Political
110-534: Militant [REDACTED] Islam portal Ummah ( / ˈ ʊ m ə / ; Arabic : أُمَّة [ˈʊm.mæ] ) is an Arabic word meaning Muslim identity, nation, religious community, or the concept of a Commonwealth of the Muslim Believers ( أمة المؤمنين ummat al-muʼminīn ). It is a synonym for ummat al-Islām ( أمّةْ الإِسْلَامُ , lit. 'the Islamic nation'); it
220-452: A break with traditional Quraysh customs since the vision for the new nation included moral norms that were not unfamiliar to the tribal society of Mecca. However, what distinguished this community from the tribes was its focus of the place of those morals within a person's life. After Muhammad and the first converts to Islam were forced to leave Mecca , the community was welcomed in Medina by
330-566: A certain madhhab or school of thought'. The word kitāb , meaning 'writing' or 'book', occurs very often in the Quran, generally in the sense of a divine rather than a human activity, which consists in writing down and recording everything that is created. More than just referring to a 'book', it conveys meanings of divine knowledge, divine authority, and divine revelation. The term ahl al-kitāb , then, refers to those who have been given access to such knowledge and revelation: they are
440-575: 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
550-419: A commitment to Islam. This happened as a result of Islam beginning to distinguish itself not just from Paganism but also Judaism and Christianity by emphasizing a model of nation based on Abraham . The membership of the ummah was now based on two main principles; the first is to worship God alone and secondly, in order to worship God properly one must be in a guided nation. The essentials of the new society were
660-435: 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
770-1081: 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
880-487: 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
990-638: 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
1100-408: A person, the term ahl identifies the members of that person's household, including their fellow tribesmen, relatives and all those who share a family background with them. However, it may also be used with place names to refer to people living in a certain locality (e.g., ahl al-Madīna in Quran 9:101, 'the people of Medina '), or with more abstract nouns, as in ahl madhhab , 'the people of
1210-594: 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
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#17327661560551320-462: 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",
1430-470: 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
1540-533: A single nation, the ummah . Rather than limiting members of the ummah to a single tribe or religious affiliation as had been the case when the ummah first developed in Mecca, the Constitution of Medina ensured that the ummah was composed of a variety of people and beliefs essentially making it to be supra-tribal. Islamic historian, Tabari , suggested that Muhammad's initial intentions upon arriving in Medina
1650-507: 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
1760-507: 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
1870-476: 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
1980-737: 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
2090-590: 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
2200-559: 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
2310-478: 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
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#17327661560552420-537: Is commonly used to mean the collective community of Muslim people. In the Quran , the ummah typically refers to a single group that shares common religious beliefs, specifically those that are the objects of a divine plan of salvation. The word ummah (pl. umam [ˈʊmæm] ) means nation in Arabic . For example, the Arabic term for the United Nations is الأمم المتحدة al-Umam al-Muttaḥidah , and
2530-408: 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
2750-574: 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
2860-855: 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
2970-445: Is one, and God is their Lord entirely: O messengers, eat from the good foods and work righteousness. Indeed, I, of what you do, am Knowing. And indeed this, your ummah (nation), is one ummah (nation), and I am your Lord, so fear Me. [Qur'an, Surah Al-Mu'minun (The Believers) (23:51–52)] Initially, it did not appear that the new Muslim nation would oppose the tribes that already existed in Mecca. The first Muslims did not need to make
3080-568: Is similar to this, but there is also a verse ( Sūrat al-Ḥajj 22:17) which lists the same groups in another context, that of how God will judge them on the Day of Resurrection , but now adding two more groups to the list: Indeed, the believers, Jews, Sabians, Christians, Magi, and the polytheists—Allah will judge between them ˹all˺ on Judgment Day. Surely Allah is a Witness over all things. The last named group, "the polytheists" (the mushrikūn , lit. ' those who associate ' ), are
3190-508: 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
3300-590: 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
3410-413: 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
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3520-632: Is to be contracted only after permission from the Christian party, the Ashtiname of Muhammad dictates that the Muslim husband is not allowed to prevent his Christian wife from attending church for prayer and worship . More recently, the term has been reappropriated by Jews and by certain Christian denominations as a means of self-identification vis-à-vis Muslims. When used in conjunction with
3630-524: 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
