Real VoicesReal Voices

Ep.18: Can we know that the Qur'an was changed to Arabic?

PfanderFilms

PfanderFilms

apologetics

November 3, 2022
It seems odd that God (that would be Allah, according to the Muslims) would choose to reveal his "final and greatest revelation" in a language which could not even accommodate his revelation textually. So, why would he choose Arabic, since it was so crude and as yet un-voweled and un-dotted, therefore unable to be read properly? The answer can be found within the pages of the Qur'an itself. When one looks at certain passages, it becomes clear that the Qur'an was created as a political tool to give the Arabic speaking people their own revelation in contradistinction to the other competing empire, the Byzantine Christian Empire, whose religious language was Aramaic, and whose revelation included the Old and New Testaments. Note certain Qur'anic passages where this distinction is referred to: (Surah 12:2) Here it says that the Qur'an was "sent down as an Arabic Qur'an, so you people may understand the reason", suggesting that there must be some other Qur'an which wasn't Arabic. (Surah 16:103) This other "foreign" text is introduced here, when it says "...it is only a human being who teaches him...of a foreign tongue, while this Qur'an is plain Arabic", noting that the other text is foreign, while this Qur'an is in plain Arabic. (Surah 42:7) Now comes a warning, where it says, "So we have revealed an Arabic Qur'an to you to warn the others nearby", implying that this Arabic Qur'an is to warn those who use this language. (Surah 43:3) But what kind of Qur'an is it? In this aya it says clearly that, "We have made it a Qur'an in a clear Arabic language for you to understand", which makes no sense unless there was something else which wasn't Arabic at that time; possibly Aramaic? (Surah 44:58) And as for what this Arabic Qur'an was needed for, it says, "We have made this Qur'an easy in your [Arabic] tongue for you to understand, to heed, and to remind yourself", positing that the Arabic was essential so that those who spoke Arabic could better understand God's word and follow it. (Surah 41:44) Now comes the clearest reason why the Qur'an was written in the Arabic language. It says here, "If we made the Qur'an in a non-Arabic tongue, it wouldn't be clear, so why use a foreign tongue for the Arabs", warning the Arabic speaking people that in any other language Allah's word couldn't be clearly understood, so why even employ the foreign language? In all these verses, the constant emphasis on the Arab language for the Arabic speaking people suggests that there must have been another tongue which was in competition to the Arabic. The only other language which was used for religious texts in that place and in that time was Aramaic, which was the language of academia and used by the Byzantine Christian church for their hymns, homilies and lectionaries. So, the Qur'an itself seems to warn the reader that there was a need for an Arabic Qur'an for the Arabic speaking people in competition to the "foreign tongue", which could only be the Aramaic, employed by the Byzantine church, suggesting that the use of Arabic was a political ploy to retain for the Arabs their own scripture in their own language. © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 11/03/2022 (68,890) Music: "Feeling the Caribbean Sun" by Horst Hoffman, from filmmusic-io

More from PfanderFilms

View all

More like this