ARABIC, THE MOTHER OF TONGUES (continued...)
Two Aspects Of The Mercy Of God
First is the mercy which was manifested for man without any action having proceeded from man; for instance, in the creation of the earth and heaven and sun and moon and planets and water and air and fire, and all those other bounties upon which man's life and survival are dependent. Without doubt all these bounties are a mercy for man which have been bestowed upon him without any right, through pure grace and beneficence. This is a grace which came into operation even before the coming into being of man who had no kind of hand in it.
The second type of mercy is that which follows upon the good actions
of man. For instance, when he supplicates God earnestly his prayer is accepted,
and when he cultivates the earth laboriously and sows the seed, Divine
mercy fosters the seed, with the result that a large quantity of grain
is gathered. In the same way careful observation would show that Divine
mercy accompanies everyone of our righteous actions whether they are religious
or secular. When we labor according to the laws prescribed by God, Divine
mercy comes into operation and makes our labor fruitful. These two types
of mercy are such that we cannot survive without them. No one can doubt
their existence. These are the bright manifestations which support the
whole pattern of our lives. When it is established that Almighty God has
caused the springs of two mercies to flow for our sustenance and perfection,
and they are two of His attributes which are manifested in two aspects
for the watering of the tree of our being, we must find out how these two
springs, when they are reflected in the Arabic language, are designated.
By virtue of the first type of mercy, God Almighty is called Rahman
in Arabic, and He is called Rahim by virtue of the second type of
mercy. It is in order to illustrate this quality of the Arabic language
that we have mentioned the expression Rahman in the very first line
of our Arabic discourse. As the attribute of mercy by virtue of its elementary
division comprises two types according to the Divine law of nature, the
Arabic language has two elementary words for it. A seeker after truth would
find it most helpful to adopt as a criterion the Divine attributes and
works that are visible in the book of nature, for the purpose of discerning
the subtle distinctions of the Arabic language, and to seek for these divisions
which appear according to the law of nature in the elementary words of
Arabic. Whenever it is desired to bring out the distinction between such
Arabic synonyms as are related to the attributes or works of God, attention
should be directed towards the division between those attributes and works
which is exhibited in the law of nature, inasmuch as the true purpose of
Arabic is to serve Divinity, as the true purpose of man is the comprehension
o God Almighty; and the qualities of everything can be appreciated only
by keeping in mind the purpose for which it has been created. For instance,
an ox is created for the purpose of ploughing or transport. If overlooking
this purpose we seek to use it as a hunting-dog, it would fail utterly
and would prove useless and valueless. On the other hand, if we try it
in the field of its true purpose it soon proves that it carries a great
responsibility within the system of the means of maintenance of human livelihood.
In short the worth of everything is proved by its being utilized for its
true purpose. Thus the true purpose of Arabic is to illustrate the bright
countenance of all manifestations of Divinity. As the proper carrying-out
of this delicate and subtle operation, and to be safeguarded against mistakes,
was beyond human capacity, God the Noble and Merciful revealed the Holy
Quran in the Arabic language, a miraculous illustration of the qualities
of the Arabic language, and of the delicate distinction between the different
elementary words, and the extraordinarily rich connotations of its compounds,
in such manner that all heads were bent before it. All these qualities
of the Arabic language were not only acknowledged by the highest contemporary
linguists, but their failure to match them established that human faculties
are not able to set forth those verities and insights, to illustrate the
true and real beauty of the language. We have learnt the distinction between
Rahman and Rahim from the same Holy Book which we have cited,
as an instance in our Arabic discourse. Every language contains many synonyms,
but till we become aware of the distinctions between them, and so long
as those words do not relate to subjects pertaining to Divinity and religious
teachings, we need take no account of them.
It should also be remembered that man cannot invent these elementary
words, but once they are created by Divine power man can by study discover
their subtle distinctions and their proper use. For instance, the grammarians
have not discovered anything new, nor have they framed any rules which
other people must conform to; but having studied this natural language
they discovered that it was illustrative of a system of rules, and they
proceeded to formulate those rules in order to facilitate the study of
the language. Thus the Holy Quran by using every word in its proper place
illustrated how the Arabic elementary words can be manipulated, how they
serve the subjects of Divinity, and how subtle are their mutual distinctions.
Connotation Of Some Arabic Words
Now we proceed to set forth some of the connotations of another Arabic word which we have selected from the Holy Quran and which is Rabb. This word occurs in the very first verse of the first chapter of the Holy Quran where it is said: Every type of praise belongs to Allah who is the Rabb of the universe. Lisanul Arab and Tajul Urus, which are the two most reliable Arabic lexicons, have set forth that the word Rabb comprises seven connotations: Malik (Master or Owner), Sayyad (Master or Chief), Mudabbir (Regulator), Murabbi (One who nurtures), Qayyum (A11-sustaining), Mun'im (Bestower), and Mutammim (Perfector). Of these seven, three refer to the personal grandeur of the Almighty. Of these one is Malik, which connotes that He owns the universe and can use it as He likes and His ownership of it is not shared by any other. This word in its true meaning cannot be applied to anyone save God Almighty, inasmuch as full control and complete power of disposal and perfect rights cannot be attributed to anyone except God Almighty.
