Never trust translations from Arabic to English and al-Tabrir explained

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Nov 14, 2017 at 14:45

Dr Pipes

You wrote

>The Arabic can be translated "greater" or "greatest."

Am I correct to say that you agree with me that the word Allah is the proper name of the God of Islam and it does not mean God and it should not be translated as God?

Now in regard to the word Akbar this a word that has a long history and to be able to understand it I will tell the readers more about the concept of al-Tabrir

al-Mufasereen has a wonderful way of dealing with Quranic words and sentences that can be incorrect by the standards of the 3rd century Classical Arabic and it is called تبرير or Tabrir and it means ways to deal with these grammatical and syntactical mistakes and you can see it at work in the case of the most celebrated mistakes in grammar in the Quran as in the case of ان هذان لساحران or Ina Hadhan laSahiran (Q20:63) and وَقُلْنَ حَاشَ لِلَّهِ مَا هَٰذَا بَشَرًا of Surat Yusuf 31 as well as pretending to know the meaning of words that have no clear meaning and as an example the word al-Samad or الصمد (Q112-2)

Here is an example: The word المتكبر or al-Mutakabir is from the same root K-B-R and it means Arrogant But Allah is supposed to be Mutakabir or arrogant But if you read the translation of the word within the context of Allah al-Mutakabir the translation becomes: The Supremely Proud which is incorrect And this is indeed what we are dealing with here: Tabrir after all how can Allah be arrogant!

https://www.almaany.com/ar/dict/ar-en/%D9%85%D8%AA%D9%83%D8%A8%D8%B1/

Now Ibn Manzur's dictionary was written 600 years after the death of Muhammad and he realized that Allahu Akbar is a problem because if the meaning of Allahu Akbar is: Allah is the "Greatest" then it should be الله اكبر كبير or Allahu Akbar Kabir or Allah is the bigger (or greater) (when compared to those that are) big/great and it is not Allahu Akbar and he provides a Hadith where Muhammad is quoted as saying الله اكبر كبير

Here is the hadith

http://library.islamweb.net/newlibrary/display_book.php?flag=1&bk_no=71&bookhad=2279

This really means that Allahu Akbar does not mean Allah is Greatest It means Allah is Greater (if the meaning of the word Akbar is really Greater which it is not)

Now let us turn to Ibn Manzur Lisan al-Arab where he wrote that Akbar means:

الكبير في صفة الله تعالى : العظيم الجليل or al-Kabir in Allah's attributes is the great the Exalted Notice that the word here is al-Kabir not al-Akbar which means that the word Akbar would mean the Greater not the Greatest And this is Ibn Manzur's Tabrir but it is not true because it is only a tabrir

So far I can say safely that the word Kabir does not mean the Greatest

Now does it mean greater? No it does not and here is the evidence

Ibn Manzur tells us that the word كبير or Kabir really means

1. Big as in size

2. Old as in an old man or even a young woman who just had her menses and she would be a كبيرة or Kabira big (f) or an adult woman

Then he writes

وقيل : معناه الله أكبر من كل شيء أي أعظم

Or: And it has been said that the meaning of Allahu Akbar IS (ALLAH) IS BIGGER THAN EVERYTHING

Then we have the Tabrir أي أعظم or Ay A'zam which means: Or THE GREATER (not the greatest)

Here is Ibn Manzur's root K-B-R

http://library.islamweb.net/newlibrary/display_book.php?idfrom=6997&idto=6997&bk_no=122&ID=7010#docu

This clearly means that the term Allahu Akbar can only mean Allah is Bigger but if you add Ibn Manzr's Tabrir it becomes greater

More evidence? The Term Takbir means تجسيم وتضخيم or to make it big/large and it does not mean تعظيم or making him great

https://www.almaany.com/ar/thes/ar-ar/%D8%AA%D9%83%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B1/

It becomes clear that if Allahu Akbar means Allah is the Greatest then it should not be الله اكبر كبير but it should be الله اعظم عظيم

Therefore Akbar in Allahu Akbar does not mean that Allah is Great or Greatest it means Allah is Bigger!

Here is the link to Ibn Manzur's root K-B-R

http://library.islamweb.net/newlibrary/display_book.php?idfrom=6997&idto=6997&bk_no=122&ID=7010#docu

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