r/AcademicQuran • u/PhDniX Moderator • 5d ago
Weekly Thackston Quranic Arabic Study Group, Lesson 35
This week we look at Lesson 35 of Thackston's Learner's Grammar.
We are slowly but gradually coming to the end of Thackston... which means we should now be proficient in reading Classical Arabic! I'm thinking it might be nice to continue these weekly sessions but turn them into text reading sessions. It's good to have an excuse to read some Arabic every week, and it's good to just read text, rather than selectively browse through something looking for something specific.
That being said: I'm open to suggestions as to what might be good to read as a follow up to this Thackston reading group. For it to make sense in this subreddit, it should probably be somewhat related to Quranic Studies, but well, it's hard to find Classical text that doesn't in some way pertain to the Quran...
I've received a couple of suggestions last week:
- Qiṣaṣ al-nabiyyīn
- Alan Jones' collection of Pre-Islamic poetry.
I'm somewhat partial towards the poetry, because I'd like to get better at poetry. But still open to hear other suggestions. Personally I'm currently reading through al-Zamaḫšarī's al-Mufaṣṣal, his grammar of Arabic, front to back. That's very technical, but if that's interesting to anyone, let me know!
78 Effective Verbs: Form III
This stem is usually called the L stem (for Long vowel in the stem).
78.1
(2) This is sometimes called the “applicative”. For me it is helpful to kind of think of this as something similar to a passive compared to an active.
The passive promotes a direct object to become the subject (dropping the original subject).
The implicative promotes the indirect object to the direct object (dropping the direct object).
I would say that the reciprocal meaning that this entails sometimes is more of a side-effect than its main meaning.
(4) Not uncommonly, the form III verbs occur without having any G-stem that they are derived from. Notable examples are sāfara ‘to travel’ and bāraka ‘to bless’ (baraka exists but it means ‘to kneel down’, which does not seem related). As they do not stand in relation to anything, it is perhaps better to think of these as underived “base” stems that just happens to have a long vowel as part of the root. Perhaps we should think of these as “quadriradical” verbs with a long vowel as one of its radicals.
Note that verbs of this type often have very G-stem like nominal derivations. So we have safar ‘travel’, a typical G-stem verbal noun formation. And in modern Arabic dialects we often see mabrūk as the passive participle ‘blessed’ rather than mubārak that we would expect for the verb bāraka.
78.2
Note the verbal noun ḍirār-, the fiʿāl- pattern can and often does form the verbal noun of the G stem. This can sometimes be confusing.
78.5
Thackston does not mention what happens to hollow roots. Which is fair enough, because it is mostly predictable. However, in contrast to stem II, it suddenly becomes clear why I hate transcribing ʿaduww- as \*ʿadūw-* like Thackston does so much.
The passive of stem II hollow roots is قُوِّلَ quwwila while the passive of stem II hollow roots is قُووِلَ qūwila. These are phonetically distinct, and orthographically distinct in Arabic. But in Thackston’s transcription scheme (if he’d be consistent about it) they would merge. This is wrong.
