Sam Shamoun "Do They Bear Another’s Burdens Or Not?"

Sam Shamoun "Do They Bear Another’s Burdens Or Not?"

Manslaughter has several degrees of seriousness depending on the victim, as exemplified through the story of Adam's 2 sons, whom the Quran does not name as it eloquently and concisely draws its audience's attention to the story's core precepts without distracting it with names of persons and places 

5:27"And relate to them the story of the two sons of Adam with truth". 

It is interesting to note the repetitve stress on re-establishment of the truth, most often when the Quran recounts an incident already known for long by its addressees but transmitted in a convoluted and/or purposefully obscured manner. 

As will be shown below, the Quran sheds light on at least 2 crucial events within the whole narrative that are strikingly absent from the HB. These details have important implications and ramifications not only for the protagonists but for all mankind; the reason for the rejection of one brother's offering, derogatorily referred to with al akhar. It means "remaining", he remains after first introducing the virtuous brother. The word also creates a kind of disdain and distancing between the sinful character and the audience/reader. The second issue the Quranic narrative tacles is the killing of the other brother, how it was unjustifiable from every possible angle.  

For brevity's sake, the 2 brothers will be given their Biblical names.

Abel first sought reforming his brother. He pointed that the offering was rejected due to his sinfulness or lack of piety (the divine approval/disapproval might have manifested itself through inspiration, either to Abel or his father the prophet Adam). He should thus focus on his inner self, reassessing his spirituality and mend his ways instead of being envious 5:27. The nature of the offering in itself is not important, so long as it is done with sincerity and God-consciousness, hence the Quran's silence on the things both brothers offered

 22:37"There does not reach Allah their flesh nor their blood, but to Him is acceptable the guarding (against evil) on your part; thus has He made them subservient to you, that you may magnify Allah because He has guided you aright; and give good news to those who do good (to others)".

This is a major point driven through by the Quran. In the HB, God disdainfully rejects Cain's offering for no other reason that 

Gen4:3"Cain brought the fruit of the soil" 

while Abel 

"brought the firstborn of his flocks and the fattest, and the Lord turned to Abel and to his offering"

This sacrificial rite is no more than a symbol of a conscious, selfless offering in God's name of something one cherishes as necessary and valuable. It is not an attempt to "appease" Him who is far above anything that resembles human emotion, nothing of His creation can disturb Him 35:44. Ultimately anything offered to Allah in God consciousness counts as of equal value and merit than a blood offering as stated in 22:37 above. The primary issue is to remain aware of Allah during this universal rite

 22:34"To every people did We appoint rites, that they might celebrate the name of God over the sustenance He gave them" 

The Quran recognizes the universality of this rite, and then restores it to the right, original course; glorifying God alone, first and foremost.

It is when one loses Allah's pleasure from sight in the process, such as by having one's intentions polluted with sinfulness as occured to Cain, or by having other deities or motives in mind, that the offering is invalidated. The merit does not lie in the intrinsic value or nature of the offering. Even fasting for Allah's sake by the one who cannot afford an offering is a valid substitute 2:196.  

Although the HB echoes that reality when it says 

Ps50:8-14"..Will I eat the flesh of bulls or do I drink the blood of he-goats? Slaughter for God a confession and pay the Most High your vows". 

Yet in other places, YHWH is depicted as physically delecting with the offering 

Lev1:9"Then, the kohen shall cause to [go up in] smoke all [of the animal] on the altar, as a burnt offering, a fire offering, [with] a pleasing fragrance to the Lord". 

This is reminiscent of ancient mythologies, more particularily Babylonian, where the gods would partake in the offering together with the offerer. In the HB numbers18 the priests making the offering are the only ones allowed to eat from the dead animal. Gods do not sit on the same table as the laymen. The Quran in sharp contrast allows to 

22:28-36"eat of them and feed the poor man who is contented and the beggar; thus have We made them subservient to you, that you may be grateful".

Finally, regardless of Cain's decision, Abel said he will not attempt murdering his brother in return, on account of his deep God-consciousness. Cain is now left with no reason to carry on with his death threats. Abel this way left the entire burden of manslaughter on his brother, not sharing any responsibility for having caused this action, for example by threatening Cain back with death, or fighting back so fiercely that he puts Cain's life in danger

5:28"If you will stretch forth your hand towards me to slay me, I am not one to stretch forth my hand towards you to slay you surely I fear Allah, the Lord of the worlds". 

