For 1400 years, the boldly confident Qur’anic challenge to all of mankind “to produce a single chapter like it” (2:23) in moving eloquence has remained unanswered. For centuries, scholars have dedicated their lives solely to understanding the Qur’an through its grammatical and stylistic constructions, as well as unraveling its various mysteries, secrets, and divinely inspired message. This dedication led to the codification of a myriad of disciplines of the Arabic language, particularly grammar, morphology, and rhetoric—all confirming the tremendous rank of the Quran in Arabic literature Truly, no translation or simple explanation can do justice to the masterpiece that is the Qur’an.
Some academics and opponents of Islam have claimed that the Qur’an has grammatical errors, posing such questions as: why are there gender disagreements? Why are there number disagreements? Why are some verb-noun constructions inconsistent? These supposed grammatical errors, however, actually demonstrate the finesse of the Arabic grammar manifested in the Quran. Each unexpected grammatical state, unexpected verb tense, and apparent violation of number, gender, or rational-inanimate being agreement is used to convey powerful shades of meaning. This course seeks to answer the above questions by explaining and clarifying some of the finer points of Arabic grammar, thus revealing the splendid eloquence of the Qur’an.
The course is based on Tahta Rayat al-Quran by Shaykh Abdul Karim Tattan, a contemporary expert in Arabic, tafsir, and theology living in the U.A.E. who studied with top scholars in Syria, most notably Shaykh Muhammad al-Hamid. Shaykh Abdul Karim authored this book in response to questions that were posed to him by his English-speaking acquaintances who read on the internet that certain verses in the Quran contain grammatical mistakes. The instructor of this course, Shaykh Hamza Karamali, studied this book with Shaykh Abdul Karim in order to convey its contents to the English-speaking world. By studying this important work, you will be sent on journey towards understanding the brilliance of the Qur’an. Not only will the apparent errors be clarified, but you will understand why it is the peak of eloquence.
By the end of this course, you will be able to appreciate what it means for the Qur’an to be a linguistic miracle and will understand why every translation of the Qur’an into any other language will necessarily lose some of the original meaning. You will learn the tafsir of twelve Quranic verses covered in the course and realize what is lost in their English translations. You will also gain an understanding of the difference between Qur’anic Arabic and modern Arabic and how to go about learning Qur’anic Arabic.