Islam Critiqued doesnt believe in old fables; Tales of the ancients in the Quran?

In answer to the video "Top 10 Ways Muslims Ignore the Quran"

By the time of the prophet Muhammad, the assimilation of the Abrahamic legacy into the regional polytheistic systems was such that only a distant echo had remained in their minds from their spiritual connection to Abraham. Just as happenned to the Temple of Jerusalem that slowly became transformed into a pagan shrine and idols were introduced in it 2kings21 the prime symbol of monotheism in Mecca became thus radically transformed through pagan influence.

As the Ishmaelites, like the Israelites throughout their history, drifted from the original path of monotheism, the Hajj pilgrimage became a celebratory occasion, and the Kaaba was stocked with idols and false deities supposed to bring the worshipers closer to the One God, Allah, whom they believed in. Men and women would run naked throughout the holy precinct. Merchants from all over would travel to the Kaaba and set up shop during the pilgrimage.

People and tribes from all over Arabia would make the journey to Mecca to take part in the festivities. But this annual pilgrimage was in greater parts disconnected from the Abrahamic practice 22:26-7. It was simply a time to make money instead of being charitable, drink alcohol, and commit immoral acts. The importance of the annual event perdured despite the corruption. It was maintained by those that settled in Mecca, and the Arabs of the entire peninsula that got attracted to it with time. These are the points brought to attention in 2:196-7. And then until v203 great stress is laid on the spiritual dimension, forgotten and neglected, of that occasion.

No other nation can be compared to the Ishmaelites' handling of their spiritual legacy and sacred shrine, than their own Israelite brothers. They could not maintain the way of their forefathers despite the constant sending of prophets to them to bring them back to the right path. When the Arabs were admonished and urged to reform, they qualified the warnings as

16:24,27:68"stories of the ancients".

These Ishmaelites vaguely recalled the Abrahamic ways, but found no other constructive argument in their opposition but by denigrating it as old and useless stories, based on its ancienty and supposed obsolescence, inaplicability to the current circumstances. They never qualify these stories as "false". It was in fact one of the Quran's oft repeated functions, to "remind" the people of the truth they were still somewhat aware of but that had been supressed by falsehood. The Quran openly states that  

26:196"most surely the same is in the scriptures of the ancients".

It repeats, time and again, its role as the guardian and preserver of the truth present in the past scriptures. Along with Abrahamic and monotheistic practices known in pre-islamic days, going back to previous prophets, was the Zakat which the people knew they had to give away to the poor but rarely practiced or misused 19:30-31,54-55,70:24,Deut14:28-29,26:12-14, fasting 2:51,183-187,7:142,Deut9:9,Ex24:18,34:28,Matt4:2,Lk5:33-6 prayer that continued after Ibrahim established it in the settlement of the Kaaba 14:37,19:55,Dan6:10,Ps55:18,1Chr23:30 until it was disfigured 8:35, animal sacrifice, circumcision. Other concepts propounded by previous prophets and which the Quran was reminding its addressees of, include the Resurrection, day of Judgement and accountability Matt13:24-43,1Kings17:17-24,2Kings4:17-37,13:20-1,1Sam2:6,Isa2:17,26:19,66:14,Ezek37:1-28,Ps71:20,Prov6:22,Prov31(see Rashi),Dan12:1-2,Quran29:36,54:36-9.

There are pre-islamic poems with clear eschatological connotation, some of them speaking of the resurrection of the soul, and Allah being the judge of mankind. One such poems is that of Zuhayr who wrote in his muallaqat  

"Do not conceal from Allah what is in your souls, trying to hide it. Whatever is concealed from Allah, He knows. It is delayed and entered in a register and stored up for the day of reckoning, or it is brought forward and avenged".

Labid wrote

"every human will one day come to know his striving when it will be disclosed before the God what has been extracted".

See also the lines of al-A'sha evoking fear of the final accounting

"when the resurrected souls will shake of the dust".

The Quran and the traditions speak of the hanif remnants that tried preserving the monotheism of Ibrahim, and these lines of poetry might echo these marginal beliefs. The majority of the pre-islamic Arabs however rejected bodily resurrection and otherworldy accountability, the Quran repeatedly condemns this attitude. This phenomenon is clearly seen with the "talbiya", the invocations the pilgrims coming from all over Arabia made during their rituals.

