Regarding Article "Meaning of SuJuD" part 1

[Mohsin7]

Thank you for clarifying you are referring to something I have never studied and never written about and it is a hypothetical contradiction, currently existing in your own head only.

Good to know you couldn't cite any actual contradiction in what I've actually written about. 

And thank you Wakas, for showing that you never analyzed the consequences of applying your "approach" generally, which is a basic method for discovering inherent flaws and weaknesses.

If you are serious about analyzing the Quran and publishing your views, then swallow your pride and get into a post-grad program in Pure or Applied Logic (links to some options below):

http://logic.cmu.edu/
http://math.mit.edu/academics/grad/

You're not good with logic and need proper training. Don't take this as an insult, but as sincere advise from someone who wishes you well.

[Timur]

Peace Mohsin7,

I don't think there is anything wrong with Wakas' logic.

Actually I am confused about your approach. Can you please elobarate? For me it seems that you insert meanings completely arbitrarily as I have already stated a few days ago:

Your approach is to take it as non-physical or phyical arbitrarily according to your wishes... Why don't you take the command to do SJD whenever the reading/quran is recited as physical? Would this be to uncomfortable for you? What is you reasoning?

You did not give a direct answer to my posting... Please tell me why you do not prostrate physically by placing your forehead on the ground whenever the reading/ "quran" is recited? I hope your answer can clarify your method.

[Mazhar]

Logic scholars may kindly address this question:





In these two sentences four words are the same. Would the meanings and perception of the word "Mubarakun" are the same in both the sentences?

[ths]

Salaam Mazhar,


This is a great point, and why I keep repeating the verse about the planets "swimming" in space. This obsession with forcing one sole meaning onto words in the Quran is futile and ignores the poetic nature of the Book where words are frequently given metaphorical non-literal uses.


Salaam Wakas,

Quran could have clarified if sjd meant physical prostration in 4:102 by saying something similar...

The Quran could have clarified lots of things, and yet it didn't. It didn't clarify what it meant by swimming, running, fighting, nor did it clarify many verses on punishments. Why should the Quran 'clarify' the meaning of a word that everyone already knows? The answer is the opposite - the Quran clarified the non-physical uses of the word which everyone already knew and accepted as being physical. The same way the Quran clarified that "swimming" SBH does not literally mean swimming in water, despite everyone knowing perfectly well that that's what it means.

By your standards and treatment of sujood we should now have to reinterpret yasbahu because God never clarifies that it also means swimming in water.

Or perhaps in 17:107-109 could have mentioned being on the ground in some way.

It does clarify that. You've just ignored it because you are forcing your own interpretation onto the verses. The meaning of being on the ground is absolutely clear in these verses, and even your idol Mustansir Mir takes this position. I don't know how God could've made it clearer without writing out specifically "get onto the ground people". Sujood is paired with KHRR throughout the Quran.

Anyone who has read Quran434.com will know otherwise. I relied significantly on Quranic usage, its internal logic etc.

You analyzed every occurrence of the word DRB to argue that DRB can mean something other than 'strike'.

Now you have overwhelming evidence that KHRR means to physically fall, and you ignore it.

Wrong. See 25:73, which is even quoted in my sjd article.

This can easily be interpreted as a physical action. It goes both ways, but I think the physical action here is a better interpretation.

I interpret it as criticizing the people who go to pray whilst thinking about what they had for lunch that day, or what they want to do. You see these people in the mosques, they do some lightning prayer and leave. The context of the verse is an extended description of the characteristics of the righteous people. Then this verse says:

Those who when they are reminded of their Lord's signs, they do not fall deaf and blind thereat.

Literal: they do not fall on the reminder/verses deaf and blind


I interpret this as a continuation of the description of the righteous people. We are told that the righteous are the ones who stay late into the night in sujood and qiyaam, they pass by trivial talk with dignity, and they do not prostrate when they are reminded to without heart and khushoo3 in a mechanical fashion.

