The Plain Arabic fallacy

Submitted by ian (United Kingdom), Sep 13, 2006 at 17:43

I'm currently reading the Koran.

Those who hold that it can only be understood in the original Arabic have to therefore believe that an Arabic document, designed by Allah for the edification of the world, and written in what we are told was designed to be a plain and easy to understand style, is actually ONLY for those who speak Arabic, and, because a learned language is never understood so well as a native one, thus deny the truth to non Arabic native speakers.

Since to be a Muslim is matter of the heart and understanding of the Koran it therefore follows that the arabist case implies that all non arabic Muslims are in fact NOT Muslims at all.

But if non arabic speakers can be considered to understand well enough to become Muslim, then you have to allow their readings to be valid.

Work in progress at www.koranstudies.org (a personal investigation).

FWIW my reading so far show that the extreme "fundamentalist" who supports terrorism etc is not really well versed in the book, which while allowing for violence, seems to only do so under clear rules and criteria, with, for example, prohibitions against first strike.

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