Slandering is likened to eating another persons''s flesh:
Nor speak ill of each other behind their backs. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother. (49: 12)
The rhythmic patterns of speech found in Qur''anic recitations is yet another remarkable aspect of the language of the Qur''an. These patterns are a reflection of the special array of words and arrangement of phrases found in the Book. In the view of many scholars such verses combine the characteristics of both poetry and prose. [46] Unlike some poetry, the verses of the Qur''an do not have one single rhyme, thus there is more room for flexibility and freedom of expression. The Qur''an does, however, reflect certain aspects of poetry, especially with respect to its use of words with identical numbers of syllables. This ''music'' is more noticeable in short verses than it is in long ones. [47] Sayyid Qutb cites sura 53
(al-Najm) as an excellent example of prose rhythm produced by words similar in length and all ending in the same sound, in this case the long a [48] There is another type of internal rhythm which is inherent in the structure of the single sentence. This is seen when the length of words varies within the same sura. A good example of this is sura 19 (Maryam), which begins with short words and phrases, then changes to longer ones. Furthermore, the rhythms of the various segments are enhanced by the use of two main rhymes throughout the entire sura. These rhymes end either in nun or mim preceded by either ya'' or wa''w.
The narrative aspect of Qur''an style remains one of the most creative and innovative of the Holy Book, one which has profoundly influenced and enriched the Arabic language. Whatever narrative style the language had in pre-Islamic times were relatively crude and primitive. Even though the narrative parts of the Qur''an were clearly put to the service of the main theme of the Book, i.e., religion, the narrative was so highly developed and integrated that it became a work of art in itself. The Qur''an is remarkably innovative with respect to its method of presentation, which involves four different techniques. One common technique is that if beginning a story with a short summery, followed by the details from beginning to end, as in sura 18 (al-Kahf). The second technique is that of beginning a story by presenting the conclusion first, then the lesson to be derived from it, and then the story from beginning to end, as in the story of Moses in sura 28 (al-Qasas). The third technique presents the story directly without introduction, as in that of Mary following the birth of Jesus in sura 19 (Maryam), and the story of King Solomon and the ants in sura 27 (al-Naml). The fourth, and perhaps most innovative, technique is that of presenting the story through dramatization. This technique gives only a brief introduction signalling the beginning of the scene, followed by a dramatization of the story with a dialogue among the various characters, as in the story of Abraham and Ismail in sura 2.
An important element in the structure of Qur''anic narrative is the varied use of the element of surprise. In some cases the anticlimax is kept from the main players and spectators, and is unfolded for both simultaneously towards the end, as in sura 18 in the story of Moses and the scholar. Another use of the element of surprise reveals the anticlimax to the audience but conceals it from the characters, who act in total ignorance. The Qur''an commonly uses this technique in situations where satire is intended (satire which is directed at the actors and their behaviour) as in the story in sura 68 (al-Qalam). A third technique reveals part of the anticlimax to the audience while keeping part of it concealed from both the audience and the characters, as in the story in sura 27 (al-Naml).
The structure of Qur''anic narrative displays the well-developed elements of an integrated literary work. One of the elements indispensable to dramatized narrative is change of scenery, which the Qur''an utilizes fully. In the story of Joseph in sura 12, the reader is presented with a succession of scenes, each of which leads to the next, picking up the main thread of the narrative. Joseph''s story comprises some twenty-eight scenes, each of which leads to the next in a manner which maintains the organic unity of the entire narrative. All such scenes are presented through dialogues replete with details and ideas. The result of such a well-knit passage is that the reader finds himself drawn to the narrative, moving anxiously from one scene to another. This effect is achieved through a coherent series of events which sustain his curiosity and interest. In one scene, for example, we find one of Joseph''s brothers entering the king''s court in Egypt where Joseph is the keeper of the store-house. In this scene, Joseph stipulates to his brothers that they should bring their younger brother to the king''s court in order to receive provisions. The next scene presents the brothers deliberating among themselves, which is followed by a scene in which they have returned to face their father, Jacob. The following scene takes the brothers back to Egypt to confront Joseph. The presentation of the narrative in dramatic form involving a succession of scenes brings home effortlessly the main theme and the lessons to be derived from the whole narrative. The use of dialogue makes the scenes more vivid and closer to life. This is an art in which the Qur''an excels, and an art in which it is remarkably innovative. It is clearly a form of literary composition which the Qur''an, the first book in Arabic, introduced to the language.