I don't know how else to interpret this verse in a non-physical manner. You argue that KHRR means to be humbled elsewhere in the Quran. How is one humbled deaf and blind? Or the other interpretation is to "fall" on the verses (ayat) as if to attack them. Again, not in line with the context at all. In your article you state that it means to fall on the verses - ie: read them without care, as if deaf and blind. This is ok, it fits, but I don't consider it the correct interpretation.
Clearly the intention here is to warn against mechanical prostration and prayer done without heart. That is why the non-righteous simply "fall" at hearing God's verses, whereas the righteous fall in sujood - because it is not sujood without the emotional component, otherwise it simply becomes falling to the ground deaf and blind.



But let's assume that it does not mean physical falling for the sake of avoiding an argument about this particular verse - we are still left with 6 out of 7 incidences where KHRR definitely means falling.

If we remove all the verses that have KHRR Sujjadan and 17:109, we are left with 7 occurrences.

Of those occurrences KHRR means to physically fall each and every time except for this one that you don't want to interpret as falling. 38:24 is not 100% clear, so let's exclude that. And 34:14 means both falling down and death. (The worm gnaws at his staff so he falls (dies)).

So - we have 6 out of 7 occurrences that clearly mean physical falling, with only 1 verse that is unclear and can be both.

So by your standards, this is a pretty clear indication of what KHRR means.

In the exampels you gave, can you clarify if they have the same structure as the example we are discussing in 17:107, quote from article:


i.e.
idiom + accusative word

When I find an idiom followed by an accusative adjective I'll let you know. Off the top of my head I can't think of any.





But let's summarize what we know -


1. Like swimming, running, and other Arabic words, the accepted definition of Sujood to pre-Islamic Arabs is prostration. We have examples of pre-Islamic poetry that clearly shows us they thought Sujood = prostration. From the Encyclopaedia of the Quran, Vol. 4 Page 219:

Sujūd was known among the peoples of the Middle East in pre-Islamic times as a gesture of respect at royal courts and as an act of adoration in Christian worship. Pre-Islamic poetry cites a few examples of prostration (sujūd) before a tribal chief in recognition of his superiority and as an expression of one?s submission (cf. Tottoli, Muslim attitudes, 5-34).
The act of prostration hurt the pride (q.v.) of the Arabs (Q 25:60; 7:206; cf. 16:49; 32:15; 68:42-3) because it appeared to them as a humiliating gesture and an alien practice (cf. Kister, Some reports, 3-6).


2. KHRR is used as physically falling in every single other case (or all except one if we accept your contention regarding 25:73)

3. Idioms where the action happens and a non-literal word is added for intensity are common. (I'm so hungry I can eat a horse, it is raining cats and dogs, etc.)


4. The phrase is falling to the chins. lil-adhqaani. Not 3alaa al-adhqaani, which would be the normal way to say it in arabic.


5. We have an actual recorded example of this phrase as a popular Arab saying. It was common enough and well known enough to end up in Lane's Lexicon as an idiom! Lane specifically recorded for us examples of trees and stones falling to their chins!


6. You've challenged me to explain how the idiom could work and I have explained it. In turn, please explain verses such as 19:58

إِذَا تُتْلَى عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتُ الرَّحْمَن خَرُّوا سُجَّدًا وَبُكِيًّا

You are arguing that sujjadan is a metaphor, or a non-literal meaning of the accepted word, whereas bakiyyan (crying) is literally physical crying. God never clarifies how to cry, just as he never clarifies how to perform sujood, and relies on our knowledge of the language. So either we must assume that one is literal and one isn't, or that SJD did not originally mean prostration and there has been a massive conspiracy to get people to perform physical prostration when the original word had no such meaning.



7. The Quran pairs SJD with KHRR repeatedly. 12:100 (kharruu lahu sujjadan), 17:107 (yukhirruuna lilidhqaani sujjadan), 19:58 (kharruu sujjadan wa bakiyyaa), 32:15 (kharruu sujjadan) - why is God using the word "fall" throughout the Quran with SJD to a bunch of people who think SJD means prostration??


8. If the point of KHRR is to express humility in 17:107 and 17:109 and elsewhere, then why not use the many words used in the Quran already for humility?? Why repeat KHRR with sujood so many times instead of saying "humble yourselves sujjadan" ? There are many choices, for example DR3, KHBT, KHSH3, 3NW,



Peace

[David Saidi]

Peace be upon you

The Quran could have clarified lots of things, and yet it didn't. It didn't clarify what it meant by swimming, running, fighting, nor did it clarify many verses on punishments.

