The Qur'an and Its Study. Adnan Zarzour
of different languages.
Shaykh Muhammad al-Khiḍr Ḥusayn sums up this type of influence of Islam on Arabic as follows:
Islam came to the Arabs bringing guidance that included concepts which were unknown to them. Indeed, its guidance included what their language could not express. It, therefore, expressed these meanings with words that enriched the language.
It is also clear that the Qur’an and the Prophet’s hadiths used incomparably fine styles. Moreover, the conquest of large areas, such as the territories of the Persian and Byzantine Empires increased the scope of Arabic by adding scientific, scholarly and social meanings...
Islam’s contribution to Arabic is reflected in its richness, varied styles, different modes of expression and the numerous topics tackled by literary figures and great speakers.30
15.S. Al-Ḥuṣarī, Mā Hiya al-Qawmiyyah, p. 206.
16.S. Al-Ḥuṣarī, Mā Hiya al-Qawmiyyah, p. 206.
17.Related by al-Tirmidhī, Hadith no. 2921.
18.Al-Nawawī, Al-Tibyān fī Adāb Hamalāt al-Qur’an, p. 52.
19.When the Arabs took over Persia, its population spoke Pahlavi, or Middle Persian. With the spread of Islam, Arabic gained the upper hand and became the language of intellectual and literary circles, spoken by the educated class. Later, Modern Persian was started, adopting the same lines as Arabic, until it became the main language. Persians today cannot read Middle Persian, as the flourish of Modern Persian replaced it altogether. There is no more than 15–20% of Modern Persian vocabulary that comes directly from Middle Persian. A further 20% or so of its vocabulary are borrowings from Turkish, English and French, while the remaining 60% is of Arabic origin. Moreover, Persian grammar is strongly influenced by Arabic grammar, as are its poetry metres. Ref: A.M. al-Hūfī, Tayyārāt Thaqāfiyyah Bayn al-‘Arab wal-Furs, pp. 281–302.
20.Dr Taha Husain’s Introduction to A.Ḥ. al-Bāqūrī, Al-Qur’an al-Karīm wal-Lughah al-‘Arabiyyah.
21.A. Abd al-Rahman, Lughatunā wal-Hayāt. The author is also known by her pen name Bint al-Shāṭi’.
22.Ibid.
23.A. Hārūn, Quṭūf Adabiyyah, p. 160.
24.A.M. al-Ḥūfī, Tayyārāt Thaqāfiyyah Bayn al-‘Arab wal-Furs, pp. 227–228.
25.This is a unique phenomenon, and is due entirely to the Qur’an. Indeed, if a man who died a thousand years ago could hear people speaking Modern Standard Arabic today, he would fully understand them, for the most part. Some writers explain the survival of Arabic as being the result of the extra care Muslim scholars took of it so as to preserve the Qur’an from distortion. That scholars took such care is true, but this is putting the matter in reverse. Scholarly linguistic work could not have protected Arabic without the role of the Qur’an. This means that the Qur’an was the motive for the scholarly care and it was the factor that protected the Arabic language.
26.S. Al-Ḥuṣarī, Mā Hiya al-Qawmiyyah p. 207.
27.N. Zakariyya, Al-Da ‘wah ilā al-‘Āmmiyyah wa Āthāruhā fī Miṣr.
28.The Mudar dialect was the language of the northern Arabs in Najd. It is one of the Arabian languages that are erroneously called Semitic languages. In fact, Arabic should be considered the mother of all Arabian languages: Arabic, Ḥimyar, Aramaic, Babylonian, etc. Dr Farrūkh calls them Arabian languages because they all started in the Arabian Peninsula. Ref: ‘Umar Farrūkh, ‘Abqariyyat al-Lughah al-‘Arabiyyah.
29.M. A. Husain, Dirāsāt fī al-‘Arabiyyah wa Tārīhhihā, p. 128.
30.M. Husayn, Dirāsāt fī al-‘Arabiyyah wa Tārīkhihā.
3
The impact of the Qur’an on Islamic Culture and Civilisation
We need to speak briefly about the civilisational and cultural structure initiated by the Qur’an and accommodated by the Arabic language in the most admirable of ways. It must not be understood that Arabic merely added or deleted a number of words so as to express the ideas of Islamic culture or the meanings introduced by the Qur’an. To say so would be to reduce language to a mere lexicon that lists the names of things. The fact is rather that language is ‘a system of meaningful symbols that expresses the entire organisation and thought of a civilisation’.31 Culture includes much more than language, such as traditions, institutions, laws, literature, arts, professions and skills as well as all that man produces. Among all these aspects of culture, language has a unique status because it is the ‘mirror of all culture’. Everything that man produces has a name. Man’s laws, institutions and religions have their vocal expressions, and whatever is in nature has an expression in language, even though such an expression is from the point of view of a particular culture. Hence, languages do not only differ in the words that express common meanings, but they essentially differ in their way of thinking, or in the set of meanings that are expressed through the language. Every culture has its own concepts of life and knowledge, and these concepts are reflected in the nature of its language.
In his book, Philosophy of Education, Professor Philip H. Phenix discusses the impact language has on culture, saying that everyone contributes to the true meaning of culture through language. We learn foreign languages in order to be able to have a good grasp of the cultures of their peoples. It may be that learning Latin will enable the learner to better understand English and give the learner’s mind valuable training, but the main purpose of learning Latin is that it enables us to understand the Roman civilisation and its complex set of values, traditions and laws that enabled a host of nations to remain united and live in peace and security for several centuries. Likewise, learning Greek provides a bond with a civilisation that was based on profound philosophical thought, and was distinguished by its drama, history, political democracy and artistic creativity.
What we maintain is that the study of Arabic presents us with the meaning of Islamic civilisation and establishes a strong bond with this civilisation, one which is based on firm belief in God and His Oneness and which has balanced, comprehensive and positive rules. Moreover, Islamic civilisation upholds human principles that enshrine the spirit of equality for all individuals, communities and nations.
Many historians of human civilisation maintain, as does the Algerian author Malek Bennabi, that the most important civilisations in human history were the Roman, or Romano-Greek and the Arab-Islamic ones. The first had a strong imperial standpoint, dividing people into Roman citizens who enjoyed all rights and non-citizens who had no rights. It imposed its rule, hegemony and laws on this basis. Whatever it gave to people or denied them stemmed from this attitude. Hence, in its old version, it failed to deal with man’s problems. However, it reappeared in a new form, namely contemporary Western civilisation which inherited its imperialist spirit and principles, as well as many of its basic concepts. In fact, Western civilisation has flourished, bypassing the Islamic civilisation which had taken over human leadership from the Romans. We need not discuss here the extent of the Islamic civilisation’s contribution to Western civilisation, or how much it passed of itself to Greek heritage.
What we should note, however, is that the imperialist character of Western civilisation is equivalent to the imperial character of the old Roman civilisation. By contrast, Islamic civilisation justified itself by the spirit of equality stressed in the Qur’an and was given practical manifestations by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), who emphasised the same in his last speech during his farewell pilgrimage: ‘All of you belong to Adam, and Adam was created of clay. No Arab has any advantage over a non-Arab, and no white person has an advantage over a coloured one except through piety and God-fearing’ (related by Aḥmad and al-Bayhaqī).
Moreover, the central Islamic belief in God’s Oneness is the basis of how Muslims look at the universe, life and man. This belief has given Islamic civilisation its special character and enabled it to understand the various beliefs that previously prevailed in those areas that became its home environment. These are the areas where Islam spread, namely Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, Central Asia and Egypt, and which were previously