Cain apparently did not show any sign of reform, prompting Abel, despite his initial pleas, to openly declare his enmity towards his brother, making it clear to him what would be the eternal consequences of what he was about to commit 

5:29"Surely I want that you should bear my sin and your sin, and so you would be of the inmates of the fire, and this is the recompense of the unjust". 

Abel wanted his brother to carry the burden of "my sin and your sin". It is speaking of 2 specific sins, in the singular. The context shows what these 2 specific sins are; Abel's unjust murder ie "my sin", and Cain's sinfulness, his refusal to reform himself despite the repeated pleas of his brother, leading to him being bent on murdering his brother ie "your sin". Certain commentators have erroneously assumed the word was in the plural, concluding that the murder transfered the victim's past sins to the criminal. 

The singular "your sin" is used in the same sense in certain ahadith. The prophet tries diffusing a situation where one whose brother was murdered, is about to seek his right to retaliation. He is explained that he could achieve more in terms of personal vengence in the long run in a different way

"Don’t you like that he should take upon him (the burden) of your sin and the sin of your companion (your brother)? He said: Allah’s Apostle, why not? The Messenger of Allah said: If it is so, then let it be. He threw away the strap (around the offender) and set him free". 

The criminal is described in the full hadith as an outcast, quick in shedding blood and thus with a potential of comitting more murders. But instead of giving him the benefit of the doubt in case, during a fight, he killed the brother who is now openly seeking blood retaliation, and thus lessening to severity of his sin, the brother could forfeit his right entirely. On top of that, this "throwing away of the strap" symbolizes forgiveness as reflected in another version of the hadith 

"If you forgive him, he will bear the burden of his own sin and the sin of the victim. He then forgave him. He (the narrator) said: I saw him pulling the strap". 

Just as Abel did with Cain, he would be leaving the entire burden of responsibility of his own potential murder upon the criminal, adding on top of that the sin of refusing to reform himself despite the victim's brother forfeiting his right upon his life and forgiving him. This would push the potential killer's awareness to its maximum while committing his crime. The whole idea is to avoid triggering potential criminals based on suspicion, even when they declare their intentions, trying to reform them if possible by making the first step, and this way puting the entire burden of the sin upon them if they act upon it. 

In a similar situation the prophet advised not provoking people known for their violent intent even if they should enter one's house 

“...O Messenger of Allah, what if they enter my house?” He said: “If you are afraid that the flashing of the sword will dazzle you, then put the edge of your garment over your face, and let him carry his own sin and your sin, and he will be one of the people of the Hellfire”. 

The prophet here is teaching the most basic and pragmatic approach both in a wordly and spiritual sense. Any security expert would advise to diffuse a situation where one is confronted to very dangerous individuals in such a way, even if they should enter one's home. In addition, the prophet gives the assurance that in case one falls victim due to not trying to kill as the agressor is trying, then one would receive maximum vindication by leaving the full blame upon the criminal.

Again, Abel at no point denies he will defend himself just as the prophet in those ahadith nowhere denies the right to self defense. What is denied is fending off the attacker with the same murdering intent. Abel does not say he will not fight back if he sees Cain coming with the purpose of realizing his death threats. He didnt say "I wont defend myself and will let you do whatever you want with me" he only said "I do not intend, under any circumstances, to kill you".

 
Despite his brother's increased admonitions, from gentle pleas and pointing the wrong ways, to threatening him with hellfire should he commit the crime, Cain slew Abel. The victim was not only innocent of any wrongdoing, but did not even raise his hand with the intention of killing him while he defended himself. What made matters worse, Cain knew beforehand that Abel would never under any circumstance pose a threat to his life. With his crime, Cain had established an evil precedent among the sons of Adam. 

This precedent has found its way all throughout the history of mankind, down to our present days 

"The Prophet said, "None is killed unjustly, but the first son of Adam will have a part of its burden." Sufyan said, "...a part of its blood because he was the first to establish the tradition of murdering". 

The hadith speaks of the concept of misleading others into sin. We will never establish the chain of events linking our current experiences and actions all the way to the first sons of Adam. But this hadith tells us the connection exists, so much so that whenever an unjust murder is comitted, Cain is burdened with SOME of that sin, not all of it. This is simple common sense as one cannot be held fully responsible for a crime he was enticed into comitting. It does not take away one's responsibility in the sin, rather determines the level of involvement of every individual.