I also think like this for a long time.

The word like qamaa (stand, rise up), raki' (bow) and sujud (prostate) appeared in many verses, and some of us assume if it's the movements of Assalat, despite it still unclear.
Quran didn't gave proper protocols for how to or what we must do during  stand/rose up, bow and prostrate.

In this forum, some members see sujud as an idiom cause some verses like 7:11, but I don't see clear evidences from them.

I still examine the actual meaning of this verse (especially the green sentence) :

16:48 أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْا إِلَىٰ مَا خَلَقَ اللَّـهُ مِن شَيْءٍ يَتَفَيَّأُ ظِلَالُهُ عَنِ الْيَمِينِ وَالشَّمَائِلِ سُجَّدًا لِّلَّـهِ وَهُمْ دَاخِرُونَ

Til now, I still believe if usage of SJD is for physical movement.

[Mohsin7]

Salaam Ths

Those who when they are reminded of their Lord's signs, they do not fall deaf and blind thereat.

Literal: they do not fall on the reminder/verses deaf and blind

I interpret this as a continuation of the description of the righteous people. We are told that the righteous are the ones who stay late into the night in sujood and qiyaam, they pass by trivial talk with dignity, and they do not prostrate when they are reminded to without heart and khushoo3 in a mechanical fashion.

I don't know how else to interpret this verse in a non-physical manner.

There's much more to this verse than just the physical meaning. After all, what benefit would spending a night in physical prayer bring to anyone? Islam is not a 'religion' of pagan mystical "spirituality" where spending hours in meditation brings one closer to God. That's all propaganda. There is no passive "spiritualism" in Islam, it is an active socio-political revolution by its very nature. All the prophets were revolutionaries. If anyone thinks that Muhammad and his companions used to spend hours at night simply prostrating physically and meditating like monks, they need to look again at the situation that these people were facing. This small nucleus was surrounded and besieged in Medinah on all fronts by the hostile Makkans, Jewish tribes, hypocrites/spies, and even the two superpowers of Persia and Byzantium on their borders came into play... This verse is highlighting the situation paralleled by meetings of the war-room that you would find in the sub-basement level of the General Head Quarters of an Army. The struggle to sustain a Divine mission is what was taking place. This is what always happens when Islam is actually followed. The whole world around you turns against you and you have to plan day and night to withstand its combined forces.

But more than this, the "deaf and blind" statement signals something critically deep. It is an all-out frontal attack on "blind faith", which is prevalent in every ideology which divides man into sects and competing groups. Whether one is a capitalist, communist, republican, democrat, Christian, Jew or even atheist, he/she is following that defacto religion because of "blind faith". This is the difference between "religion" and "deen". And Islam is anti-religion by it's very nature. Because all other ideological systems are inherently flawed and only survive by subduing the intellect of their followers. The Quran makes the boldest statements in 17:36: "And do not follow that of which you have no knowledge. Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart - all of these shall be questioned."  This verse alone makes me proud to be a Muslim, because no other system which proposes to lead humanity challenges its own followers to question it's own premises.  Do we Muslims think that we can simply bow our heads to the local bearded mullah and this is enough, in spite of such a verse? This verse commands that we can not even blindly follow Islam! Which is why the Quran is replete with proofs which Muslims are required to understand. Every true Mumin should be able to debate a Nobel prize winning physicist like Steven Weinberg and win that debate on the existence of God! Otherwise they are not fit for the title of a "Mumin", and that is the only title that really matters. The verses on the beginning of the universe, the perfection of the Quran etc. These are not casual statements, these are pointing to scientific and logical proofs and outright challenges. They are in the Quran to erase this "Blind faith", which is a disease. "Faith" is for fanatics who always harbor a secret doubt in their hearts. That is why they need "faith", it is a retreat into the dark recesses of the mind at the core of every man-made ideology. God does not ask anyone to have "blindness" in their beliefs, God wants His followers to have certainty i.e. "iman" (root AMN). And the peace that comes with certainty is incompatible with secret fear inherent in "faith".

This is how God prepares His followers, because the mission which they are entrusted with is an epic struggle. Their objective is to liberate the world from oppression and corruption, where man is enslaved by man, mentally and physically. And this is the purpose of staying up at nights, meeting in the "masjids" while submitting and prostrating to Divine Laws. It is to carry out the system of Islam, not to waste time spending hours in pagan mystic meditation like a yogi, separated from the world, contributing nothing, fixing nothing.

