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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Meh... Not an article of faith.  The Quran is poetry and like most poetry the beauty of the original is extremely challenging to replicate in translation.  But this is really an aesthetic matter--not that aesthetics don't matter to worship (see the Messiah, for example).

But it is a commonly held view, which explains all those Indonesian school children doing Koran recital contests in a language they don't understand at all.

Do you think the fact they can recite it from memory without understanding a word of the Arabic makes them better Muslims than those who can only read the Koran in their native tongue? Or than those who cannot read it at all because they are illiterate and in fact have little to no exposure to the Koran except for perhaps the prayers their elders have taught them because they are nomadic?  Likewise, there are plenty of Muslim girls in the Middle East and Africa who have never gone to school, have never have gone to mosque, but learn their prayers from their mother and that's about it for their Islamic education.  All are still considered good Muslims.

Besides to really understand the Arabic, you have to have very deep knowledge of Arabic as it existed in the seventh century--the language has moved on and the meanings of words has changed.   So you could be very literate in Arabic, but if you are not steeped in 7th century linguistics you still may not really understand large bits of the Koran.  (That is why PP keeps referring to various scholars--they are providing their modern Arabic translations of passages written in archaic Koranic Arabic.)

Really very silly to tell someone to shut up because they don't speak Arabic.  The PPs don't speak seventh century Arabic either.  If they are diligent and want to get at the true meaning of words in sentences, they look them up--reams of websites more than willing to tell you what the words meant in seventh century Arabia (not all really passing a scholarship test, though).  And, in the age of the internet, all this linguistic wisdom is just as available in English, that being the most common written language in Pakistan, a really large Muslim country full of people who don't speak Arabic but are quite serious about their religion.[/quote]

You'd get no argument from me.  But give me your opinion on a serious question, though: Must a good Muslim believe in the Quran, chapter and verse?  Can a good Muslim reject or dislike parts of the Quran? And still remain a devout Muslim?[/quote]

My thesis was that I think it is perfectly possible to be a good Muslim knowing almost nothing about the Koran.  It does not follow, though, that one can be a good Muslim and reject the Quran outright.    However, it would be possible, at least according to medieval Islamic theologians to question much of it or believe that parts are not literally true but rather must be interpreted and adapted in the context of the times and social evolution.  That is, one could view it as an evolving document that can be flexibly applied and parts could be rejected as having applicability in the present day (useful as they may have been in the past).

This is kind of like the arguments about the US constitution, a much more modern document.  Some argue original intent (and essentially there were actions taken in the 12th century to say the meaning of the Koran was frozen at the time it was revealed to Mohammed), while others say it is an adaptable living document.  People who say that today about the Quran are generally viewed with suspicion, but it was an extremely strong strand of thought in the latter part of the first millenium.  They eventually lost the argument but they weren't considered bad Muslims.[/quote]

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