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Little Arabic translation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| zamie Groupie Australia Joined 5254 days ago 83 posts - 126 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Modern Hebrew | Message 9 of 12 16 October 2010 at 6:13am | IP Logged |
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I wanted to know whether or not this sentence used a subjunctive verb in the part that
talks about Allah destroying them/fighting them. When the word may is not used the subjunctive is used.eg allah fight them.. allah condem them... This is an old fashion way of showing subjunctive, similar to 'god save the queen.' However, my knowledge of Arabic is not good enough to know whether a subjunctive is used in the real arabic. let me show you some examples.. Shakir...And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away! The Jews say, ‘‘Uzayr is the son of Allah,’ and the Christians say, ‘The Messiah is the son of Allah.’ That is what they say with their mouths, copying the words of those who were kafir before. Allah fight them! How perverted they are! Now, do you see the omission of the s on the word fight. The omission creates a subjunctive verb, similar to god save the queen, which i'm sure you're familiar with. Now days, people omit this archaic form and use 'may.' EG 'may god save the queen.' http://www.islamawakened.com/quran/9/30/default.htm Edited by zamie on 16 October 2010 at 6:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5191 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 10 of 12 16 October 2010 at 9:41am | IP Logged |
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قاتلهم الله is an example of an optative sentence, and means "God fight them", not "God fought them", despite its past tense form.
There are other examples, e.g.: رحمه الله = (May) God have mercy on him. [said on hearing of a person's death]; صلى الله عليه وسلم = (May) God bless him and give him peace [said on mentioning Prophet Muhammad's name]. Edited by Andrew C on 16 October 2010 at 10:32am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| aldous Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5243 days ago 73 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 11 of 12 16 October 2010 at 4:00pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you, Andrew, for clearing that up. I find all these syntactic and stylistic aspects of Arabic very interesting but I haven't had the time to study them.
I know this isn't the OP's question, but I was curious about the translation of the verb and looked it up in the Jalālayn. The Jalālayn is a widely-used reference that gives a mainstream interpretation of the difficult and ambiguous terms in the Qur'an. For 9:30, it parsed qātalahumu (God fight them) as la`anahumu (God curse them). The phrase qātalahumu occurs in one other verse, in 63:4, which is structured similarly to 9:30. It basically says the hypocrites are bad news so stay away from them, and it closes with qātalahumu 'llāhu 'annā yu'fakūna, the same two phrases that end 9:30. But here the Jalālayn says qātalahumu is equivalent to 'ahlakahumu (God destroy them). So it looks like both Shakir's and Yusuf Ali's readings are proper from a mainstream point of view. It's interesting how semantically intricate the Qur'an is. Makes me want to delve into Qur'anic Arabic. Edited by aldous on 16 October 2010 at 4:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zamie Groupie Australia Joined 5254 days ago 83 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Modern Hebrew | Message 12 of 12 16 October 2010 at 4:08pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you Andrew c. I looked up optative sentences, and they do indeed mean a wish or
request. That's what i wanted to know, thank you. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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