Sayyad is one who has subordinate to him a large number who should serve him out of sincere eagerness and natural obedience. The distinction between a sovereign and sayyad is that a sovereign subdues people by his might and the strictness of his laws, and the followers of a sayyad obey him voluntarily out of their sincere love and eagerness and inclination and call him their chief out of sincere affection. A sovereign can be obeyed in that spirit when he becomes a sayyad in the estimation of his people. This word can also not be used for anyone beside God Almighty, inasmuch as true and eager obedience which has no personal purpose in view cannot possibly be accorded to any beside God Almighty. He is the only One before Whom the souls prostrate themselves, for He is the true source of their creation. That is why every soul naturally bows down to Him. The worshippers of idols and of men have also the same eagerness for His obedience as a righteous believer in His Unity, but they fail, on account of their error and faulty desire, to recognize the true spring of life, and on account of their blindness they direct their unique eagerness towards a wrong object. That is why some of them deify stones, or Ramchandra, or Krishna, or the son of Mary, under the mistaken belief that the object of their worship is the true God. They ruin themselves by investing creatures with Godhead. In the same way those who pursue their own desires have been misled in their spiritual search for the True Beloved and Sayyad. Their hearts also sought a beloved and a true Sayyad, but having failed to recognize the true desire of their hearts, they imagined that the True Beloved and Sayyad, whom the souls seek and whom they are eager to obey, are worldly wealth and properties and delights. This was an error on their part. The true inciter of the spiritual desires, and the true source of pure connotations, is the Being Who has said: I have created men, high and low, so that they may worship Me (51:57); meaning that He alone is the purpose of the creation of man and all his faculties, which have all been created so that God should be recognized and worshipped. This verse indicates that man by his very creation has been invested with the search and recognition and obedience of God. Had man not been invested with these, there would have been no pursuit of passion, no idol worship, and no worship of men in the world, inasmuch as every error results from pursuit of the discovery of truth. Thus God alone is the true Sayyad.
Another of these attributes is Mudabbir. This means the keeping in mind, with reference to every enterprise, the whole system of events in the past, and of consequences in the future, and the putting of everything in its proper place having regard to that system, and not to embark upon anything outside it. This attribute also cannot be applied to anyone beside God Almighty, inasmuch as perfect planning demands knowledge of the hidden, and that belongs to God Almighty alone.
The remaining four names-- Murabbi, Qayyum, Mun'im and Mutammim -- indicate those bounties of God Almighty which are bestowed upon men on account of His Perfect Mastership, His Leadership, and His Planning. Murabbi means he who nurtures, and perfect nurture means that all aspects of man, like his body, soul, faculties and capacities, should be nurtured and the system of nourishment should extend to the climax of man's physical and spiritual progress. The manifestation of the point at which the name of humanness or its elements begin, and its features begin to move from nothingness towards existence, is also nurture. This shows that in Arabic idiom rububiyyat has very wide connotations, and that it covers the whole expanse from the point of nothingness to the climax of perfection. The names Creator and the like are derivatives of Rabb.
Qayyum means one who safeguards the system. Mun'im means one who bestows all bounties, which man or any other creature can receive, according to its capacity, and is desirous of obtaining, so that it might arrive at its climax, as is said: Our Lord is He Who has bestowed upon everything a perfect creation and has then guided it towards greater perfections (20: 51). Thus everything was bestowed all the- faculties that it needed, and was furnished with the guidance needed for achieving its climax. Mutammim means that the system of beneficence should not be left deficient in any respect, and should be carried to its climax in all its aspects. Thus Rabb comprises all the diverse connotations that we have set out briefly above.
We have to record with great sorrow that a stupid European Christian writer has set out in one of his books that Christianity possesses this superiority over Islam, that it has named God Almighty 'Father', which is a very dear and lovely name, and that this name has not been applied to God in the Quran. We are surprised that this critic has not considered what honour and greatness the lexicons have attributed to the expression 'Father', for every word acquires true honour and greatness from the position assigned to it by a lexicon, and no one is entitled to bestow such honour upon a word as the lexicon does not bestow. That is why even the Word of God does not disregard the lexicon, and according to all sensible people, in order to determine the honour and greatness of a word, recourse must first be had to the lexicon, in order to ascertain what robe of honour it has bestowed upon that word. Keeping this criterion in mind, we find that all that the lexicon discloses is that when a person is in fact born of the seed of another, and he who drops the seed has no further connection with his birth, it is said that that other is his father. If it should be desired to indicate that Almighty God is Himself the conscious Creator of a person, and Himself leads him towards perfection, and out of His great mercy bestows appropriate bounties on him, and is Himself his Guardian and Supporter, the lexicon does not permit that these connotations may be expressed by the employment of the word 'Father'; the lexicon provides another term for the expression of this concept, and that word is Rabb, the true meaning of which we have just set out on the authority of the lexicon. We are not at all entitled to invent our own lexicon, and must follow the division of words established by God from the beginning.