3740-445: 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
3850-642: The Christians of Saint Catherine's Monastery , stated that if a Muslim man wished to marry a Christian woman, marriage could only occur with her consent and she must be permitted to continue attending church to pray and worship. The Ashtiname states that Christians cannot be forced to fight in wars and that Muslims should fight on their behalf; it also states that Christian churches are to be respected and forbids stealing from them. The Ashtiname forbids Muslims to remove Christians from their jobs, including those who serve as judges or monks. Muslims are bound until
3960-848: The Christians , the Sabians , and—according to some interpretations—the Zoroastrians . Beginning in the 8th century, this recognition was extended to other groups, such as the Samaritans (who are closely related to the Jews), and, controversially, Hindus , Buddhists , Jains , and Sikhs , among others. In most applications, "People of the Book" is simply used by Muslims to refer to the followers of Judaism and Christianity , with which Islam shares many values, guidelines, and principles. Historically, in countries and regions following Islamic law ,
4070-486: The Indian subcontinent , amended their laws to extend the application of dhimmi status beyond the originally designated Jewish and Christian communities. In the Quran, the term is used in a variety of contexts, from religious polemics to passages emphasizing the community of faith among those who possess scriptures espousing monotheism , as opposed to polytheism or any other form of belief. The designation of People of
4180-612: The Kaaba and Muhammad's command to take a pilgrimage to Mecca, along with the redirection of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca. The period in which the term is used most often is within the Third Meccan Period, followed by the Medinian Period. The extensive use of the term during both time periods indicates that Muhammad had begun to arrive at the concept of the ummah to specify the genuine Muslim nation. Furthermore,
4290-650: The Last Judgment to adhere to the treaty or "he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet." The policy of the Ottoman Sultans abided by the Ashtiname. During the second caliph Umar 's reign ( r. 634–642 ), the Christian community of Najran and the Jewish community of Khaybar were deported to the newly conquered regions of Syria and Iraq . Umar set aside the Christian ban on
4400-598: The Quran ( أمة واحدة , "One Nation") refers to all the Islamic world as it existed at the time. The Quran says: "You [Muslims] are the best nation brought out for Mankind, commanding what is righteous ( معروف Ma'rūf , lit. "recognized [as good]") and forbidding what is wrong ( منكر Munkar , lit. "recognized [as evil]")" [3:110]. The usage is further clarified by the Constitution of Medina , an early document said to have been negotiated by Muhammad in CE 622 with
4510-568: 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
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4620-457: The dhimmah contract. These other religious groups were guaranteed security by God and Muhammad because of their common religious history as being the " People of the Book ". The dhimmah served as a sort of alliance between Muslims and non-Muslims. In the earlier treaties of the dhimmah, both groups were viewed as equal in status and both were obligated to help the other. However, in later treaties, after Islam had gained more power throughout Arabia,
4730-494: 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
4840-545: The ummah of the Muslims or may be included in the same ummah as the Muslims. The document states that the Jews who join the Muslims will receive aid and equal rights. In addition, the Jews will be guaranteed security from the Muslims, and are granted to maintain their own religion just as the Muslims will maintain theirs. This implies that the ummah is not strictly a religious nation in Medina. The Constitution of Medina lists
4950-419: 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
5060-699: 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. People of
5170-454: 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
5280-571: 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
5390-779: 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
5500-563: The Ansar, a group of Pagans who had converted to Islam. Despite Medina already being occupied by numerous Jews and polytheistic tribes, the arrival of Muhammad and his followers provoked no opposition from Medina's residents. Upon arriving in Medina, Muhammad established the Constitution of Medina with the various tribal leaders in order to form the Meccan immigrants and the Medinan residents into
5610-561: The Book People of the Book , or Ahl al-Kitāb ( Arabic : أهل الكتاب ), is a classification in Islam for the adherents of those religions that are regarded by Muslims as having received a divine revelation from Allah , generally in the form of a holy scripture . The classification chiefly refers to pre-Islamic Abrahamic religions . In the Quran , they are identified as the Jews ,
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#17327661560555720-461: The Book are mentioned several times in the 98th chapter of the Quran, Sūrat al-Bayyina ('The Clear Proof'): [1] The disbelievers from the People of the Book and the polytheists were not going to desist from disbelief until the clear proof came to them: [2] a messenger from Allah, reciting scrolls of utmost purity, [3] containing upright commandments. [4] It was not until this clear proof came to
