eman

How exactly is it that you "are sure" that they spoke English. The Pagan, Jewish, and Christian tribes in the Arabian gulf at the time did not speak English.

Would it have made sense for the Prophet to go to the Jewish and Christian tribes and the Pagans who lived in Arabia at the time with verses in Chinese, Japanese, or Mandarin......they would not have comprehended anything.

...snip..

So English has one translated word vs 7 to Arabic and you get a greater count. Wow... all that to state what everyone knows. Compare it against Mandarin now. Japanese (skip the kanji pls). I want to see what you come up with on that. And site sources too pls. That helps.

But in English as you quoted above would have helped? Would that be early english? or Middle english? Cause I'm sure those tribesmen knew it then. If not... What you quoted above is meaningless.

Else I woudn't be reading it?

I think you are a bit confused.

No man has ever been and no one will ever be able to produce a verse like those in the Quran.

Apparently someone did... else you wouldnt be reading it.

And I'll take that as a yes to my question.

No man has ever been and no one will ever be able to produce a verse like those in the Quran.

Would it have made sense for the Prophet to go to the Jewish and Christian tribes and the Pagans who lived in Arabia at the time with verses in Chinese, Japanese, or Mandarin......they would not have comprehended anything.

...snip..

So English has one translated word vs 7 to Arabic and you get a greater count. Wow... all that to state what everyone knows. Compare it against Mandarin now. Japanese (skip the kanji pls). I want to see what you come up with on that. And site sources too pls. That helps.

pbuh= peace be upon him

what's (pbuh)??

There are plenty of Muslims who do not know Arabic...... this does not take away from their appreciation for their religion.....they are not handicapped. The translations into other languages are valid to help one understand the parables and the lessons from the holy book, however, a translation will never do justice to the rhetoric miracle of the Quran as is explained below.

"The foremost miracle of the Qur'an is in its text. The text of the

Arabic language. You can not translate a miracle no matter how you may

try. The Arabic language can not be compared to any other language in

its intricate complexity, diversity of form, richness of meaning,

brevity of parlance, beauty of construct and power of delivery. To give

an example of this let us look at the most basic of measures, that of

dictionaries:

A fairly comprehensive and authoritative reference on the English

language would be the "Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary" tenth

edition, in 1500 pages. On the other hand, a common Arabic dictionary is

"Lisan Al-Arab" in 18 volumes, each averaging about 650 pages, or about

11700 pages in all. In other words, even if we were to disregard all of

the other aspects of the Arabic language, such as its grammar, we would

still be faced with a language which is about eight times as complex as

the English language. It is not at all uncommon in the Arabic language

to find over one hundred words that refer to the same entity, each one

of them giving a slightly different detailed escription than all of the

others. This has resulted in a language which can translate complete

English sentences into only one Arabic word.

But the Arabic language is not simply a list of words. Far from it, it

is a very complex collection of literary sciences which have been

developed, refined, and fine-tuned for generations and millennia beyond

counting. The end result of this is a group of literary sciences which

literally have no parallel whatsoever in the English language, such as

the science of "Sarf" or the multifarious sciences of "Balaghah," among

others. Even when the English language can lay claim to a parallel

science to that of the Arabic language, such as for example the science

of "grammar," even in this case anyone who has the slightest

understanding of the Arabic language finds that even these equivalent

sciences fade nearly into oblivion when faced with the tremendous

complexities and inestimable attention to the minutest detail in Arabic

grammar which can literally reverse the meanings of a sentence simply by

changing a single squiggle (diacritic) above the last letter of only one

word in that sentence (Imagine being able to reverse the meaning of an

English sentence by removing the dot over one "i" in that sentence).

William Shakespeare was considered to be one of the leading masters of

English literature known to date. However, he never had to deal with the

Arabic language. Now, taking into consideration that the Arab nation was

one obsessed with literary perfection and refinement of prose, it

becomes apparent that what we had here was a nation of literally

hundreds of "William Shakespeares." Indeed an individual's mastery of

the Arabic language was considered one of the primary distinguishing

criteria in selecting tribal leaders. Just as in the wild west people

used to have public shoot-outs at high noon, so too did the ancient

Arabs have public face-downs in literary composition. These public

confrontations could at times be so scathing and destructive as to

totally destroy a given individual or tribe and cause them to disband in

shame and humiliation, erased from the pages of history (such as

happened with the tribe of "Numair"). The greatest of these literary

masters had their compositions transcribed and hung up on the walls of

the noble Kaaba as a badge of honor and an example for future

generations. These compositions which were regarded the "best of the

best" where given the name of "Al-Muallaqat" (the hanging poems). These

were the people whom God sent Muhammad (pbuh) to, and these are the

people whom prophet Muhammad (pbuh) repeatedly challenged, over 23

years, to produce a work similar to the Qur'an, standing alone with no

tribe to support him and no ally to defend him but God Almighty. In

other words he was challenging them in a field which they were the

world's foremost authorities in and the source of their greatest

strength and pride. Indeed all of God's prophets throughout history have

been sent with miracles in the very fields which that prophet's people

excelled in so that they might fully comprehend the magnitude of that

miracle and have no excuse in ignorance.

