Topik 53: Efek Waktu & Kehebatan Bahasa Arab

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Pembaca yang dirahmati Allah SWT. Sebelum lanjut ke topik Latihan surat-surat pendek yang lain, kita istirahat sejenak dengan melihat apa bedanya antara bahasa kita dengan bahasa Arab. Saya hanya sekedar sharing pengalaman belajar bahasa Arab dalam beberapa bulan ini.

Ternyata semakin dipelajari, semakin kita yakin mengapa bahasa Arab itu dipilih sebagai bahasa Al-Quran. Oh… ya, frekuensi penulisan mungkin agak berkurang, karena kesibukan saya saat ini didalam beberapa project.

Oke… baiklah. Apa sih hebatnya bahasa Arab? Tanpa banyak teori, mari kita lihat saja contoh berikut. Saya akan buat dua kalimat dalam bahasa Arab, yang jika kita terjemahkan kedalam bahasa kita, terjemahannya persis sama.

يا أيها المؤمنون - yaa ayyuha almu’minuun : hai orang-orang beriman
يا أيها الذين آمن – yaa ayyuha alladzina aamanu : hai orang-orang beriman

Keduanya diterjemahkan sama dalam bahasa kita. Ya, bahasa kita tidak bisa menangkap beda keduanya. Padahal dalam bahasa Arabnya, kedua kalimat diatas ada bedanya.

Kalimat pertama, kata al-mu’minuun, artinya orang-orang yang beriman. Kapan berimannya? Ya tidak dijelaskan, bisa kemaren, bisa sekarang, dll. Sedangkan dalam kalimat kedua, kata-kata alladzina aamanu, artinya juga “orang-orang beriman” tetapi ini sifatnya orang tersebut saat ini sudah beriman, dan dia mulai berimannya di masa lalu. Dalam bahasa Arab, kata aamanu disebut fi’il madhy (KKL).

Ahli bahasa Arab, menggolongkan kalimat yang mengandung KKL itu hampir identik dengan kalimat sempurna dalam bahasa Inggris (Past Perfect Tense, atau Present Perfect Tense). Artinya kata kerja tsb telah sempurna selesai dikerjakan. Biar gak bingung saya kasih padanan bahasa Inggrissnya:

يا أيها المؤمنون - yaa ayyuha almu’minuun : O, believers
يا أيها الذين آمن – yaa ayyuha alladzina aamanu : O, people who have believed (atau O, people who had believe)

Nah terlihat bedanya kan. Pada kalimat pertama, kata-katanya netral saja, tidak ada keterangan waktu. Sedangkan pada kalimat kedua, kata kerja “percaya” itu telah selesai dengan sempurna (perfect tense).

Lalu apa pointnya Mas? Oke… yang ingin saya sampaikan adalah bahwa, penerjemahan bahasa Arab ke bahasa Indonesia, terkadang menyebabkan beberapa keterangan tambahan dalam bahasa Aslinya menjadi hilang dalam bahasa kita. Lihat dua kalimat diatas. Dua-duanya diterjemahkan menjadi kalimat yang persis sama dalam bahasa Indonesia. Ya, memang begitu. Tidak ada satu bahasapun didunia ini yang bisa diterjemahkan yang kompatibel 100%, pasti ada makna yang hilang atau berubah. Ini salah satu yang menjadi alasan, kenapa ada ulama yang tidak membolehkan Quran ditafsirkan. Dimana dikuatirkan, jika orang sudah tidak lagi membaca text asli (arabnya), dan hanya mengandalkan bahasa terjemahan, maka jelas maksud asli ayat bisa-bisa salah atau kurang lengkap bisa ditangkap oleh pembacanya.

Itu satu hal, kelemahan bahasa kita.

Lalu mungkin Anda akan berkata, hmm dalam bahasa Inggris ada padanan yang lebih kompatibel. Kalau begitu apa kelebihan bahasa Arab dibandingkan bahasa Inggris?

Oke saya akan kasih contoh mengenai ini.

Salah satu kelebihan bahasa Arab dibandingkan bahasa Inggris, antara lain, bahwa bahasa Arab tersusun dengan aturan yang sangat rigid (kokoh) sekali. Ibarat batu-bata yang tersusun rapi, ikatannya kuat sekali. Kalau satu bata hilang, kita masih bisa mereka bata yang hilang itu seperti apa. Satu kata dalam kalimat, saling terkait aturannya dengan kata yang sesudahnya dan kata yang sebelumnya. Saya pakai istilah forward correlation dan backward correlation. Ingat topik sebelumnya mengenai kaana, yang merafa’kan mubtada dan men-nashabkan khobar. Dengan pola misalkan spt ini:

AAA XXX YYY.

AAA adalah Kaana كان, maka dia mempengaruhi kata XXX dan YYY (mempengaruhi dua kata sekaligus). Dalam bahasa Inggris, sebetulnya kita temukan juga. Misalkan kata have/has.

I have spoken.

Kata have mempengaruhi kata speak, yang berubah menjadi spoken. Tapi kata have hanya mempengaruhi satu kata saja. Sedangkan dalam bahasa Arab bisa 2 kata sekaligus.

Dalam bahasa Indonesia,,, hehe… boro-boro… Kata spt ini (kata yang mempengaruhi kata lain) tidak ada ditemukan.

Contoh lain. Dalam bahasa Arab, kata depan (preposisi) atau disebut Huruf Jar, mempengaruhi kata setelahnya. Dalam bahasa Inggris tidak.

Rumah: بيت – baitun = a house

Dalam rumah: في بيتٍ : fii baitin
Dalam rumah : in a house

Lihat dalam bahasa Arab, kata asli baitun, begitu mendapat kata depan (didalam, fii) berubah jadi baitin. Dalam bahasa Inggris, tidak demikian, house tetap saja house (bukan menjadi housi atau housen), sehingga dibaca “in a house”, bukan “in a housen” layaknya bahasa Arab.

Apa manfaatnya ini? Kalau kita bayangkan, kata في - fi cetakannya agak buram, yang jelas hanya بيتٍ – baitin, maka kita tahu, pastilah kata yang hilang, atau cetakannya kurang jelas itu jenisnya kata depan, karena rumah disitu tertulis baitin (bukan baitun). Artinya korelasi dan sifat saling terkait antara satu kata dengan kata lainnya dalam bahasa Arab sangatlah massif (kokoh). Ini yang menyebabkan, tidak sembarangan bisa mengubah-ubah kalimat-kalimat dalam Al-Quran. Diganti satu kata (misalkan niatnya memalsukan), maka bagi yang mengerti kaidah tata bahasa Arab akan segera tahu, bahwa ada keanehan. Dibuang satu kata saja, akan terlihat jelas, sangking kokohnya keterkaitan antara satu kata dengan kata lainnya dalam bahasa Arab.

Masih banyak lagi contoh-contoh tentang ini. Seperti huruf LAM nahi-jenis لا , yaitu LAM yang diikuti kata benda (isim) yang bersifat umum dengan harokat akhir fathah (bukan fathatain), maka pasti ada prediket (khobar) yang kadang dibuang. Contohnya:

No doubt (tidak ada keraguan), dalam bahasa Arabnya: لا ريب - Laa raiba.

Kata Laa dan Raiba saling massif (kokoh) keterkaitannya, dimana dalam hukum LAM Nahi Jenis ini mengatakan bahwa ada prediket yang dibuang, yaitu maujuudun, sehingga makna dari Laa Raiba itu adalah

Laa Raiba Maujudun = Tidak ada keraguan (yang wujud)

Atau

No doubt (that exists).

Kata-kata “that exist” itu sudah otomatis saja ada dalam pengertian bahasa Arab. Sehingga kata yang singkat Laa Raiba, tapi pengertiannya utuh. Beda dengan bahasa Inggris atau bahasa Indonesia, kata “tidak ada keraguan”, keraguan apa? Atau, keraguan seperti apa? Ini belumlah jelas.

Kehebatan ke tiga.

Menurut saya kehebatan ke tiga bahasa Arab dibandingkan dengan bahasa Inggris dan (apalagi) dengan bahasa kita adalah: bahwa bahasa Arab, ringkas tapi maknanya komplit. Mengapa? Ambil contoh kasus kata kerja dalam bahasa Arab. Ajaib, kata kerja dalam bahasa Arab sudah tercakup pelaku di dalammnya.

