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88-417: Maqām ( Arabic : مَقَام "station"; plural مَقَامَات maqāmāt ) refers to each stage a Sufi 's soul must attain in its search for God . The stations are derived from the most routine considerations a Sufi must deal with on a day-to-day basis and is essentially an embodiment of both mystical knowledge and Islamic law ( Sharia ). Although the number and order of maqamat are not universal the majority agree on

176-457: A certain station means not only to experience it outworldly, but to be internally transformed by it and, in a sense, to embody the stage itself. The first of the maqamat is Tawba. Al-Ghazali , a prolific Sufi theologian, wrote that Tawba is the repentance of a sin with the promise that it will not be repeated and that the sinner will return to God. Junayd Baghdadi emphasized the return to God by saying this station "is forgetting your fault". This

264-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as

352-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By

440-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to

528-753: A disposition whose achievement requires active and persistent work on one's self. Riḍā, the final station, is a word that only roughly translates to " acceptance " in English. Along with this is also means taking pleasure in something or someone. Acceptance is said to be the greatest gate to God and is seen as heaven on earth. The station is divided into three parts. The first consists of those who attempt to silence their anxieties until they are able to accept their misfortunes, comforts, deprivations, or bounties. The second part are those who accept God and wish God to accept them. These people do not seek priority in their acceptance even if they view all blessings and misfortunes

616-497: A grave sin. Islamic commentators on the Quran have emphasized that a number of pre-Islamic Arabian deities and jinn , most notably the three goddesses Manat , al-Lat and al-Uzza mentioned in al-Najm , were considered associates of God. Entities worshipped besides God are called shurakāʾ ( Arabic : شُرَكَاء ). After Judgement Day , they will be cast into Hell along with devils (fallen angels) and evil jinn, to whom

704-503: A hindrance in the remembrance of God but also a subtle form of narcissism. People of the second maqamat, Wara' translating to " watchfulness ", are divided into three ranks. The first rank is of those who are adamant about avoiding that which lies between the prohibited ( harām ) and the permitted ( halāl ). In other words, they avoid grey area. This is thought to be the rank of common people. The second rank contains those who are cautious with anything concerning sin. This can only be known by

792-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic

880-436: A lie is more preferable to me than that I should swear by another upon the truth." According to Sufi teachings , to avoid "hidden shirk" ( al-shirk al-khafi ), it is necessary to focus solely on God and give up one's own will. Some Sufi scholars even go so far as to describe a belief in free will as a form of shirk. According to such an uncompromising view, beliefs usually accommodated within monotheism , such as that in

968-489: A man’s heart, without his being able to repel it when it comes, or to attract it as it goes, by his own effort." The maqamat and the ahwal are clearly presented as two series of spiritual states, the first being something one must acquire and the second being something that must be received. To reach a new maqam does not destroy the preceding maqam. Hāl, on the contrary, is by its very nature "instantaneous", though not necessarily passive. The most prominent distinction made between

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1056-638: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb  [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak

1144-496: A mystic they trust it is in agreement with destiny. True faith is accompanied by tawwakul, a disposition that must be incessantly cultivated through pious practice and reflection. This stage is characterized by complete trust in God and surrender to His will. It is agreed upon by some scholars that because the divine power is all-encompassing, complete trust in this power is mandatory. As such, the degree of tawwakul can vary in accordance to

1232-565: A personal devil (rather than the unregenerate self deficient in God) as the source of evil, or a belief in the concept of free will, are regarded as beliefs in creative powers other than (i.e. standing beside/external to) God, and are thus equated with shirk . Abdullah Ansari describes the highest stage of tawhid a human can possess, when the mind becomes fully immersed in the presence of God and understand how all things are put into their proper places. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab , founder of

1320-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from

1408-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",

1496-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for

1584-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means

1672-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as

1760-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted

1848-737: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic

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1936-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak

2024-641: Is a polytheist. Mahmud ibn Lubayd reported, Allah's messenger said: "The thing I fear for you the most is ash-Shirk al-Asghar ." The companions asked, "O messenger of Allah, what is that?" He replied, "Ar-Riya (showing off), for verily Allah will say on the Day of Resurrection when people are receiving their rewards, 'Go to those for whom you were showing off in the material world and see if you can find any reward from them." Mahmud ibn Lubayd also said, The Prophet came out and announced, "O people, beware of secret Shirk!" The people asked, "O messenger of Allah, what

2112-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It

2200-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in

2288-463: Is called a mushrik . The opposite of shirk is tawhid and the opposite of mushrik is muwahhid . The word shirk comes from the Arabic root sh - r - k ( ش ر ك ), with the general meaning of 'to share'. In the context of the Quran, the particular sense of 'sharing as an equal partner' is usually understood, so that polytheism means 'attributing a partner to God'. In the Quran, shirk and