The portrayal of personalities is a very significant element of the narrative; here, again, the Qur''an sets a precedent. The depiction of personalities in the various narratives manages to convey to the reader the precise dimensions and traits of such figures. This is done through the words and actions of the personalities portrayed. In the story of Moses, for example, the reader is readily able to discern, through Moses'' actions, the type of aggressive yet emotionally sensitive person he was meant to portray. Conversely, in the story of Abraham, the Qur''anic verses carefully depict a calm, peaceful, and patient personality. This careful and accurate delineation of personality is effected largely through dialogue which skillfully brings out the traits of such personalities. The dialogue, in turn, is rendered even more effective by a very careful choice of words.
Islam, the Qur''an, and the internationalization of the Arabic language
The revelation of the Quran in Arabic in the early part of the seventh century AD helped the language to acquire and international status which it has continued to enjoy until the present day. It has been argued that Arabic has not simply remained ancilliary to Islam but that it has been significant as a ''means of cultural and national revival in the Arabic-speaking countries.'' [49] It is true that Arabic has played an important role in the life and history of the Arab people, but without the bond it has with Islam it would not have been likely to have acquired the type of international status it has acquired through Islam. It was under the banner of religion that Arabic spread beyond the borders of the Arabian Peninsula. The early Muslims who emerged from the north-western part of the Arabian Peninsula brought with them not only the Islamic religion but Arabic as well. This phenomenon was so remarkable that, within a few centuries after the revelation of the Qur''an, Arabic became the common language of government, correspondence, business, and literary expression.
The speed and facility with which Arabic was first accepted and then eventually absorbed in the new countries was remarkable, and it was largely due to its association with Islam. Converts to the new religion looked with great interest towards the original language of their Holy Book. [50] They were clearly fascinated by the new religion and its language. The desire on the part of the new converts to identify with the resourceful pioneers emerging from the Arabian Peninsula was yet another factor in their adoption of the language.
Arabic was able to replace such languages as Greek and Syriac in Syria and the Fertile Crescent, Coptic, Greek, and Latin in Egypt, and Pahlavi in Persia. Syriac, a dialect of the ancient Aramaic language, had a flourishing literature until it gave way to Arabic in the seventh century AD, and was subsequently limited to being a vehicle for translating Greek literature and philosophy into Arabic. In Egypt, the languages used until the early seventh century were Coptic and Greek; both languages, however, gave way to Arabic, which became the common language of the country, with Coptic as the language of the local Christian Church. By the end of the ninth century, Arabic was already being used in churches alongside Coptic. [51] In Persia, Pahlavi, the language of the Sassanian dynasty (224 640 AD), used the Arabic alphabet and contained a large number of Arabic loan-words. Following the Arab conquest in 640, Pahlavi gave way to New Persian, which adopted the Arabic script and which was greatly influenced by Arabic. It is estimated that one third of the vocabulary of modern Persian (Farsi), is of Arabic origin. [52] Persian scholars engaged in the field of Islamic studies wrote mostly in Arabic. Among these were such prominent figures as Ibn Sina (980 1037), al Ghazzali (1058-1111), and Abu Bakr al-Razi of the twelfth century AD who wrote more than thirty books in Arabic. Even though Farsi began to develop its own identity and become gradually independent from Arabic around the tenth century AD, [53] the language is still written in the Arabic script. [54]
Similarly, the Arabic script was adopted for the Turkic languages following the conversion to Islam of speakers of these languages, which include, in the Southern Division, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkoman, and Chuvash, and, in the Eastern Division, Kinghiz, Kazakh, and Tatar. The Turkic languages continued to use the Arabic script until the early part of this century. The Turkish language, the most important of the Turkic languages, was doubly influenced by Arabic; first, through conversion to Islam, the adoption of the Arabic script, and the adoption of a large number of Arabic loan-words, and secondly through the medium of Farsi. As in the case of the latter, Arabic was the language of composition for many Turkish scholars, notably in the fields of religious and philological studies. [55]
In the Indian subcontinent, the introduction of Arabic was similarly largely due to the adoption of the Islamic faith. It was the language of government during the reign of the sultan Jalal al-Din (963-1014 AH). There is evidence, however, that Arabic reached India prior to the tenth Islamic century through Farsi, which was the language of the court in India prior to the advent of Islam. Urdu, a written variety of Hindustani with a substantial quantity of Arabic words, is the language used by Muslims; it employs the Arabic alphabet. A great majority of the Urdu scholars of the twelfth Islamic century used the medium of Arabic for their writings. Prominent among them were Wali Allah al-Dihlawi, Shibli al-Na''mani, and Karamat Husayn. [56] Arabic gained more and more ground with the increasing Muslim influence in India. Urdu, which has a vocabulary of which at least thirty per cent is of Arabic origin, continues to the present to be the foremost among the dialects spoken among the Muslims of India and Pakistan. The impact of Arabic extended to other Indic languages such as Hindi and Sindhi, the latter using the Arabic alphabet.
