MISTAKES
IN THE ARABIC OF THE QURAN
Muslims
believe Arabic is the language of Allah. They believe that the Arabic Quran is
the perfect, exact representation of Allah's words. That is why only the
Arabic Quran is considered authoritative and why so many Muslims who know no
Arabic memorize portions of the Quran in Arabic. However, Muhammad used a number
of foreign words or phrases in the Quran, leaving questioners wondering if
"God's language" is deficient enough to need help from other
languages.
Foreign
Words
(1)
"Pharaoh" comes from the Egyptian language and means king or
potentate. It is repeated eighty-four times in the Quran.
(2) "Adam" and "Eden," repeated twenty-four times,
are Accadian words. A more correct term for "Adam" in Arabic would be basharan
or insan, meaning mankind. "Eden" would be the Arabic janna,
or garden.
(3) "Abraham" comes from the Assyrian language, and would be
more accurately represented by the Arabic Abu Raheem.
(4) Haroot and Maroot are Persian, not Arabic, names of
angels. Additionally, Sirat should have been Altareeq, which means
"the path." Hooris the Persian word whose Arabic counterpart is
Tilmeeth, meaning "a disciple." Jinn normally refers to
good spirits or evil demons, and the Arabic word is ruh. Firdaus is a
Persian word which means Jannah in Arabic and refers to the highest, or
seventh, heaven.
(5) Taboot, taghouth, zakat, malakout are Syriac words.
(6) Heber, sakinah, niaoon, turat, and jehannim come from the
Hebrew language.
(7) Injil, which means "gospel," comes from the Greek
language, and the correct word in Arabic is bisharah.