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Prashant: Reading the Qur'an and الوالي والموالي

Reader comment on item: The Prophet's Night Journey; To Where?
in response to reader comment: My Tafsir on Quran 14-4

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Mar 1, 2022 at 16:27

You wrote:

>DNM is right. Under its literal interpretation, Quran 14-4 clearly says that God did not send a message to any one in a language that they could not understand. If Muslims follow Islam correctly, Islam does not belong to any land other than Arabia.

The only way that you can approach the Qur'an is to read the text IN ARABIC, with the help of Lisan al-'Arab dictionary and what I regard as the most important Quranic Tafsir and that is al-Tabari and read it IN ARABIC. It is too bad that much of the translations these days are conducted by Muslims from India and Pakistan and their command of both Arabic and English is not good and let us not forget the lies.

Having said this "the ethnocentric nature of the prophet's mission" cannot be missed (see QS Page 53) and it is not just Q14:4 but also Q10:47, Q13:8, Q35:24, Q28:75 and Allah sent an Arab prophet to the Arabs. Oh and Allah, or so we are told, sent 124,000 prophets to different nations and each prophet spoke the language of such nation. The Arabs realized that Islam is indeed the religion of the Arabs only or you must be an Arab first and next you can convert to Islam. Do you get it?

Now, google الوالي والموالي or "The Master/Sponsorer/Supporter or al-Wali and the those being supported by al-Wali or the master or al-Mawali." And to make it easy, early on the Arab invaders discouraged the conversion of non Arabs to Islam (in-order to collect al-Jizya) and later on and when the demand of non Arabs to convert to Islam increased, be it to avoid the Jizya tax or to join the Arabs in looting, the Arab polity introduced الوالي والموالي or an Arab (master) can sponsor a non Arab, first become an Arab by joining the tribe of the Arab master then and only then can such Mawali convert to Islam. Do you follow so far?

والموالي هم المنسوبون إلى القبائل مطلقاً، وهم مواليهم

Or And al-Mawali are who become related to the (Arab) tribes and they are they are the supported of the tribes.

Even al-Bukhari is a Mawla as in مولى الإسلام، كما يوصف به الإمام البخاري Or: Mawla al-Islam is how al-Imam al-Bukhari is described.

So even al-Bukhari had to find a Wali and had to join an Arab tribe and he became a Mawla and then he would be able to convert to Islam

Later on when so many non Muslims wanted to convert to Islam there were not enough Awlia' to sponsor them and this is why this racist idea was abandoned, and this is why the Persian mufasereen came up with the so called Muhammad's "Farwell Address" which is very much anachronistic

BTW al-Suyuti believed that "by stressing the inclusion of non Arabic idiom" in the Qur'an is evidence that the message of the Qur'an is universal and not limited to the Arabs only (QS page 53). However, the text of a book is really a function of the linguistic milieu at the time of writing such book. This very well explains why the Qur'an has its share of Aramaic words and this debunks al-Suyuti's claim. Do you get it?

Do you see why you need check not just the Qur'an but also Islamic history written by the likes of Tarikh al-Tabari?

Here this is about الوالي والموالي from Islamweb

https://www.islamweb.net/ar/article/208810/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8E%D9%88%D9%8E%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A-%D9%85%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%87%D9%85-%D9%88%D8%AC%D9%87%D9%88%D8%AF%D9%87%D9%85-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AB

Next, the Qur'an can be understood by educated Arabs minus words that have no meaning, and this is indeed a very strange problem. Here is an example: The Quranic word Tur it is not an Arabic word (it is Aramaic) and if you ask an Arab to tell you what it means he will tell you that it means mountain, which is correct. But if you ask him to compose a sentence that includes the word Tur, he will not be able. He will use the Arabic word for mountain or Jabal. And more likely than not he would have no idea that it is a loan word from Aramaic.

And BTW even al-Tabari struggled with explaining such word the likes of al-Samad (Q112:2) with no luck.

More? genuine Arabic words in the Qur'an have the same meaning in today's modern Arabic because the Qur'an stabilizes the meaning of such words . Do you get it?

So my humble advise: First, you need to read what the giants of Islam the likes of al-Tabari wrote (and stay away from the nonsense that we all read and is written by Indian Muslims and Pakistanis) then and only then you can provide us with your tafsir.

Submitting....

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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Reader comments (24) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
Mysticism politicized [95 words]Shishir RaoMar 7, 2022 12:07279240
Sharia can preclude even positive reassessments of Muhammad [193 words]DaveFeb 24, 2022 14:12279122
implicating Quran/Sharia but exonerating Muhammad serves no purpose [286 words]PrashantFeb 24, 2022 18:46279122
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The Source of Islamic Law or الشريعة الاسلامية [149 words]dhimmi no moreFeb 27, 2022 08:07279122
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What do we know about the historical Muhammad? The short answer: Not much [379 words]dhimmi no moreFeb 28, 2022 09:42279122
1My Tafsir on Quran 14-4 [258 words]PrashantFeb 28, 2022 19:53279122
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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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