The Use Of The Word 'Father' Is Derogatory Of God
This would show that the application of the word Father to God is disrespectful and derogatory of Him. Those who have invented against Jesus the charge that he was in the habit of calling God Almighty Father, and in fact believed that God was his father, have been guilty of accusing him of a false and hateful offense. Can any sensible person imagine that Jesus was guilty of such stupidity as to have applied to God, The Glorious, a name the etymological meaning of which should be so low and humiliating and indicative of weakness, powerlessness and helplessness from every point of view?
The word Ab (father) is so low and humiliating that it does not necessarily import any kind of design or nurture or love. For instance, a goat that covers a she-goat and drops its seed or a bull that satisfies its lust with a cow and then turns away from it without any thought of a calf being born of its action, or a pig which under the surge of its lust is constantly occupied in satisfying it and has no notion that through its repeated action whole litters of piglets might be born and spread in the earth, would no doubt, if its lustful activities produce its young, be called their father. According to all the lexicons the word 'father' does not in the least imply that a father after dropping the seed should take any further action so that a child may be born, or that this should be his design at the time of cohabitation; indeed the word 'father' does not necessarily imply desire for progeny, and all that it imports is that he should drop the seed, and it is only on that account that lexicographically he is called father. Then how can it be permissible that such a worthless word, which is so appraised in all languages, should be applied to the All-Powerful One, all of Whose works are manifested by virtue of His Perfect Designs, Perfect Knowledge and Perfect Power? How can it be right that the same word which is used for a bull and for a pig should be used for God Almighty also? What impertinence is this which the stupid Christians persist in committing;? They have been left with neither shame nor modesty nor any understanding of human values. The doctrine of the atonement has affected their human faculties like paralysis, so that they have been rendered utterly worthless and without feeling.
We would here advert to some doubts which Max Muller has expressed in the first volume of his book Science of Languages. He has said:
One factor that has blocked the progress of knowledge is that some people, in order to expose other people to ridicule and contempt, employed contemptuous epithets to them, and thus failed to learn their languages. So long as the words wild and dumb (ajami) as applied to those people were not excluded from human dictionaries, and did not give place to the expression 'brother', and so long as it was not acknowledged that all mankind are of one species, a beginning could not be made with the science of languages.
This statement shows that the writer is critical of the Arabs and imagines that the expression Ajam, applied by them to those whose language is other than Arabic, is used out of bigotry and contempt for those people. He fell into this error because his Christian bigotry stood in the way of his finding out whether the expressions Ajam and Arab were devised by man or by God Almighty. He has himself acknowledged in his book that man has not the capacity to formulate the elementary words of a language on his own. Arabic has two words in juxtaposition to each other. One is Arab which connotes those who are eloquent and possess mastery of expression; and the other is Ajam which means non-eloquent and tongue-tied. If Mr. Max Muller thinks that these two words are not ancient and Islam has invented them out of bigotry, he should specify the original terms which were used in these connotations, for it is not possible that a people should not have had any appellation in ancient times. If it is found that these two expressions are ancient, this would mean that they were not coined by man but that the Almighty Knower of the unseen, Who has created man with diverse capacities, has Himself applied these two names to different peoples corresponding to their respective abilities.
Another consideration is that if these two expressions, Arab and Ajam, have been coined by some human being out of bigotry and contempt, then doubtless they would be contrary to fact and would be altogether false. But we have established in this book that the word Arab expresses a reality, and that it is true in fact that the Arabic language, on account of its system of elementary words and its delicate structure and other wonders, occupies so high a position that one is compelled to affirm that in comparison with it other languages are like the dumb. Moreover, we observe that other languages are motionless like solids and are so bereft of any movement towards development as if they are lifeless, and we are compelled to acknowledge that they occupy a very low position. The Arabic language describes non-Arabs politely as Ajam but in truth they did not deserve even this appellation. Had the low condition of their languages been correctly described the most appropriate expression to be applied to them would have been that they were dead languages {Ibid pp.20-36 footnote}.
Glory be to Arabic, how beautiful is its countenance, looking out of perfectly-illumined mantles! The earth has been brightened with its exalted lights, and it has been proved to possess the climax of the yearnings of man. In it are found wonders of the All-Wise and Powerful Maker, as they are found in everything which proceeds from the Great Creator. Allah has perfected all its limbs and has not left out anything from its beauty and splendor, and no doubt you will find it perfect in expression, comprising all the objectives of man. There is no action that begins at any period of time, nor is there any attribute out of the attributes of Allah, the Bestower, nor is there any doctrine out of the doctrines of mankind, but there is in Arabic an elementary word apposite to it. Should you have a doubt let us know the contrary {Ibid, pp. 68-69}.