Contoh: قرأت - qora’tu (satu kata)

Dalam bahasa Indonesia = Saya telah membaca (tiga kata)
Dalam bahasa Inggris = I have read (tiga kata)

Contoh lain: سأقرأ – sa-aqra-u (satu kata)

Dalam bahasa Indonesia = Saya akan membaca (tiga kata)
Dalam bahasa Inggris = I will read (tiga kata)

Apa hebatnya? Lihat contoh-contoh diatas. Dalam bahasa Arab, satu kata kerja sudah melekat dua keterangan tambahan langsung:
- siapa yang melakukan
- kapan dilakukan

Bayangkan alangkah ringkas dan kompaknya bahasa Arab. Cukup dengan satu kata mengandung makna yang lengkap. Jelaslah buku terjemahan bahasa Arab ke bahasa Inggris atau bahasa Indonesia biasanya akan jauh lebih tebal.

Dan masih banyak lagi bedanya, dimana dengan mengkaji perbedaan-perbedaan tersebut, kita bisa tambah yakin, bahwa dengan kelebihan-kelebihan yang dimiliki oleh bahasa Arab, tepat sekali bahasa ini dipilihkan sebagai bahasa kitab Firman Allah yang terakhir (Al-Quran). Last but not least, bahasa Arab itu lebih mudah untuk dihafal. Karena susunannya bisa dibuat berima atau bersajak, maka kalimat-kalimatnya mudah untuk dihafal. Ingat kembali topik lalu, kata-kata bahasa Arab, kadang disusun dengan akar kata yang sama, tapi mendapat tambahan huruf sehingga artinya berbeda, tapi masih ada kaitan. Seperti janna (tertutup), majnun = orang gila (tertutup akalnya), jannah = syurga (tertutup dari orang kafir) , junnah = benteng (tertutup dari musuh), dsb. Keterkaitan itu membuat kosa-katanya lebih mudah untuk dihafal.

Seperti telah disebutkan juga di topik lalu, contoh kata ra'a : melihat, maka mar'ah = wanita (tempat jatuhnya (tertujunya) penglihatan), dsb. Juga bahasa Arab ada wazan-wazan (timbangan, pola, atau pattern) yang jika hafal akan lebih lebih memudahkan lagi untuk menghafalnya. Seperti, kataba = menulis, maktab = meja (tempat menulis), kaatib = penulis/pengarang (orang yang menulis), dll.

Allah SWT, berfirman:

وَلَقَدْ يَسَّرْنَا الْقُرْآنَ لِلذِّكْرِ فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ

Dan sesungguhnya telah Kami mudahkan Al-Quraan untuk pelajaran, maka adakah orang yang mengambil pelajaran? Al-Qomar 17,22,32,40

Perhatikan kata-kata li-dzikri, diterjemahkan sebagai untuk pelajaran. Dzikri dari akar kata dzakara, arti asalnya mengingat. Sehingga bisa dikatakan, telah dimudahkan Al-Quran itu untuk diingat.

Allah SWT akan menjaga keaslian Al-Quran itu, dengan cara dia mudah untuk dihafal. Tidak ada satupun buku didunia ini yang mampu dihafal oleh orang ribuan, bahkan jutaan orang, yang panjang pendeknya, titik komanya, bisa dihafal, tanpa salah sedikitpun. Subhanallah, wal-hamdulillah, waLLAHu Akbar.

The First Lady of the US, Laura Bush, Visits Kuwait

It was Tuesday, Oct 23 when I received a text message stating that a meeting I was to attend the following day was canceled because Laura Bush was to visit the US embassy in Kuwait. That was the first intimation I received that the First Lady was coming for a visit. The following day when I was having a previously scheduled lunch with another Fulbrighter and a past Fulbrighter to Kuwait who remained around after her Fulbright to work at the AUK (the American University in Kuwait), the AUK employee received a phone call from the cultural attaché at the embassy, who is in charge of overseeing the Fulbrighter program, inviting her and the Fulbrighters to come to a meeting that afternoon to a meeting that Laura Bush was to attend. It was 12:30 pm and we were told to show up at 3:00 pm at the venue. There was a bit of excitement amongst us that we would be meeting the First Lady and speculation as to whether we would be personally introduced to her. But we were still left in the dark as to the purpose and nature of the meeting.

After lunch I went home and changed into something smarter looking; though suit and tie wasn’t required. I then met up with the other Fulbrighters and AUK employee at AUK at 2:30 pm. We drove to the venue which was located in an area of Kuwait called Jabriya and held in a building belonging to the Kuwait Education Ministry. We arrived at 3 pm and were among the first to enter the auditorium.

It was quite a spectacle in itself to see the preparations that went into securing the facility. By chance I had just watched a portion of a documentary on the National Geographic Channel days before about the preparations that the Secret Service make to secure a facility where the president is to make an appearance. The documentary featured the operation of securing a covered arena at Louisiana State University where President George W. Bush gave a commencement speech. I was surprised the Secret Service would allow National Geographic the chance to detail their security procedures to the degree that they did. When I attended the meeting with the First Lady, I noted many similarities between the security that went into protecting her husband and her.

After we entered the doors the security was completely handled by the Secret Service that had accompanied the First Lady in her Middle East tour. The metal detector looked just like the one in the documentary that travels with the Secret Service. We then walked into the relatively small auditorium and grabbed some excellent seats near the front and center. Inside, positioned around the stage, there were more Secret Service agents monitoring the crowd coming in. But one thing that surprised me was the lack of a guest list of approved attendees. Anyone who walked in off the street could have entered the venue. Most of those attending seemed to be Kuwaiti of a liberal persuasion and some Americans. There were a handful of the fully veiled women. I wonder what must be the thoughts of the First Lady and the Americans traveling with her about the women wearing headscarves and some face veils. This was Laura Bushes second visit to Kuwait, her first being with her father-in-law George Bush Sr. in 1993.

We had to wait some time until the program started. Although we arrived at 3 pm, the program didn’t start until 4 pm. But then the auditorium quieted down as the First Lady entered the auditorium with the Education Minister, Nouriya Al-Sabeeh who is the only female minister in the government. They first went and sat down in the center front row. One had to have been there to experience the thirsty hound of press photographers and cameramen who were busy craning for the perfect shot. They certainly seemed to be the most excited group of people in the auditorium at the presence of the First Lady, but I suppose that is due to the dependence of their salaries on these types of occasions. I felt it to be such a waste of resources to have what seemed to be about the 20 press photographers and cameramen taking repetitive shots and footage. I wonder if it would be possible to choose a few photographers and cameramen at these official occasions and distribute the photos and footage to whoever desires.

But as to the nature of the meeting, we were still uninformed. I thought surely the First Lady who had traveled so far to Kuwait from the US on a Mid East tour with what appeared to consist of a small plane load of people including aids and Secret Service agents at significant expense would surely have something important to say. But the meeting was not what I expected since it was not intended to be a forum for her to speak. Instead the director of the Kuwait chapter of AMIDEAST (America Mid-East Educational and Training Services Inc.) hosted the event which focused on the importance of English language education and the opportunities provided by new English language scholarships from the US Department of State. The director, an American woman, first went up to the podium and began the presentation. She then spoke about the various opportunities offered by AMIDEAST to Kuwaiti high school students studying English and the effect of their experiences traveling to the US. It was an excellent example of an exercise in soft power and the lustrous attraction the US still maintains in the eyes of the Arabs. For after the director’s introduction, she invited 3 Kuwaiti high school students one after the other to the stage to read what they wrote about their experiences.

There seemed to include some editing of their work, which was expected, so that they all thanked the US Dept of State at the beginning of their speeches for the opportunity to study English and visit the US, but there was still a refreshing quality of originality that gleamed from their happy hearts as they spoke about the impact of the program in terms of helping them to learn how to express themselves, opening their eyes to America and the educational opportunities it offered, and the joy they had in learning English.

