From: hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic,soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Re: The vanquished always want to imitate the victor (Ibn Khaldun)
Date: 27 Dec 92 23:35:36 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.arabic
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


In article <BzxqL4.Err@ucunix.san.uc.edu> minhaszt@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Zafar T Minhas) writes:

> 
> no. in the sentence that said ala ali or ala ale (however one choses to 
> pronounce it) it means on the family of XXX. so on the family of ibrahim
> and on the family of muhammad. however i see what you are getting at.
> i assume that ale ibrahima is the immediate family of ibrahim, where he had
> two sons who were prophets, as well as the line of prophets that came from
> ibrahim, moses, jesus and muhammad were in that line. mose and jesus were
> from ishaq, and muhammad was from ismail. the line of ala ale muhammad,
> came as a result of a prayer muhammad asked to god which he wanted his family
> to be blessed by god the same way god blessed ibrahim and his family


So your interpretation means either 'immediate family' or the
'extended family' or both. It seems to me that your interpretation means
'extended family' for Ibrahim (Abraham) for if it did not, then
Jesus and Moses could not be included in it. If it means extended
family, then does it not include the Prophet Mohammed?

If it were so, why would the supplication ask for the same
beneficence to be bestowed upon the Prophet Mohammad's family as on
the family of the Prophet Ibrahim ? 

And thus your interpretation implies 'immediate family' for
the Prophet Mohammad, while at the same time meaning 'extended
family' for the Prophet Ibrahim but not including the Prophet
Mohammad. Are you saying that the Prophet Mohammad did not
belong to the family of Ibrahim and needed to be included ?
I'm not saying this. I'm asking you  if that is indeed what
you are saying.

What is the consistent interpretation according to you ?

And finally, since I assume you've read the other posts on the
subject, this is only a custom or habit or convention since
it is not Qoranic. From what time period does this custom
date ? Does it go back to Yathrib ?

I have more simple questions but I'll save them for later.

> i did not say that they used an arabic alphabet, i said an arabic BASED
> alphabet. one letter that is considered a consonant in arabic
>,,,

Any language can probably be written in any orthographic system. Some
might be easier than others. It's really irrelevant to the original
post. The fact still is this. If you only use consonants and
make up vowels via the addition of strokes, 16 distinct strokes will
be difficult to produce.  And this is really not too relevant.

The Turkish orthography is modern and quite suitable for the
Turkish language.

> p.s. i might add that some of us are quite happy the way our languages are.
> though i can't speak turkish, i am happy that my strength in urdu and arabic
> can help me (with great strugle of course) in comprehending what i can read
> in turkish, and that is the point, arabic based languages, like urdu, turkish,
> farsi, etc. helped in shedding the shackles of race and nationalism, i am
> happy that i can go to indonesia and be able to read the things that are written.
> i am happy that i was able to go to afghanistan and be able to communicate at
> least in writing what i had in mind. when i went to the muslim areas of china
> though i couldn't understand what the hell was being said, i could at least
> read it and recognize some of the words. this was not cultural imperialism.
> it was pleasure.

Having only one language for the world has its merits. I suppose one
can make the same arguments for using English as the lingua franca
of the world. In practice, it already is. I don't really care one
way or the other. If the use of Arabic all over the world is not
cultural imperialism, then the use of any other language should not
be considered so either. That was my original point. That was
the reason for giving all the examples.
-- 

	mark	

   hubey@amiga.montclair.edu         hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
   hubey@pilot.njin.net               ...!rutgers!pilot!hubey    
-- 

	mark	

   hubey@amiga.montclair.edu         hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
   hubey@pilot.njin.net               ...!rutgers!pilot!hubey