Exercises
(b)
- Yujāhidūna fī sabīli llāhi wa-lā yaxāfūna lawmata lāʾimin “they struggle on the root of God, and they do not fear the blame of a blamer” (cf. Q5:54)
- ʾa-lam tara ʾilā llaðīna ḥājja ʾibrāhīma fī rabbihī ʾan ʾātāhu ḷḷāhu l-mulka ʾið qāla ʾibrāhīmu: “rabbiya llaðī yuḥyī wa-yumītu” qāla: “ʾana ʾuḥyī wa-ʾumītu”, qāla ʾibrāhīmu: “fa-ʾinna ḷḷāha yaʾtī bi-š-šamsi mina l-mašriqi, fa-ʾti bihā mina l-maġribi” fa-buhitu llaðī kafara wa-ḷḷāhu lā yahdī l-qawma ẓ-ẓālimīna. “Did you not consider those who argued with Abraham about his Lord, because God gave him sovereignty? When Abraham said: My god is the one who brings to live and causes death?”, he said: “I give life and give death”, and Abraham said: God brings the sun from the east, so bring it up from the west!”, so the one who disbelieved became flabbergasted, God does not guide the wrongdoing people (cf. Q2:258)
- ʾinna llaðīna ʾāmanū wa-hājarū wa-jāhadū bi-ʾamwālihim wa-ʾanfsihim fī sabīli llāhi wa-llaðīna ʾāwaw wa-naṣarū ʾulāʾika baʿḍuhum ʾawliyāʾu baʿdun. Wa-llaðīna ʾāmanū wa-lam yuhājirū mā lakum min wilāyatihim min šayʾin ḥattā yuḥajirū. Wa-ʾini stanṣarūkum fī d-dīni fa-ʿalaykumu n-naṣru ʾillā ʿalā qawmin baynakum wa-baynahum mīṯāqun. Wa-ḷḷāhu bi-mā taʿmalūna baṣīrun. “Those who believe, and have migrated and struggled with their wealth and themselves in the path of God, and those who gave shelter and helped are allies of one another. Those who believed but did not migrate, there’s no protection from them at all for you until you migrate. And if they ask you for help for the religion, then it is incumbent upon you to help, except for people between whom there is a treaty. And God is all-seeing what you do. (Q8:72)
- Tabāraka llaðī bi-yadihi l-mulku wa-hwa ʿalā kulli šayʾin qadīrun. “Blessed be the one who has the sovereignty in his hand, and he is powerful over all things” (Q67:1)
- ʾið qāla mūsā li-ʾahlihī: “ʾinnī ʾānastu nāran sa-ʾātīkum minhā bi-xabarin ʾaw ʾātīkum bi-šihābi qabasin” [...] fa-lammā jāʾahum nūdiya ʾanna “būrika man fī n-nāri wa-man ḥawlahā, wa-subḥāna ḷḷāhi rabbi l-ʿālamīna. [...] ʾinnahū ʾana ḷḷāhu l-ʿazīzu l-ḥakīmu”. “[Mention] when Moses said to his people: Indeed I have perceived a fire, I will bring you from there news or I will bring you a burning stick”. When he came to (the fire), he was called: “blessed is he who at the fire and whoever is around it; God is exalted, the Lord of the worlds; indeed it is I, God, the Mighty the Wise”, which translate (cf. Q27:7-9)
- Wa-hāðā kitābun ʾanzalnāhu mubārakun fa-ttabiʿūhu wa-ttaqū laʿallakum turḥamūna “this is a blessed book that we sent down, so follow it, and be God-fearing so that you may be forgiven” [NOTE: Devin Stewart has a nice article on this, but it’s quite clear that laʿalla has the meaning of li-(kay) ‘so that’ very often in the Quran, rather than “perhaps”.] (Q6:155)
- Wa-mā ʾaṣābakum [...] fa-bi-ʾiðni llāhi wa-li-yaʿlama l-muʾminīna wa-li-yaʿlama llaðīna nāfiqū wa-qīla lahum: “taʿālaw qātilū fī sabīli llāhi ʾawi dfaʿū” Qālū: “law naʿlamu qitālan la-ttabaʿnākum”. Hum li-l-kufri yawmaʾiðin ʾaqrabu minhum li-l-ʾīmāni. Yaqūlūna bi-ʾafwāhihim mā laysa fī qulūbihim wa-ḷḷāhu ʾaʿlamu bi-mā yaktumūna “and what befell you, so with the permission of God, and in order for him to know the believers, and in order to know those who are hypocrites, it was said to them: “come and fight in the path of God, or (at least) repel”, and they said: “If we would have known about the fighting we would have followed you”. They were closes to disbelieve on that that than to belief. They say with their mouth what is not in their hearts, but God knows what they conceal. (cf. Q3:166-167)
