What Reigns Supreme In Egypt: Faith or Despair? The Beauty of Language.............
“It’s no surprise, then, that a drive in an Alexandrian taxi usually involves listening to tajweed on FM 90.1. Drivers make their rounds throughout the city while reciting along with Sheik Hosary or Sheik Abd Samad. If Egyptian soccer teams aren’t playing, televisions in restaurants air recitations of the Koran with accompanying text. The Koran’s ubiquitous presence is wonderful for those who love to hear it, but sometimes after reciting the story of the Virgin Mary in Arabic for an hour or so, I preferred to listen to something different. Like most things related to learning the Koran, the Arabic used in it is both a blessing and a curse. Recorded in the dialect shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the Koran is written in Modern Standard Arabic, which is generally not spoken other than by news anchors, imams and politicians. Although “Modern” Standard is a beautiful language, it is antiquated — 1,300 years and 800 miles separate it from Egyptian Arabic…… But I have concluded, that in Egypt, faith reigns supreme........."
This writer from the LA Times is wrong.
It is corruption and despair that reign supreme in Egypt, and a few other places. If the Mubarak regime has done nothing else, it has pushed the people to such despair that many of them are now more Salafis than the Taliban, more Wahhabi extremists than the denizens of Najd in Arabia.
The Arabic he is talking about is the ancient dialect of Hijaz, home of the Prophet. The modern Hijazi dialect is actually quite different, closer to the Egyptian dialect. What has kept the “classical” Arabic going is the Quran, in addition to the immortal treasury of Arabic poetry extending deep into the pre-Islamic era, and the great versatility of the Arabic language itself.
Cheers
mhg
Mon Email
Comments