These people whom prophet Muhammad (pbuh) stood alone against and

challenged to face the Qur'an were no timid sheep. They were men of

great pride, misdirected as it may have been, who would rather go to war

and die a slow and torturous death rather than allow the slightest

indignity to be attached to their names or the most trivial challenge go

unanswered. These were people who would go to war at the drop of a hat

or the slightest disrespectful word. In spite of all that, when prophet

Muhammad (pbuh) brought them the word of God in the noble Qur'an they

suddenly fell silent and refused to face its challenge. God continued to

reduce the challenge to them, from challenging them to produce a book

like the Qur'an, to challenging them to produce a single surah (chapter)

like it, to finally challenging them to produce even a few verses like

it. And still, no one was able to face the challenge. On the contrary,

those who were the best versed in these issues were among the first to

convert to Islam and accept God's message. Some of them even went so far

as to completely give up altogether on their previous literary work and

to publicly declare that faced with the utter perfection and completion

of this book that there was nothing left to say and nothing left to

compose. Perfection had already been achieved (3).

And any violence in the Quran is within the context of the historical moment. These "violent" actions of Mohammed that so many like to use as evidence of Islam promoting violence were not gratuitous violence, but rather a nation state going to war (with well defined rules for a just war) to defend itself. Should a country not go to war to protect itself?

The problem is Islamists who use verses like that to justify their violence. No one (or not enough) in Islam is standing up to point out violence in the name of Islam is only justified under very specific circumstances, and those circumstances do not exist now.

Also I'd like for a sheikh to answer me this: if the Koran is the word of God, and a translation into another language is not considered valid, why did God handicap all of the non-Arabic speakers with respect to what the Koran says is the only valid religion?

People have spoken out. Countless number of times. It just isn't worthy enough to air on cnn or foxnews since it doesn't make people all scared so that they'll keep watching.

God did not handicap me one bit. I am totally capable of learning Arabic.

I have never heard a sheikh say that, specifically. All Iever hear is "Islam is a religionof peace" and "terrorists are not true muslims". They can do better than that.

OK, so you're not handicapped. Then why did God make it so much easier for the very few Arabic speakers in the world to hear his word through the Koran? Wouldn't it have been more fair for it to be in Chinese?

The same people who were able to oh-so strategically place the so-called passports of the hi-jackers a few blocks away from the crash site......everything else was burnt to a crisp.....but it's a good thing those passports were able to land perfectly intact several blocks away.....

You are very much like what you hate, and they have taught you well.

Who is they?

Who attacked the US on September 11? or was it made up..

Who attacked the WTC how many years earlier?

Who attacked westerners in Bali?

Who is bombing and killing American soldiers on a daily basis?

Who bombs women and children in Israel with regard for who they kill?

Who bombed and killed innocent children in Russia?

one must take pity for the clueless

...Christianity remains the same...only people are more enlightened (at least I hope they are).

Actually, Christianity went back to following the RULES of the Bible (and not clergy-ordained traditions) 500 years ago.

Ingrained clergy-ordained tradition was also a problem during Jesus' time (and much condemned by the Saviour).

In the case of Islam, it is quite difficult for the outsider to separate the two. However, due to a rather high percentage of the world's Muslims being illiterate (far higher than for Christians, and somewhat higher than even NORTHERN Hindus), do you think they will rely on c-o-t or Quran?

good point

Oh please. A list of conflicts with Muslims where half the participating countries identify as Christian is just a dumb way to try to make the case that all Muslims are engaged in jihad.

If you are filing married-joint and your non-resident spouse is a student overseas and has zero income, do you still have to fill out & send form 2555 with the W-7 and the 1040?

Of course it should....isn't that why our nation is at war.......to protect ourselves from the nototious weapons of mass destruction!!!

I think if most people would actually educate themselves on the fact that a lot of other religions out there had violent moments perhaps Islam wouldn't get pounded everyday in the press.

Yes, and I think everytime they talk about Catholic Priests molesting boys on the news, they should stop for a moment and remind us that afterall, 2400 years ago Socrates and other prominant greeks were doing the same thing. That would put it all in perspective for us living in the 21st century.

I'm not understanding you. I'm not saying that because other religions had violence in their books that the current violence is justified. I totally denounce all acts of violence. I'm saying that I'm sick and tired of people pointing to the Quran and saying that it is such a violent book, where right under their noses is the bible which is just as violent.

And any violence in the Quran is within the context of the historical moment. These "violent" actions of Mohammed that so many like to use as evidence of Islam promoting violence were not gratuitous violence, but rather a nation state going to war (with well defined rules for a just war) to defend itself. Should a country not go to war to protect itself?

We filed I129F on 2/20/07