The Quran explains in many places that a person's good deeds are means of obtaining God's forgiveness in the hereafter. But the person who comes to the hereafter with few good deeds as compared to his sins will inevitably have a spiritual debt to pay, and this is done in the Fire for an appropriate time. If his sins were comitted against others, then in addition to having to account for the sin itself, he will have a share of some of his victims' sins. 

Abu Hurairah narrated that the Messenger of Allah said: “Do you know who the bankrupt is?” They said: “O Messenger of Allah! The bankrupt among us is the one who has no Dirham nor property.” The Messenger of Allah said: “The bankrupt in my Ummah is the one who comes with Salat and fasting and Zakat on the Day of Judgement, but he comes having abused this one, falsely accusing that one, wrongfully consuming the wealth of this one, spilling the blood of that one, and beating this one. So he is seated, and this one is requited from his rewards. If his rewards are exhausted before the sins that he committed are requited, then SOME of their sins will be taken and cast upon him, then he will be cast into the Fire.”

This "some" doesnt refer to some of the total sins, ie 2 out of 5 sins. Rather some part of some specific sins, as with Cain's example above. 

Simple observation shows that many times victims become offenders due to past trauma, or various circumstances caused by the sin originally comitted against them. Again, as with the hadith about Cain's partial responsibility for the murders among Bani Adam, there is a chain of causality behind each human action. It is possible that some of his victims' sins were enticed by his deeds against them. These specific sins will then naturally be partially shared with the criminal, without taking away the due share of responsibility of those that committed them. Another similar hadith says 

"Had it not been for Bani Isra'il, food would not have become stale, and meat would not have gone bad; and had it not been for Eve, a woman would never have acted unfaithfully toward her husband". 

The prophet, and anyone else who heard this, knew there werent Israelites going around causing food to spoil. With or without them, food decay occurred anyway. But because an undeniable character trait of theirs, whether in the prophet's time, the time of Jesus, or our very capitalist era, is greed and hoarding of surplus wealth, the notion of spoilage is here associated to them among all the people of the earth. They established a pattern on an unprecedented scale whose repercussions are seen till this day. As to Eve, the nature of her betrayal isnt indicated, but it has to do with something her husband entrusted her with. Being the first among all the women vicegerent of the earth, her actions, good or bad, left a mark on subsequent women vicegerents, who learned from her. This doesnt mean that without her, women would have always been faithful. Eve had at some point a choice to make but made the wrong one, even though she wasnt influenced by a previous pattern. This means woman will always have the choice between faithfulness and betrayal to their husbands, just like Eve had. But to the women that came after Eve, a pattern of bad conduct in a particular matter preceded them, influencing to some instinctive degree their own conduct, without it being a decisive factor beyond their freewill. The association of certain traits with particular people is therefore hyperbolic, as is so common in the manner of speech of the Arabs

God knows very well those who conceal or misconstrue the Truth 41:40 and such sin causes the rejection from God's grace, rejection by men and angels alltogether 2:161. This type of human and spiritual injustice is "fitna", not based on any reasonable evidence and knowledge but instead on inner desires, worldly interests, blind attachement to inherited ways, and the Quran logically explains that the misleaders shall bear their own burden of sins as well as the responsibility of misleading others -intentionally or not- into sin 4:85,16:25,29:12-13 without diminishing from the moral responsibility and consequent requital of those they mislead 14:21,43:36-9. Once more, misleaders do not take away the share of responsibility of a person in his sin, because none bears the burden of other people's sins 17:13-15,53:38-42. Misleaders share their own burdens in those specific sins which they enticed others into committing. Thus each one shares his full burden of responsibility within one and the same sin. This why the Quran keeps warning to guard 

36:45"against that which is before you and that which is behind you"

 the "before" referring to the action one is about to perform and "behind" is the consequence of this action, referred to as the footsteps one leaves behind 

36:12,37:69-70,43:22"they say: We found our fathers on a course, and surely we are guided by their footsteps". 

There is a reason why, in sura fatiha, we seek example from people of the past confirmed to have succeeded spiritually, hence the use of the past alladhina anaamta alayhim.

 
This story of Adam's 2 sons establishes that in the next life, punishment is a matter of degrees, where a murderer can get a more severe punishment depending upon the person he killed. The one slain was innocent of any wrongdoing, even warned his brother that was about to kill him, tried reforming him, and finally pointed the grave consequences of his sins. But this familial tragedy was about to repeat itself, as the murderous Israelites were trying by all means to put an end to their Ishmaelite brother's life, despite his calls to reforms, there being no reasons for them to threaten and attack him, and his warnings of hellfire should they carry on with their deadly intentions. The Jews of the prophet's time were not only trying to kill a man innocent of any wrongdoing against them and in general, but were trying to kill a prophet of God as their forefathers tried doing and sometimes succeeded against the prophets raised from among themselves and who called them to adhere to their own Books which they had thrown behind their backs and forgotten. The story of the 2 sons of Adam ends with a reminder of a lesson they knew very well 

5:32"For this reason did We write upon the children of Israel that whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men".