5830-417: The Book is also relevant to Islamic marriages : a Muslim man is only permitted to marry a non-Muslim woman if she is Jewish or Christian, and he must additionally ensure that any children produced with his Jewish or Christian wife/ wives are raised in the Muslim faith. Muslim women are not permitted to marry non-Muslim men, even if they are Jewish or Christian. In the case of a Muslim–Christian marriage, which
5940-522: The Book living in an Islamic state . The word literally means "protected person." According to scholars, dhimmis had their rights fully protected in their communities, but as citizens in the Islamic state, had certain restrictions, and it was obligatory for them to pay the jizya tax, which complemented the zakat , or alms, paid by the Muslim subjects. Dhimmis were excluded from specific duties assigned to Muslims, and did not enjoy certain political rights reserved for Muslims, but were otherwise equal under
6050-715: The Book! You have nothing to stand on unless you observe the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord.” And your Lord’s revelation to you ˹O Prophet˺ will only cause many of them to increase in wickedness and disbelief. So do not grieve for the people who disbelieve. [69] Indeed, the believers, Jews, Sabians and Christians—whoever ˹truly˺ believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good, there will be no fear for them, nor will they grieve. Sūrat al-Baqara 2:62
6160-696: The Jews and allowed them to pray and reside in Jerusalem . Umar signed a pact with the Christians of Jerusalem, which granted them safety in the region. He also awarded the status of the People of the Book to the Zoroastrians, although some practices contrary to Islam were prohibited. At the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia in c. 640 , the leader of the Mandaeans (one of
6270-543: The Mandaeans of this period already identified themselves as Sabians or whether the claim originated with Ibn Muqla. When the Umayyad general Muhammad ibn Qasim ( c. 694 –715) conquered Brahmanabad , he is said to have granted Hindus , Buddhists , and Jains the status of People of the Book. Islamic scholars differ on whether Hindus are People of the Book. The Islamic conquest of India necessitated
6380-412: 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
6490-415: The Muslim community, such as the consumption of alcohol and pork . Historically, dhimmi status was originally applied to Jews , Christians , and Sabians . This status later also came to be applied to Zoroastrians , Hindus , Jains and Buddhists . Moderate Muslims generally reject the dhimma system as inappropriate for the age of nation-states and democracies. In Judaism , the term "People of
6600-513: The People of the Book that they became divided about his prophethood— [5] even though they were only commanded to worship Allah alone with sincere devotion to Him in all uprightness, establish prayer, and pay alms-tax. That is the upright Way. [6] Indeed, those who disbelieve from the People of the Book and the polytheists will be in the Fire of Hell, to stay there forever. They are the worst of all beings. [7] Indeed, those who believe and do good—they are
6710-473: The People of the Book were expected to be able to recognize Muhammad as a prophet, and the Quran as the final and most complete revelation. Several verses in the Quran are commonly understood as identifying the Jews , the Christians , and the Sabians as People of the Book. Thus for example Sūrat al-Māʾida 5:68–69, which mentions these groups along with the Muslims ("the believers") as being safe from fear and grief: [68] Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “O People of
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#17327661560556820-690: 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
6930-410: The Qur'an, ummah may be referring to a unity of mankind through the shared beliefs of the monotheistic religions. Frederick Mathewson Denny argues that the most recent ummah that receives a messenger from God is the Arab ummah . As the Muslims became stronger during their residence in Medina, the Arab ummah narrowed into an ummah exclusively for Muslims. That is evidenced by the resacralisation of
7040-576: 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
7150-459: The best of all beings. [8] Their reward with their Lord will be Gardens of Eternity, under which rivers flow, to stay there for ever and ever. Allah is pleased with them and they are pleased with Him. This is only for those in awe of their Lord. According to Islamic studies scholar Yvonne Haddad , this short chapter condemns all those who reject the 'clear proof' ( bayyina ) of the Prophet to
7260-402: The chronology of the Qur'an. When it is first used in the Qur'an, it is hardly distinguishable from the term qawm , which can be translated to 'people'. The Qur'an recognizes that each ummah has a messenger that has been sent to relay a divine message to the nation and that all ummah s await God's ultimate judgment. Although the meaning of the ummah begins simply with a general application of
7370-403: The citizens of Syria . However, the term ummah is used to describe the Arab people as a whole, which includes Syrians as well as the people of the Arab world . Ummah can be a supra-national polity with a common history and identity based on religion. Pan-Islamism advocates for the unity of Muslims in one nation as Islamic country or Islamic state . The phrase Ummah Wāhidah in
7480-522: The concept of the ummah. The ummah emerged according to the idea that a messenger or prophet has been sent to a nation. Unlike earlier messengers, who had been sent to various nations in the past (as can be found among the Prophets in the Old Testament), Muhammad sought to develop an ummah that was universal and not only for Arabs. Muhammad saw his purpose as the transmission of a divine message and
