query or two to dhimmi no more reg. soorat al isra'

Submitted by Shmuel Froman (United Kingdom), Sep 13, 2015 at 13:54

Hi, great post. I have a few questions though if you don't mind providing a hand. I took snippets of your post below:

سبحن الذي اسرى بعبده ليلا من المسجد الحرام الى المسجد الاقصا الذي بركنا حوله لنريه من ايتنا انه هو السميع البصير

Now let me fix the missing alifs in this poor Arabic

سبحان الذي اسرى بعباده ليلا من المسجد الحرام الى المسجد الاقصا الذي باركنا حوله لنريه من اياتنا انه هو السميع البصير

Or: glory to he who made his SERVANTS to go at night from haram to aqsa that we blessed around it so we can show him our signs he is the one who hears and sees

(i) Is there a difference in meaning between 'subhaan' with your added alif above the 'ha' and the 'subhaan' in the Koran which has alif khanjariyya above the 'ha'?

(ii) Why do you call this poor arabic, maybe this spelling was accepted at the time? Are there any pre/non Islamic sources of the same period which have spelt the word in a similar manner?

(iii) Also, you propose we substitute 3bdihi (singl.) with 3ibadihi (pl.) but this doesn't make sense. Looking at your version which I have simplified:

Glory to Him (God) who made his servants go at night from the forbidden place of prostration to the farthest place of prostration which we have blessed...

Now the verse continues with لِنُرِيَهُ or "..so we can show him our signs", surely if we accept your proposal ~ "..who made his servants (pl.) go at night from al haram to al aqsa" then this latter part of the verse should be "..so we can show them our signs", no?

I wonder what your thoughts are on this.

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