34:10,11

[BaconWizard]

I have little to add to this thread having too little knowledge of Arabic or The Qur'an. But I am very interested in chainmail as well as religion so I just wanted to say what a fascinating thread and thanks to all posting in it and taking time to find sources etc.

 

[Silent Ocean]

Salam again,

Sorry, I'll be the first to admit my knowledge of Arabic is terrible. What does that mean?

lol, means peace is upon the ones that follow guidance.

Nowhere. Where did I say that the Quran states that mail armour was invented by the Israelites?

Nowhere too, it's my impression.

Corpus Quran refers to it as links of armour. Tafsirs by the Al Jalalayns and Ibn Qathir also make it clear this is a reference to chain armour. Furthermore, Mujahid, Ibn Abbas and Qatadah are quoted as saying that this is a reference to rings linked together and chain armour.

Don't depend on Corpus it is never accurate that what we Learned when I took a class about it. All the tafseers are lacking. You know that tafseer is interpretations, never the actual thing; they are either right or wrong. In this case, they are shamefully lacking. I advice you to use a dictionary it is way better than tafseer, because it list to you all the meaning a word can carry, rather than what mufaseeron do by choosing what they see fit most.

Perhaps Moses flew in a glider, or rode a bicycle.

May peace be upon him.I didn't like this.

Had the Israelites invented chain-mail armour, how would it have been possible that no one in the middle east would have heard about it until the Romans came?

for me, possible it is. The cases of 'how' can be listed by many possibilities.

Tisbah al khaeyr.

Ty you too tesbah ala khair, but where did you learn your Arabic?

 

[TG123]

Not many Tafsir have been retained. One reason being is because we are not supposed to spread our own interpretations. When we give commentary we have to be certain to give reasons for our commentary. Give verifiable reasons we believe it to be valid and acknowledge we may be in error.

Fair enough, I respect that. Would you say they should not be used?

Each Muslim has the obligation to search all things. While it is permissible to use Tafsir as the opinion of the author, we must remember, it is not sacred writing and not the word of God(swt)

Keeping that in mind and know that until the development of photocopying, mechanical printing of Arabic was not possible. all books had to be hand copied. Many of the older Tafsir only existed in the hand written original made by the author. Once that was gone, it was gone.

Without going into detail of the difficulty in a mechanical printing: Nearly every letter has 3 different shapes depending on it's location in a word. The Pronunciation marks get even more complex and their location is based on the word.

Even with Qathir (ibn Kathir) we do not know how close to the original, today's copies are.

The Problem with the modern English language Tafsir, it might be based upon a translation, not the original Arabic.

Tafsir is a guide only and not an absolute as to what the interpretation is. Tafsir come and go, it seems everybody has an opinion.

Fair enough. Do you have evidence that the tafsirs I have presented are copied wrong?

The verse without the tafsirs states that God taught David how to make coats of mail from iron, and taught him to arrange the links properly. Coats of mail did not exist until the 4th century BC, and they were invented in Europe.

 

[TG123]

Salam again,

Wa alaikum salaam to you.

lol, means peace is upon the ones that follow guidance.

Cool. Thanks for sharing this. I agree.

Nowhere too, it's my impression.

No problem. I wasn't saying such a thing.

Don't depend on Corpus it is never accurate that what we Learned when I took a class about it. All the tafseers are lacking. You know that tafseer is interpretations, never the actual thing; they are either right or wrong. In this case, they are shamefully lacking. I advice you to use a dictionary it is way better than tafseer, because it list to you all the meaning a word can carry, rather than what mufaseeron do by choosing what they see fit most.

Thanks for the advice. Where can I get a dictionary and how would I use it? WoodrowX and I tried using Google Translate and Babylon and the results were... lol, not very educational.

May peace be upon him.I didn't like this.

Sorry if the example came across as offensive. I meant to show how unrealistic it would be to present Moses riding a bicycle, because bikes were not invented until a few thousand years later. It would be as unrealistic to present David wearing coats of mail, since this was also not invented until 700 years afterwards.

for me, possible it is. The cases of 'how' can be listed by many possibilities.

Please share them.

Ty you too tesbah ala khair, but where did you learn your Arabic?

I went to Palestine a few years ago and did some human rights work, with a Christian group and then a secular group. Our job was to document abuses of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and settlers, and to intervene when possible to try stop them. We also worked with and encouraged Palestinians peacefully resisting the abuses, and Israeli groups who work with them. I spent a few weeks in Hebron.

Before going, I had a few visits with a Palestinian Christian friend, who taught me a bit of Arabic from a book. Despite his best efforts, I know very little and probably did a better job of embarrassing myself than communicating effectively- but Palestinians are very nice people and they kept encouraging me. My terrible Arabic is a reflection of me, not him.

 

[Silent Ocean]

Thanks for the advice. Where can I get a dictionary and how would I use it? WoodrowX and I tried using Google Translate and Babylon and the results were... lol, not very educational.

LOL no! why Google and Babylon they are no good and funny with their translation ~_~ I would recommend a printed dictionary from Arabic to English.

Please share them.

LOL I swear I knew u r gonna say this & I was planning on writing [don't ask me to state them] so yup I'm still with what I wanted to write. If you have imagination you can guess my possibilities (-:

I went to Palestine a few years ago and did some human rights work, with a Christian group and then a secular group. Our job was to document abuses of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and settlers, and to intervene when possible to try stop them. We also worked with and encouraged Palestinians peacefully resisting the abuses, and Israeli groups who work with them. I spent a few weeks in Hebron.

Before going, I had a few visits with a Palestinian Christian friend, who taught me a bit of Arabic from a book. Despite his best efforts, I know very little and probably did a better job of embarrassing myself than communicating effectively- but Palestinians are very nice people and they kept encouraging me. My terrible Arabic is a reflection of me, not him.

That's great, and yup Palestinians are nice and smart as well ma sha'a Allah. While as for your Arabic, I don't find it terrible, I was just curious how you learned it.

 

[TG123]

LOL no! why Google and Babylon they are no good and funny with their translation ~_~ I would recommend a printed dictionary from Arabic to English.

Thank you. I will have to get one sometime.

LOL I swear I knew u r gonna say this & I was planning on writing [don't ask me to state them] so yup I'm still with what I wanted to write. If you have imagination you can guess my possibilities (-:

I hope I have some imagination, but unfortunately I am unable to read minds- yours or anyone else's. I know that God can, but (thankfully!) I am not Him.

If you have some theories as to how David was making chain-mail for him and his men at a time some 700 years before it was invented, I would love to hear it.

I think that creativity is great, but evidence is also important.

For example, I could say that God taught Moses how to build and ride bikes and provided them for his men, but without evidence to back that up, it is just an idea. It is impossible to prove, but very easy to cast doubt on since we know that bikes were not invented until the 19th century and we have no record in the world of anyone riding them at any time before that.

That's great, and yup Palestinians are nice and smart as well ma sha'a Allah.

Ameen to that.

While as for your Arabic, I don't find it terrible, I was just curious how you learned it.

Thank you, you are too generous.

Where did you learn your English? I think it is pretty good - lol and a lot better than my Arabic.