7590-574: 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
7700-422: The definition be revised, as most India's inhabitants were followers of the Indian religions . Many of the Muslim clergy of India considered Hindus as people of the book, and from Muhammad bin Qasim in the Umayyad era to the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb in the 17th century, Muslim rulers were willing to consider Hindus as People of the Book. Dhimmi is a historical term referring to the status accorded to People of
7810-417: The dhimmah was perceived as the fulfilment of the religious duties of Muslims along with the payment of zakat. With the new contract of dhimmah, non-Muslims' protection by God and Muhammad became dependent on their payment. The Constitution of Medina is a document created by Muhammad to regulate social and political life in Medina. It deals with various tribal issues such as the organization and leadership of
7920-454: The early Meccan passages generally equate ummah as religion, but in the Medinan passages refer more specifically to the relations of ummah and religion. The final passage that refers to ummah in the Qur'an refers to the Muslims as the "best nation" and accordingly led to it being as an exclusive reference to Islam. A verse in the Qur'an also mentions the ummah in the context of all of the messengers, and that their ummah (nation) of theirs
8030-587: 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
8140-480: The eternal fire of hell, whether they are People of the Book or disbelievers ( kuffār ). The People of the Book are also referenced in the jizya verse ( Q9:29 ), which has received varied interpretations . The Quran permits marriage between Muslim men and women who are People of the Book (Jews and Christians). The Ashtiname of Muhammad , a treaty purportedly made between the Muslims of Muhammad and
8250-728: 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
8360-607: 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
8470-458: 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
8580-597: 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
8690-613: 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
8800-604: 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)
8910-420: 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
9020-708: The laws of property, contract, and obligation. Under sharia , the dhimmi communities were usually subjected to their own special laws, rather than some of the laws which were applicable only to the Muslim community. For example, the Jewish community in Medina was allowed to have its own Halakhic courts , and the Ottoman millet system allowed its various dhimmi communities to rule themselves under separate legal courts. These courts did not cover cases that involved religious groups outside of their own community, or capital offences. Dhimmi communities were also allowed to engage in certain practices that were usually forbidden for
9130-460: The leadership of a political successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad . These polities developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires. There are 62 instances in which the term ummah is mentioned in the Qur'an , and they almost always refer to ethical, linguistic, or religious bodies of people who are subject to the divine plan of salvation. The meaning of the term appears to transform throughout
9240-494: The leadership of the Islamic nation. Islam sees Muhammad as the messenger to the ummah, transmitting a divine message, and implying that God is directing the life affairs of the ummah. Accordingly, the purpose of the ummah was to be based on religion by following the commands of God, rather than kinship. Immediately after Muhammad's death in 632, Caliphates were established and the Shia emerged. Caliphates were Islamic states under
9350-541: The leading clans of Medina , which explicitly refers to Jews, Christians and pagan citizens of Medina as members of the Ummah . At the time of Muhammad , before the conception of the ummah, Arab communities were typically governed by kinship. In other words, the political ideology of the Arabs centred on tribal affiliations and blood-relations. In the midst of a tribal society, the religion of Islam emerged and along with it
9460-883: 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
9570-550: The nation and political figure of authority. The Constitution of Medina declared that the Jewish tribes and the Muslims from Medina formed 'one ummah .' It is possible that the Medinan ummah was purely secular (compared to the later transformation of the ummah in Mecca) due to its variety of beliefs and practices of its members. The purpose of the Constitution of Medina was to uphold political obligations and social relations between
9680-489: The nature of God and creation were in accordance with those of Islam and the other religions recognized as having received a revelation. Ultimately though, most Islamic jurists granted the Zoroastrians partial status as a People of the Book, while still disagreeing on the extent to which legal privileges such as intermarriage with Muslims should be allowed. The Quran emphasizes the community of faith between possessors of monotheistic scriptures, and occasionally pays tribute to
9790-782: 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
9900-537: The new relations between human beings and God and between human beings and one another. The society was held together by the Prophet. Feuding among Muslim clans was forbidden. Muhammad's nation was designed to transform the world itself through action in the world. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
10010-424: 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