Here's the commentary on this verse by G.A.P, and it is the most sound view of this verse I have yet encountered:

"73. These people are not swayed by emotions and they take every step after a lot of deliberation (34:76), so much so that even when the Divine Laws are presented to them, they do not submit to these by ignoring their intellect, wisdom, rationale and reason.  Also, they do not respond to them as if they were deaf and blind. They adopt the Divine Laws only after careful consideration (for it is clear that when they do not even act upon the Divine Laws without pondering over them, then how would they do so in other spheres of life)."





 

[Wakas]

peace all,

Looking forward to a response to these:

When I find an idiom followed by an accusative adjective I'll let you know. Off the top of my head I can't think of any.

#####

peace Mohsin7,

..,
,,,

You did not give a direct answer to my posting... Please tell me why you do not prostrate physically by placing your forehead on the ground whenever the reading/ "quran" is recited? I hope your answer can clarify your method.

[ths]

Salaam David,

That's a very interesting verse. It seems to be portraying one's shadow as doing sujood - ie: following the laws of nature that God has set for it without straying. Obviously a shadow cannot stray as it has no free will, but the intention is to express SJD here as something natural, part of God's laws or perhaps the laws of nature themselves. It's really interesting.


All I'm trying to tell people is that they have approached this entirely wrong. The Quran uses words and relies on the listeners to know what those words mean because they speak Arabic. And so we use dictionaries to clarify meanings.

But the Quran also uses metaphors and idioms repeatedly. The sun and the moon are "swimming" in their paths, Muhammad is asked to spread his wing over the believers, etc. The Quran uses SJD in various cases where it obviously refers to the mental and emotional aspects of SJD. That's all.

It's like the word AJAR - wage/reward. We are asked to give the women their ujoor in the form of wealth (4:24) and in 2:62 we are told that we will get our ajar from God in the afterlife. Does this mean we are literally going to get a bag of coins from God? Of course not!

But some people have taken the non-literal verses to mean that SJD never meant physical prostration, necessitating them to reinterpret qiyaam, rukoo', and any other words that may mention physical movement to prove their theory. So a conspiracy theory arises whereby these words never meant anything physical, but there was some sort of massive conspiracy across the Muslim world to get Muslims to pray like Jews/Zoroastrians/Christians/Pagans and the dictionaries have all been edited after the fact to reflect this massive conspiracy.

I don't think there is any conspiracy and I think this issue could not be more obvious - SJD means to physically prostrate in humility and obedience to God. Sometimes it is used in a non-literal sense, just as many other words are used in the Quran. That's it.


Salaam Mohsin,


I think the literal interpretation of this verse is to fall deaf and blind at the order from God, just as the literal interpretation of the preceding verse (25:64) is to stand and prostrate late into the night. However the wider implication of these verses is obvious from the literal - falling deaf and blind when instructed is synonymous with blind obedience, and standing and prostrating in the night obviously also includes deep study. It would be pointless to stand and prostrate for hours whilst thinking about ice cream, there needs to be intention and seriousness. In the end it comes to the same thing as you quoted: "they do not respond to them as if they were deaf and blind".



Salaam Wakas,


The onus is on you to prove that SJD does not mean physical prostration, which you have not done. The onus isn't on me to prove that it includes physical prostration. That would be like demanding that I prove "swimming" happens in water through the Quran. God never bothered to clarify how swimming is done, so if you think it never happens in water then the onus is on you to prove that. This entire discussion is a non-issue and an exercise in futility

[Mohsin7]

@ ths,

I think we're in agreement.

@ Wakas,

I'm ignoring requests to repeat what I have already explained directly, despite claims to the contrary.

[Timur]

Peace Mohsin7,

I'm ignoring requests to repeat what I have already explained directly, despite claims to the contrary.

This was your only repsonse to my request:

Salam Timur,

You are free to revisit what has already been explained. The issue is more than what you are seeing.

Please tell me in which of your postings you did already discuss the issue I have brought up. Maybe I am blind so I cannot find it and obviously Wakas can't find it either. Enlighten us, please.