After their speeches it came time to call the First Lady to the stage along with the Education Minister. Laura Bush appeared to me as she did in television. The two Secret Service agents stationed by the stage were constantly searching the crowds with their expressionless faces for anything out of the ordinary just as it was shown in the National Geographic documentary. The Education Minister introduced Mrs. Bush with an official statement of welcome and hospitality in Arabic that was translated into English. Afterwards Mrs. Bush spoke for a short while about the MEPI (Middle East Partnership Initiative) program and fostering democratic values through English Education. She also included a blurb about breast cancer awareness which was the purpose of her trip in other countries that she visited. Apparently, Kuwait had not signed onto the US-Middle East partnership for breast cancer awareness and research and so she focused mostly on the importance of education. Yet still, she had not spoken more than 15 minutes before returning to her seat and allowing one more Kuwaiti student to recount their experience learning English. Afterwards, she left the auditorium to depart, but the presentation hosted by AMIDEAST was still to continue. Seeing though that it was now late in the afternoon, around 4:45 pm, we departed as well. Yet we couldn’t leave immediately as per the security regulations the First Lady had to leave first before we could. We loitered in the welcome area with others until we could leave at 5 pm. I saw the First Lady’s entourage leaving the area which included two limousines, some black SUVs, and one SUV with tall antennas perched on the roof of the car the use of which I could only guess.

I then returned home by 5:30 pm about 3 hours later from when I left. Unfortunately I had to skip the Arabic lesson I intended to have that evening. Was it worth the 3 hours to go see the First Lady and hear her speak for only 15 minutes? Probably not, but since this was my first time to these kinds of official events I can say it was worth the experience which leaves me sufficiently satisfied from wanting to attend a similar event in the future.

Topik 52: Latihan Surat Al-Ikhlas ayat 4, Fungsi Kaana

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Para pembaca yang dirahmati Allah. Kita akan menyelesaikan, latihan ayat 4 ini. Tapi sebelumnya saya kasih pertanyaan sedikit. Di topik 50, kita sudah terjemahkan ayat 4, yaitu:

و لم يكن له كفوا أحد - wa lam yakun la hu kufuwan ahad

wa= dan
lam= tidak
yakun= adalah (Dia)
la hu = bagi Dia
kufuwan = yang setara
ahad = seseorang

Nah lalu saya nerjemahin begini:
Dan adalah tidak seseorang(pun) yang setara bagi Dia.

Atau jika hendak diperhalus, kata adalah bisa dibuang (baca penjelasannya di topik 51), sehingga bisa menjadi:

Dan tidak seseorang(pun) yang setara bagi Dia.

Loh mas bukannya kalau mau urut mestinya terjemahannya:

Dan tidak adalah bagi Dia yang setara seorang(pun).

Saya tidak terjemahkan demikian. Kenapa? Karena kita akan melihat tugas kaana. Bagaimana tugas kaana itu? Nih saya kasih istilah yang mungkin agak teknis dikit ya... Ok... Siap...?

Tugas Kaana
Kaana bertugas:
- Me-rafa'kan mubtada
- Me-nashab-kan khobar

Weh... weh... kalau mubtada dan khobar rasanya kite-kite sudah pernah dengar deh di topik-topik yang lalu. Oke... saya lagi baik hati. Saya ulangi sedikit ya. Kalau ambil contoh: Zaid ganteng زيدٌ جميلٌ - zaiduun jamiilun. Perhatikan Zaidun adalah mubtada (subjek), dan Jamiilun adalah khobar (prediket). Perhatikan dalam kondisi normal maka Zaid adalah rofa' (yaitu harokat akhir dhommah), sehingga dibaca Zaidun, bukan Zaidan, atau Zaidin. Dan dalam kondisi normal khobar juga rofa', maka dibaca Jamiilun.

Jadi ingat saja, rofa' atau marfu' itu = dhommah atau dhommatain. ُ atau ٌ .

Nah sekarang kalau kita lihat tugas nya kaana itu menashabkan khobar.

Ingat, nahsab = fathah atau fathatain. َ atau ً .

Sehingga kalau kita terapkan:

زيدٌ جميلٌ - zaiduun jamiilun : Zaid ganteng

Jika kita tambahkan kaana didepannya menjadi:

كان زيدٌ جميلاً - kaana zaidun jamiilan : (adalah) Zaid ganteng.

Oh ya, kalau suatu kata benda (isim), jika bersifat nakiroh (tidak ada al), maka ada tambahan alif, sehingga ditulis:

جميلاً bukan جميلً .

Nah kira-kira kita sekarang bisa membayangkan, bahwa kalaupun setelah kaana ada kata beda (isim) yang terbalik, maka metode penerjemahannya sama. Artinya dari kondisi apakah dia nashab atau rafa' kita bisa tahu mana subjek dan prediketnya.

Anggaplah saya (agak) salah, tertukar menuliskan:

كان جميلاً زيدٌ - kaana jamiilan zaidun

Karena kita tahu bahwa yang jadi mubtada (subject) adalah zaidun, maka kita menerjemahkannya:

(adalah) Zaid ganteng,

bukan

(adalah) Ganteng zaid.

Demikian juga dalam ayat 4 surat Al-Ikhlas ini, kita bisa lihat bahwa yang menjadi mubtada adalah احدٌ - ahadun : seorang(pun). Dan yang menjadi khobarnya adalah كفوًا - kufuwan (karena harokatnya fathatain setelah kaana).

Oleh karena itu ayat ini kita terjemahkan:


و لم يكن له كفوا أحد - wa lam yakun la hu kufuwan ahad


Dan tidak (adalah) [mubtada=ahadun] [khobar=kufuwan] [pelengkap=lahu].
Dan tidak (adalah) [seseorang(pun)] [yang serupa] [bagi Dia].

Semoga menjadi jelas ya. Insya Allah.... Alhamdulillah, akhirnya selesai kita bahas latihan surat Al-Ikhlas ini. Kita akan ketemau lagi minggu depan.

Topik 51: Makna Kaana

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Pembaca yang dirahmati Allah SWT, kita masih membahas tentang Kaana. Kaana ini karena agak unik, maka kita perlu membahasnya, agak sedikit panjang ya... Gpp kan? Hehe...

Oke... Ingat kaana, tentu Anda ingat dengan "Kun Fayakun". Ya saya ingat sekali waktu kecil sering dikasih tahu orang-orang tua: "Apa yang tidak mungkin bagi Allah. Jika Dia ingin berbuat sesuatu, Dia tinggal berkata: Kun كن - jadilah, Fayakun فيكن - maka jadilah ia".

Nah, kun كن itu adalah bentuk kata kerja perintah (fi'il amr) dari كان sedangkan fayakun itu asalnya adalah fa yakuunu ف + يكون . Kenapa waw nya hilang, menjadi fayakun فيكن saja? Ini nanti akan dibahas pada Topik : Kalimat Syarat dan Jawab.

Oke kita tinggalkan dulu kun fayakun... Kalau ada waktu kita akan singgung lagi.

Sekarang kita masuk membahas, apa saja makna kaana كان. Oke kita akan lihat, dan bahas di topik ini. Sedangkan tugas kaana, akan kita bahas di topik 52.

Makna Kaana

Kana itu ada 3 macam maknanya, tergantung konteks. Apa saja itu?
1. Kaana berarti adalah/atau tidak terjemahkan (is atau was dalam bahasa Inggriss)
2. Kanaa bisa berarti menjadi (to become)
3. Kanaa bisa berarti selalu

Baiklah kita bahas satu-satu...

1. Kaana bermakna adalah. Contohnya begini.

Zaid was handsome (Zaid --adalah-- ganteng). Ada 2 alternatif:
زيد جميل - Zaidun Jamiilun
كان زيد جميلاً - kaana Zaidun Jamiilan

Dua-duanya bisa dipakai. Kalimat pertama menjelaskan bahwa Zaid itu ganteng. Sedangkan kalimat kedua menjelaskan bahwa (dulu) Zaid itu ganteng (sekarang mungkin ganteng mungkin kurang ganteng).

Oh ya, kadang adalah itu tidak enak secara bahasa Indonesia, makanya kalau kaana dalam arti adalah ini, biasanya tidak diterjemahkan.


2. Kaana bermakna menjadi

Contohnya:
محمدٌ معلمٌ - muhammadun mu'allimun : Muhammad seorang guru
كان محمدٌ معلماً - kaana muhammadun mu'alliman : Muhammad telah menjadi seorang guru
يكون محمد معلماً - yakuunu muhammadun mu'alliman: Muhammad (sedang) menjadi seorang guru

3. Kaana bermakna senantiasa/selalu

Contohnya:
كان الله عليماً حكيماً - kaana Allahu 'aliiman hakiiman : Adalah (senantiasa) Allah (bersifat) Maha Mengetahui Maha Adil

Secara umum kaana itu berarti adalah. Tinggal dilihat apakah konteksnya KKL kaana, atau KKS yakuunu.

Insya Allah kita akan lanjutkan dengan sifat atau tugas Kaana ini, pada topik selanjutnya.

