Friday Notes from The Quran (1/09/2023) : Some Spelling

 Non Muslims can skip this post. It is too technical and you will not be able to follow this at all.

I should write this column more regularly every Friday. 

The truth is I have enough material to write about the Quran every Friday. 
Actually I have enough material to write about the Quran every day.  
More than that I can write about the Quran TWICE everyday. 
That is how much material I have.

But that would become boring and onerous for the reader and after all this is a blog that talks about other things as well - like guns, bombs, laser weapons and other exciting stuff.

In the graphic here are TWO different writings of the arabic word ne'matallah (nekmatallah) that are found in the Quran. 

Ne'matallah is made up of two words ne'mat and Allah. In English ne'mat can mean blessings or the bounty (you may have other choices of English words). And Allah is of course Allah swt.

For those of you who can read basic Arabic   do note there are TWO different writings of ne'mat. Meaning there TWO spellings of this word ne'mat.  Please see the red circles.

Both the red circles above capture the arabic alphabet 'ta'.  Both red circles are 'ta'. However the upper circle shows a rounder type 'ta'. This is called the ta marbuta.

The lower circle shows a flatter 'ta' (shaped like a flat bowl). This is called the ta maftuhah. 

Both the ta marbuta and the ta maftuhah carry the 'ta' sound. They are just written differently.

I have taken this material from a lecture by Dr Marijn van Putten (pronounced maraayin van pooten) a fantastically learned young man (of Dutch origins) who is an expert Arab linguist. You can watch his video below but it is over 20 minutes and you can get lost in the details. 

Dr Marijn van Putten points out that this word ne'matallah is found written 23 times in the Quran.

In 12 verses the word ne'matallah is written with a ta marbuta.

In 11 verses the word ne'matallah is written with a ta maftuhah.

Here are all the 23 verse references if you are interested.

Of course the meaning of ne'matallah is exactly the same whether it is written with a ta marbuta or a ta maftuhah.

There is now a new generation of scholars from the West, especially German, French, Dutch etc who are expert Arab linguists and researchers into the Quran and Islam. Their scholarship is intense and detailed. 

Of course one may agree or disagree with their conclusions but what we are all looking for is evidence and the truth of the evidence.

Personally I appreciate Dr Van Putten's research into the technical aspects of the Quranic text - the language of book itself. For example his explanation of the spelling of ne'matallah above. 

However  I reserve comment on the non-Quranic "historical" aspects which Dr van Putten also touches upon. Here is the video of Dr Marijn van Putten. 

 

 The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.