Wednesday 10 July 2024

What is ...?

Sometimes there is no clear answer.
What is Islam?
What is said in the Qurʾān OR what Muslims do as their religion?
But who is competent to explain the Qurʾān?
And which group of Muslims praying behind an Imam qualifies to define proper Islam?

What is a word? In English "in", "by", "and", "the", "him", "her", "them" are words, in Arabic "بـ" "لـ" "فـ" "الـ" "و" at the beginning of a word (not before a word) or "هم" at the end of a word (not after a verb) are part of the word. Hence should not be separated from the word.
In Persia and India it is quite common to have and/wa-/و at the end of a line, and the rest of the word in the next line. Although common, it is wrong. After all the language of the Qurʾān is Arabic, not Persian, Quranic or what ever, and in Arabic and/wa-/و is part of the word.

The famous calligrapher Hamit Aytaç الآمدي wrote a muṣḥaf in which a word (فجعلناهم) is torn apart (both فـ and هم are part of one word) This muṣḥaf (page on the right) was published in Turkey in 1976 and in Bairut in 1980. In later editions the mistake is corrected.

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