Why do you study?

'People of past studied to better themselvesToday we study to impress others'

Topik 50: Latihan Surat Al-Ikhlas ayat 4

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Pembaca yang dirahmati Allah SWT. Kita akan segera masuk ke ayat 4 surat Al-Ikhlas. Di ayat ini kita bertemu dengan sebuah kata kerja khusus yang disebut كان - kaana. Kita akan pelajari kenapa dia disebut khusus, dan apa fungsi kaana ini. Insya Allah.

Baiklah kita tuliskan ayat 4:
و لم يكن له كفوا أحد - wa lam yakun la hu kufuwan ahad

wa= dan
lam= tidak
yakun= adalah (Dia)
la hu = bagi Dia
kufuwan = yang setara
ahad = seseorang

Dan adalah tidak seseorang(pun) yang setara bagi Dia.

Kita belum bahas secara tuntas dulu. Nanti kita akan wrap-up dibagian akhir. Anda tentu sudah tahu tentang wa, lam, la hu dan ahad. Ahad artinya satu (orang), atau satu (sesuatu). Maka disini ahad saya terjemahkan satu (orang) = seseorang.

Fokus kita adalah kata يكن - yakun. Akar katanya adalah kaana كان. Kata kaana dan perubahan bentuknya (misal menjadi yakun) ini adalah spesial. Bahkan dalam buku-buku pelajaran tata-bahasa arab, pembahasan tentang kaana ini dibahas dalam satu sub-bab, atau bab tersendiri.

Mengapa dia spesial? Oke, mari saya bawakan sebuah perbandingan antara bahasa Inggriss dengan bahasa Arab.

Misalkan saya mengatakan: Umar seorang siswa. Dalam bahasa Arab saya mengatakan:
عمر طالب - umar thoolibun

Kalimat diatas adalah kalimat sempurna (artinya memberi faidah). Umar adalah seorang siswa. Masalahnya kita bisa bertanya lagi. "Jadi siswanya, dulu, atau sekarang". Nah disini mulai ada masalah. Informasi dari عمر طالب tidak memberikan indikasi waktu. Kenapa? Karena dalam bahasa Arab, sebuah kata benda tidak membawa indikasi waktu didalamnya. Perhatikan bahwa kata "Umar" adalah kata benda (isim), dan kata "thoolibun" juga kata benda.

Bagaimana dalam bahasa Inggris? Kita punya dua pilihan:
Umar was a student (Umar -dulu adalah seorang pelajar)
Umar is a student (Umar -sekarang adalah seorang pelajar)

Nah disini fungsi kaana muncul. Saya bisa mengatakan begini:
كان عمر طالباً - kaana Umar thooliban = Umar was a student
يكون عمر طالب - yakuunu Umar thooliban = Umar is a student

Ternyata dalam bahasa Arab salah satu cara memberikan indikasi waktu kepada sebuah kalimat berita adalah dengan menambahkan kaana atau yakuunu.

Ambil contoh dalam Al-Quran: doa Nabi Yunus sewaktu didalam perut ikan:
Laa ilaaha illa Anta: tidak ada Tuhan selain Engkau
Inni kuntu mina al-zholimiin:

إنى كنتُ من الظالمين - Indeed I was part of the wrongdoers = sesungguhnya aku adalah termasuk orang-orang yang zalim.

Lihat bahwa kuntu adalah kaana tapi untuk orang ke 1 laki-laki tunggal (Aku).

Insya Allah di topik 51 kita akan bahas salah satu fungsi kaana ini, yaitu me-rafa'kan mubtada menashab-kan khobar.

Bechar

I am currently in Bechar, the local capital, and plan to take the four-hour coach trip to Tabelbala tomorrow inshallah. After corresponding with a computing student here whose family is from Tabelbala for some time, I've finally met him in person; he seems a nice guy. Interestingly, when speaking Arabic, he calls Korandje "shelHiyya" - the name usually applied to the Berber dialects of the region and of southern Morocco. This suggests to me that this word may have become a generic term for non-Arabic local languages, in which case all statements about a given oasis around here speaking "Tachelhit" or "Shelha" need to be checked carefully.

Naturally, I've combed the local bookstores (there aren't too many, but there is a university here after all); I only found one book relating to the linguistics of this rough area, a work by Mohamed Bouali (2004) on the attitudes of people in the Berber-speaking oasis of Boussemghoun in western Algeria to a number of issues, including their own and other Algerian languages. Not very surprisingly, these seem closely aligned with moderate conservative opinion in Algeria generally, rather than showing any particularly strong similarity to the spectrum of attitudes common in Kabylie; his interviewees displayed pride in their language, but also identified fairly strongly with Arabic, and were more often than not hostile to the idea of teaching Berber ("Tachelhit") in school. The author reports that, unlike in some nearby oases, the Semghounis have consistently retained Berber and show no signs of shifting to Arabic as a home language. In Bechar itself, all talk I've heard has been in Arabic; the local accent is distinguished a lot of affricated t's (ts) and frequent use of "wah" for "yes", but is overall even closer to my own dialect then I was expecting.

Topik 49 : YA ANITA & RUMUS U-A, U-I

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Pembaca yang budiman, kita telah melihat KKL Pasif. Dalam surat Al-Ikhlas ayat 3 ini ada 2 fi'il (KKS) yang kita temukan:

yalid: melahirkan (atau beranak) - KKS Aktif
yuulad: dilahirkan (atau diperanakkan) - KKS Pasif

Oke.... Saya dapat email dari seorang ikhwan, yang intinya memberitahukan bahwa, dia tidak mengerti maksud tanda-tanda sebuah KKS. Oh ya, bagi yang baru tune in, di pelajaran awal dulu saya pernah kasih tips, tanda-tanda KKS, yaitu YA ANITA. Nah si pembaca ini mengatakan belum begitu mengerti maksud YA ANITA itu apa.

Oke deh... Sebelum kita bahas mengenai KKS Pasif, ada baiknya saya ulangi menjelaskan ciri-ciri KKS. Ciri-cirinya adanya YA ANITA didepan. Saya kutipkan tabel berikut (sumber: arabindo.co.nr)



Lihat tabel diatas, ini adalah tabel TASHRIF (perubahan bentuk) kata kerja, dari Fi'il Madhy (KKL) ke Fi'il Mudhori' (KKS) berdasarkan pelaku (fa'il/dhomir) nya.

Ciri-ciri KKS

Perhatikan font yang berwarna merah pada tabel diatas. Terlihat bahwa kalau dia KKS, selalu diawali dengan salah satu huruf YA ANITA (ي = YA , أ = A , ن = Nun, ت = TA) ... eh ternyata lebih pas huruf YANT ding (Ya, Alif, Nun, Ta)... oke deh apapun... pokoknya kalau ada salah satu huruf YANT didepan sebuah kata (kerja), maka kemungkinan besar kata itu KKS.

Coba lihat lagi tabel TASHRIF diatas. Bedakan KKL dengan KKS. Dalam KKL, tidak ditemukan huruf YANT didepan katanya (catatan sebenarnya KKL dari Kata Kerja Turunan I -- lihat di topik NAZALA ANZALA, juga mendapat tambahan Alif didepan sehingga sepintas KKT-I terlihat KKS juga, tapi aaaahhh.... nanti Anda bingung... nanti saja kita bahas ya mengenai KKT-I ini sampai KKT-8)

Oh ya, tabel TASHRIF diatas sangat sangat berguna... Kita akan sering merefer ke tabel ini... Pengalaman saya (taelah, spt yang sudah pakar saja), kalau bisa menghafalkan tabel diatas, akan mudah dalam memahami bahasa Arab Al-Quran. Lah Mas, dari kemaren suruh ngapal mulu... (ya... ya... gak dihapal juga gpp, Insya Allah kapan kita perlukan kita akan merujuk ke tabel ini kembali.

KKS Pasif

Oke kita kembali ke jalur (yang benar). Sekarang bagaimana membentuk KKS Pasif? Caranya mudah... Ingat saja rumus U-A.

Contohnya:
KKL
خلق - khalaqa : dia telah menciptakan
خلق - khuliqa : dia telah diciptakan --> U-I

U=dhommah, I=kashroh

KKS
يخلق - yakhluqu : dia sedang menciptakan
يخلق - yukhlaqu : dia sedang diciptakan --> U-A

U=dhommah, A=Fathah

Duh, makin puyeng gak? Mangkin banyak rumus yak... hehe... sabar ya Mas...

