Wednesday, April 08, 2009

4:124

Salaam all,

This is 4:124
وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِنَ الصَّالِحَاتَ مِن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَى وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَأُوْلَـئِكَ يَدْخُلُونَ الْجَنَّةَ وَلاَ يُظْلَمُونَ نَقِيرًا
Waman yaAAmal mina alssalihati min thakarin aw ontha wahuwa muminun faolaika yadkhuloona aljannata wala yuthlamoona naqeeran

The Aya says:
And whoever does of the righteous deeds of male or female, while making himself safe (in Allah and the message) then those enter Heaven. And they will not be treated unfairly, not even a tiny bit.

My Personal note:
This Aya mentions an important rule related to the good deeds. The rule is that they count only when they are associated with Iman. I define Iman as Safety and trust in God and his message. The greater the Iman, the greater the impact of those good deeds will be. This is because with greater Iman, the purpose of our actions will be more strongly linked to our consciousness of God.

It is also important to mention that God treats all humans fairly, including those who have not safety and trust in Him.

Translation of the transliterated words:
Waman: and whoever
yaAAmal: does
Note: the root is Ain-M-L and it means doing or work. YaAAMAL is an action that is being completed or will be completed. It means: the action of doing or making is happening or will be happening by the subject (third person singular).
Mina: of/ from
Alssalihati: the righteous deeds/ good deeds/ deeds of benefit
Note: ALSSALIHATI is derived from the root Sad-L-Ha and it means becoming helpful or useful in a good direction. This means mainly: becoming one of benefit as in benefiting oneself and others. Included in this meaning is becoming fixed after having been broken. ALSSALIHATI then here are the deeds of goodness/ benefit and that would be the definition of the righteous.
Min: of/ from
Thakarin: male
Note: the root is TH-K-R and it means many things that may or may not be related. One concrete meaning is male organ or male. THAKARIN means the male. This also can be extended to mean active, hard and non receptive.
Aw: or
Ontha: female
Note: the root is Hamza-N-Th and it means female. This word is further used to any entity that is soft, passive and receptive as opposed to male which is generally used for active and hard and non receptive. ONTHA means female.
Wahuwa: while he
Muminun: one who makes himself safe (in Allah and the message)/ making himself safe (in Allah and the message)
Note: LI means to or for and so on. MUMININ is derived from the root Hamza-M-N and it means safety. MUMINUN means one who makes himself safe (in Allah and His message).
Faolaika: then those
Yadkhuloona: they enter
Note: the root is D-KH-L and it means entering. YADKHULOONA is an action that will be completed. It means: the action of entering the object (AlJannata= the garden) happening or will be happening by the subject (third person plural).
Aljannata: the garden/ Heaven
Note: the root is J-N-N and it means hidden or hiding. It is therefore used to mean darkness because it hides as well as garden because gardens can be hidden or because it has less light than the place out in the sun for the Arabs of the desert. ALJANNATA means: the garden/ the Hidden entities and it points to Heaven.
Wala: and not
Yuthlamoona: be transgressed against/will be treated unfairly
Note: the root is THa-L-M and it means darkness. This is one of the concrete meanings and it is used to mean decisions made in darkness which include transgression and displacement of right and wrong. YUTHLaMOONA is an action that is being completed or will be completed. It means: the action of being transgressing is happening or will be happening by the subject (undisclosed) to the object (third person plural). “Wala Yuthalmoon” in turn means: they will not be transgressed against or they will not be treated unfairly.
Naqeeran: a tiny opening/ tiny bit
Note: the root is N-Qaf-R and it means the tiny hole that the bird makes with his beak or any tiny hole made with a small instrument. NAQEER is the small opening that is made. Here, conceptually, Naqeer is used to mean the tiniest opening or the tiniest bit.

Salaam all and have a great day.

Hussein

4 comments:

A. Muhammad Ma`ruf said...

Salaam brother Hussein.

Regarding "Thakarin: male
"Note: the root is TH-K-R and it means many things that may or may not be related. One concrete meaning is male organ or male. THAKARIN means the male. This also can be extended to mean active, hard and non receptive."


I have noticed that thikr, fa thakkir, and al thaakirah are also used to refer to memory, and remembering, including in the sesne of remembering Allah. This meaning (sometimes spelt zikr, and dhikr), seemingly referring to a practice derived from such a meaning is found in many English only texts.

Are those mind related senses, and this one with the concrete reference to the male organ, from the same or different roots?

Thank you for your help.

hussein said...

Salaam brother,

Thikr is from the same root.I take thikr as mention and remember. It is not one hundred percent clear to me the relationship with the male organ. However, if we take from thakar as active, then Thikr is an active form of achieving memory through mentioning repeatedly and being active at maintaining the memory. Allah knows best.

Take care brother and have a good evening.

Hussein

hussein said...

This came in an e mail

Assalaamu `aleykum brother Hussein,



Continuing my previous mail regarding Th K R from the discussion of your commentary of 4: 124



I think that your inclusion of concrete images for Qur`anic words is something important and could be developed as a methodological principle in translation studies. Personally I have benefited from your concrete image translations of several words including naseeb and the word for tower which you equated with “neck”. Both of these words/images had been problems for me before I read your explanations.