Further reading answering Sam Shamoun "Do They Bear Another’s Burdens Or Not?"

Islam critiqued refuses paying for others' sins; Ransoming Muslims from hell? 

Apostate prophet still struggling; Allah mocks people?

Sam Shamoun "The Quranic Teaching on Wine and Strong Drink"

Sam Shamoun "The Quranic Teaching on Wine and Strong Drink"

In the Quran 2:219 the word used is khamr. It stems from KH-M-R meaning a covering, hence its use for wine which deludes the ability of distinction, "covering" the wisdom. But it isnt strictly restricted to wine. It can be extended to all other intoxicants. God did not prohibit one alcoholic drink and allowed others obtained through different means. God forbade all drinks that cause the state of mental confusion.

Among the beverages of paradise there will be khamr flowing in rivers 47:15. As already stated, khamr is not restricted to wine (red, pink or yellowish) but to all types of beverages that may induce a state of drunkedness, and these come in all kinds of colors. However the Quran states elsewhere that what the dwellers of heaven will be served, from a flowing spring, will be a crystal white beverage that doesnt affect the mind in any way 37:45-7,56:18-19. This drink in 37:46 is given the exact same description as the river of khamr in 47:15 (ladhatin lilshaaribin). The very fact that the Quran qualifies the drink as not causing intoxication proves that it is expounding upon the khamr of paradise. There is no need to negate intoxication for any other type of drink, as this effect is only found in alcoholic beverages. One of the main Quranic notions as regards the rewards of paradise, is that most of what the God-conscious prevents himself from in this world out of obedience to a divine command, will be found in paradise without its negative physical and spiritual repercussions.

Sam Shamoun "Is the Qur’an Written in Pure Arabic?" (2)

Sam Shamoun "Is the Qur’an Written in Pure Arabic?" (2)

The shift in verb tenses is among the categories of iltifat (see link at the end); switching to the past for example among other tense shifts, conveys the certainty of an event to occur, as if it was already done, most often used in the context of the resurrection 18:47,27:87etc

Switches in case marker, such as from nominative to accusative or vice versa has the effect of highlighting a particular thing. 

In 4:162 for example we read muqimin instead of muqimun. Highlighting prayer here is understandable in the light of the stress laid several times in this same sura on its observance. 

In 5:69 it is the nominative sabiun instead of sabiin like other accusative nouns in the sentence. In the passage, the Jews and the Christians are repeatedly alluded to. Now the verse mentions a third group not spoken of before and thus marks a sudden shift in pronoun so as to turn the reader/audience's attention on them, integrating them in the passage's overall notions of forgiveness and good deeds. Arabic is known to be a highly elliptical language, with omissions involving all elements within a sentence. This is seen as a major feature of its eloquence. In 22:25 it says 

"The unbelievers who debar others from the path of God and the Sacred Mosque.." 

It does not say what happens to them, or what punishment they will receive. Their mere description is enough to determine their fate. In 41:41 it says

 "Indeed, those who disbelieve in the message after it has come to them... And indeed, it is a mighty Book". 

The sentence is again left without a predicate; the mere mention of their condition is enough to deduce the horrible consequences.

Another example is 

9:31"They have taken their rabbis and their monks (as) Lords besides Allah and the Messiah, son (of) Maryam. And not they were commanded except that they worship One God. (There) is no god except Him. Glory be to Him from what they associate (with Him)." 

The ellipsis allows for a more concise statement. Rendered fully it would be 9:31"They have taken their rabbis and their monks (as) Lords besides Allah and the Messiah, son (of) Maryam has been taken too as Lord besides Allah. And not they were commanded except that they worship One God. (There) is no god except Him. Glory be to Him from what they associate (with Him)." The verse warns to worship only one God, besides Whom there are none and Who has no associates. It would have made no sense to include that warning had it meant that Allah and Jesus are to be worshiped together. Jesus' deification is on a different level than that of the religious scholars. It was appropriate for the verse to mention him appart from that group, especially considering the message of divine unity at the end.