Biar gak puyeng, saya kembalikan saja ke fokus kita surat Al-Ikhlas ayat 3

لم يلد - lam yalid --> sudah dibahas

و لم يولد --> dan (Dia) tidak diperanakkan.

Dari mana datangnya "diperanakkan"? Oke... singkat cerita begini.

KKL nya ولد - walada, artinya (Dia) telah beranak
KKS nya يلد - yalidu, artinya (Dia) sedang/senantiasa/akan beranak

Nah kata yalidu, diatas adalah KKS aktif. Bagaimana kalau jadi pasif?

RUMUS U-A

Ingat lagi rumus KKS Pasif yaitu U-A. Maksud U-A itu: Huruf pertama U (dhommah), huruf sebelum huruf terakhir A (fathah).

Oke jika kita pakai rumus Granada itu untuk KKS يلد - yalidu

Huruf pertama: YA di dhommah, berarti dibaca YU
Huruf sebelum huruf terakhir (huruf terakhir DAL, sebelumnya LAM) : LAM di fathah, menjadi LA
Sisanya tetap harokatnya.

Sehingga menjadi YULADU يلد , artinya : (Dia) diperanakkan.

Ooo gitu penggunaan rumus U-A (dan U-I)... Nanti kita akan bahas lagi penggunaan 2 rumus ini untuk KKT-1 s/d KKT-8 (rumus ini cukup powerfull lho... terima kasih untuk penemu Rumus ini)

Oke tuntas dong pembahasan kita ayat 3 surat Al-Ikhlas ini... Eiittttt bentar dulu Mas... Anda salah!

Anda bilang يلد - YuLaDu itu (Dia) diperanakkan. Nah, mengapa di Al-Quran ditulisnya:
يولد ? Mengapa ada waw nya?

Nah inilah repotnya kalau kita berhadapan dengan huruf illat (penyakit). Lihat KKL nya ولد - walada. Ada huruf illat diawal yaitu waw. Nah kalau ada huruf illat ini, maka kudu pakai penanganan khusus (atawa penganangan tambahan), bahasa sononya, kudu perlu special treatment.

Ya... Anda betul. Seharusnya yang benar itu adalah:

يولد - YUU LADU : (Dia) diperanakkan. Inilah yang betul. Kenapa? Karena aslinya sebenarnya begini:

KKL: ولد - walada
KKS: يولد - yawlidu --> tapi karena berat dalam ucapan lidah orang Arab, maka waw mati menjadi hilang sehingga jadinya --> يلد - yalidu

RUMUS U-A JIKA DENGAN HURUF ILLAT

Coba kita pakai rumus U-A, jika huruf illat tidak dibuang pada KKS.
KKS: يولد - yawlidu --> terapkan rumus U-A.

Huruf pertama YA --> dhommah (U) --> dibaca YU
Huruf sebelum huruf terakhir --> LAM --> di fathah (A) --> dibaca LA
Sisa huruf-huruf lain harokatnya tetap.

Sehingga menjadi:
يولد - yuuladu : (Dia) diperanakkan.

Setelah kemasukan huruf LAM --> menjadi JAZM (artinya dal disukun), sehingga menjadi

لم يولد - lam yuulad (tidak boleh dibaca lam yuuladu)

Demikian penggunaan rumus U-A ini secara tuntas... tas... tas...

Kalau contoh yang tidak ada huruf illat, kita bisa cepat pakai rumusnya. Lihat contoh tabel diatas:

يفعل - yaf 'alu : dia sedang mengerjakan.

Kalau "dia dikerjakan", bagaimana? Gampang... Rumus U-A. Huruf pertama : ya jadi yu, huruf sebelum huruf terakhir : 'ain fathah menjadi 'a), sehingga menjadi

يقعل - yuf 'alu : dia sedang dikerjakan

Gampang sekali kan menggunakan rumus U-A ini?

Oke kita sudahi dulu topik ini. Sebagai penutup, kita ringkaskan ayat 3:

لم يلد - lam yalid --> (Dia / Allah) tidak beranak

و لم يولد --> (Dia / Allah) tidak diperanakkan.

Insya Allah kita masuk ke ayat 4 surat Al-Ikhlas, pada topik selanjutnya. Oh ya... btw, kalau pelajaran ini terasa susah dan rada membosankan, kasih tahu ya...

Topik 48: Latihan Surat Al-Ikhlas ayat 3, KKS Pasif

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Pembaca yang dirahmati Allah SWT. Kita telah sampai pada ayat 3 surat Al-Ikhlas, dimana dalam ayat ini kita bertemu dengan 3 pelajaran berbahasa Arab, yaitu: pengertian LAM, bentuk MAJZUM, dan terakhir bentuk kata kerja sedang (KKS) pasif. Pada kesempatan kali ini kita akan tuntaskan pembahasan ayat 3 ini.

Oke kita masih ada sisa topik di ayat 3 ini yaitu mengenai Kalimat Pasif. Insya Allah kita akan bahas.

Kalimat Pasif

Anda semua pasti sudah tahu apa itu kalimat pasif. Ya, tanpa perlu definisi, kita sering menggunakan pola ini. "Saya disuruh membuat PR". Atau "Mobil dibeli pedagang", dsb.

Dalam bahasa Arab, demikian juga. Ada kalimat aktif, ada pasif.

Lalu bagaimana ciri-ciri kalimat Pasif? Berikut saya kasih TIPS mudahnya (mengutip dari metode Granada), anda sekalian hafalkan rumus ini (kalau bisa... kalau gak mau juga gak apa2x... hehe):

KKL Pasif: U-I (1:dhommah 2:kasroh 3:x)
KKS Pasif: U-A (1:dhommah 2:fathah 3:x)

Contohnya:

KKL Pasif

Surat An-Nur (24) ayat 45:
الله خلق كل دابت من ماء : allahu khalaqa kulla daabbatin min maa-in
Allah menciptakan setiap daabbatin dari air

Lihat kata menciptakan: خلق - kha la qa

Bagaimana kalau diciptakan. Kata خلق - khalaqa (menciptakan) berubah harokat menjadi (ingat rumus... U-I), sehingga menjadi khuliqo خلق (diciptakan).

Contohnya dalam surat At-Thooriq (86) ayat 6
خلق من ماء دافق - khuliqa min maain daafiq
Dia (manusia)diciptakan dari air yang terpancar

Lihat perubahannya:
خَلَقَ - khalaqa (menciptakan)
خُلِقَ - khuliqa (diciptakan) --> Pola U-I

KKS Pasif
Sekarang kita lihat bagaimana pola KKS Pasif.

Wah... karena sudah kepanjangan... kita tunda dulu ya pembahasan rumus U-A ini. Hehe... Sampai ketemu di topik lanjutan.

A Visit to Faylaka Island and a Chat with Kuwaiti Soldiers

On Oct 7, 2007, I visited Faylaka Island off the coast of Kuwait City. A Canadian couple who both teach at an American School picked me up at 7 am after which we drove to the port in Salmiya to catch the government ferry to the island. The ferry was scheduled to depart at 8:30 am, but my hosts wanted to get there sufficiently early to ensure that they and the car we were taking would get a spot on the ferry. Fortunately traffic during the month of Ramadan to Faylaka is much less than usual and there was plenty of space on the ferry. We drove onto the ferry, which had room for about only 15 cars, hence the reason to come early if a person plans on taking his car during the normal crowd.



The Canadian couple were staying at a hotel on the island in the style of an Arabic home with a courtyard for 3 nights during their Eid holiday. They were joined by another car of their friends who were also teachers in the same school as them. But I was going just for a day visit to have a look around. The journey to Faylaka lasted about an hour and a half.

When we arrived, there wasn't much to welcome us save a ghost town in the most literal sense of the word. Prior to the Iraqi invasion in 1990, Faylaka was inhabited by Kuwaitis living in modern neighborhoods with schools, shops, and other supporting infrastructre. When the Iraqis came, they evicted everyone off of the island onto the mainland to use Faylaka as a defensive outpost against the UN coalition. Saddam at the time thought that the US would launch a Normandy style invasion by beach. After the war, the former residents’ properties were purchased by the amir, save for a handful that refused, and resettled on the mainland. The island was left closed off to the public and has been used as a military base by Kuwaitis and previously though not any longer by Americans.



