Islamic Hermeneutic
 

One Thing Christians can learn from Muslims and Jew is hermeneutic.

For reasons irrelevant here, I've grabbed my English version of the Qu'ran, one from Indian/Pakistani, Abdullah Youssef Ali, to understand what the world's largest religion has to offer. And it has many intersections with Judaism and Christianity.

One of the fascinating aspects is Muslim's fascination with the Qu'ran in Arabic. It is similar or exceeds a devout Jew's belief of the Tanakh in Hebrew.

For example, in the Second Surah, which is the longest "chapter" of the Qu'ran, 109 ayat, or verse, there is a footnote, 110, where the words of "forgive" are translated from 'Afa meaning to obliterate from one's mind, Safaha translated to "overlook", means to turna awayfrom, to ignore, toreate as a matter as if it did not affect one and Ghafara means to cover up something as Allah covers up our sins in His grace, one forgives again and again. See also footnote 120.

Muslims try to get back to the original meaning just as Jews do in Hebrew, and New Testament Greek speaking Christians do to a lesser extent. Muslims in essence "worship" Arabic, classical Arabic. There is a hierarchy of interpretation, starting with the Companions of the Prophet, or ashab, who spoke to the Tabi'un, who only spoke with the Companions, not the Prophet. Out of these relations grew the Hadith, or traditions, one of which was called exegesis or Tafsir. In order to try to understand the original meaning Muslims also try to get to the Prophet's Quraysh tribe in order to get close to Allah's word.

I insert this, not to show knowledge of which I have little, but as an introduction to create context.

It is interesting how all three religions of the Book, try even after centuries to get back to the "Original" truth of their religion, through the words in "original" form.

Mohammed is not said to have written but merely recited the Qu'ran, and I believe it was one of the Companions that actually wrote it.

The Tanakh is the result of the efforts of post-exilic scribes, and the New Testament is the compilation of copies of autographs for Greek speaking Jews originally.

Yet all three at times aspire to scientific dissection of the words.

Great work! just to add some information in here ..

Getting back to the root of the words in Arabic, significantly contributes in Quran interpretation ,particulary when it goes hand by hand with considering the circumestances under which a verse was revealed.

I always feel uncomfortable seeing the word "worship" accompaning "Quran" and i am wondering if there is any need to reiterate the very fact that muslims worship nothing but God and the Holy Quran is considered as glorious ,comprehensive pattern for man's life.

Muslim unanimously believe that Holy Quran was memorised and written by prophet Mohammad 's companions under his vigilant supervision .Imam Ali (first infallible shia -Imam) was one of the Quran writers ,who had a distictive role in registering and writing the revelation and organizing it as long as providing many of historical and political documents ,invitation letter ...etc.

However the complete Quran was written down by prophet Mohammad's numerous scribs ,it hadnot been promulgated as a "book" ,because the period of revelation of the Quran continued up untill just a few days befor prophet Mohammad departure.(pbuh)

PS, mindful you might look a few threads down at some of BYU's Islamic publications, a nascent attempt at familiarization.

I'm also trying to follow Adam's example by restarting my efforts to learn Arabic, concommitant with Greek and Hebrew, so it will be slow. Reading individual letters is fine but seeing words "linked" is difficult.

Sure..i have read the thread and was going to ask you and EQ about the scholarship and the associated programs.....and i actually have been informed about BYU islamic publications long time ago .i was really impressed to see "Avicenna" and "Mulla Sadra" and "Averroes" books in the list..they were some of the most prominent islamic figures in philosphy ,Gnosis and medicine. Great collection of books!

with the respect to Adam's experience ,i suppose you wouldnot necessarily need to spend too much time and effort to learn letters and words ,if you arenot actually intended to "talk" to the language. you may want to take an arabic course to start with and then improve your reading and comprehension skills through different texts.

as a side note .. most of my arab classmates (who fled from Iraq , during Iran-Iraq war) would always get the worst mark in arabic subject .never have figured it out why.

This made me laugh out loud. Not the fake LOL, but the real thing.

I intend to teach myself, and then to go to the local mosque to get advanced training. However, the alphabet is logical for the most part, and the VSO word order is typical of semitic languages in general.

well..it was a real deal !

while having conversation with native arabs is going to work out for you ...but i am afraid it might affect your level of intellectual understanding of arabic text ,mostly Quran. except you keep empowering your comprehension ability and keep distance from too colloquial dialouges.

ps: make sure you take "the belt" out there ..the training session would be started right after the sermon.

Maybe you will be able to tell us, after you study this, why millions of people want to attach c4 to their chest and blow us up.

They're crazy partisans?