These types of sentence structures are the reason why we may find different valid grammatical explanations for an elliptical construction.

That is why we may find different valid grammatical explanations for an elliptical construction. That is why some have stated that sabiun is in the nominative/mobtada because of the omitted "khadhalika", ie "the Sabeans AS WELL". 

That literary feature allows for a concise speech, and the Quran initially was uttered as a piecemeal oral discourse, whenever the revelation came to the prophet. This very recurrent feature of the Arabic of the Quran makes its translation difficult, hence the addition of many words in brackets that we see so as to convey the full meaning. 

For instance in the famous aya of birr 2:177 it literally says 

"It is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards the East and the West, but righteousness is those who believed in Allah and the last day and the angels and the Book and the prophets..." 

This genitive construction allows for an obvious omission. The full rendering would be 

"It is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards the East and the West, but righteousness is THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF those who believed in Allah and the last day and the angels and the Book and the prophets..." 

In 21:3 this time the verb between brackets is omitted 

"and they conceal the private counsels. The unjust (say); "is this except a human being like you..."

As a side issue, some reports attributed to Uthman and Aisha state that 5:69 quoted earlier, along with 4:162 and 20:63 are scribal mistakes. Before getting to the reports, in 20:63, the grammatical construction combines negation "in" and restriction "la" hence the reason why haadhani is declined as such. Other grammarians have said that in the Kinaanah dialect, the dual form always appears with the alif. Still in accordance with grammar rules, the subject of inna is omitted and thus in the accusative. 

These and other valid grammatical constructions that apply to the verse were reported by Al-Suyuti, who himself quotes the reports attributed to Uthman and Aisha stating this verse and a few others are erroneous. Further, these reports, narrated by Urwah in his Iraqi period are considered weak due to the hadith scholars, including imam adhahabi recognizing that 

"when he, ie Urwah, came to Iraq at the end of his life...there were a few hadith that he reported that were not sound". 

But that is not the sole reason undermining the authenticity of these reports. The one attributed to Uthman has a broken chain of transmission, as well as contains narrators whom no scholars vouched for their integrity, such as ibn Aamir. Neither Yahya ibn Ya'mur nor Ikrimah were contemporaries of Uthman to have heard anything from him, as corroborated by ad Daani. Bukhari deemed the chain broken and Qataadah said it was ambiguous. Further, the various names in the chain appear in different chronological orders depending on the channel of transmission. 

At Tabari even quotes Ubay ibn Kaab's reciation of 4:162 as "walmuqimeena", just as in the mushaf of Uthman we have today. This further undermines the notion of a widespread grammatical error among several independant masaahif. And why didnt anyone else notice the "errors" among the multiple independant channels of transmission of the Uthmanic text, other than Uthman and Aisha? How could the exact same "errors" be repeated in the multiple copies which Uthman had compiled? Lastly, why would Uthman, whose task was to harmonize and standardize the Quranic text, destroying all imperfect copies, leave erroneous manuscripts to be disseminated under his watch? Al Suyuti himself considered these rational implications and others as damaging to the report's authenticity. 

Al Suyuti also reports from abu Ubayd how Uthman would immidiately correct scribal mistakes which were brought to his attention, citing the examples of 30:30, 86:17 and 2:259 containing very slight errors by the copyists. Why would he then neglect supposedly blatant grammatical mistakes elsewhere? Al Zamakhshari states in Al Kashshaf says those who talk of orthographical error here or elsewhere simply do not know the various ways the Arabs use their language.

More recently, the Islamicist Nicolai Sinai while quoting John Burton's claim of grammatical error in 20:63 based on that hadith from Aisha says 

"The Hafs aan Asim reading of Q 20:63 (in hadhani la-sahirani..) is of course not, strictly speaking, incorrect, for in al-mukhaffafa does not require the accusative (see Wright, Grammar, vol. 2, 81D). On the other hand, it is noteworthy that the majority of canonical readers seem to have read inna hadhani, at the price of linguistic correctness (Ahmad Mukhtar Umar and Abd al-Al Salim Makram, Mujam al-qiraat al-qur'aniyya, 2nd ed., 8 vols (Kuwait: Dhat al-Salasil, 1988, vol. 4, 89–90). There must consequently have been a strong oral tradition in favour of inna instead of in al-mukhaffafa; and it seems probable that this was the original wording, as it is surely the lectio difficilior. Abu Amr and others read inna hadhayn la-sahiran, probably by tacitly going against the rasm. What is significant in the present context is that this oral tradition in favour of inna did not result in an emendation of the rasm".

