THREAD: The Miraculous Language of the Quran, Evidence of Divine Origin. [Bassam Saeh]

1. This thread will present some key points and proofs from Bassam Saeh's great book on this topic.

2. This thread will empirically prove that the Arabs never knew the language of the Quran before the Quran's revelation, and could never replicate it afterwards, while the language of the Prophet pbuh, despite its eloquence, was grasped and imitated, because it came from a human

3. The focus will be on the truly miraculous aspect of the language of the Quran, namely its newness. Not a word here and there, but the language of the whole Quran from beginning to end, linguistically, rhetorically and on the level of words, particles structures and expressions

4. Furthermore, the fact that despite this linguistic newness, the Quran preserved the foundations of the Arabic language and was fully comprehensible to the people who heard it. Not only did they understand it, but were tremendously impressed by it.

5. If one such phenomena is taken in isolation, it could be said it is certainly innovative but not certainly miraculous. However, when we discover the density and frequency of the innovation that run through the Quran, without breaks or gaps, we perceive its true miraculousness.

6. ..as well as the impossibility of mimicking or forging it.

7. When looking at the language of pre-Islamic poetry, it is very different from the Quran. Furthermore, even though poets differed from each other in terms of strength, purity, delicacy or simplicity, no literary critic can attribute with certainty a poem to a particular author.

8. Whereas even an ordinary reader of the Quran would be able to identify with certainty a passage of the Quran, and what is not. As for the Hadiths, it would be assumed that the language used by the Prophet pbuh must have been influenced in some way by that of the Quran, however

9. .. This influence is almost non-existent, as it is seen in less than 1% of the entire Hadith corpus.

10. The linguistic shift of the Quran was not limited to its vocabulary. Rather, it went beyond the level of individual words to the relationships among words, their placement within various contexts, their uses, and new grammatical elements and conventions.

11. In a Surah as short as al Fatihah (1), which consists of 29 words, there are no fewer than 58 new developments. In Surah al Nas (114), which is 20 words long, there are 33 new developments, in Surah al Falaq (113), 23 words long, 38 new phenomena.

12. A similar pattern is observed in other Surahs. With this in mind, we can begin to imagine the magnitude of shock which the Quran produced in the minds and hearts of the 7th century Arabs.

13. The Quran certainly did not bring a new language separate from the Arabic language that existed. And it is precisely this in which its miraculousness consists. Its revelation in Arabic, roots in the foundations of Arabic, yet uniqueness in surpassing its limitations.

14. The Quran developed the Arabic language's conventions and rules without abolishing them, therefore opening the way for its evolution.

15. For example, the Quran makes use of the verb normally translated as 'was' (Kāna) to mean 'is'. This new usage of the verb kāna occurs no less than 190 times in the Quran. Interestingly, this verb has never been used in this Quranic sense in any other writing to this day.

16. When memorizing Surahs in the Quran, particularly shorter ones, we may accidentally shift from reciting one Surah to another, because of the same rhythm and certain rhyme letters. There are many examples, like Surah al Alā (87) and Surah al Layl (92).

17. A quick comparison between Surah al Alā and Surah and Surah al Layl, however similar they might appear to be, will show how different their linguistic characters actually are, and that they hardly have a single phrase in common.

18. Surah al Alā consists of 72 words, Surah al Layl 71 words. Yet despite the fact that they have a similar rhyme where each verse ends with an alif, the final word in the verse following the pattern fa'lā, they have hardly any words in common,...

19.... and this is where the commonalities end. Apart from this, each Sarah has its own distinct expressions, idioms and structures. Even more miraculous, is the fact that most of the structures and expressions in those Surahs are unique to each of them.

20. Of the 26 structures and expressions in Surah al Alā, no more than 4 are found in other Surahs in the Quran, while 22 are unique to the Surah and found nowhere else. In Surah al Layl, out of 25, only 3 expressions are found in other Surahs. The rest is unique to the Surah.

21. The Quran is marked by a number of features that it shares with no other book on Earth, and no other book in the history of mankind, some of which will be listed below. A. Unique terms are used to refer to its chapters and verses.
B. It can be read in more than one way.

22. C. The text is pronounced differently from any other Arabic text in the world. This is elaborated on in detail through the art of Tajwid.
D. It is written differently from any other Arabic text.

23. E. The linguistic style of the Quran is entirely different from the person who delivered it to us, that is Muhammad pbuh.
F. Millions of people around the world have memorized it fully most of whom do not speak Arabic or even understand it.

24. The language used by Prophet Muhammad pbuh in the Hadiths was marked by an extraordinary degree of eloquence and beauty. However, it retained certain human qualities that set it clearly apart from the inimitability of the divine speech of the Quran.

25. This is why our forefathers in faith scoffed at people who made naive attempts at lame, garbled up linguistic structures and claiming they were on the level of Surahs of the Quran. And we laugh today as people keep on making such silly attempts.

26. Try as they might to introduce foreign language or formulate a sentence or phrase that rises to its level of linguistic mastery and uniqueness, the forgery is exposed by the Quran's pristine singularity on the level of individual words and structures.

27. Within a short revelation time, the Quran brought the Arabs thousands of new constructions and expressions, which fill the Surahs of the Quran. The table below shows a comparison of new constructions in the Quran with everyday Arabic:

28. For example, Surah al Muddaththir has 56 verses, while we can count 65 new Quranic expressions in this Surah alone, as well as 12 new constructions, as seen below.

29. What this means is that this Surah hardly contains any expressions that were already familiar to Arabs prior to the descent of the Quran.

30. The new words introduced by the Quran occur in unique linguistic contexts that enable readers to realize what they mean despite their newness. Hence, the combination of newness and clarity is still another aspect of the miracle manifested in the language of the Quran.

31. The Quran produced a new warp and woof for inter-word connections. The new type of connection had not been familiar in Arab culture or any other cultures prior to the appearance of the Quran.

32. For example, the 4th verse of Al Fatihah, which reads Māliki yawm al-Din (Lord of the day of judgement) contains a link between words that the Arabs were unfamiliar with. The collocation of the words 'Mālik' (Lord) and 'yawm' (day) was completely new.

33. It was normal to associate ownership with objects like dirhams, but how can one say owner of a day? Is time subject to being owned? The use of the phrase "owner of the day" was thus a linguistic surprise with a very distinctive flavor for seventh century Arabs.

34. As for the skeptical Orientalists who claim that these innovations in the Quran are "mistakes," their claims can be disproved by the following considerations.

35. 1. The Quran predates Arabic grammatical rules. In fact, it was the Quran that motivated grammarians, linguists, and rhetoricians to lay down the grammatical rules we have today. The Quran stands watch over the rules of Arabic grammar, not the other way round.

36. 2. If Muhammad pbuh, to whom these Orientalists attribute authorship of the Quran, made mistakes in it, then why did he not make mistakes in his every conversation in the Hadiths? Despite the fact that the sayings attributed to him are 10s of times greater in volume.

37. Eloquence, beauty, and precision of expression are all features that we might find to one degree or another in various works of literature around the world. One can easily think of various geniuses who have produced works of such a nature.

38. But, none of them can be described as miraculous. So why have we singled out the Quran alone? How is it miraculous if miraculousness is defined as that which surpasses human capacity?

39. As the above evidence has shown, the truly miraculous aspect of the language of the Quran is its newness. It was shown how this newness encompassed the entire Quran from beginning to end, while at the same time preserving the foundations of the Arabic language,..

40. And was eminently comprehensible to the people who heard it. Not only did they understand the Quran despite the newness of its language, they were unspeakably impressed by it.

End of thread. Likes and retweets appreciated.