why did I write this?
A couple years ago, a just-published book called The End of Faith got a lot of attention. As the title implies, it is an somewhat flamboyant attack on religion in general. An unpromising concept, but the book is much better than I expected. The author, Sam Harris, is surprisingly rigorous and mature, though a few lazy fallacies1 early on overshadow
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Thank you for that very informative article, an idea jumped into my head as I was reading it. Faith (in Islam) can be gained by learning Arabic, but I would have a tough time convincing Harris or anyone else of that.
No human, or group of humans can write anything like the Quran. Seems like a very vain thing to say, but it is stated in the Quran itself. Harris must have noticed that chalange the same as anyone else reading it.
The element of faith is the toughest question all humans face, but it is much easier in Arabic. I do seperate faith from both religion and language. Ghandi for me is a great teacher of faith, I do not ask what Ghandi belived in for I know it was different - but he had much more faith than me.
>> The phrasing is important.
My whole faith is based on no one being able to phrase anything like the Quran, not even poets, it really is that important.
Not all Muslims are like this, I mean most Muslims do not know Arabic and have more faith (taqwa) that me - it just helps Muslims when faith is weak.
Thanks again
Azooz
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He does respond to your point in particular, but briefly:I cannot judge the quality of the Arabic; perhaps it is sublime. But the book's contents are not. On almost every page, the Koran instructs observant Muslims to despite non-believers.
But here Harris is discussing the social and historical influence of religion, not faith itself, so it doesn't respond directly to your point.
What I think Harris would say, if you were to have this conversation with him, is that any text is merely an arrangement of words, and that many texts are held up as "not imitable," but this doesn't mean they are divine. It's a tenant of English departments, for example, that Shakespeare is not just the best author who ever lived, but that his writing is of almost literally impossible quality, to which no human could ever aspire (paradoxically, since no one claims that Shakespeare was anything but human).
I think he'd also argue that if you can use evidence-such as the purported inimitability of the Koran-to support a religion through reason, then the truth of that religion should be subject refutations by evidence and reason as well. And once you allow for that, some level of uncertainty becomes nearly impossible. Harris believes that the religious embrace evidence that supports them, but systematically exclude all evidence to the contrary-and that therefore the supporting "evidence" is not evidence at all, but merely a collection of those observations that happen to fit within the religious viewpoint.
As far as my response-I've always been curious about the nature of Koranic Arabic, and what exactly is special about it. I know it's hard to describe one language using another, but I'd love to know more about the language of the Koran that everyone talks about.
Is it like poetry? Does it rhyme? What is it the symbolism or the imagery or the diction or the metaphor that makes it so great? Is the style terse or flowery? Laconic or full of simile? Etc.
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I think that Harris's opinions would be different if he had read the Arabic Quran. Shakespeare's writeings were limited by the English language - in Arabic he would have had over 10 times the "expresive" power to better display his talent. The Arabic volcabularay and word structures are developed (designed) with poets and writers in mind. But even with Arabic he would reach the point all human writers of any language hate, the point were words can not express what they really want to say - that exact point is were the Quran starts and just keeps on going. The Quran's "clarity"increases as a person gains more Arabic and their Arabic gets better the more they read the Quran.
Evidence to contradict all this is very simple, just a single page as well written as the Quran would do. I know it is imposible to produce such a page from knowledge of Arabic alone.
It is a great read to, hard to put down and gets deeper with each reading. The English Quran says the same things the Arabic Quran does, but Arabic adds much more depth and meaning - details just keep pouring in. I hope you someday learn simple Arabic and listen to the recordings of the jewel of the Nile:
http://www.elsharawy.com/
Each line of the Quran takes about an hour to explain, the grammer and imagery and how it fits into each image and how it fits into the whole. The amount of tiny details in the wording and relation to the next words is described as "each word loves its place". You might see two simple English words, and the Arabic words would be just as simple - but the Arabic combination would fit exactly as no other two word combination could for that place. I must admit that I miss him - he sure could talk (rip) - sorry for going on for so long :)
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