Some of these have come down to us, referring to Allah as  

"al wahid al qahhar rabb assamad",

while others clearly referred to the idols as subservient to him

"laa nabudul asnama hatta tajtahida li rabbiha wa tutabad"

or

"rabb al thalitha ukhra/Lord of the third goddess",

and others spoke of the One Lord of the last hour

"rabba assa'a".

All of this shows the multifaceted shades of idolatry among the pilgrims, some of them praising Allah alone, others associating with Him while maintaining Him above the intercessors, and others still referring to the day of judgement. This confirms the Quranic statement that the original religion established at the sanctuary was Abrahamic monotheism. It got disfigured with time, polluted with foreign concepts, although it maintained a recognizable foundation of truth, which the last prophet came to revive. Sura 87, after summing up the pillars of divine truth, such as monotheism, intelligent design, resurrection, God's all-encompassing, intricate knowledge and sway over His creatures' affairs, spiritual purification through prayer and constant remembrence of God as being the ways to success in the Hereafter, it says that these are all concepts known, written and transmitted by the prophets, from Ibrahim to Moses.

All of these things were known to the people whom Muhammad was addressing over 4000 years later but have been neglected for so long that only a dim remembrance of them remained  

23:83"Certainly we are promised this, and (so were) our fathers aforetime; this is naught but stories of those of old".

Muhammad revived the corrupted, obscured and forgotten way of Ibrahim

6:161"Say: Surely, (as for) me, my Lord has guided me to the right path; (to) a most right religion, the faith of Ibrahim the upright one, and he was not of the polytheists".

The climax of that revival occured when he entered Mecca triumphantly, cleansed the Kaaba of its idols and rededicated it to its monotheistic purpose.

The prophet used to answer the call of freeman, slave, maid servant and destitute alike, shortening his prayer anytime someone would visit his open house so much so that his opponents spread it as a form of weakness and credulity while the prophet knew very well who to trust 9:61. The verse absolutely doesnt come in the context of charges of plagiarism. They would literally reproach him of being "an ear" because of his empathy and readiness to patiently listen to what anyone had to say. But although at first glance that seemingly gave the impression of being credulous it in fact reveals a great leadership quality of keeping cohesion within a group. He knows very well the liars or people with ill intentions but does not immidiately expose them to the rest of the community so as to leave them the chance to reform themselves, as is commanded within the Quran itself. This passive attitude should however not leave any ambiguity as regards the prophet's intellectual and spiritual stance, as denoted in the rest of the verse.

Sometimes as reflected in 33:53, his leniency, kindess and forbearance to his folks would often lead to abuse. People would enter his house at anytime, preventing him and his wives from their spiritual duties and basic privacy requirements. This injunction taught them certain rules of behaviour bearing on the life of such particular society, based on a true feeling of brotherhood, mutual consideration, and respect for the sanctity of each other's personality and privacy. 

This is the timeless lesson, applicable for all times, and which is now enshrined in the Quran through incidents that concerned the prophet. A report suggests that this verse was first revealed in the context of the prophet's marriage ceremony with Zaynab. Some of the guests stayed long after the event was over, in the prophet's home. The verse, according to the report from Anas came down some time after the incident, thus thwarting any attempt by modern critics to try and use the story as evidence of "convenient revelations". Besides, the ahadith speak of other occasion of revelation than this particular incident. This is due to the traditions and Quran commentaries, typically retrospectively applying events in the life of the prophet and the community as asbab alnuzul/occasions of revelation.

The Quran is full of such moral lessons, although illustrated through temporal situations, some of them related and others unrelated to the prophet.

Here are a few other examples 

24:62-63"surely they who ask your permission are they who believe in Allah and His Apostle". 

In the prophet's time, the sincerity of a person's belief in God and the one representing His will on earth, was measured by their obedience to the prophet. None could dare claim to submit to Allah while rejecting the means by which He was actively comunicating with the people. They could obviously not communicate with God directly and had thus to seek the messenger's guidance to know the divine will. This guidance from the messenger is still found both in the Quran and the sunna he left behind. The timeless application of the verse is thus in consulting both sources of guidance. See also 4:64.

Islam Critiqued awaits the rapture; who said the end time is near?

