The worship and adoration of a deity, is a mental confusion.

[Abdun Nur]

Salaam,

the 114 Surah, is now posted on servant of the light, and below, if you would like to read the other Surah's translated follow the link posted at the end.


An-Nus

(Historically: People or Mankind or Humanity.)

Surah 114:1             قُلْ أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ النَّاسِ

Make known, I seek protection and preservation with (the guidance of) my Sustainer, Fosterer, Maintainer and Accomplisher from all mental confusion.

Surah 114:2             مَلِكِ النَّاسِ

What for you, is the mental confusion?

Surah 114:3             إِلَهِ النَّاسِ

The worship and adoration of a deity, that is the mental confusion.

Surah 114:4             مِن شَرِّ الْوَسْوَاسِ الْخَنَّاسِ

This becomes the basis of wrongdoing, injustice, corruption and wickedness. Which prompts what is vain and destitute of good. Falling backwards in (knowledge) and lagging behind (in social development) as a result.

Surah 114:5             الَّذِي يُوَسْوِسُ فِي صُدُورِ النَّاسِ

All who become vain and destitute of good? Will return back to mental confusion.

Surah 114:6             مِنَ الْجِنَّةِ وَ النَّاسِ

Like the ones in the state that creates a loss of reason and unsoundness of mind or intellect; resulting in all possible mental confusions.

http://servantofthelight.com/content/view/124/157/

[Wilson]

WTF?! No really.
How do you come up with this?
If anything, this translation is a product of mental confusion.

[bkanwar2]

WTF?! No really.
How do you come up with this?
If anything, this translation is a product of mental confusion.

This does not appear to be a question in true spirit of learning.  If it is, please let us know, would be more than happy to explain.

Peace.

Badar

[nsws1988]

If anything, this translation is a product of mental confusion.

[bkanwar2]

I have been in touch with a respected member of this forum regarding An-Nus, via private mail.  Every human is worthy of respect, but this member is more so, due his good understanding of Arabic language.  I am bringing this critique in public domain, as this is, where it belongs to.  This due sensitivity of issues involved.   This further highlights that task is even harder than thought.   I am not going to disclose name of the respected member, due private communication.   Due to some personal engagements; I will let it be here for few days, before commenting and explaining further.  Please feel free in the mean time to comment based on linguistics/grammar of 114:1 until then.

?I disagree with your translationo of قُلْ as well as naas.

For Naas I suggest you read: http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume8/00000121.pdf

Please do not jump to conclusion. Nothing about mental confusion is stated in that definition.

As for قُلْ. It is 'to say,' whether you proclaim it or make it clear depends on the context. But the word is 'say'. There are other words for 'making known', pronouncing or proclaiming.

You cannot translate:

قُلْ أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ النَّاسِ

'Make known, I seek protection and preservation with (the guidance of) my Sustainer, Fosterer, Maintainer and Accomplisher from all mental confusion.'

What I have italicized is especially wrong. in the last part not only is the translation of naas unacceptable but there is no preposition in front of it in the Arabic. Rabbinnaasi is a possessive phrase and you have totally ignored that fact.

Please do not take on the endeavor of trying to translate the Quran with limited knowledge of Arabic. You will just end up twisting it.?

Peace,
Badar

[bkanwar2]

Peace,
Let us analyze the above verse.  I am going to take into account that lot of readers are just like me.  That is, not very familiar with Arabic language and it?s grammar.  Hence, I shall keep this discourse simple and easy.

The issue on hand is the analysis of Arabic Syntax.  That is to say the task of translating an Arabic sentence and its order into English.  In Arabic there are only two types of sentences.

1.    Nominal sentence or  in Arabic جمله اسميه
2.     Verbal sentence or جمله  فعليه
Now just like in English there two major part of a sentence in Arabic as well; ?A Subject? or مُبْتَدَا and ?The Predicate? or خبر.

Now both Subject and predicate could be either one word or combination of two words; resulting in four different possible combination order of sentences.  
1.    Where both Subject and predicate are single word each.
2.   Either Subject is a compound of two or.
3.   Predicate is a compound of two.
4.   Both are compound of two words.

The compounds of two words could be two types.  In an incomplete sentence, full meaning is not  conveyed just by meanings of constituent words and is dependent on something to complete the meanings.  In Arabic called مركب ناقص ;

And a complete sentence conveying full meanings, called جمله.

Now lets us apply this little knowledge to above verse.
أَعُوذُ , has two words أَ a personal pronoun, meaning ?I?, followed by a noun عُوذُ .  As a result this sentence would be classified as Nominal sentence.  This noun means ?seeking protection?.  It is a verbal noun.  Means indicates happening of a work without indications of time/tense.

Now next question would be protection from what?  This should be explained in the Predicate of the sentence.

