Do you take the Qur'an literally?

[hawk99]

Peace hawk99

I didn't know 'wa' had any alternate meaning. Looks like people are ready to change words to keep their grammatical ideas in a sentence intact. I am just saying. Perhaps you can explain how you came to your point that 'wa' meaning as 'or' is more grammatically correct?

Peace.

Peace Samira1234

My understanding is as follows:


The Arabic word for 'OR' is او pronounced 'Ow'.
And the Arabic word for 'AND' is و pronounced 'Wa'.

Or = او
And = و



فَانْكِحُوا مَا طَابَ لَكُمْ مِنَ النِّسَاءِ مَثْنَىٰ وَثُلَاثَ وَرُبَاعَ


Arabic speaking folks may give a better understanding, I'm just learning.

God bless you


     

[Samira1234]

Hello hawk99,

My understanding is as follows:


The Arabic word for 'OR' is او pronounced 'Ow'.
And the Arabic word for 'AND' is و pronounced 'Wa'.

Or = او
And = و

Yes, so we shouldn't confuse the two, or add an extra 'alif' where it was not there. We shouldn't try to force our grammatical ideas where it is not possible. Unless someone has a better interpretation.

Peace.

[hawk99]

Hello hawk99,

Yes, so we shouldn't confuse the two, or add an extra 'alif' where it was not there. We shouldn't try to force our grammatical ideas where it is not possible. Unless someone has a better interpretation.

Peace.

Peace Samira1234

I do not understand the above, please give your translation of 4/3.

God bless

   

[Samira1234]

Hello hawk99,

I didn't change much in the interpretation of 4:3, just used the word 'and' for 'wa' in place of the commonly used translation of it, which is 'or'.

4:3 And if you fear that you will not deal justly with the orphans, then marry those that please you of women, two and three and four...

The sentence is incredibly confusing. How can a person marry two AND three AND four? That's a clear error. Unless someone can explain to me why it is not.

Besides, why is fear of injustice towards orphans followed by marrying women that pleases him, in multiple numbers? That's a strange concept, which has led to various interpretations for it and created more injustice in the society due to confusion, and which has led to reformer Muslims like Edip saying the women are widows whom to marry, which is most likely an invention, since he also did an interpretation change for verse 4:127, where he translated 'Yataman Nisaa' as 'orphans' mothers'.  Some others see 'Yataman Nisaa' as 'orphan women' or 'orphans' women'. I am not sure personally.

Peace.

[Samira1234]

Peace Samira1234
Let me make it clear that I am not a scholar but just a student who is trying to understand Quran without using other's glasses. The purpose of discussion is to gain better understanding of Quran and not to defeat anyone.

To understand AZAB lets reflect on following verses in Quran:

2:5 Word "Muflihoon" is used for those who attain certain attributes given at 2:2 to 2:4
      Falahun is a farmer and muflihoon are those who are rewarded for their hard work with good 
      crops and yields       
     
2:7 Word "AZAB" is used for those who are in opposition to "believers"

Please reflect on Muflihoon and Azab in these verses. Both words have been used in comparison to eachother.

Does AZAB means torture or deprivation of the pleasant things?

I am kind of confused. Arabic is a difficult language to follow up on. The same word in a different context can apparently means a more different meaning.

I want you to look up on the word 'Azabahuma', whose meaning seems to be: ?the torture of both of them?, in the context of 24:2. This exact word in a context. And if a different interpretation is used, then I want to see how this word can be translated that way.

Peace.

[Samira1234]

Hello Novice,

Peace Samira1234

What is your opinion about word ZANI as discussed in following thread
http://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9605270.msg325693#msg325693

This seems to require more study. Some conflicting ideas have been proposed in the thread, as follows:

Salaam
arabic is a very strange language.

zina have meaning of decoration. defaming is a false decoration of reality.
Quran forbid showing forouj to other than spouses and malakat aymanoukom (70-29 and 70-30) but ask to show zina to many (24-31) and to take our zina to masjid:
7:31 O Children of Adam, dress nicely at every temple (TAKE YOUR ZINA), and eat and drink and do not indulge; He does not like the indulgers.

Peace

Root: ف ح ش 
Words from this Root in the Grand Qur'aan:
a) Total occurrences: 24
b) No of constructions: 8
(فحش) الفاء والحاء والشين كلمةٌ تدلُّ على قُبحٍ في شيء وشَناعة. من ذلك الفحْش والفَحْشاء والفاحشة. يقولون: كلُّ شيء جاوَزَ قَدرَه فهو فاحش؛

The basic perception infolded in the Root is that of indulging in excessive, immoderate, or beyond measure with reference to generally or universally accepted norms, limits and measures of behaviour. The perception and meanings of the Root have built in subjective and relational element. Moreover, since the excessive, immoderate and extremist tendencies are universally looked upon with dislike, abomination, repulsiveness, and unacceptability, therefore, it has inherent negative element. For reason of built in subjective and relational element, it is the context and related field which will determine and expose its meanings with reference to that context and in definite state generally about the irrational, unnatural, obscene, pervert and excessively emotional sexual conduct.