In answer to the video "Top 10 Ways Muslims Ignore the Quran" 

This eagerly awaited moment by disillusioned Christians throughout time is called the second coming, also referred to as the Second Advent, the Parousia, and the Last Coming (the Rapture being the capture in the air of the Christians prior to Jesus' descent, some other denominations speculate the rapture will happen after Jesus' descent and destruction of all non-believers).

It should firstly be noted that the Christian count is off. What they refer to as the 2nd coming in reference to Jesus' return at the end of times actually is a 3rd coming. The 1st coming covers the period prior to Jesus' death and the second coming spans the period from his alleged resurrection to his alleged ascension.

In Mk13:3-30,Matt16:28,24:3-34,Luke21:32 Jesus addresses his disciples "privately" and lists the tribulations that will occur before their generation passes away. The Son of Man will descent from the clouds at some point prior to the generation of disciples passing away. He will be accompanied by angels while cataclysms are destroying the Earth, so as to usher the end of times. Mk9,13 adds that although the disciples will be persecuted and killed before the ushering of the end of time, some of them would survive and be present to witness it. They will live to see the establishement of the kingdom of God on Earth.

However, the signs preceding Jesus' grandiose return followed by his descent from Heaven never occured as prophecied, neither in the days of the disciples nor before the last of their generation died out.

The fig tree is a metaphore, the writer uses the image of the tree blossoming as a sign of summer and parallels this with all related signs of the 2nd coming which is expected soon. This setting of a time limit for the prophecy to occur is embarrassing so the word "genea" which is always "generation" in the NT is reinterpreted. It appears 14 times in the Gospels and always applies to Jesus' contemporaries. In the midst of growing criticism, the unknown author of 2peter3's attempts to stretch the timing of the failed prophecy by using Ps90:4 referring to the relativity of human time to God's time. But Jesus' promise to return was recorded in accordance with human determination of time (this generation) not God's and must, therefore, come as specified by those human terms. Today's Christians also offer the excuse, using

2Peter3"The Lord...is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance".

The implicit meaning is that the delay in Jesus' second coming is a sign of divine mercy. However, this feeble argument doesnt change Jesus' promise to his contemporaries. Jesus never made his speedy return contingent on God's patience in awaiting the sinners repentance.

Paul's frustrations also reflects how the prophecy was understood by the NT writers. He was awaiting the arrival imminently as seen in Heb10:37 and in 1Cor7:29-31 where he tells those who are married to live as if they were not because "time is short" or as said in

1Thess4:15-18"we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord".

Seeing the delay growing longer and longer, Paul starts entertaining the idea of going himself to find his Christ, wherever he might be

Phil1:20-23"torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far".

And Jn21:23 makes an excuse as to why Jesus failed his promise to come before John's death. It is also important to put back the words put into Jesus' mouth by the Greek writers, in their historical context. Contemporary Jews were expecting the end of the world and the destruction of the Romans in their lifetime, just as John the Baptist was preaching, telling the people to be ready for judgement.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are filled with this apocalyptic kind of thinking, like Jesus’s own followers and later Paul who definitely feels that Jesus is coming back right away as a cosmic judge.

There is a reason why Jesus in these writings never instaures commemorative feasts, he thought the end was definately near. To his followers however, whose expectations to see Jesus returning in their lifetime faded away, they had to institute such festivals like the Eucharist to fill the gap. The event is narrated in Luke22:19 whose writer wasnt even an eyewitness of Jesus' last supper but a disciple of Paul. Yet Paul himself in 1Cor11:23-6 claims that knowledge came to him not through Jesus' direct disciples who actually were at the event of the last supper but by direct revelation from Jesus.

The almost canonical 1 Clement urges observance of a Eucharist but does so without mentioning its institution by Jesus. Paul claims this ceremony to be the symbolic continuation of the Israelites' spiritual sustenance during their desert wandering 1cor10:1-17. This in itself is not problematic and in line with monotheism but the ritual was polluted with the pagan practices of those that converted to the Christian religion, with the symbolic ingestion of the gods

"And he (Jesus) took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me”.