Further reading answering Sam Shamoun "Is the Qur’an Written in Pure Arabic?"

Sam Shamoun "Some Grammatical Mistakes of the Quran" (2)

Sam Shamoun "Is the Qur’an Written in Pure Arabic?" (1)

Sam Shamoun "Is the Qur’an Written in Pure Arabic?" (1)

Before getting into the issue of Arabic as the perfect medium through which the Quran could be communicated, let us first look at the location in which the Quran came.

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 as 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. In order to make himself understood to an audience within a particular historical context, God had to make use of his addressees’ “cultural and linguistic semantic system”.

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 possesses 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. Firstly, when they pointed to an individual or vague groups of individuals 25:4-5, they should be able to substantiate the claim considering that in those days the learned men were known, yet these people had no particular knowledge that would have been useful in forging the Quran. 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 interacting 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.

The Prophet's enemies kept a close watch on him, trying hard to prove him a liar. They could not point out even a single instance when the Prophet may have had a secret encounter. Tribal life in the desert was very open making it very hard to have regular secret meetings without being noticed. That is why the prophet's critics, even as reported in the Quran, would point to various suspects that were living in everyone's plain sight, although they could not prove any of their claims and neither did these individuals ever agree with these calumnies. And yet these intellectually bankrupt individuals of the past and today want to come and argue that the most intricate of human discourses came to be through occasional chatters and hearsay around a camp fire. The Prophet did have religious discussions with the Jews and Christians but they took place in Medina more than 13 years after the revelation of the Quran had started. And they certainly werent going on in secret. The objective was to point their moral and spiritual errors as well as warn them of the consequences of their persistence in deviation. He met them as a teacher, not a student. Several of these Jews and Christians later embraced Islam, including some of their most learned figures. It should also be noted that the vast majority of verses relating the history of past prophets were revealed in Mecca, before these interactions with the people of the book occurred. 

What insignificant Judeo-Christian community was the prophet interested in appeasing at that point, as sometimes suggested by the mischievious critics? His relatives who surrounded him never questioned his truthfulness instead they gave their wealth and lives for his cause, contrary to some previous prophets, such as Jesus who was rejected and treated as a madman by his closest circle. The prophet Ibrahim himself was rejected by his father who almost stoned him 19:46.

His availability, his openness for inquiries and visits was such that towards an advanced stage of the prophetic mission, revelation came down to regulate the manners of those seeking to visit him, including spending in charity at first, as well as announcing themselves prior to entering his private quarters where his wives resided. The intricate manner in which his followers, in and out of the household, observed, memorized and safeguarded every aspect of his life, everyday and in all situations further dwarfs this already untenable proposition. So, because that idea of him having secret meetings was weak, his enemies instead resorted to character assassination. They resorted to all sorts of calumnies the likes of which previous prophets were victims of, including being a liar, sorcerer or a madman demon possessed. The Quran would then plainly challenge them; if it is something man made then, with all their resources, including the riches they tried bribing the prophet himself with, the availability of masters of eloquence the likes of which the Arab world has rarely seen since then, in addition to all supposed teachers of his, they should be able to respond to the challenge without much difficulty. But the rest is history. To this day, the enemies of Islam have been conjecturing just as they had always been, trying hard to uncover the sources of the Quran. They certainly did and will continue pointing to a plethora of potential human, textual, traditional candidates. On the surface, these sources seem believable but immediately crumble when one compares them on a macro- as well as micro level to the Quran, let alone if one considers other historical facts the likes of which have been pointed to earlier.

What is undeniable, as is evidenced by the recent trend of studies on the Quranic engagement with previous traditions, is that the Quran shows a very high degree of knowledge of Judaeo-Christian tradition, written and oral, canonized or not, factual or folklore, whether restricted to the religious elite or common among the layman. Such intricate awareness is in fact among the fundamental arguments the Quran uses in support of the divine inspiration of the messenger, the gentile, unschooled Arab, a man highly unlikely to have possessed such vast array of information, let alone able to assemble the details in the form of eloquent speech, whose life whether before or after his prophethood, was known and scrutinized from every angle, day and night, by his friends, family and foes.