This is followed by a predicate which is a compound predicate without conveying full meanings by itself in Arabic a مركب ناقص .  This is بِرَبِّ النَّاسِ.

The first part of this compound is a combination of a preposition and a noun بِرَبِّ could be separated into بِ could have several meanings depending upon context.  

Next in order is root رب ب meaning ?sustainer, maintainer, foster and accomplisher?

Finally النَّاسِ a noun derived from root ن و س in Lane meaning ?commotion (meaning mental confusion in modern English), going to and fro?.  It is made from a common noun نكره to a proper noun by addition of a definite article ?Al? making it معرفه.

http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume8/00000120.pdf

Now let us just literally translate this compound Predicate or خبر of subject مُبْتَدَا ّ

بِرَبِّ =With, sustainer, maintainer, foster and accomplisher, and النَّاسِ = The, commotion or mental confusion.
Now we can clearly see that this word compound by itself does not convey the complete meaning as ?With the sustainer, maintainer, foster and accomplisher, the mental confusion?.

However, if we add the meanings of subject, it starts making more sense.
?I take protection, (from what) the mental confusion, with sustainer, maintainer, foster and accomplisher?.
However, since both words in the predicate are in ?Possessive case?  حالتِ جر.  Hence, meaning should change further as follows.

?Make it know, I take protection from mental confusion with my sustainer, maintainer, foster and accomplisher?.

Why did I do it little different last time? Just because, I am trying to follow word order for beginners, like myself.

Finally for this ?Rabbinnaasi is a possessive phrase and you have totally ignored that fact.? Brother you are just stuck with Tajwaeed.  It is a rule based on Idgham of Tajwaeed.  I am very sure you know it well, hence no need explaining.  This does not affect meanings at all.

May Rabb bless all.

Badar

[bkanwar2]

Due lack of any responses; it seems like either everyone understood my rudimentary explanation or else no one cares.  In either case, instead of having interactive learning dialogue.  I will have to unilaterally continue to give explanation to best of my knowledge at present.  Rest shall depend on future learning.

My respected friend also objected on meanings of first word  قُلْ saying that it?s meaning is ?Say?.  In my explanation, I did not even address this.  This due, I was still trying to enhance my understanding of this commonly used word in AlKitab.  This word is a verbal noun, imperative, singular 2 muscular from root   فَالَ.   This verbal root is what Arab grammarians call as verbs of heart or  أفْعَالُ آلْقُلُوب i.e., which signify an act that takes place in the mind.  Commonly it is thought to just mean as ?to say?.  However, realistically it is as a verb of mind should mean ?think and then say?.  This is the real complete meaning of this verbal root.  

Now let us apply the above knowledge of the grammatical form to this meaning. It will mean ?you better think and then say?.   This whole phrase is now the Subject or مُبْتَدَ of the above verse or sentence, which we decided already as noun sentence.  However, we are changing the subject of the sentence.  This would also change the Predicate of above sentence.  Now the whole أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ النَّاسِ becomes the ?Predicate or خبر of the Subject.  This kind of predicate IS called  ?annexed compound or in Arabic  مركبِ اضافى  

Now since we have introduced another term مركبِ اضافى.  Let us briefly explain what it means?  It is compound of word know in English as sentence.  The first noun is called ?the annexed?  in Arabic اَلْمُضَافُ and the determining noun,  إلَيْهِ  اَلْمُضَافُ that to which annexation is made.  This type of compound could have two or more nouns.  If there are only two noun, first is اَلْمُضَافُ and is identified as in ?nominative? or رفْع.  Identified by mark of dumma.  Where as ,إلَيْهِ    اَلْمُضَافُ is always in possessive or genitive case or حالتِ جر.  My purpose is not to make it too complicated for novice.  Hence, with out going into further detail. Let us with explanation given for the first word; translate this verse.

?You better think and then say; with my Rabb (meaning sustainer, maintainer, foster and accomplisher), I seek preservation and protection from all the mental confusion?.

Peace, if there would be any further interest, I shall continue.  Otherwise, this is very time consuming.  However, this much is done just to show the skeptics that this translation is not due to a mental confusion.  But actually is a result of harmony and peace of mind.  In addition is based on solid linguistic reasons and logic.  Albeit, may not be perfect. Yet enough to prove the point, that how far drifted, our current understanding of the real message is?  So please if you understand this come back to AlKitab.  The only basis of Islam, join hands to bring AlKitab, back to its original shape and understanding.

May Rabb bless all.
Badar

[kn]

Dear Brother

Thanks for the comprehensive explanation.
It now makes a wonderful sense. May Rabb bless you.

Please continue with the explanation of the remainder of the verses of the surah.

Peace

[Humanist]

Deleted.

[bkanwar2]

Deleted.

Please, do not delete, speak aloud.  One of the ways of clearing mental confusion.


Thanks kn, I am glad it has made some sense to you.  Shall continue as time will permit.

Badar