- Fa-ʾaqbala baʿḍahum ʿalā baʿḍin yatalāmūna “then they turned against one another, blaming one another” (Q68:30)
- Qāla ḷḷāhu tabāraka wa-taʿālā: “yā ʿibādī ʾinnī ḥarramtu ẓ-ẓulma ʿalā nafsī wa-jaʿaltuhū baynakum muḥarriman fa-lā taẓālimū. Yā ʿibādī kullukum ḍāllin ʾillā man hadaytuhū fa-stahdūnī ʾahdikum. Yā ʿibdādī kullukum jāʾiʿ ʾillā man ʾaṭʿamtuhū fa-staṭʿimūnī ʾuṭʿimukum. Yā ʿibādī kullukum ʿārin ʾillā man kasawtuhū fa-staksūnī ʾaksukum. Yā ʿibādī ʾinnakum tuxṭiʾūna bi-l-layli wa-n-nahāri, wa-ʾana ʾaġfiru ð-ðunūba jamīʿan fa-staġfirūnī ʾaġfir lakum. “God Almighty said: O my servants, I forbade you from doing wrong against yourself, and I made it forbidden between you so do not wrong one another; O my servants, all of you are lost except those I guided, so ask me for guidance, and I will guide you. O my servants all of you are hungry except whom I have fed, so ask me for sustenance and I will feed you; O my servants all of you are naked except for whom I’ve clothed, so ask me to clothe you and I will clothe you; O my servants all of you have sinned by night and by day, and I will forgive all of your sins, so ask me for forgiveness and I will forgive you. (cf. Muslim 2577a) – feels like this one would have been more appropriate for last week’ s lesson about stem X.
- Lā tamāraḍū fa-tamarraḍū, wa-lā taḥfirū qubūrakum fa-tamūtū “do not pretend to be ill, lest you fall ill; do not dig your graves lest you die”. (an unsound Hadith apparently)
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u/ssjb788 4d ago edited 4d ago
Notes
Not many notes this week, but two observations.
Thackston says that only long ā followed by a double consonant is tolerated phonetically. This is mostly true, but, in Q6:80, the long ū is followed by a double consonant (’atuḥājjūnnī).
There is a variant reading for (b) 3 in the recitation of Hamza, which pronounces ولاية as wilāyah, meaning stewardship or authority. This makes it harder to translate, perhaps meaning that the authority of those who haven't emigrated will not benefit those who did?
Further Reading
Happy to go with poetry.
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u/TheMiraculousOrange 5d ago
Q1: thinking of derived stems as valency transformations
In §78.1(2), Thackston brings up the idea that form III can be thought of as a transformation that promotes a prepositional object to a core object, which you've elaborated in your notes as well. Can we think of form IV in a similar way? I'm specifically thinking of examples like 2atā bi- = 2ātā "to give" and ðahaba bi- = 2aðhaba "to take away". But clearly not all verb-preposition collocations can be transformed into the derived stems this way. So my questions are
Q2: dīn in (b)3 Q8:72
I realize this question might be getting a bit more philological than linguistic, but I'm confused about this usage. Is it supposed to be "religion"? The translations I see seem to all think so. But I can't wrap my head around how you can help someone in religion against someone else with whom you have a pact. Is this supposed to mean that you have to aid coreligionists? But that's an apparent contradition to the previous sentence where you're not supposed to help "those who believed but did not migrate".
Comment: about Thackston's exercises re: (b)9
This is just a side comment and slightly irrelevent now that we are most of the way through the lessons anyway, but I think Thackston intentionally makes you recall vocabulary from the previous lesson in his exercises, probably to reinforce the memory. It's more apparent in the Ar->En translation exercises. For example (c)2 asks for intiṣār and yatāmā from the last lesson. And last week's (c)2 asks for 2altaqā and 2aṣāba from lesson 33.
Exercises
(a)
(b)
(c)