Prayer
DKleinecke
Arabic. It's not my real point, but can anybody tell me the basic in
Qur'an / Hadith / Shari'ah for this requirement?
My question is how garbled can the Arabic be?
I know I cannot pronounce classical Arabic properly. I cannot handle
ayin, ghain, kha, ha or even qaf. I can handle hamza. People who are
not native speakers of English cannot handle tha and dhal (and
demonstrate it by not even writing them). I am not a Muslim, but if I
were to convert how would I handle this?
I would imagine that the preferred Islamic answer to this question is
that I should do my best and I will be judged by my intention and not
by the accuracy of my performance. Am i correct?
Has there ever been a heterodox Islamic sect that prayed in a language
other than Arabic?
Yusuf B Gursey
> The online sources tell us that, in Islam, prayers must be offered in
> Arabic. It's not my real point, but can anybody tell me the basic in
> Qur'an / Hadith / Shari'ah for this requirement?
>
> My question is how garbled can the Arabic be?
that's a relative question, there are no absolute answers.
>
> I know I cannot pronounce classical Arabic properly. I cannot handle
> ayin, ghain, kha, ha or even qaf. I can handle hamza. People who are
> not native speakers of English cannot handle tha and dhal (and
> demonstrate it by not even writing them). I am not a Muslim, but if I
> were to convert how would I handle this?
usually, religious instruction involves lessons in tajwi:d, that of
correct pronounciation of Arabic sounds. the general public of non-
arab muslims usually end up following a local substitution of the
phonology adapted to the phoentics of the local language. but the
devout take their lessons more seriously and even end up enunciating
the arabic phonemes in loanwords in their native language. in this
connection there is a turkish annectode that in the Young Turk era
there was an abortive uprising of political islamists in the form of
demonstrations against them. the police started arresting the
demonstrators and some started to flee, whereupon the police chased
them. one demonstrator instead of fleeing decided to try to blend in
with the population of the city (istanbul). the police asked him where
the demonstrators had fled. the guy tried to fool the police, but in
so doing he articulated the `ayn in a common arabic loanword in
turkish. whereupon he was arrested. he protested the arrest by asking
"how is it known (*ma`lu:m*) {that I am a demonstrator}? the police
retorted "from your *ma`lu:m*!".
>
> I would imagine that the preferred Islamic answer to this question is
> that I should do my best and I will be judged by my intention and not
> by the accuracy of my performance. Am i correct?
that is how it is in practice anyway.
>
> Has there ever been a heterodox Islamic sect that prayed in a language
> other than Arabic?
consistently no.
personal prayers can be in any language, the question is the ritual
prayer, the Sala:t (s.ala:(t))
Enc. of Islam II "Salat" by G. Monnot says:
<<
A. General principles of prayer.
...
4. Use of the Arabic language.
This is a very firm doctrine in the majority of the schools (see e.g.
al-Suy=C5=ABt.=C4=AB, al-It.k.=C4=81n, naw` 35, Beirut 1407/1987, i, 340-1)=
. As
regards the recitation of the F=C4=81tih.a by a Muslim incapable of saying
it in Arabic, the H.anaf=C4=ABs have, however, authorised the use of other
languages. ...
>>
this has been out into pratice twice in history. in the early conquest
of Transoxania and during the early conquest of Spain. the authorities
were said to have been so appalled at the local attempts at arabic
that they temporarily allowed the use of the local language. in the
case of Transoxania, this is recorded in the "History of
Bukhara" (originally written in persian, but only the arabic
translation survives. the chronicle says that the language was persian
but in the one line example given there, it is merely "get up, get up"
in Sogdian (so acc. to Frye in his comments to his english translation
of it.
then there is the case of Turkey during the late thirties to the
beginning of the fifties. not only was it required to say the adhan in
turkish (and in a form as devoid of arabic loanwords as possible), but
also the non-Qur'anic portions of the Salat were required to be said
in turkish (IIRC specifically instead of alla:hu 'akbar "God is
great" {pronounced Allahu ekber in turkish, which comes out close to
the arabic original} it was required to be said "TanrI ("God", in
spite of the fact that Allah is normally used) uludur". but this was
extremely unpopular. in the beginning of the 1950's one of the first
acts of a more conservative government and President was to repeal
this law, and the nationalist opposition did not want to make an issue
of it and voted in the parliament with the government in repealing the
law, thus the law was repealed unanimously and all mosques reverted to
the tradional way. the issue was never officially brought up since.