From: minhaszt@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Zafar T Minhas)
Subject: Re: The vanquished always want to imitate the victor (Ibn Khaldun)
Organization: University of Cincinnati
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 05:47:20 GMT

In article <Dec.22.15.11.44.1992.10738@pilot.njin.net> hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey) writes:
>In article <1h7fvsINNldr@function.mps.ohio-state.edu> hermi@function.mps.ohio-state.edu (Lotfi Hermi) writes:
>
>> [22 ] The vanquished always want to imitate the victor
>> in his distinctive mark(s), his dress, his occupa-
>> tion, and all his other conditions and customs.
>
>Lotfi, do us a favor.  Would you please write out in Arabic
>and give a translation of the phrase that every Muslim must
>repeat many times in his lifetime--the part at the end of
>prayer when he says something like this; "O God, if you had
>really loved me you would have made me a Semite (i.e. a descendant
>of Abraham)". 

This is what we muslims must say at the end of our prayers,
attahiyatu lillahi wa-s-salawatu wa-t-tayyibatu. assalamu alaika ayyohan-
nabiyyu wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. assalamu alaina wa ala ibad-illah
wa-as-salihin. ash-hadu an la ilaha illa-llahu wa ash-hadu anna muhammadan
abduhu wa rasuluh.
allahuma salli ala muhammadin wa ala ali muhammad kama sallait ala ibrahima
wa ala ale ibrahima innaka hamidun majid.
rabbi ja'alni mukimu-s-salati wa minzuriyati rabban wa takabal dua rabana
aghfirli wa li walidaya wa lil-muminina yauma yaqumu-l-hisab.
assalam alaikum.
assalam alaikum.

now what i would like for you to do is to get an arabic dictionary and find
out where your sentence will fit in what we pray above. (make a stupid 
statement, expect a stupid response).


>
>I think you know what part. Do us a favor. Give us the exact
>translation tell me why my interpretion is not correct.

let me put it to you succinctly. you don't know arabic, you are biased, you
are twisting islam to what it isn't but what you would like for it to be,
and .... etc.
>
>
>And after that, please read Ibn Khaldun above.
>
>And explain to  us how North Africa and Egypt became Arabized.

i don't know what ibn khaldun said, but the history that i have read (not
the biased, eurocentric twisting of facts to fit the image that the european
is the civilized while the rest of the world has, was and will always be 
barabaric) said that the people of north africa were staunch monotheistic
(unitarian) christian who were expecting a prophet from arabia. they were
also being cruelly persecuted by the overlords of the areas, the romans, who
by that time were trinitarian christians. amr-ibn-al-aas came with his army
to rid the tyranny of roman rule, and the people excepted islam because
the prophecy of the prophet to come had been fulilled (muhammad was by
that time dead). the invaders definitely treated the natives better than
the romans did. so the people excepted the culture of the
arabs as well, also north africa was very sparsely populated so it was
easy for the muslims to populate the land. 
>
>And explain to us, (again using Ibn Khaldun) how the Ottomans
>almost completely forgot Turkish and started using Arabic and
>Farsi.

>
did the ottomans really almost completely forget turkish? gee all of the
historical writings that i have seen from turkey ranging from the seljuks
to the present time are in turkish! i can read the old stuff because it
is written in arabic style, i can even understand some of it cause of my
knowledge of urdu. arabic and farsi were the lingua franca of asia at the
time, so you would expect many official documents to be written in arabic
and farsi. you could compare the situation back then to now. a large portion
of books published in other countries are written in english, but no one
is forced to speak in english, but if you go to different places, you better
know english or there will be problems.

>And explain to us how and why it's necessary for everyone to learn
>Arabic to really understand the Koran. And why the translation of
>the Koran is not the Koran, only the Arabic version can be called
>the Koran. 

well if the quran is revealed completely in arabic, then it would make sense
for one to understand arabic to understand what the hell one is reading.
let me ask you this: hal anta tadrusu fi madrasate kulliyatin? ma tadrus?
wa min aina anta? 
i wrote something in arabi. if you knew arabic, you would have no trouble
understanding what i said.
in another more humorous scenario. in the canadian parlaiment, a francophone
was speaking out against a bill, while he was speaking, an anglophone
got up and punched him in the face, the anglophone obviously had some knowledge
of french, but not enough to truly understand what the francophone was
saying otherwise he wouldn't have punched the man!
>
>Explain to us why all the conservative-religious folk in Turkey
>insist on using Arabic words constantly, and explain to us

man turkish is a language that is filled with arabic words, if i said
hi to you in turkish, i would say salam alaikum. my name "zafar" is
very classic arabic name, but when i introduce myself to a turkish
friend he was delighted to find out my name was so "turkish".

>why this is not cultural imperialism and using Latin-based
>words in Turkish is cultural imperialism.

the use of an arabic based alphabet was the natural result of the difficulty
of using a cuneiform/greek/aramaic type alphabet that did not have the 
versatility that the arabic based alphabet did, it was also not forced down
anyones throat, the intellectual circle was using arabic, so it spread from
there. now if the people decided, well we are going to use a roman based
alphabet for our language then the case could and should be made that
it is the choice of the people to do that, but that was not the case. it was
force fed and along with that, the ideals of an alien culture were force fed
as well, so the loss of the arabic style alphabet was seen by people at
the time that there culture was being stepped on.

now as for the replacement of arabic words with turkish. i am a muslim
and i greet another muslim from pakistan or india i would say (in due course
of custome): as-salam alaikum (sahib, khan sahib, bhabhi, janab-e-ala,
janab, hazoor, begum, your choice of title).

aap tashrif lei a-ain.
already almost half the words i spoke were of arabic or farsi origin. this is 
the common language that is used, now if i were to speak with words
tht were almost all sanskrit origin, for one thing no one would understand
what the hell i was saying, and if i tell them that i am going back to
my roots, they would have every reason to think i was wierd. well who
knows. i just might start a trend.

 Explain to us why
>Turks using Turkish words instead of Arabic words are just being
>funny trying to make up new words.

already tried to explain it.
>
>And why is it that Arabic names such as Slave-of-Allah (Abdullah)
>is Ok for a Turk but not Allah-in-Kulu is a strange name noone
>would use ?

i ahve heard names like allah-rakha and khuda dad (india, pakistan).
i don't know why no one would use allah - in - kulu, maybe it sounds
pedantic.
>
>Explain why a Turk could repeat ; "God please treat us like
>the great descendants of Abraham" without feeling degraded (after
>all you can't pick your ancestors), but "Ne mutlu Turkum diyene" is
>a degradation for Kurds ???

don't know what the hell you are talking about there.
>
>Explain how all these things are not cultural imperialism.
>
>Explain to us why all the people had messengers sent to them but
>the only ones were apparently Semites (Babylonians, Arameans, Judeans,
>Arabs)--no Turks, no Russians, no Frenchmen.

the quran says that all nations had there prophets, just because there is no
detail about them in the quran does not mean that they were not there.

>
>I can go on for a long time but I'll stop here.
>-- 
>
>	mark	
>
>   hubey@amiga.montclair.edu         hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
>   hubey@pilot.njin.net               ...!rutgers!pilot!hubey    

are you upset that islam is the only religion that was/is able to cross
the bounds of nationality and nationalism and embrace almost all people
even some american indians without the cultural imperialism that YOUR
race tried to give to us?

zafar minhas
minhaszt@ucbeh
minhaszt@ucunix


Xref: sparky soc.culture.arabic:5851 talk.politics.mideast:23960