There is a reason why Paul had to warn the "weak" in faith for seeing a parallel between the Christian practices and those of the pagans 1Cor8:10,10:21,11:29-30. The Quran sheds light on the issue, clearing it from the manner in which it was later disfigured, both in context and meaning. The pious followers of Jesus desired a sign to comfort their hearts. Being Jews, these close followers of Jesus knew that the performance of miracles by an individual, athough impressive, are no indication of the truthfulness of his prophethood. This is clear from their own scriptures. So, they wanted a sign from God Himself, which was indicative of Him being the God of their forefathers, the One that fed them with heavenly food during their desert wandering, the Ultimate provider to His creatures

5:112-115".. O Allah, our Lord! send down to us food from heaven which should be to us an ever-recurring happiness, to the first of us and to the last of us, and a sign from Thee, and grant us means of subsistence, and Thou art the best of the Providers. Allah said; surely I will send it down to you, but whoever shall disbelieve afterwards from among you, surely I will chastize him with a chastisement with which I will not chastise, anyone among the nations".

The verse contains a stern warning, despite Jesus' beautiful wording and humble request. The warning was addressed to those that demanded the sign firstly, because when a miracle is brought down at the request of a people then the people are severely punished in case of rejection. The warning then extended to those that will come after Jesus and his followers, and who shall dare distort and disbelieve in that miracle. Linguisticly, ma'ida stems from M-Ya-D. The root word point to a moving or dangling object. It is used in the context of a feast to picture the movement of food, coming and being served, then taken by the guests. So the event in the Quran has nothing to do with Jesus' body and the pagan symbolisms of the ingestion of the gods. The Christian story tellers were writing and interpreting Jesus' life events with their paradigms in mind, including ritual cannibalism, which implied acquiring the dead person's powers, and human sacrifice. The Quran restaures it is an occasion of joyful gathering and eating, so as to remember the Sustainer making the provisions of life available upon His creatures.

Prophets knew the signs of the end of times, and have described to their nation and posterity how to recognize it when it comes, but none knows when will that happen. For example in Mk13,Matt24 Jesus explains to his disciples how to recognize, before their generation passes away, the end times by observing specific signs that will occur before his second coming.  

Other attempts to prolongue "this generation" is that Matt24:15's "abomination of desolation" hasn't happened yet while this prophecy of Daniel was fullfilled in 167 BCE when Antiochus Epiphanes opposed the daily sacrifices and desecrated the Temple. The NAB footnotes on Daniel 8 attest to that.

Islam Critiqued does textual analysis; Quran says end times is near?

In answer to the video "Top 10 Ways Muslims Ignore the Quran"

7:187"They ask you about the hour, when will be its taking place? Say: The knowledge of it is only with my Lord; none but He shall manifest it at its time; it will be momentous/thaqulat in the heavens and the earth; it will not come on you but of a sudden. They ask you as if you were solicitous about it. Say: Its knowledge is only with Allah, but most people do not know".

By the words thaqulat/burdened, the verse employs the metaphor of pregnancy in its last stages. Just as the sight of such a woman leaves no doubt as to the fact that she must eventually deliver, the signs of the Resurrection and judgement are so numerous and obvious in the heavens and the earth that one is left with no doubt as to the fact it will and must occur. Its unfolding is a certainty but, just as for the pregnant woman, its time is unknown. The Quran's warnings about the end of times are prophetic, not apocalyptic as we find in the Gospels and Paul's writings. In the Christian tradition, it is behind the corner and imminent (but failed happening as predicted), in the Quran it is merely inevitable.

The object of every prophet wasnt to determine its timing but to ascertain its inevitability in the mind of their addressees

79:42-5"They ask you about the hour: When will be its arrival? You are not (in position) to know it. To your Lord is its end. You are only a warner for one who fears it".

The final hour is the culminating part of a universal system based on truth and justice. Without it, the universe would be purposeless and the idea of moral accountability flawed and incomplete. When that is established then the details surrounding the event should be secondary in importance, the true focus should be on doing good prior to its ushering. Given that both the Quran and ahadith attest to the prophet's ignorance of the precise timing of the end of days, he is expected to shift the focus away from the timing whenever asked about it. And effectively, when asked, he would begin by encouraging righteousness, repentance and gratefulness. He would then proceed with statements that are often ambiguous and open to interpretation. This in itself is an appeal to focus on the present rather than speculating on what is beyond our grasp and which isnt even a requirement of faith  

 "While the Prophet and I were coming out of the mosque, a man met us outside the gate. The man said, "O Allah's Messenger! When will be the Hour?" The Prophet asked him, "What have you prepared for it?" The man became afraid and ashamed and then said, "O Allah's Messenger! I haven't prepared for it much of fasts, prayers or charitable gifts but I love Allah and His Apostle." The Prophet said, "You will be with the one whom you love".

