Tovey, Q25:52 Jihad, Unbelievers and Muslim Apologists! Footnotes Part 2

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jan 8, 2021 at 08:38

Tovey,

1. Why do I select al-Tabari's Tafsir? al-Tabari was really Allah's editor in-chief. His tafsir is extant and was written 250-300 years after the death of Muhammad and by the standards of the Muslim literary sources, this is early. Why not Tafsir ibn 'Abbas (the cousin of Muhammad) and why not Tafsir Muqatil? Because neither tafsir is extant. These tafsirs are ascriptions "collected" in later times. Also, al-Tabari's tafsir is masoretic, and indeed he shaped our understanding of what the Qur'an is supposed to be saying.

2. Qur'an 25 is called Surat al-Furqan or سورة الفرقان. The word الفرقان puzzled al-mufasereen and al-Tabari as usual comes to the rescue and he tells us that الفرقان is derived from the Arabic root ف-ر-ق or F-R-Q and he tells us that it means: الفصل بين الحق والباطل or the separation between what is true and what is false/spoiled/incorrect.

Now, in Syriac the word ܦܘܪܩܢܐ or Purqana and root ܦ ܪ ܩ and in Hebrew the word Purqaan mean: Salvation/Redemption and the Jewish as well as Syriac root of the Quranic word الفرقان becomes clear and one realizes that al-Tabari had no idea. Also notice that Syriac and Hebrew P is Arabized as the letter F

Check this link

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%DC%A6%DC%98%DC%AA%DC%A9%DC%A2%DC%90

Last, and this might be of interest to you. Is Qur'an 17:1 about Muhammad's journey to heaven or is it about the story of Exodus? Good reading:

https://www.almuslih.org/Library/Donner,%20F%20-%20Quranic%20Furqan.pdf

Here is the Quranic verse Q17:1

https://quran.com/17

3. The Arabic language root ج-ه-د or J-H-D check this easy to understand the breakdown of the root and notice that the Arabs starting point when dealing with a word is to start with the masculine, verb, present tense of the word so is this case the starting point is يجاهد or Yujahid or he fights a holy war or jihad. In Western scholarship of the Arabic language we use what is called "Form" and in this case you will find it in the link and check "Form III" and this is indeed the word in question or Jihad and Mujahid , Jahada and Yujahid and the root covers the following: Strife, Labor and Struggle and in this case Form III is about Strife/Holy War and fighting the "enemies"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%AC_%D9%87_%D8%AF

And because this root J-H-D is Quranic the meaning in today's Arabic is very stable and here from a modern dictionary

http://www.almaany.com/ar/dict/ar-ar/%D8%AC%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AF/

Here is the meaning: خرج الجنود للجهاد للقتال في سبيل الله or (al-Jihad means) The soldiers went out for al-Jihad of for fighting in the cause of Allah

Very clear that the meaning here is Holy War

And anyone who tells us that Jihad does not mean Holy War is either ignorant or he does not know the meaning of the word Jihad

Stay tuned for part 3

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