2376-426: Is classified into two categories: Shirk al-akbar is defined as open association and has been described in two forms: Shirke al-asghar may be committed by one who professes tawhid , but for the sake of others. One who offers the ritual prayers in an ostentatious way is a polytheist. One who keeps the fast , or gives alms , or performs the hajj to show the public his righteousness or to earn good name

2464-417: Is comprehended. That is to say, it is only when one stage has been reached that the next stage may be attained. In order to reach a higher maqam, one must continue to possess the maqam below it and not become deprived of it. Each of the stations stand related to each other in a hierarchical order, so that even when they are transcended they remain a permanent possession of the one who attained them. Possession of

2552-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon

2640-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and

2728-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference

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2816-426: Is not stable is called "state of soul" because it disappears to give its place to another state rapidly. This is true of all the qualifications of the heart. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )

2904-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not

2992-503: Is prohibited as well as that which is uncertain. There exist three ranks of renouncers. The first consists of those who feel no joy at worldly things acquired or grief over worldly things missed. The second rank consists of those who have realized renunciation. These are the people who have discovered that in renunciation of material goods, there are goods for the self such as praise of others, honor, and tranquility that must also be renounced. The third rank consists of those who would renounce

3080-519: Is secret Shirk?" He replied, "When a man gets up to pray and strives to beautify his prayer because people are looking at him; that is secret Shirk." Umar ibn al-Khattab narrated that the Messenger of Allah said: "Whoever swears by other than Allah has committed an act of kufr or shirk." (graded hasan by Al-Tirmidhi and saheeh by Al-Hakim ) According to Ibn Mas’ood , one of Muhammad's companions said: "That I should swear by Allah upon

3168-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As

3256-622: Is the third of three"), among other verses, has been traditionally understood in Islam as rejection of the Christian Trinity doctrine , but modern scholarship has suggested alternative interpretations. Other Quranic verses strongly deny the divinity of Jesus Christ , the son of Mary, and reproach the people who treat Jesus as equal with God as disbelievers, who will be doomed to eternal punishment in Hell . The Quran also does not recognise

3344-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that

3432-403: Is thought to mean that after realization occurs God will be in constant remembrance and overwhelm the mind. Ibn Arabi , a Sufi mystic and philosopher who had tremendous influence on post 13th century Islamic thought, spent a great deal of time exploring what religious as well as spiritual authorities identified as being the three conditions of human tawba. The first condition is that of remorse for

3520-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into

3608-596: Is to devise a sin most heinous indeed" (Quran An-Nisa 4:48). The term is often translated as polytheism , however more complex than the English translation. The term also implies that humans need to renounce claiming divine status for themselves by regarding themselves as better than others. Besides worshipping only one God, it also postulates that God must be considered as entirely unique and condemns anthropomorphization. Shirk further implies that God's attributes cannot be associated with any other entity or that any other entity can exist independent from God. Shirk

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3696-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while

3784-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary

3872-614: The Trinity with shirk ("associationism"), by limiting the infinity of God by associating his divinity with physical existence. In a theological context, one commits shirk by associating some lesser being with God ( Allah ). The sin is committed if one imagines that there is another power associated with Allah as a partner. It is stated in the Quran: "Allah forgives not that partners should be set up with Him, but He forgives anything else, to whom He pleases, to set up partners with Allah

3960-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to

4048-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic

4136-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In

4224-732: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c.  8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Shirk (Islam) The one who commits shirk

4312-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to

4400-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of

4488-834: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ    [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized

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4576-627: The Book permanently residing under Islamic rule were entitled to a special status known as dhimmi , and those who were visiting Muslim lands received a different status known as musta'min . In the Quran Jews and Christians, although accused of believing shared divinity by asserting lineage between God and Ezra or Jesus respectively, are not described as mushrik . The term is reserved for pre-Islamic beliefs who associated partners with God. Nonetheless, medieval Muslim philosophers identified belief in

4664-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around

4752-690: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from

4840-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With

4928-402: The amount of faith a person has. To place this trust in someone else leads to the greatest sin, shirk ( hidden associationism ). When every feeling and thought of a mystic is directed in perfect sincerity towards only God, the mystic is then considered to be the true essence of tawwakkul. Tawwakul is not a "passive" form of fatalism that counteracts human agency, rather it can be characterized as

5016-402: The appeasement of anger, of happiness and that of possessions. Muhammad described patience as the most difficult act of faith as well as the forbearing of hardship. Because Muhammad viewed patience as such a difficult act, it is widely followed on the path of a Sufi. Tawwakul, translated " trust " is a noble stage a Sufi must reach once he has learned patience, so that when something is denied to