 On another occasion he answered

"If this boy lives he would not grow very old that he would find your Last Hour coming to you he would see you dying".

The noble prophet is telling the questioners to worry about their own last hour, meaning preparing themselves for it, prior to worrying about the last hour of all humanity. This is common theme in the Quran, warning people to prepare themselves as if their time is very near. Death is a reality bound to occur at any moment. Understanding this reality should awake the person and make him ponder on the higher meaning of life

7:185"Have they not contemplated the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and whatever things Allah created, and that maybe their time has already draw near?"

In accordance with what he was inspired to convey in relation to the day of resurrection, the prophet thus never pin pointed the time of its occurrence. As Jaafar al sadiq said

"Allah the Exalted has decreed for us some things and demands from us some things. What he has decreed for us has been kept hidden from us, and what he wants from us has been made plain to us. What is the matter with us that we busy ourselves with what is decreed for us at the expense of what is demanded from us?".

When the angel Gabriel appeared to him, asking

"When will the Hour be established?' The prophet replied 'The answerer has no better knowledge than the questioner' ending his reply with "the Hour is one of five things which nobody knows except Allah.'

  He then recited

31:34'Verily, with Allah (Alone) is the knowledge of the Hour".

Even when he did put a timing, he implied its closeness in relation to the overall life of this world

"The time of my advent and the Hour are like these two fingers". He said elsewhere "The sun is about to set, and what remains of this world, compared to what has passed (ie since the beginning of time), is like what remains of this day compared to what has passed".

The Quran itself alludes to the idea that time in this world is relative, when seen from a higher perspective

75:34"Nearer to you (is destruction) and nearer, Again (consider how) nearer to you and nearer" 70:6-7"Surely they think it to be far off, And We see it nigh" 16:77"And Allah's is the unseen of the heavens and the earth; and the matter of the hour is but as the twinkling of an eye or it is higher still; surely Allah has power over all things".

In other places, it quotes incidents long passed before even the rising of the prophet Muhammad, where God states that

20:16"Surely the Hour is coming. I am about to make it manifest so that every soul may be rewarded as it strives".

This again shows that the divine intent when speaking of the closeness of the end of times, is in relation to the overall time of the world from its inception to its final destination. And this understanding is reflected in the prophetic statements about the timing of the hour. When the prophet paralleled the conquest of Constantinople with the ushering of the end of times, he described the presence of the mahdi and the descent of Jesus. After fierce combat, and at the point when the Mahdi is encircled, Jesus will descend to lead the Muslim armies, and slay the Dajjal. Soon after this, the Muslims will take Constantinople by peaceful means

"They will conquer Constantinople with Tasbih and Takbir and will acquire such spoils of war as has never been seen before".

As the one made into a god-man once said;

Matt24:36,Mk13:32"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father"

Here the text contrasts the lack of knowledge of all intelligent beings, including Jesus, with the complete knowledge of God. This verse perplexed many leading Trinitarians throughout history who were faced with the problem of Jesus' ignorance of a particular matter. Many manuscripts dont even have the passage, leading scholars to argue it was at some point edited out to avoid controversy with anti-Trinitarians. Some have tried solving this by appealing to the mysterious concept of hypostatic union of 2 contradictory entities; the imperfect creation and the perfect Creator. Others have appealed to the Greek text, arguing that what is translated as "know" can also be rendered "make known". Jesus therefore knows the hour but the only one that can make it known/proclaim it is God the Father. One may then legitimately ask, when and where did the Father make that matter known? Will the Father proclaim it at some time in the future and how? That explanation also ignores the fact that the verse contrasts all sentient beings, including Jesus on one side, with the Father on the other side. If the Greek does not negate knowledge but only refers to proclamation, then it follows that all entities grouped with Jesus in contrast to the Father, do possess that knowledge of the hour but will not proclaim it.

 

Islam Critiqued justifies his misunderstandings; Must know Arabic to understand Quran?

In answer to the video "Top 10 Ways Muslims Ignore the Quran"

The age old missionary complex, why in Arabic, why to those desert dwellers?

