of the ideas and different meanings of the Arabic Verse (Ayah) under consideration

In An-Naml (The Ant) Surah (which is somewhat similar to the bibles chapter) we find the ayah (verse) number 82

The literal pronunciation goes as follows:

Wa Tara AlGibal Tahsaboha Gamedah Wa hiya Tamor Mar Alsahab

Hereby is the Arabic meaning as per my understanding:

Wa : and

Tara : you see ( the verb see in present (sometimes the Arabic language could use present verbs to indicate future tense)

Algibal : Al = The & Gibal = Mountains ie: the mountains

Tahsaboha : the verb tahsab could have various meanings as per context, while the literal translation I found in the dictionary is to investigate, the meaning here is more of the verb Tazonaha which actually revolves around the meaning "to think of it, to belive about it, to take as, to regard etc.."

While the addition ha means the feminine gender (earth)

So I shall translate tahsaboha as think of it as

Gamedah : Solid, hard, stiff, inflexible, rigid are literal translations, but the meaning is more like "still", from the context

Wa : again means and

Heay : it in the female gender

Tamor : passes by

Mar : the passage of

Alsahab : al = The & Sahab = Clouds

Accordingly my understanding which is quite acceptable from an Arabic speaker's point of view is:

And you see the mountains and think it still while it passes by as the passage of clouds.

While the following translation is what Yousuf Ali presented in his "The meanings of Quran"

88. Thou seest the mountains and thinkest them firmly fixed: but they shall pass away as the clouds pass away:

Note the "shall" here, which indicates his understanding of the verse to be figuratively speaking of the future. While this is not the case of the actual text, but he does have a valid point that we shall see in the original article, which made him transfer the act of movement to the future.

Having said that let us return to Hairan's article

The rotation of earth around the sun and around its axis is a modern scientific fact, that is undoubted by any scientist – as far as I know- I think that the idea has long left the territory of a theory and reached the pillar of an established fact, with advances in cosmology, astronomy and technological science, and the increase of humans capabilities, we have achieved shifting our frame of reference, by moving our equipment to outer space, and actually photographing the earth, now scientists build quite a lot on their futuristic knowledge of the exact location of the earth on a certain date, etc…

An Example of Quranic discrepancies

The original Arabic text could be found at The Forum Of Arab Atheists

The Author of the original text is: Walid
Quranic verse translation is adopted from Yousef Ali's Quran meanings and from the translators understanding of Arabic language as a mother tongue.
Translated By: Areo

Had it been from other Than Allah, they would surely have found therein Much discrepancy-An examination of Quranic discrepancy.

The Quran challenges its opposers with a verse well known to all of us – Say had it been from any but Allah we would have found a lot of discrepancies

To start with the word much is in itself an obvious discrepancy.
For a book from Allah would be refuted by one discrepancy not much
As a supreme being would be expected to provide a flawless text and just one flaw would render the text defunct, as the alleged qualities attributed to Allah in the Quran contradicts even the smallest of flaws or even a glimpse of one.