5104-585: The attribute of Jesus as the Son of God or God himself but respects Jesus as a prophet and messenger of God, who was sent to children of Israel. Some Muslim thinkers such as Mohamed Talbi have viewed the most extreme Qur'anic presentations of the dogmas of the Trinity and divinity of Jesus ( Al-Ma'idah 5:19, 5:75-76, 5:119) as non-Christian formulas, which were rejected by the Church as well. Cyril Glasse criticises

5192-574: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after

5280-587: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of

5368-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around

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5456-607: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From

5544-442: The following seven: Tawba, Wara', Zuhd, Faqr, Ṣabr, Tawakkul, and Riḍā. Sufis believe that these stations are the grounds of the spiritual life, and they are viewed as a mode through which the most elemental aspects of daily life begin to play a vital role in the overall attainment of oneness with God. It is within the power of a Sufi to fulfill the obligations pertaining to the specific station, and keeping it until its full precision

5632-458: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and

5720-597: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward

5808-428: The individual. These people are free from association with anything wrong. This is said to be the rank of the select. The third rank in watchfulness is being suspicious of anything that distracts one from God. This is said to be the rank of the very select. The station of Zuhd, translated " renunciation ", concerns that which is permitted and is at hand, and the obligatory action of relinquishing all desire for that which

5896-613: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about

5984-604: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c.  603 –689)

6072-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA

6160-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya

6248-782: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum  [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve

6336-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on

6424-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on

6512-494: The polytheists are said to sacrifice in order to gain protection. Charles Adams writes that the Quran reproaches the People of the Book with kufr for rejecting Muhammad 's message when they should have been the first to accept it as possessors of earlier revelations, and he singles out Christians for disregarding the evidence of God's unity. The Quranic verse Al-Ma'idah 5:73 ("Certainly they disbelieve [ kafara ] who say: God

6600-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within

6688-609: The related word mushrikūn ( مشركون )—those who commit shirk and plot against Islam—often refer to the enemies of Islam (as in al-Tawbah verses 9:1–15). According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam , the Quran states twice in An-Nisa verses 48 and 116 that God can forgive all sins save one: shirk . Indeed, Allah does not forgive associating others with Him ˹in worship˺, but forgives anything else of whoever He wills. And whoever associates others with Allah has indeed committed

6776-488: The sake of God Most High until the times of hardship have passed." Al-Ghazzali divides this station into different kinds of patience. The first is to have patience with physical pain. This can be caused by serious illness, an accident or even in the tasks of God's services. This patience is judged by laws of the religion. The second kind deals with attraction to evil and greed, essentially concerning matters of self-control. He lists other kinds of patience such as that of battles,

6864-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there

6952-517: The same. The third are those who go beyond the second group by not looking for God's acceptance of them and theirs of God. Instead of this they accept that God has preordained all of his creations. Ḥāl (pl. aḥwāl), translated " spiritual state ", appears many times within Sufi texts as the opposite and complement to maqam. As an early authority on Sufism, Ali al-Hujwiri in his book Kashf al-Mahjub , defines Hal as "something that descends from God into

7040-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of

7128-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of

7216-478: The thought of renunciation at all Faqr, translated as " poverty ", is one of the central attitudes in a Sufi's life. It was also one of the attributes of Muhammad , who said "poverty is my pride". In a spiritual sense, poverty is defined as the absence of desire for wealth in this world (Dunya) to receive more of the pleasures and everlasting wealth of the Akhira (Afterlife). One of the aspects of one who has embodied

7304-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to

7392-411: The true essence of faqr, is that the mystic must never ask anything of anyone else. The reason for this is for one to ask someone else for anything they would be relying on a created being. To receive something from that same being would produce gratitude in the heart which would be geared toward the giver, not towards God Junayd describes the fifth station, " patience ", as "The bearing of the burden for

7480-510: The two spiritual states is that the ahwāl are essentially gifts from God, while the maqamat are acquired through the exertion of effort. In the Ihya Ulum al-din (Revivification of the religious science) al-Ghazali defines Hāl in conjunction and in contrast with maqam. He says: Qualifications ( wasf ) is called "station" ( maqam ) if it is stable and endures and it is called "state of soul" (hāl) if it passes away and disappears without delay…What

7568-462: The use of kafirun (pl. of kafir ) to describe Christians as a "loose usage". According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam , traditional Islamic jurisprudence has ahl al-kitab being "usually regarded more leniently than other kuffar [pl. of kafir ]," and "in theory," a Muslim commits a punishable offense if he says to a Jew or a Christian, "Thou unbeliever." Historically, People of

7656-404: The violations that have been committed. The second is an immediate abandonment of the sin. The final condition is a firm resolve on the part of the sinner to never return to similar acts of disobedience. All of these conditions essentially convey the message that tawba, in its purest form, consists of forgetting one's sin. Al-Arabi concluded that brooding over ones faults, after the fact, is not only

7744-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study

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