- Arabic Tidbits -

Our predecessors loved Arabic so much that one of them, Abu Rayhan al-Bayruni (the famous Muslim scholar), said,

والله لأن أُهجى بالعربية أحب إلي من أن أُمدح بالفارسية

'By Allah, to be slighted in Arabic is more beloved to me than to be praised in Persian.'

(Hijaa' -هجاء- is a type of poetry in which the poet insults or slights someone; Madh -مدح- is also a type of poetry where the poet praises a person by enumerating his merits, for example)

Throughout the Qur'an, whenever a question from the people was addressed, Allah `azza wa jall gives the answer by commanding the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) to 'say', for example:

"They ask you concerning the moons, say..." [2: 189]
"They ask you what they should spend, say..." [2: 215]
"They ask you concerning wine and gambling, say..." [2:219]
"The people ask you about the Hour, say..." [33:63]

Every verse that has a question is followed up by 'Say such-and-such'. However, when the people asked about Allah, the answer came in a different style...

"And if My Servants ask you concerning Me, then I am indeed Near..." [2: 186]

In fact, so near that the answer didn't even require a command to the Prophet (s) to 'say' to the people such-and-such. There was no intermediary even in the language used. To make this point even clearer, the Arabic says, 'Fa inni qareeb' - the letter 'fa' was used before the 'inni qareeb' ('I am near') and grammatically, this letter indicates speed, immediate action/answer, reasoning and slight emphasis among other things. Tabarak'Allah...

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