It is interesting however that we do read in the ahadith of a man appearing out of nowhere on several occasions in the life of the prophet and the community. Including to teach the prophet and his followers, publicly, the daily prayers, as well as to command him and the Muslim soldiers, to besiege the treacherous tribe of Bani Qurayza. These are not trivial issues, whether from the point of view of the religion, or the life of the community, showing that the prophet, although the uncontested leader of his people, was not acting from his own accord in essential matters. The ahadith relate several other encounters with the same man, unknown to the closest companions, appearing in unlikely circumstances among the people, then disappearing, and always in slightly different physical shape. He would be identified as the angel Jibril whenever the people inquired to the prophet. This "man" was around the prophet and the community from the very beginning, as the prophet was taught the first revelation, to other instances where the companions witnessed him teaching the Quran to the prophet, to when they saw him visit the prophet when he became sick. In terms of resemblance, the prophet likened him to a companion named Dihya. Someone else once confused him with Dihya too. Dihya as a side note, was not influential in the community in any way, even after the prophet's death did not attain to any leading position, neither was he among the closest companions whose decisions were considered by the prophet, nor was he knowledgeable so as to contribute to the Quran. Despite this closeness of interaction, none among the community was able to get a hold of the mysterious visitor, or could interact with him once the purposes of his visits were over. Medina's population at the time was around 20.000, the type of social life was very open and each individual had a very large network of friends and kinsfolk. It would have been impossible for this man to escape the people's grasp, let alone the numerous hypocrites who were always on the lookout to discredit the prophet, had he been known or been living in or anywhere near Medina. Other appearances were observed during battles, with men dressed as the occasional visitor of the prophet was

 "Narrated Sa`d: On the day of the battle of Uhud, on the right and on the left of the Prophet were two men wearing white clothes, and I had neither seen them before, nor did I see them afterwards".

Now we get to the issue of borrowed words.

Some polemicists have tried claiming that the Quran was heavily influenced linguistically by Syriac (syro-aramaic), mixing it with pre-islamic Arabic, which brought about what is now referred to as classical Arabic. The obvious implication of the claim being that the Quran is either a heresy produced by Syriac speaking Christians or that the Arabs were very influenced by them during the process of writing it. Archeology on the other hand has shown that classical Arabic pre-dates Islam by several centuries to the least (according to the current discoveries), with a grammar and language closer to modern Arabic than the language of Shakespeare is to modern English. As to Syriac orthography and grammar, it was still defective after the advent of Islam. The Arameans (Syriac speaking people) themselves were not able to read and write their own language correctly due to the reluctance to modify the imperfect Syriac script of Christian scriptures that didnt possess vowels. The correct reading depended on learning the proper traditional enunciation, if not, the reader simply had to make wild guesses. 

As to the early stages of Syriac grammar and its development, not much is known other than through the writings of later writers who composed at a time when the Syriac tradition had undergone the influence of Arabic grammar, which had taken over most of the conceptual and terminological apparatus of that tradition. As to Syriac lexicography, the attempts to document it initiated in the 9th century, but was still a confused and incomplete work until the 10th century Syriac-Arabic lexicon of Bar Bahlul, with both Syriac and Arabic used for the explanation of a word. Arabs on the other hand already had a well articulated and detailed dictionary 2 centuries earlier. It was kitab al-ayn from al-Farahidi and up to this day, most lexicographical efforts in Arabic have been based on his work. This is not to mention all the other lexicographical activity among the Arabs even before Bar Bahlul.

Dismissing what Arabic sources have to say about the Arabs' own history, their language, as well as their religion, for the sake of non-Islamic sources and speculative opinions, these people who levelled the claim went as far as saying that the Arabic script had no notion of vowels till the late 8th century, and neither was there a written form of Arabic during the advent of Islam. It is argued that the language of writing was either Hebrew or syro-aramaic/Syriac. With more preference towards the Syriac origin of the Arabic script, some have taken the assumption further and argued for the Aramaic origin of the Meccan settlement, with its inhabitants originally speaking a kind of syro-arabic that eventually fell into oblivion with, conveniently of course, no trace attesting to its existence to be found anywhere today. 

