Harrak, re : where is the answer

Submitted by Rashid (Canada), Mar 11, 2006 at 19:16

Hey Harrak, this is Rashid

I am not answering your questions here. Too silly and none of my business. But you attracted my attention when you said : Muslims are lucky to have the original copy of the Koran in the original language!!

Yes indeed ! They are lucky. But only as far as its style, structure and POETRY. There is nothing like it in the whole world in my view. Even the poetry of Victor Hugo, whom you mention, and whom the French regard as "le plus grand genie litteraire francais du 19e siecle", does'nt even come close. And the chant with its haunting sonorities and rhymes, Iraqi or Egyptian or Moroccan style, is absolutely sublime. It still gives me goose bumps when I hear it.

Having said that, I can tell you, the substance of the Koran is a totally different matter. I have read it many many times and I even know large tracts by heart. That work, despite its beautiful language, cannot be the work of God. It's too darn immoral (among many other epithets I can't even say here). The Koran was probably written in Bagdad around the beginning of the 700's. The authors may have had to take whatever existing oral traditions they could find at the time, together with material from the recent history of Muhammad, and wrap it all in beautiful classical Arabic. (this was way before Ibn Ishaq, Tabari, Bukahri and the others)
These people were masters at making poetry (and music). It was the political correctness in that society in those days to even speak in rhymes and improvise as you go along. The greatest Arabic works of poetry ever produced date from that time (some even from pre-islamic times)

Now, Harrak, I don't know if you can read (by that I mean understand) the Koran. It's ultra classical Arabic. In my estimation more than 95 % of Arab Muslims cannot read the Koran, not to speak of non-Arab Muslims. They all have to rely on tafsir and on the word of their imams (and sometimes parents), and on authorized and "sanitized" translations. Arabic is not an easy language to translate, even more so the Koranic Arabic. I own 4 different translations (French and English). I can assure you that none of them totally renders the exact meaning. And despite what you and many others think, the translators actually SOFTEN the boldness and crudeness of some verses (..for consumption by the masses..)

If you love the Koran, love it as I do, for its form not its content.
Take surah 111. (very short surah). Honestly ask yourself who is Abu Lahab ?? Read some Hadith on it. Don't fall prey. There is no allegory here. No need of tafsir.

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