(1) Spoken Arabic
(2) Formal Modern Arabic
(3) Classical Old Arabic
Spoken Arabic
= known as street Arabic or daily spoken Arabic used at the market, at home, for casual talking, etc.
Street Arabic has been mixed with foreign languages, modified to suit our modern rushing lifestyles, etc.
Formal modern Arabic
= Arabic used in school text books, in newspapers and news on TV, by lecturers in Universities, formal conversation etc. People called this language as Modern “Fus-ha”.
Classical old Arabic
= or also known as Old “FuS-ha”. This was the language spoken by the ancient Arabs even before the Qur’an. The Qur’an was revealed using the language that was understood by the people of that time. Hence numerous scholars in the past produced many Tafseer of the Qur’an to help the next generation who are not well versed in Classical Arabic to have in depth understanding of the messages in the Qur’an.
Another important aspect of understanding the messages is to know the context at the time when a message was revealed.
How was classical old Arabic developed ?
For generations, the Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula were not colonized by the two super-powers of their time, i.e the Romans and the Persians. Why?
These super-powers looked at Arab lands as containing nothing valuable except deserts and hot sun. It was not worth the effort to conquer these lands. Why send troops marching in the desert for months dying of thirst to take over a land that had nothing. Another consideration was if they conquered these lands, the barbaric culture of those people might get into the lives of the colonizer. There was nothing good out of the conquest. When you travel in the Arabian peninsula, a vast majority of the land was uninhabited deserts with the dangers of pirates, kidnappers, murderers, etc. before you find a real city like Makkah. (No European travelled in these areas, hence you will not find any old journals of European travellers regarding this part of the world. They don’t know about a city called Makkah hence no writings about the city by them.)
The Makkan Arabs had no grand buildings or great monuments as they were very poor at building and architecture. Historically, every nation will want to have some structure or something grand to be proud of themselves. The Makkan Arabs have none. Therefore a way of priding themselves was via their Classical Arabic language. Why were they proud of it ?
There was no outside conquest of the land, no foreigner(Non-Arab speaking) coming to live here in mass numbers, no outside influence and no mixing of foreign language, hence their original language was not corrupted. The poets were given utmost prestige by the Arab tribes with their eloquent figurative way of speaking, but then came the Qur’an. The best poets of Makkah and the masters of classical Arabic were dumbfounded. Historically there was not a single piece of poem that was created by any of them to challenge the Qur’an.
When Islam spread, many foreigners joined in this fast growing new nation and proportionally the classical Arabic (that the ancient Arabs were so proud of before) deteriorate drastically as there were vast influx of foreign language mixed with Arabic. The coming of Islam into Arabia destroyed Classical Ancient Arabic. But the best Classical Arabic (better than what they originally had) can be found in the Qur’an, dearly well preserved by the companions of the Prophet.
Numerous scholars had to go to remote Bedouin settlements to learn how some words or phrase in the Qur’an were originally used by the people before them. Hence these resulted in the “Tafseer” of the Qur’an – the study of the meaning and messages in the Qur’an according to the original usage of ancient classical Arabic.
Therefore a person who is well-versed in Modern “FuS-ha” cannot claim that the Qur’an is full of grammatical mistakes since he has not embarked in the knowledge of Classical Ancient Arabic.
People studied literature because they want to appreciate the beauty of those masterpieces. Shakespeare's literature and novels were taught in Universities. If the Quran with its Classical Arabic is presented as a Literature study in Schools of higher learning all over the modern world, it will attract more students towards the linguistic beauty of the Quran which surpasses the beauty of ancient Arabic and poetry.
Currently, people see the Qur’an as a religious holy book for certain racial group. We want them to see the Qur’an as a piece of beautiful literature. When they approach the Qur’an as literature, they will not be approaching it with the intention of bias and misinformed hatred. They will be able to see the linguistic beauty once hate is absent. Scholars need to create a curriculum to showcase the many aspects of how the Quran uses various linguistic tools to deliver the messages.
Ibrahim (a.s), Isma’eel (a.s), Musa (a.s) & Yusuf (a.s) never spoke Arabic. But the Qur’an quote what they said in Arabic. This means that whatever they said were translated into Arabic by Allah.
Have you heard the saying “meanings got lost in translation” ?
If a person tried to translate an ancient language into the modern English language, it may not capture the whole meaning of what was being said.
Allah was the one that did the translations as He has the knowledge of all the languages in the multi universes and more. His translations of the words of the ancient Prophets would capture the whole meaning plus the emotions that came with it. In Surah An-Naml, Allah translated the chattering of an ant into Arabic.
Anyone who tried to translate Classical Arabic of the Qur’an into English or any other language has to exhaust himself with time and effort to get as much as possible the meanings, the emotions, the context and environment, etc. That was why the companions of the Prophet started the Tafseer of the Qur’an and from there onwards, generations after generations have been producing tafseer after tafseer of the Qur’an.
Each Tafseer is based on the understanding of individual scholar who wrote it. Hence, certain word might have some differences in opinion of what it represents. I believed that an ayah is capable of producing all those opinions at the same time. That is the miracle.
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قُل لَّٮِٕنِ ٱجۡتَمَعَتِ ٱلۡإِنسُ وَٱلۡجِنُّ عَلَىٰٓ أَن يَأۡتُواْ بِمِثۡلِ هَـٰذَا ٱلۡقُرۡءَانِ لَا يَأۡتُونَ بِمِثۡلِهِۦ وَلَوۡ كَانَ بَعۡضُہُمۡ لِبَعۡضٍ ظَهِيرًا
Say: ‘If all mankind and the jinn would come together to produce the like of this Quran, they could not produce its like even though they exerted all and their strength in aiding one another.’
(Surah Al-Isra – 17:88)