The city of Faylaka stood as though frozen in time from the first Gulf War. The houses, now empty and dilapidated, remained standing in their neat rows along the streets and surrounding cul-de-sacs. There was an empty playground here and there as well as an abandoned school. Some of the buildings bore the scars of war such as bullet holes pockmarking their facades. It has been 16 years since Kuwait’s liberation and I was surprised to find the city of Faylaka seemingly unchanged since then. It appeared as though the Kuwaiti government had not decided what to do with the empty buildings and houses, whether to demolish or refurbish them. Perhaps that was due to the uncertainty that always seemed to pervade the area regarding the possible machinations of Saddam Hussein. I am told that since Saddam’s departure from power, real estate prices in Kuwait have risen reflecting a new sense of optimism. However, that optimism is dampened by the tempestuous situation nearby in Iran which fuels the prospect of another war in the area between the US and Iran. It is a fear that grips other Gulf Kingdoms as well such as Bahrain, Qatar, and Dubai. Should such a war occur, the economies of the Gulf will undoubtedly take a severe plunge simply due to the fearful nature of investors. But for the time being, life has never been better in the Gulf and I return to my trip to Faylaka.



After we drove around the ghost town a bit, we then went further out into the desert where we passed a refuse dump and waste metal compacting machinery. Further along we saw some leftover aging Iraqi armaments from the first Gulf War such as tanks and artillery. Then we came upon a train of camels moving through the desert, a very iconic image. We came near them and the breeze brought their scent with it. I took a few pictures and then we were off again for I had to make it back to the port to catch the noon government ferry back to the Kuwaiti mainland. There was supposed to be a private faster ferry running later in the day but it wasn’t operating during Ramadan due to the decrease in traffic and so my time was cut short. But in reality the few hours I spent that morning on Faylaka was sufficient to see all that it had to boast.

I managed to squeeze a visit to the archeological ruins of a supposed Greek temple and settlement dating from the time when Alexander the Great and his army moved through the area when they were conquering the known world. Instead of going through the main gate to visit the site, which was located near the beach, we parked the car near the beach adjacent to the site and walked into the premises to visit. My Canadian hosts told me that last time they tried to visit the site they were arbitrarily told it was closed to the public. Nevertheless, there wasn’t much to see and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to make the trip to Faylaka Island just to visit it. I couldn’t see the semblance of a temple instead beheld some simple rooms that had been unearthed. Apparently all the interesting finds were moved to a museum. However, just as we were about to walk back to the car, the guard at the main building noticed us and began to walk toward us. We then made our way in the direction of the car. Seeing this, the guard picked up his pace and started calling out to us. Eventually he ran towards us and we stopped and turned to him. He tried to get us to go back with him to the main building and told us we weren’t allowed near the site. He spoke very poor and broken English and only knew Arabic. I didn’t say anything and let my Canadian host handle the situation. He had visited the site surreptitiously before and experienced a similar run-in but with a different guard who was calmer and more relaxed. My friend made it clear that we just came to take pictures and that we were going back. The guard, who was Egyptian, seeing that we weren’t going to submit to him, became angry and said in broken English, “You make big problem for me!”

After we left, my hosts then dropped me off back at the port to catch the ferry. I could see there were many soldiers embarking along with me, and I noticed them on the morning ride to the island as well. I resolved, since I would be alone on the ferry, to pass the time by making conversation with them. After calling and arranging for a taxi to pick me up at the port in Salmiya when I arrived, I ascended the stairs to the seating area and found a place near the soldiers. I began chatting with them in standard versus Kuwaiti Arabic, as I always speak in standard Arabic out of principle. They were very easy to talk to and of course they were interested to learn more about me, a half-Kuwaiti half-American student who spoke standard Arabic which is considered strange and unusual. Yet as the conversation developed, a man to my back interjected and I turned to find that it was the guard that had confronted us at the site of the ruins. What a coincidence! I didn’t expect to see him again and wondered why his work shift ended so early before noon. But there he was exclaiming to his surprise that I was now speaking fairly fluent Arabic whilst a short while before I had remained silent when he struggled to communicate with my Canadian friend in English. I was slightly embarrassed and returned to speaking with the soldiers. At the end of the ferry trip I approached the guard and apologized in Arabic for any trouble we had given him. He said it wasn’t a big deal, which he was probably right and made me wonder why he made such a big deal in the first place.

But back to the soldiers, they were an interesting bunch of about 6, but I spoke mainly with three of them: Fahd, Suleiman, and Khalid. Their ages were between 24 to 27 and all were married save Fahd who was divorced. They were all high school dropouts and told me that they receive a monthly salary of 1000 KD or $3,550, which is too high to believe. But it is still undoubted that a high school dropout in Kuwait does much better than an equivalent person in any other country for Kuwait provides plenty of artificial jobs that require very little or no work with artificially high salaries to its citizens. When I asked them if they were in the military to do their obligatory service, they replied that about 10 years ago the government stopped requiring male Kuwaitis to serve for a year in the military as the demand to join was high. They told me that they ‘work’ 2 days a week at an air defense station on Faylaka Island. However, when I inquired about the nature of the work, they said their superiors usually allow them to go swimming in the ocean. So I wouldn’t depend on Kuwaitis to protect Kuwait. But then again I don’t think the average Kuwaiti does either after the US was given the responsibility of Kuwait’s defense after the Iraqi invasion.



I enjoyed speaking to the guys. It was an ideal example of cross-cultural communication as there were many differences that we helped each other understand. Khalid began by first asking why in America two guys holding hands are considered homosexual since it is an accepted custom in the Middle East for men to hold hands while walking. I explained to him that I understand what he was talking about and that in America it is not an accepted custom for heterosexual men to hold hands since it is not a sign of close friendship but rather a romantic and intimate relationship between two people.

Seeing that they were open to questions, I asked them about their beliefs and customs regarding marriage. All of them told me that they had never seen their wives until the day they got married. It was very hard for me imagine that two people who would be meeting each other for the first time would be expected to get married and engage in intercourse, the most intimate of physical acts, on the same day. I explained to them that this was incomprehensible to me as I and others consider compatibility and the building of a spiritual relationship of prime importance prior to marriage and intimacy. Yet they all told me that their parents had arranged their marriages or had a hand in choosing their brides. In the case of Khalid, he had followed the most traditional custom of marrying his first cousin. It was very common not too long ago and is still prevalent in the most traditional areas for siblings to promise their children in marriage to each other. The purpose was to preserve family unity and keep the wealth within the family. I mentioned that this custom led to the appearance and recurrence of genetic diseases. Khalid replied that Arabs aren’t dumb and for that reason he and his wife had visited a doctor and had a genetic screening prior to getting married.

I asked though what happens if a young couple is not compatible and bicker and fight. They told me that because marriages are often within the family, there is often a strong incentive for the young bride and groom to be accommodating to each other so as not to involve the parents into the dispute. However divorces due still occur as exemplified by Fahd, who seemed to be the most materialistic of the bunch interested in drinking and womanizing. He mentioned to me how he would go to bars in London and party, a quite ordinary thing for a Gulf Arab youth visiting the West.

Then I turned to the question of the hijab. I asked them if their brides where hijabs, the head scarf covering only the hair and ears of a woman, or the niqab, which also covers the face of a woman save the eyes. Khalid said that his wife wears a niqab and had asked him when they got married whether he wanted her to also wear a niqab in front of his brothers. He said he permitted her to wear the hijab in front of them. Suleiman said his wife wears only the hijab. He also showed me a picture of his toddler daughter.

I found it quite peculiar how these young men and their wives were so acquiescent in the roles they were groomed to fulfill. It seem as if they were actors in a play and they all knew their lines and didn’t venture to stray a centimeter from what was expected. The men were the head of their families. They expected their wives to have complete responsibility in raising the children and caring for the home and the woman were raised to believe and accept that. They were even briefed by the older men to expect blood during the wedding night when they first or soon after have intercourse with their wives and told the reason for its occurrence; for it was humorous and awkward at the time to hear this explained in Arabic. Yet it is no wonder change seems to happen so slow in a region where family relations are so strong.

But I delighted in speaking to the young men and we exchanged phone numbers at the end of the trip to meet up again. They had offered to take me out two days later, but not surprisingly as the young lads became occupied with other things they soon forgot their previous intention save for Suleiman who did call to ask me how I was doing and if I needed anything from the supermarket. The latter wasn’t a serious question of course but a courtesy offered after stating he would be going to the supermarket.

The young soldiers were also impressed with respect to my focus on learning and reading and lack of attention paid to frivolous activities of drinking and womanizing normally associated with western youth.

