Why pray in Arabic and not in a language we understand?

[aakash_2410]

I don't see what's the big deal?

Even for us Hindus most of the Shlokas, Mantras, Vedas are written Sanskrit which is not spoken anymore on regular basis and most of the prayers are in Sanskrit aswell?

 

[Jango]

No wonder our population has been damned and is currently in danger. Why o Why are we questioning the order of Allah and Prophet (PBUH) now when 1400 years have passed and nobody had a problem praying and reciting in Arabic.??

If we perform hajj in Urdu, no unity there, we recite in Urdu, every other version will be different. One will say somehting, the other his opinion, the third has some other agenda. And it will be same as the bible. It has remained the same for 1400 years, and it will remain in Arabic, Allah has taken it unto Himself to safeguard the Holy book. People say they dont understand surahs because theya re too much. They should atleast understand the basic namaaz, everything is same if you offer namaz with kulhuallah!

 

[Jango]

Go to wikipedia and search Surah Ikhlas, see the english translations, there are three, with different words, but with the same meaning and same point. That Allah is the one and only, He has no child, nor parent, He has no one at par with him, and he is absolute.

 

[Subramanian]

The reason is simple its not rocket science. The moment you translate verses into
other languages and use other languages (whole Quran can't be learnt by heart in English/Urdu yet in Arabic it can be learnt by heart word to word...this is the miracle of Quran and such a person is known as hafiz) instead of arabic, Holy Quran will God For Bid suffer the same fate as New and Old Testaments. They were translated from Hebrew/Armaic to Latin and then to English due to which the original meaning of many verses got changed.

If translated well,it wont.I can understand normal words or poems getting lost,not a religious text.Some words may mean different things according to culture but it is all about articulation.

 

[Jango]

If translated well,it wont.I can understand normal words or poems getting lost,not a religious text.Some words may mean different things according to culture but it is all about articulation.

It does get lost, what happened to the Bible?, Go to wikipedia as i said in post 154 and see the translations. All have the same point , the same gist and soul, but different words. This evolves slowly to complete change in the meaning.

 

[Subramanian]

well,if thats the case you guys have to start picking up arabic over other languages then.No way out for this.

PS: and perhaps somethings cannot stand the test of time,i guess as much as one resists.

 

[VCheng]

I do have a serious question:

The Quranic revelations are divine, but the order in which we have it in the book form is human, being compiled almost 70 years later. So the physical form of the Quran as we know it today has already been determined by humans, hence an absolute insistence for the completely divine nature of the book cannot be regarded as totally robust, or can it?

 

[Jango]

well,if thats the case you guys have to start picking up arabic over other languages then.No way out for this.

PS: and perhaps somethings cannot stand the test of time,i guess as much as one resists.

That is not the matter at hand, the point is that only thr original language can preserve the true meaning and true soul of the text, that original language maybe Urdu, Arabic, Farsi or anything. In the case of the Quran, it is Arabic.

 

[Tiger Awan]

I do have a serious question:

The Quranic revelations are divine, but the order in which we have it in the book form is human, being compiled almost 70 years later. So the physical form of the Quran as we know it today has already been determined by humans, hence an absolute insistence for the completely divine nature of the book cannot be regarded as totally robust, or can it?

Who compiled it 70 years later???

I think it was Hazrat Abu Bakar Sidiq who compiled it.

 

[Chogy]

This has probably been mentioned, but Latin was the language of the Church for 1,500 years - which is odd, because the language of the Bible was Hebrew, Aramaic, and mostly Greek for the New Testament. It took Martin Luther and others to begin the process of translating the Bible into other tongues... and have it accepted.

It is extremely difficult to explain a faith to an interested person unless you can reference the texts in his own language.

His wisdom was based on the fact that the bible and other books were all debased and lost during translations.

I don't want to start a religious debate, but this is one of the most common myths out there. Textual criticisms, the study of Biblical texts, is very advanced. While no one has the absolute original writings, these were copied hundreds of times immediately, and we have examples of these copies that date back to the lifetimes of the Christian Apostles. Because there are so many copies, we can compare them to each other, and what we have today is 99.99% faithful to the originals in terms of content and meaning.

 

[Mech]

Thank you chogy. I cannot thank the post from my phone, so here it is!

 

[VCheng]

Who compiled it 70 years later???

I think it was Hazrat Abu Bakar Sidiq who compiled it.

The initial compilation was done within two years by Hazrat Abubakr RA, but there were many different versions, which were finalized only during the time of Hazrat Usman RA much later. He also made an active effort to destroy all other versions of the Quran.

Thus for several decades, there were many versions of the Quran. Even after Hazrat Usman's RA efforts, many versions of the Quran persisted, and it was not until approximately 70 years later that the present form of the Quran was accepted widely, with the final inclusion of the diacritical marks in the reign of the fifth Umayyad Caliph Al-Marwan.

 

[Tiger Awan]

The initial compilation was done within two years by Hazrat Abubakr RA, but there were many different versions, which were finalized only during the time of Hazrat Usman RA much later. He also made an active effort to destroy all other versions of the Quran.

Thus for several decades, there were many versions of the Quran. Even after Hazrat Usman's RA efforts, many versions of the Quran persisted, and it was not until approximately 70 years later that the present form of the Quran was accepted widely.

Hazrat Abubakar compiled the Quran in written form and gave that Quran to Hazrat Hafsa. Hazrat Usman made many copies of that Quran and sent them to different countries.

so then???

 

[VCheng]

Hazrat Abubakar compiled the Quran in written form and gave that Quran to Hazrat Hafsa. Hazrat Usman made many copies of that Quran and sent them to different countries.

so then???

The present form of the Quran was completed around 705 AD, which is approximately 70 years after Prophet Muhammad PBUH died.

 

[Norboo]

According to Seleman Akhtar.....

Even the language has not been spared amidst this whole drivel of purification. Article 31/2 (a) of constitution of Pakistan states:

“The State shall endeavor, as respects the Muslims of Pakistan to make the teaching of the Holy Quran and Islamiat compulsory, to encourage and facilitate the learning of Arabic language..”.

What’s that, a pathetic attempt to make Arabic lingua franca for Pakistan where less than 1% population can understand Arabic? What about the divergent local languages or even the so-called national language? Most common but glaring example that may be put forward to underline the predicament is gradual replacement of the Indo-Persian ‘Khuda-Hafiz’ with Arabic ‘Allah-Hafiz’ implying that Arabic Allah is the only proper word for God. Khuda is an Indo-Persian term to say “God”.

So, whatever happened to the Pakistani 'identity'?