In south-east Asia, the arrival of Islam in the fourteenth century AD brought with it the Arabic language, whose alphabet was subsequently adopted by the Malayo-Polynesian languages. These languages are spoken by the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, Madagascar, Taiwan, Indonesia, New Guinea, the Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian islands, the Phillipines, and New Zealand. These languages employ writing systems based on the Roman, Hindic, and Arabic alphabets. [57]
The impact of Islam and the Arabic language was not confined to these parts of Arabia, Africa, and Asia. Indeed, the spread of Islam into the European continent led to the subsequent introduction of Arabic. Less than a century later, the impact of Arabic began to be felt on such languages as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, English, and German. The impact was most noticeable in Spain and Portugal, where Arabic existed alongside the native languages and was used in church liturgy and in business transactions. It was generally through Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian that Arabic influenced other European languages, including the Scandanavian languages. The number of Arabic loan-words in Spanish is in the thousands. Many names of cities, rivers, villages, and provinces in Spain have retained their Arabic forms, as in place-names which begin with the words bani, wadi, and al(''son'', ''valley'', and ''the'', respectively), as in Bani al-Madina, Wadi al-Kabir, and al-Qasr. [58] Among the Arabic loan-words in European languages there is a host of scientific terminology. The existence of scientific words of Arabic origin in European languages is attributed to the pioneering efforts of Muslim scholars in the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and medicine. In their works, Muslim scholars had to coin an entirely new terminology to introduce their innovations, which included such novel concepts as algebra, the algorithm, alkali, alchemy, and alcohol. In addition to scientific terms, European languages contain many everyday words of Arabic origin, e.g., coffee, sugar, saffron, admiral, arsenal. Arabic numerals are another case in point.
Conclusion
The Arabic language has without doubt served as a very effective medium for the communication of the message of Islam, and as the Prophet''s strongest argument against the challenges of his articulate and eloquent contemporaries. It has also served as a means for preserving the cultural and religious heritage of Arabic-speaking and Muslim peoples. In this sense, the language has been extremely useful to the religion. However, in its role as the language of the Qur''an, Arabic has benefited enormously. There is a clear legitimacy to the claim that Islam and the Qur''an have helped to preserve Arabic from decay and deterioration, for it was mainly due to the need to preserve the accuracy and pronunciation of the verses of the Qur''an that efforts were instigated towards refining the Arabic alphabet. Subsequently, the Qur''an was instrumental in the codification of Arabic grammar in the second the third Islamic centuries. Furthermore, the need for Muslims, whether native or non-native speakers of Arabic, to memorize and recite verses from the Qur''an in their daily worship has helped to keep the Arabic language alive. It was due to its association with Islam and the Qur''an that Arabic gained a good deal of prestige as the language of a young faith, a faith that was gaining more and more followers with each new day. The interest in the new faith this brought with it interest in the language of that faith. It was under the banner of Islam that Arabic spread beyond the borders of the Arabian Peninsula to far-off areas in Europe, south-east Asia, and Africa.
From literary, structural, and stylistic points of view, the Qur''an added immeasurably to the beauty of the language, introducing new styles, forms of expression, figures of speech, and structures. The Qur''an also enriched and expanded the vocabulary of the Arabic language by employing hundreds of words of foreign origin, thus demonstrating the legitimacy of lexical borrowing as a linguistic device. The Qur''an similarly presented Arab scholars with a higher criterion of literary excellence and set new and more rigid standards for literary composition for subsequent generations of Arab scholars. The model that the Qur''an provided, while remaining inimitable, has sharpened the literary skill and kindled the talent of generations of scholars in their attempts to emulate the style and literary excellence of the Qur''an, the first book in the Arabic language. Interest in the Qur''an, its language, and its exegesis gave rise to a number of related disciplines, which include philological, religious, and linguistic studies. There is no doubt that the Arabic language was extremely useful as a medium for the revelation of the Holy Qur''an and for communicating God''s final message to the pre-Islamic Arabs of the seventh century. It is, however, the conclusion of this paper that the Arabic language underwent drastic changes in its structure, content, and status due to its association with Islam and the Qur''an, changes that the language would not have undergone had it not been for the new role it acquired in its bond with Islam and the Qur''an.