10120-510: The opposite of the first named, "the believers" (the Muslims). What is less clear, however, is the status of the groups mentioned in between, who now also include the "Magi" ( al-majūs ), that is to say, the Zoroastrians (who are named only once in the Quran, in this verse). This was a matter of dispute among medieval Muslim scholars, who questioned whether the Zoroastrians had a clear prophet and scripture, as well as whether their doctrines on
10230-549: 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
10340-555: The participating tribal groups, warfare, blood money, ransom of captives, and war expenditures. It is at the beginning of the document that the Muslims from the Quraysh (those from Mecca) and the Muslims from Yathrib (those from Medina) are declared to be an ummah or one nation. The word ummah appears again when the document refers to the treaty of the Jews and states that the Yahūd Banī ' Awf, or Jews, are an ummah that exists alongside
10450-569: The people to whom God has 'sent down' (see tanzīl ) his wisdom by means of a prophet , as an act of divine grace . However, the revelations given to the People of the Book, taking the form of the Torah ( al-Tawrāt ), the Psalms ( al-Zabūr ), and the Gospel ( al-Injīl ), were all partial, and it is precisely by already being familiar with the books ( kutub ) previously sent down that
10560-410: 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
10670-485: The religious and moral virtues of communities that have received earlier revelations, calling on Muhammad to ask them for information. More often, reflecting the refusal of Jews and Christians in Muhammad's environment to accept his message, the Quran stresses their inability to comprehend the message they possess but do not put into practice and to appreciate that Muhammad's teaching fulfills that message. The People of
10780-617: The religious communities that were recognized by Muslims as People of the Book were subject to a legal status known as dhimmi , meaning that they had the option to pay a special head tax called jizya in exchange for being granted the privilege to practice their faith and govern their community according to the rules and norms of their own religion. Jizya was levied on all mentally and physically capable adult males from these recognized non-Muslim communities. Practitioners of non-recognized religions were not always granted this privilege, although many later Islamic states , particularly those in
10890-653: The religious groups who historically claimed to be the Sabians mentioned in the Quran), Anush bar Danqa , is said to have traveled to Baghdad in order to appear before the Muslim authorities, showing them a copy of the Ginza Rabba (the Mandaean holy book), and proclaiming the chief Mandaean prophet to be John the Baptist (known to Muslims as Yahya ibn Zakariyya ). Consequently, the Muslim authorities afforded them
11000-458: 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
11110-458: 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
11220-563: 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
11330-469: The status of People of the Book. However, this account is likely apocryphal, and if it took place at all, it must have occurred after the founding of Baghdad in 762. The earliest source to unambiguously apply the term 'Sabian' to the Mandaeans was al-Hasan ibn Bahlul ( fl. 950–1000 ) citing the Abbasid vizier Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Muqla ( c. 885 –940). However, it is not clear whether
11440-518: The term الأمة العربية al-Ummah al-ʻArabiyyah is used to refer to "the Arab Nation". Ummah is distinguished from shaʻb ( شَعْب [ˈʃæʕb] , "people"), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. The word ummah differs from the concept of a country or people. In its greater context it is used to describe a larger group of people. For example, in Arabic the word شعب shaʻab ("people") would be used to describe
11550-501: 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
11660-458: The various Medinan tribes derived from the Aws and Khazraj as well as the several Jewish tribes that are granted to keep their tribal organization and leadership. The document also reveals that each group, the Muslims and the Jews, is responsible for its own finances except during time of war, when the two are able to share expenses. After the Muslim takeover of Mecca, membership in the ummah required
11770-419: The various tribes. The community members in Medina, although not derived from the same faith, were committed to each other through a desire to defend the common good of the nation. In other words, the nation was united according to preserve its shared interests. The people of other religious beliefs, particularly those that are considered to be "People of the Book" were granted the special protection of God through
11880-528: The word, it gradually develops to reference a general religious community and then evolves to specifically refer to the Muslim nation. Before it referred exclusively to Muslims, the ummah encompassed Jewish and Christian communities as one with the Muslims and referred to them as the People of the Book . That is supplemented by the Constitution of Medina which declares all members of the ummah , regardless of religion, to be of "one ummah ". In those passages of
11990-451: 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
12100-404: Was to establish a mosque, however this is unlikely. Tabari also claimed that Muhammad observed the first Friday prayer in Medina. It occurred on Friday because Friday served as a market day in Medina to enable Jews to observe the sabbath. Membership to the ummah was not restricted to adhering to the Muslim faith but rather encompassed all of the tribes as long as they vowed to recognize Muhammad as
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