Fascinating!

Submitted by Mahfoozur Rahman (Bangladesh), Nov 5, 2006 at 17:34

I still do not know how to address you! So, regretfully, I shall leave this mail unaddressed.

My, my! Four or is it five, long responses on the same day! I am overwhelmed by all the attention. Most fasinating contents too, if one leaves out the irrelevant and the juvenile portions (laugh). Well, thank you nonetheless.

Now, I am sure you are a woman, do not deny it. You find our correspondence intellectually stimulating as the standard of responses on this blog - ah well, I leave it at that.

Now, may we correspond in a civil manner? I am most impressed (laugh, really I am) by your depth of knowledge, understanding and insight into Semitic languages, grammer, vocabulary, phonetics, the lot. Truthfully, I do not know any Semitic language, including Aramaic. As I confessed to you before, I only have an elementary knowledge of Arabic and can only read (recite?) the Koran. And no, I am no Hafiz either. I am simply a reader and try to get to the meaning by translations by such persons (as you mentioned once) Yusuf Ali and others. It is no crime not to know a thing, but surely it is intellectually inadmissible to resort to falsehood. As a matter of principle, I do not knowlngly lie.

But my dear, in spite of your acting the devil's advocate, you will not be able to divert me from by faith. Becuase, faith by definition, is blind, supra and para-logical. As the proto-existentialist Kiekegaard postulated, ' Faith is a great leap into the unknown.' And I have leapt into the unknown. So any etymological and histological paradox or contradition in the Book (you know what I mean, of course) will not deter a faithful, as shamelessly or shamefully, as your fancy takes you, I am one. As the great Sufi Poet Jamal ud Din Rumi said (do you know Persian too?) said, in paraphrase: once there was darkness and in a moment there is light, and like the rising sun at a desert dawn, it burns the uncertainty and there is only the light beam ('noor' will be more appropriate) of certainty. So it is. It is a spiritual experience not likely to be understood by one who did not go through. It goes beyond human understanding and logic, and like poetry, transcends lexicographic meaning of words and the singifier and the signified lose all significance. Perhaps it is akin to an ecstasy only felt by humans in moments of supreme intimacy with his/her beloved.

At the same time the neutral and curious itellectual elements in my psyche is fascinated by your ruthless linguistic dissections, or more accurately post mortem of my core. Perhaps masochistic but Fascinating nonetheless!

I shall read all your comments/observations tomorrow and try to reply. Tonight, I wrote a reply to an Indian Hindu, Vijay. It addresses the same point that you rasied many times - the civil war of 1971. Please do read it as I shall not be addressing this any more, however much or many times you 'shame' me.

True shame is due, my dear, to the intolerant, the violent, the bigot, the racist, the vengeful and the ignorant. Pray, I am not any of these.

Are you a linguist, specialising in Semitic languages, both ancient and modern? A Jew perhaps? Hey, I have many good Jewish friends, a few were my class mates. All of them were brilliant. I found them born scholars and most gifted in a multitude of callings. While I toiled endlessly, they seemed to grasp things naturally. Don't laugh but I feel, they are specially blessed by (my!) Allah, as they belong to the Bani-Israil nation, the followers of Moses. But then, as you say, I am not an Arab, but have no wish whatsoever to emulate one. I carry in me genes of an ancient civilization that preaches tolerance and diversity. I am deeply religious, but that does not affect my social behaviour or God forbid, my sense of civility. In the modern parlance, though I hate to term myself as such or put an adjective before my faith, I would be, what you say, a 'Moderate Muslim' of the S. E. Asian genre, such as a Malayasian or an Indonesian would usually be.

Remember, no swear words please. I feel you demean yourself by such common expressions. Certainly you are above them. I sincerely find you and your expositions fascinating, both in scholarship as well as in childishness! (laugh) May be I shall opt to be your student, of, shall we say, Aramiac, Arabic and just how to be silly ! (laugh)

Good night and good wishes

Mahfooz

PS: If you so wish, you may correspond with me at maf_r at yahoo and put a dot and a com after it. I promise to reply.

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