These empty speculations however are easily dismissed in light of pre and early post-islamic inscriptions available providing ample evidence of a well articulated Arabic alphabet, with most letterforms not having changed at all, or very little, since the time these inscriptions are dated to. There is Arabic papyrus dated to a few years after the prophet's death (22AH), from Egypt, attesting to a well developed written language, thus making it impossible for a supposedly rare and primitive written language at the time of Muhammad to have spread to Egypt in such a short time and be used practically there. Arabic as a language wasnt confined to southern Arabia but was spread throughout the middle east as seen from inscriptions pre-dating Islam going as far north as Zebed in the heart of the Syriac speaking region. On the other hand, the pre-Islamic Syriac inscriptions are confined to the Edessa region in modern south Turkey, a long way from the hijaz let alone Mecca. South of Damascus, pre-Islamic Syriac inscriptions are almost non-existent, except those written by travellers or pilgrims. The closest to the pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions in terms of geography are the Nabataean inscriptions. Nabataeans were Arabs who spoke a non-Aramaic north Arabic dialect akin to the Classical Arabic. Their script was Nabataean-Aramaic (nothing to do with syro-aramaic) but expressed their Arabic language. As seen from a 3rd century inscription, their language included Aramaic archaisms. Like the Nabataean Arabic dialect to the north of Arabia, in the Hijaz where Aramaic had also been very influential as early as the 5th/4th centuries BCE, the hijazi dialect of Arabic too adopted some Aramaic words, but that of course does not make it a mixed language. The Nabataean origin of the Arabic script is now almost universally accepted.

In the Syriac alphabet, only two characters possess diacritical dots whereas the Arabic alphabet contains a total of fifteen dotted characters, which further stresses the untenability of Arabs borrowing their dots from Syriac, not to mention the fact that we have pre and early post-Islamic (pre-dating Uthman's Quran) evidence of the usage of diacritical dots. In fact 10 out of the 15 were already fixed in those early times. As to the vowel markings, one of the shallow evidence offered by those claiming Arabs borrowed them from Syriac is the similarity in the name and sound of a vowel in Syriac and Arabic, namely the fatha called phtaha in Syriac, which in fact didnt enter the Syrian phraseology until around the middle of the 9th century. Also, where are the corresponding appellations in Syriac for damma and kasra of the Arabic vowel system?
Vowel markings, as well as their names (fatha, damma, etc) were invented by Abu al-Aswad al-Duali, in the late 7th century. He had derived grammar from one of the 1st converts to Islam, the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet, Ali ibn Abi Talib. What prompted him to do so was the rapid spread of Islam to regions and people who had to read the non-vowelized Quranic script while they hadnt had a demonstration of the proper recital by a memorizer.

On a final note regarding the Quran's language, Polemicists have misconstrued a known linguistic phenomenon so as to try another weak attack against the Quran. To enforce their obsessive claims of borrowing, they have scavenged the book for supposedly "foreign" words. These words are supposed to betray the Quran's adoption of foreign concepts, as well as the fact it needed additional vocabulary to express new ideas. Firstly, all languages, including Arabic, have eventually adopted foreign words as people have interacted. Sometimes these words retain their implicit cultural or theological baggage. At other times a completely new meaning is assumed.

In the Quran's case, foreign words do not even amount to a fraction of the totality. In addition, many of those words pointed to by the critics either are in fact Arabic, with well established triliteral Arabic roots, or have been part of Arabic vocabulary since before the emergence of the prophet, or were common to other Semitic cognate languages of the region, thus rendering their tracing very difficult. Recently for instance, Wolf Leslau refuted Nöldeke's identification of certain Arabic words in the Quran as Ethiopic, like shaytan or jahannam, proving that the direction of borrowing was actually the opposite. The words that entered the Arabic language prior to revelation cannot be termed foreign. They are now Arabic words. Onus is on the critics to prove that these words were borrowed post Islam. Another case is that of the Aramaic "qeryana" meaning "recitation", which supposedly became the Arabic "Quran" which also is, by its very nature a recitation. Being cognate languages, both Aramaic and Arabic share the same triliteral root for qeryana/quran, qa-ra-a meaning to read/recite. It is thus difficult to ascertain which came from which. It has been however recently suggested that Aramaic had penetrated deep within the peninsula, until Yathrib/Medina, as far back as during the 500s BC through king Nabonidus. Thus, there must have been intra-cultural and linguistic exchanges, between Aramaic speakers and Arabs, one way or the other. Even if one were to grant the adoption by Arabs of Aramaic loanwords, then by the rise of Islam these words had become Arabic words far detached from their full technical implications.

As to the idea of Arabic having a poor vocabulary, anyone familiar with pre-islamic literature and poems knows how rich and expressive the language of the time already was. There was no need to express any of its ideas by borrowing foreign words. In fact none of the supposed words or expression do not have their synonym, either in other passages of the Quran, or in the well established Arabic language. 

In any case, whether a Quranic word truly is originally foreign to Arabic and in addition retains its original meaning, by becoming part of Arabic vocabulary and common use, it necessarily, as in any language, becomes an Arabic word.