However, my first (instinctive) reaction to your equation of “thikr” with “male organ” was to reject it. This was perhaps because of some fear in me of such an association. The fear may have autobiographic roots. Thinking about it later, I felt that this is something interesting because of the seeming phallic symbolism. Its “sexy” connotations perhaps need to be discussed more widely so that more opinions can be generated.


Philosophically I am inclined to believe that the mind/heart relationship of any form of thikr/prayer which is performed by the body or some organ/s cannot be reduced to any physical, chemical, or other material substance or formula. Man is able to have contact with human and non-human worlds that prayer touches. But we don’t know how this happens. We know that it is possible, in part because we are able know other physical worlds which have no relationship to our physicality, through our minds.


As such suggesting a physical, organic relationship of thikr to the male organ or even the physical heart would seem to be misleading.



This is why your equation is intriguing and creates many questions about the expanded meaning of the Arabic Qur`aanic Th K R.



Perhaps relevant here is a question posed to me rather rhetorically once by another Arabic speaking, Islamic activist pediatrician. He asked, “When we pray (salaat) does our blood also pray?” Neither of us answered the question.



Another route to discussing thikr= also male organ, is to consider that there are possibly 2 entirely different origins of the root for th k r. One for the mind and memory related meaning. The other for the male organ meaning, contrasting with a different word for the female organ as explained in your commentary on 4:124.


Another route related to 4 is to consider that Th K R in Arabic may be derived from a non-Arabic word. It is known that there were foreign, loan words current in the Arabic of the Prophet’s time and that some of these are to be found in the Qur`aan. Imaam al-Shaafi`i has a chapter on this issue as it relates to the Qur`aanic assertion that it was revealed in Arabic.


A possible candidate for a non-Arabic source would be the Indian “adhikaar” which in modern Hindi, Bengali, and other Asian usages seems to mean something that has been formulated in writing toward making it a law. It is similar to the English “bill” when referring to something that is in the process of becoming a statute. As “adhikaari” the word means an official person.


Going outside Arabic to find meanings of words in the Qur`aan is a very tricky process. However, I know people who do this and make it a basis for a kind of exposition of the “meaning of the Qur`aan” and Qur`aanic words. My rather extensive exposure to one such meaning maker is one of the sources of my interest in Qur`aanic studies. I now believe that such an approach is wrong and harmful. But I also know of many others who knowingly or ignorantly follow such a teaching. This includes some Arabs.


Some communications written by Indie Muslimah for MWU and later have also been helpful to me in further understanding the linguistics of this matter.



Something else in regard to the male organ association with divinity that crops up: As you know, the image of the male organ is also the symbol of the Indian god Shiva/Siva. Shiva is very important in the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu, and is represented in numerous explicit forms of the erect male organ (without the testicles, of course) in and near Hindu temples.


For non-Hindus, including myself, this is a difficult image and concept to grasp. But other such images possibly exist in many religions. Some reductionist psychologists would say that the Christian cross is also a similar phallic symbol.



The Hindu Lord Shiva is also represented in other forms including a quasi-anthropomorphic one with six or more hands. He may also have a mantra form. Some people may also use the Islamic formulas used in some forms of thikr as a mantra. There are some complex symbolic or equation possibilities that open up in such a way of thinking.



Coming back to the methodology issue of looking for single word concrete images: If this previously unexplored (AFIK) method that you are using is true and applicable in general, there may be individual cases where the principle does not add to the further clarity of the meaning of the ayath or concept. Th K R may be such a case.


I would appreciate your thoughts on the above, when you have time,



Thanks.





Muhammad.

hussein said...

and this is my response,

Salaam brother Muhammad,



This is a very deep e mail and I really appreciate your deep thought and analysis. I am moving more lately towards your point number 9. I do believe that the concrete word helps us understand some of the abstract concepts but not always. It may be helpful if one enters the minds of the early people who used the language and saw the common thread that links the different uses of the words. This is what I am trying to do in a sense, with varying degrees of success and failure. Lately, I am moving towards identifying a certain concept that comes through the different usages of the word. I use it as the conceptual link between all of the uses and it becomes something more specific when the context determines it to be.



In the case of TH-K-R that concept comes as active memorization as opposed to passive memorization. This is because THIKR as memory is not only remembering, but more so mentioning, reminding and doing it repeatedly in a certain sense. It does share with the male organ, the activity and repeatedness of the act. With the male, it shares the issue that the male children are the ones who actively preserve the memory of the father and male line of the tribe. I do not know if this is correct and the relationship, as you pointed out, is not that great. God only knows.



I do believe that there are words in the Qur’an that come from non Arabic origin. They are generally words that do not have derivations and do not move to verb and noun and so on. Such words like Paradise and JAHANNAM have been considered by some to be of non Arabic origin. THKR as memory does not seem to share that feature because it is used in so many forms and that is a feature of an original word. Could THAKAR as male be of different origin? Possible.



Of course, Arabic shares many words with Hebrew and Aramaic. However, in this case we may not be able to say this word comes from this language or that, because the words share common ancestral origin and their uses are till related.



I was very intrigued by the “adhikari”. I wonder if we can know it’s origin.



Lastly, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to post this discussion in the blog. I believe that it adds to it but I won’t do that if you do not want this discussion to be public.



Take care brother. Thank you for sharing those deep thoughts. May Allah be with you.



hussein