There is no active participle and passive participle in it. On the contrary Zina (زنا) is for illegal intercourse; premarital or extramarital.

الزِّنَى is a Verbal Noun signifying an act only. It denotes the act of intercourse and a state where the male genitalia intercourses with female genitalia. It does not refer to the doer of act as to who are they who are performing intercourse.

The woman performing in the act of intercourse is Active Participle الزَّانِيَةُ
and the man performing in the act of intercourse is also Active Participle  الزَّانِي .

This act of intercourse is certainly الفاحشة but any thing regarded as الفاحشة is not Zina. All ilicit sexual activities minus Zina are الفاحشة . Similarly rape is not Zina, whether done by a man or by a woman or women with a man, since Zina is only with mutual consent.

A couple days back one commentator changed the phrase interpretation of 'Ya AAibadiya' from 'O my servants' to 'O my allegiants'. This gets confusing to me, especially since I do not have that strong hold of knowledge in Arabic. So I am not sure regarding them.

Peace.

[Samira1234]

@runninglikezebras

Only with one condition can this be a truly fulfilling and satisfying alternate lifestyle:

=> This simply isn't true.  I agree for most of us what you say would be the only valid terms for it, but you are ignoring there are people out there who are an exception to your rule and perfectly happy with it.

Yeah there are exceptions. I have been also watching documentaries on polyandry, practiced such as in South India and Tibet, where the men in several families seem to be perfectly alright sharing their wife among two or three or more men in a polyandrous setting. The reasons for them there are:

1) By not allowing land to be split between brothers, the families retained farms sufficiently large to continue supporting their family. A compelling socio-biological justification for polyandry is that it makes good genetic sense for brothers to raise one another's children since a brother possesses the next closest gene pool to their own.

2) The mountainous terrain makes some of the farm land difficult to farm, requiring more physical strength. Women take multiple husbands because they are strong and able to help tend the land.

So mainly in the rural areas polyandry is literally important for their survival. So that is why I had mentioned earlier, either no polygamy at all or polygamy for both the genders being equally legalized. Both genders have just as much substantial evidence for why their side of case should be approved for. It makes no sense, from a real world perspective, to legalize polygamy for only one gender for religious-based reasons, that too giving one-sided real-world reasoning to justify it, since that would only create distress and suffering in a society, since the collective possible reasoning and real-world cases is not looked at and compared with, and the reasons for the other gender to choose polygamy is thwarted aside, simply on basis of 'because God said so'.

Peace.

[Man of Faith]

Harmony be with you Samira,

The ambiguity is due to errors in what the passages really say. Arabic is not strange, only the fools who have tried to interpret it and derived lots of strange practices and guesswork from it. Despite being a foreigner to the language I am fascinated by its simplicity due to that roots have only three letters and they are all based on a morpheme level meaning. It is a quite primitive but also very logical due to its precision and meanings derived straight out of the very letters.

Have faith

[1CELOSTNOWFOUND]

Peace,

Words don't have different meanings in different contexts. A clear, consistent text requires clear, consistent language. Context does not change meanings, it simply shows what a consistent meaning should be applied to.

Imraan

[Samira1234]

@huruf

Oh we have found that meaning, don't worry, cut I doubt that it does interest you. You seem to catch up to any straw to just disqualify anythign that is answered to you and instead speak at interpretation acrobatics, but reject that what you have been fed, or you say so, about the Qur'an may have been indeed interpretation acrobatics. A problem you will not have with the West which they have rally been saints all along.

I know I may have been coming across as biased against the Quran. Which I am, actually. My biasness is mainly against how the vast majority of Muslims seem to be interpreting the Quran. There are simply too many ways apparently in which one can choose to interpret the Quran, or even a letter within a word to change the course of the entire meaning. I have a feeling the majority of the people's way of interpreting is wrong on several levels, but many of them are stuck since they simply haven't seen something better, and simpler, which is verifiable. I am going with the notion currently that the Quran have indeed been divinely inspired, at least to an extent, at some point in history. If I find out later it wasn't, well, that's another story, for the later time being.

I am curious how you would see this verse for example, which appear misogynous. This is one of the examples regarding, frankly, my anger towards the traditional interpretations the Quran:

3:14 Beautified for people is the love of that which they desire - of women and sons, heaped-up sums of gold and silver, fine branded horses, and cattle and tilled land. That is the enjoyment of worldly life, but Allah has with Him the best return.

The word 'Nas' is translated normally as 'mankind' or 'people'. And that in PEOPLE itself they have been given the desire of WOMEN. I thought women were supposed to be part of people? Hence we are being regarded as not even people in this case, but like cattle, or as property, for men who are the real people. That's objectification in yo' face gurl. You said earlier that it is the people's fault for misinterpreting the Quran and creating problems in the world. Looks like the Quran in several places actually approves of their actions as well to an extent. It even looks like many people's messed-up attitude is a direct result from reading the scriptures.

Some embarrassed translators translated 'Nas' as 'men', which is wrong.

Peace.