In the ancient world, populations were most often scattered in clusters of clans and small villages with a main town close by. When warners were sent, they concentrated their efforts in the mother town so as to reach the surrounding populations more effectively 28:59. When time came for the final message to be sent to mankind, Arabia was most suited to be the place from whence the final expression of the truth would emanate from. It enjoyed a central geostrategic position with regard to the known world at that time. It had been surrounded for long by a belt of ancient civilizations; the Egyptian civilization in the west, the Phoenicians and Assyrians in the north, the Babylonians, Persians and the Indus Valley civilizations in the north-east and east. Further in that direction laid the Chinese civilization.

Arabia in ancient times was thus very much in the middle of the then “civilized” world. Only in that obscure and unbothered land of Arabia could a new state-community with a fresh ideology arise and establish itself, before the intervention of the neighboring superpowers. At the time of Islam's advent, they were the Christian Roman empire of Heraclius I and the Zoroastrian Persian empire of Chosroe II.

In 1350, the estimated population of the earth was 370 million. We are now in the 7 billion, meaning the dramatic growth of mankind has essentially occurred 600 plus years after the death of the Prophet. 4 billion+ of that population exists in Asia alone, meaning right by the Middle East. The major influx of the population of humanity has been in contact with the Abrahamic movement since the time of the Prophet and even before, through the Israelites. Through these growing demographics and population movements, Africa and Europe were also exposed, with South America coming fourth when its population started swelling in the 1500s through European influx. So when it comes to being a region to remind men of the final reckoning there can be no better place than the Middle East.

Interestingly, when the first human civilization appeared, God sent in it His first messenger with a global mission. Mesopotamia, the nation from which Abraham came, is really considered one of, if not the first civilization of mankind and the Hammurabi codes, which is considered the first real legal document, arose from this nation.

The point is, when civilization reached a stage where it was set to become a global culture, the prophetic mission turned global. This is why Abraham became the spiritual imam for all of humanity 2:124. The prophetic mission then took on a collective capacity with the Israelites first and, after their divine destruction and removal from the covenant, the Ishmaelites took on this mission. This is precisely why, when Abraham fulfilled the vision of sacrifice, God promised to bless his descendants as nations.

The language itself of Arabia was most suited for the transmission of the Quranic message

12:2,41:3,26:191-196"The Faithful Spirit has descended with it, Upon your heart that you may be of the warners. In plain Arabic language. And most surely the same is in the scriptures of the ancients".

Past Revelations sent to different locations and cultures always conformed to the language of the primary addressees

41:44,43:3,14:4"And We did not send any messenger but with the language of his people, so that he might explain to them clearly"  

Ezek3:4-5"And He said to me; "Son of man, go, come to the house of Israel and speak to them with My words. For it is not to a people of an unfathomable language and a heavy tongue that you are sent, [but] to the house of Israel".

Every messenger only spoke to his people with their own language, not a foreign one otherwise they might misunderstand

"so that he might explain to them clearly".

This doesnt exclude that the messenger might speak the language of another people or that he might be sent to a foreign nation. This was Yunus/Jonah's case, an Israelite who went to the neighboring Assyrian kingdom as very briefly related in Jonah1-4 but also prophecied among his own people 2Kings14:25. The Quran doesnt say the knowledge of Arabic is a prerequisite to understand it. It says it had to be sent in Arabic because its primary addressees spoke Arabic 26:198-9,42:7,41:44. A non-Arab approaching the Quran in another language than Arabic is perfectly able to understand it, depending on the quality of the translation. The one approaching the Arabic text obviously needs to master Arabic to understand it and translate it. He must be careful in his choice of words so as to try and catch a succinctly as possible the semantic nuances of a word without upsetting any theological concept.

This is no different for a Biblical scholar mastering the intricacies of Greek to aid a study of the Septuagint or learning Latin to grasp later Latin vulgates.

Revelation is not the prerogative of any race, culture or language. All languages are a blessing from God and He has dispersed His creation throughout the planet by equipping them with the use of varying tongues 30:22. The Quran appeals in most of its themes to human emotions because it is the most universal of languages. One of the main reasons the Quran has such an appeal across linguistic, cultural, and temporal divides precisely is because it conveys its message in a way that people can relate to on a basic, universal level. Its message resonates in the emotions and inner genetic spiritual fabric of mankind and that is why it keeps making sense to people from so many different cultures, across time. Translation captures the WHAT but not the HOW of a statement. It may give a sense of what is being said but not how the Speaker conveyed the speech. And it is precisely the eloquence of the Quran that mostly impacted the Arabs. This aspect will forever remain lost in translation, locked in the original language.

