Arabic

Some of you are looking forward to my Arabic blog. I apologize for the wait. I had emailed some 10 sisters asking 'em if they'd be interested. They are all prolly busy, and haven't got a chance to reply yet. I did receive some good suggestions from a friend.


Until then, I'll post some pointers here,



Imam Zaid Shakir mentioned in his commentary on Purification of the Soul : Al-Muhasibi's Risalah al-Mustarshideen:

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dhulumaat, darkness is mentioned as a plural in the Quran, while noor is always singular. This implies that darkness, evil, are many, but the noor, the TRUTH, Al HAQ is one!

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Coincidentally Fajr mentioned something similar - a different theory, but totally interesting - A hidden discord in plurality?

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If you look closely at the words in bold you’ll see there is a clear difference between the Arabic and the English. Light and Darkness are both usually singular, but in the ayah Allaah `azza wa jall has pluralized ‘darkness’ – dhulumaat. Why?


As explained by Shaykh Muhammad al-Maghaamisi, there is profound rhetoric behind this because it indicates that Allaah `azza wa jall (when comparing two opposites), He uses the singular of a word while pluralizing its comparative, to show
an element of tafdeel (preference), unity, strength and absolute truth
in that which He kept in the singular form. If something is singular, it is
unique and can never cause confusion, whereas if something is plural there are many faces to it, it comes from many different angles & it’s confusing to
distinguish one from the other etc.

So when Allaah says in the above verse that He “brings them out from darkness (many ‘darknesses’) into light (one unique light).” – He `azza wa jall is highlighting out the preference of the Light (guidance) over the darkness (misguidance) by simply pluralizing that which is inferior (darkness) to indicate a lack of جمع (unity, connection etc).

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8 comments:

Humairah Irfan said...

I have an idea! :D
How about we do BAAB deconstructions on the blog? That will be the coolest (and newest) thing ever.
Basically, we take verbs from the Qasas book, and ask "What baab is it from?" and then we talk about 10c, discussion 3 and all of that good stuff. mmmmmmmm
[And I have it in my notes]
I know personally, this would help me loads...

sthg to think about :)

Hafsa said...

thats a great idea for our new blog :)

Anonymous said...

May I humbly suggest something? Since I already have a blog regarding Classical Arabic from the same program which you are also attending, why don't I put up another page dedicated to verbs (I have been thinking on these lines for sometime now) where we can discuss the BAABs?As suggested by Sister Humairah, we can start dissecting the Qasas verbs in the four categories: Conjugation#;Haft-e-Iqsaam;BAAB (base letters);Translation

Let me know what you think of this

Jazak Allah

Hafsa said...

sheepoo,

Jazak Allah for the idea.

the three contributors of the new blog have scheduled a conference call for tonight. So insha Allah, by tomorrow morning EDT we should have decided the future of the blog.

Hafsa said...

sheepoo,

we've decided on the content. I'll insha Allah share them in a day or two (on the new blog).

In the meantime, can you please give me your email address? would like to discuss something with you.

Jazak Allah

Anonymous said...

sheepooATgmaildotcom

Anonymous said...

Still waiting for the Email.....

Hafsa said...

as salamu alaykum,

please give me until the weekend. I apologize for the delay

Wa Salam