The encounter was a wonderful example of cross cultural interaction from a segment of the Kuwaiti population that probably makes up the traditional minded masses.

As we arrived closer to the port, two Kuwaitis on jet skis pulled up close to the ship and started jerking and twisting their crafts from side to side to try and splash the lower decks. Kuwaitis as a people have a lot of disposable income to spend on recreational activities like jet skiing, joy riding in expensive cars, etc.

Topik 47: Latihan Surat Al-Ikhlas ayat 3, JAZM

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Para pembaca yang dirahmati Allah SWT. Baiklah, sekarang kita masuk kembali ke pelajaran rutin kita. Kita tinggalkan topik-topik seputar lebaran. Mudah-mudahan puasa Syawal kita diterima di sisi Allah SWT. Amin.

Baiklah. Kita tuliskan ayat 3:

لم يلد و لم يولد

lam : tidak
yalid : (Dia) beranak [punya anak]
wa: dan
lam : tidak
yuulad : (Dia) diperanakkan [punya Bapak dan Ibu]

Kita bertemu dengan 3 pelajaran disini:
1. Bentuk penegatifan (menegasikan kalimat) dengan LAM لم
2. Bentuk JAZM (MAJZUM) dari kata kerja sedang (KKS)
3. Bentuk pasif dari sebuah kata kerja sedang (KKS)

Nah kita akan bahas satu-satu Insya Allah.

Oke, sekarang kita bahas apa maksud LAM لم (tidak)

Dalam bahasa Arab, jika kita hendak mengatakan "tidak" terhadap sebuah kata kerja kita bisa pakai لم - lam atau لا - laa atau ما - maa. Tiga-tiganya artinya Tidak.

Gimana aturannya dan apa efeknya?

Oke, aturannya begini. LAM dan LAA لم لا hanya dipakai untuk KKS, sedangkan ما - maa biasanya selalu dipakai untuk KKL. Contohnya begini:

Saya faham (mengerti) : انا أفهم - ana afhamu
Saya tidak faham : انا لا أفهم- ana laa afhamu

atau jika saya pakai LAM

Saya faham (mengerti) : انا افهم - ana afhamu
Saya tidak faham: انا لم أفهم - ana lam afham

Secara arti LAA dam LAM sama saja, artinya "Tidak". Walau menurut sebagian orang ada bedanya. Kalau LAM, itu Tidak nya bersifat MUTLAK. Atau bisa dikatakan ANA LAM AFHAM artinya : saya "benar-benar" tidak faham.

Secara kaidah grammar, KKS sesudah LAM, huruf terakhir di sukun. Sehingga penulisannya:

لم أفهمْ - laam afham. Tidak seperti LA, yang KKS nya huruf terakhirnya di dhommah.
لا أفهمُ - laa afhamu.

Bagaimana dengan ما - maa?

Sebagaimana dijelaskan tadi, maa dipakai untuk KKL.

Saya sudah paham : فهمتُ - fahimtu
Saya tidak sudah paham : ما فهمتُ - maa fahimtu (catatan bahasa Indonesia "Saya tidak sudah paham" agak membingungkan mungkin, padanan bahasa Inggrisnya: I had not understood).

Okeh... jelas ya Jack... Sekarang kembali ke topik utama.

لم يلدْ - lam yalid : (DIA-ALLAH) tidak melahirkan. Lihat ciri-ciri JAZM nya bahwa huruf dal pada yalid berharokat sukun. Sehingga ditulis lam yalid, bukan lam yalidu.

Sebenarnya kita bisa juga menulis spt ini:

لا يلدُ - laa yalidu : (dia) tidak melahirkan. Secara bahasa mirip dengan LAM YALID. Akan tetapi penggunaan LAM lebih bersifat peniadaan (pe-tidak-an) secara mutlak.

Demikian kita telah bahas 2 hal: makna LAM dan apa bedanya dengan LA. Dan bentuk mazjum (jazm) dari sebuah KKS. Insya Allah topik selanjutnya kita akan bahas mengenai bentuk pasif dari KKS.

Topik 46: Maaf Zhaahir Baathin

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Pembaca yang dirahmati Allah SWT. Seharusnya topik seputar Idul Fitri kita sudah akhiri di topik 45, dan topik kali ini kita akan masuk kembali ke pelajaran rutin yaitu latihan surat-surat pendek. Akan tetapi mohon ijin, satu kali ini ada materi yang tertinggal, yang perlu saya sampaikan. Apa itu?

Ya, dalam setiap kesempatan Idul Fitri, telah jadi tradisi bagi kita disini untuk bermaafan dengan mengucapkan : Mohon maaf lahir dan batin.

Nah, apa maksud lahir dan batin itu?

Maksudnya begini. Asal muasal kata tersebut sebenarnya bukan dari lahir (melahirkan anak), tapi dari Zhaahir ظاهر yang akar katanya ظهر - zhoharo : jelas, terang, kelihatan. Sedangkan ظاهر - zhaahir adalah isim fa'il (kata benda pelaku) nya, yang artinya sesuatu yang terang.

Sedangkan asal muasal batin, itu adalah baathin باطن , yang merupakan isim fa'il dari KKL بطن - bathana yang artinya tersembunyi, atau tertutup sehingga bhaathin artinya sesuatu yang tersembunyi.

Jadi minta maaf lahir batin, atau maaf zhaahir baathin, artinya:
Saya minta maaf (atas segala kesalahan saya baik) yang terang-terangan (atau) yang tersembunyi.

Contoh kata zhaahir dan baathin ini ada dalam surat 57 ayat 3:
هُوَ الْأَوَّلُ وَالْآخِرُ وَالظَّاهِرُ وَالْبَاطِنُ

<< Dia (Allah) Yang Awal, Yang Akhir, Yang Zhaahir (tampak), Yang Baathin (tersembunyi)>>

Gitu mak cik... semoga jelas yah... Jadi ane mohon maaf zhaahir baathin nih... mumpung masih zuazana lhebha-rhan...

Topik 45: Penyakit pada 'Aa-i-din dan Faa-i-zin

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

Ini adalah topik lanjutan mengenai huruf penyakit. Saya akan stop topik ini, karena bisa jadi ada yang sudah tidak sabar lagi untuk masuk ke lanjutan Latihan Surat Al-Ikhlas ayat 3.

Oke... sebenarnya topik huruf illat ini, walau sedikit sukar, tapi kalau sudah menguasai, maka akan lebih mudah dalam menerjemahkan bahasa Arab Al-Quran? Kenapa, banyak kata kerja dan kata benda dalam Al-Quran yang dibentuk dari huruf penyakit ini... hik...hik (berita buruk nih, karena huruf penyakit kabarnya tidak ada polanya). Sebenarnya ada polanya, tetapi untuk saat ini terlau pagi bagi kita masuk menyelami pola-pola huruf penyakit tsb. Cukuplah sampai topik 45 ini targetnya, kita sadar dalam bahasa Arab ada kata yang terdiri dari satu atau lebih huruf penyakit.

Isim Fa'il

Kita telah singgung isim fail di banyak tempat sebelum ini. Singkat cerita, isim fail dibentuk dengan menambahkan alif setelah huruf pertama KKL (jika KKL terdiri dari 3 huruf sehat). Contohnya:

KKL: كتب - kataba : menulis
Isim Fa'il: كاتب - kaatibun : orang yang menulis (penulis)

KKL: ضرب - dhooraba : memukul
Isim Fa'il: ضارب - dhooribun : orang yang memukul

KKL : كفر - kafara : menutupi, atau kafir
Isim Fa'il: كافر - kaafirun: orang yang kafir (1 orang)
Isim Fa'il: كافران - kaafiraani : 2 orang kafir
Isim Fa'il: كافرون - kaafiruuna: orang-orang kafir

Demikianlah untuk KKL yang terdiri dari 3 huruf sehat, maka membentuk kata benda pelaku sangat mudah, yaitu dengan menambahkan alif setelah huruf 1, dan huruf kedua berharokat kasroh.

Lalu bagaimana kasusnya kalau huruf penyakit. Lagi-lagi, dia punya pakem yang lain lagi. Contohnya kata 'aa-i-din, dan faa'i-zin.