Besides the language, there are other things people need to become acquainted with when approaching any ancient writing, so as to avoid any misunderstandings and be able to appreciate the intent behind the words and references. The Quran for instance uses references relevant to the people of the location in which it was revealed. These references might not be necessarily known or experienced by all people of the world but their implicit meanings can still be appreciated if one studies how the primary addressees experienced these references.

For example sometimes in the context of provoking gratefulness, it turns the attention to the availability of all kinds of fruits. The ones it names were typically appreciated by the Arabs of the Hijaz, like olives, dates and grapes 16:11. A foreign reader, as he gets acquainted with the culture of those first addressed by the Quran, can still appreciate the verse's portents by transposing his own taste of fruits with their tastes. There are several other examples, as in 16:81 saying how garments may be used to protect from the heat, and this is because the verse's primary addressees were desert dwellers.

The description again, is not absolute; it doesnt mean garments cannot be used for warmth, since the Arabs also experienced the harsh cold of the night and used these garments for warmth.

As regards the Arabic language, it had several advantages as opposed to the dominant languages of commerce and intellectual discourse of the time; Latin, Greek, Persian, Hebrew. These were so interwoven as media for the communication of various thought systems that they became unsuitable for the transmission of Islamic concepts. The Abrahamic legacy prior to Islam was polluted by the integration of such languages in the course of its transmission.

Only a language free from false theological notions could bring back the Abrahamic legacy to its original intent. It is known and argued by the masters of the language since al Farabi that the Qurayshi dialect, due to its centralizing position in Arabia, had reached the peak of eloquence by acquiring the best of other tribes' speech patterns and poems. The Quraysh used to deny the inclusion into their dialect, of expressions found among tribes bordering non-Arabic lands. Arabic in the time of the prophet counted many dialects, with the most dominant being his own language, that of the Quraysh. The Quran states about itself, over and over that it is in a clear Arabic language, devoid of any crookedness. It does not specify which Arabic. A study clearly reveals that it posesses mainly the features of the Qurayshi dialect, in addition to several others spoken in the Hijaz and Najd. It is this characteristic, the fact that it was expressed in the centralizing dialect of the most influencing tribe, but allowed enough flexibility so as to integrate other dialects, that made the Quran understandable to all tribes; clear Arabic. 

The Arabic of the Quraysh in particular had developed to such a level that it could transmit any verbalized message, no matter how abstract the idea. The Quran therefore was in no need to borrow any word or concept to convey any of its themes.  That notion is in fact rejected, when it points in derogatory manner to the foreign tongue of one man who was at some point suspected of being the prophet's teacher 16:103. Not only was the accusation faulty from a linguistic perspective, his foreign tongue could never have inspired the matchless Arabic of the Quran, which the Arab masters of the language themselves recognized could not equal in eloquence, but was also faulty from a deeper cultural and theological viewpoint.

None of the words and concepts conveyed in the Quran can be said to have been influenced by the ideological currents of the region. Even the foreign theologies and philosophies to the Arabs, those now deemed closest to Islam and that penetrated deep inside the peninsula, from Judaism's monolatry to Christianity's dying god incarnate, have no effect from near or far, to any of the tenets of the Quran. Also, the accusation as quoted in the Quran is that this foreign person was actively interracting with the prophet, communicating and teaching him yet he was a non Arabic speaker so how could the two have such elaborate exchanges, in addition without ever being noticed? The Quran answers that accusation in a very appropriate way; given that the person they were pointing to spoke unintelligibly (aajami is used buy the Arabs for a language they could not understand) how could the prophet learn any of the stories found in the Quran from him, then reproduce that information accurately in a language they can understand? It is the same as saying that Einstein heard a toddler explaining the theory of relativity, then reproduced that information correctly in a language any physicist would recognize. This calumny was not grounded in any reality, like many other contradictory claims the prophet's opponents used in order to tarnish his well established integrity, in the same manner as prophets before him were unjustly targeted.