'Aa-i-din & Faa-i-zin

Kita telah bahas asal kata 'aa-idin, yang artinya orang yang kembali (suci). Saya ulangi:
KKL: عاد - 'aa-da : dia telah kembali (lihat huruf kedua adalah huruf penyakit)
KKS: يعيد - ya'ii-du: dia sedang kembali (lihat huruf 2 pada KKT yaitu alif berubah jadi ya)
Isim Fail: عائد - 'aa-i-dun : orang yang kembali (1 orang)

Terlihat bahwa jika ada huruf penyakit berupa alif (huruf ke 2 di KKT), maka isim fa'ilnya mendapat tambahan hamzah.

Sama dengan Faa-i-ziin.

KKL: فاز - faaza : menang
Isim Fa'il: فائز - faa-i-zun : orang yang menang (1 orang)
Isim Fa'il: فائوزن - faa-i-zuun : orang-orang yang menang (banyak orang)

Demikian telah kita tuntaskan pembahasan secara umum mengenai apa itu huruf penyakit. Sebagai ringkasan, ingat ya.... inga... inga... huruf penyakit ada 3 yaitu: alif, waw, dan ya.

Topik 44: Huruf Penyakit

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Pembaca yang budiman, sebelum kita melanjutkan ke topik Latihan Surat Al-Ikhlas ayat 3, ada hal yang perlu kita bahas melanjutkan topik sebelum ini yaitu mengenai huruf illat (atau huruf penyakit). Masih ingat dengan topik sebelum ini? Yaitu mengenai 'Aaidiin dan Faaiziin? Ya, topik 44 ini akan membahas sedikit mengenai huruf illat ini. Kenapa? Karena kedua kata itu mengandung huruf illat.

Huruf Illat ini menurut saya (sebagai pemula dalam belajar bahasa Arab) merupakan topik yang agak sukar... Yah... namanya juga penyakit (illat), wajar kalau sukar. Akan tetapi saya akan coba kupas secara sederhana agar mudah dipahami. Insya Allah.

Oke... apa itu huruf penyakit?

Lho huruf kok ada penyakit, berarti ada huruf yang sehat dong ya? Ya... Anda tepat sekali. Dalam bahasa arab huruf yang sehat (atau disebut shahih) adalah semua huruf kecuali alif, ya, dan waw (اوي). Jadi huruf ilat itu ada 3 saja, yaitu alif, waw, dan ya. Semua huruf lain, adalah huruf shahih (sehat).

Kenapa alif, waw, dan ya itu disebut huruf penyakit? Nah ini yang saya terus terang lama mencari-cari dasarnya kenapa? Sementara ini saya berpendapat kenapa disebut huruf penyakit, karena suatu kata yang ada huruf illat di dalamnya, maka dia biasanya tidak ikut pakem. Nah loh, pakem apa lagi tuh?

Pakem maksudnya pola-pola bahasa Arab yang standar. Ambil contoh kata yang terdiri dari huruf yang sehat, yaitu menulis -ka-ta-ba كتب. Maka karena terdiri dari huruf yang sehat polanya agak mudah:

KKL: كتب - kataba : dia telah menulis
KKS: يكتب - yaktubu : dia sedang menulis

Pola dari KKL ke KKS nya standar:
KKS: ya tambahan kasrah, huruf 1 (kaf) sukun, huruf 3 (ba) dhommah

Contoh lain: memukul ضرب - dhoraba
KKL: ضرب - dhoraba : dia telah memukul
KKS: يضرب - yadhribu : dia sedang memukul

Pola dari KKL ke KKS nya standar:
KKS: ya tambahan kasrah, huruf 1 (dho') sukun, huruf 3 (ba) dhommah

Nah kalau semua huruf nya sehat, pola standardnya merubah KKL ke KKS adalah seperti diatas. Memang untuk huruf ke 2 tidak ada pola standard, bisa fathah, kasrah, atau dhommah (tergantung kamus). Tetapi untuk huruf 1 dan 3 standard polanya.

Sekarang kita bahas kata yang ada huruf penyakitnya:

Contohnya: membaca تلا - talaa

Lihat kata talaa terdiri dari 3 huruf yaitu: ta, lam, dan alif. Nah yang bikin penyakit huruf ke 3 yaitu alif. So, akibatnya apa? Ya, pola diatas tidak bisa dipakai. Coba kita lihat.

KKL: تلا - talaa : dia telah membaca
KKS: يتلو - yatluu: dia sedang membaca

Nah terlihat, huruf ketiga (alif) di KKT, berubah menjadi waw pada KKS nya. Pada pola huruf sehat, tidak terjadi perubahan huruf ini.

Ada lagi yang huruf penyakitnya jadi hilang. Contoh wajada وجد - mendapati

KKL: وجد - wajada : dia telah mendapati (atau menemui, atau memperoleh)
KKS: يجد - yajidu : dia sedang mendapati

Nah terlihat polanya aneh lagi. Huruf pertama di KKT yaitu waw, menjadi hilang pada KKS nya.

Yah gitu deh... namanya saja huruf penyakit. Kadang berubah ke huruf penyakit lain, kadang hilang.

Oh ya terakhir... Kalau bertemu hamzah diatas alif, waw, atau ya, nah ini bukan huruf penyakit loh ya. Jadi pola standard tetap bisa dipakai. Contoh

KKL: قرأ - qora-a : dia telah membaca
KKS: يقرأ - yaqro-u : dia sedang membaca

Terlihat bahwa hamzah tetap ada. Karena hamzah by default bukan huruf penyakit.

Oke... untuk kasus huruf penyakit pada isim fa'il (kata benda pelaku) seperti pada 'aaidin dan faaizin, akan dibahas pada topik setelah ini.

O Soul

A famous Arabic saying:"O soul...Watch out! Help me with your striving,in the darkness of the nights;so that on the Day of Qiyamah,you will win a good life on those heights."

Minal 'Aa-i-diin Wal Faa-i-ziin

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Permirsa sekalian yang dirahmati Allah. Masih dalam rangka Idul Fitri, saya hendak mengucapkan: Selamat Merayakan Hari Raya Idul Fitri 1428 H, mohon maaf lahir dan bathin.

Telah banyak di poster-poster, iklan-iklan di koran, di TV dlsb, mengenai pengucapan Idul Fitri ini, yang di rangkai dalam kalimat yang baik (walau bukan hadist):

Minal 'Aa-idin Wal Faa-i-zin

Apa arti kalimat diatas?

من العائدين minal 'aa-idiin, terdiri dari 2 kata

min من artinya: dari (from) atau bagian (part of)
al 'aa-idiin العائدين artinya: orang-orang yang kembali

Min secara bahasa adalah Huruf Jar (kata depan), sedangkan al 'aa-idiin adalah isim fa'il (kata benda pelaku).

Lalu artinya minal 'aa-idiin, artinya: bagian dari orang-orang yang kembali (kepada kesucian).

Oke... kita kupas sedikit lagi mengenai isim fa'il. Isim fa'il adalah kata benda pelaku, dari sebuah kata kerja. Misalkan, kata kerjanya menulis, maka isim fa'il-nya adalah penulis (atau orang yang menulis). Kata kerjanya: membunuh, maka isim fa'ilnya pembunuh (atau orang yang membunuh).

Nah, kata عاد - 'aa da = adalah kata kerja yang artinya kembali (return). Nah, isim fa'ilnya adalah عائد - 'aa idun = (1 orang yang kembali). Sedangkan jika jamak (banyak) menjadi عائدون - 'aa iduun = orang-orang yang kembali, atau عائدين - 'aa idiin (jika diawali oleh huruf jar).

Gitu... ngerti kagak nih, man teman?

Yang suka salah tulis di poster poster sbb:

Minal aidin (ini salahnya gak gawat, walaupun sebenarnya yang lebih pas ada kutip satu, menandakan itu 'ain ع , sehingga lebih mantap mestinya ditulis Minal 'Aidin)

Minal aidzin (nah ini salahnya agak lumayan. Kalau dz itu representasi ذ - dzal bukan ز -za. Artinya jadi lain. عاذ artinya berlindung. Sehingga عائذ - 'aa idzin = orang yang berlindung).

Minal 'aidin (nah ini yang sedikit oke, walau artinya 1 orang yang kembali karena din bukan diin, dan 'ain nya pendek)

Baiklah kalau minal 'aa-idiin artinya bagian dari orang-orang yang kembali (suci). Sekarang apa artinya wal faa-i-ziin?

Nah bentar dulu kadang, faa-i-ziin ini ditulis faidzin, nah ini juga salah nih... Kenapa?

Faa-i-zin فائزين adalah isim fa'il dari فاز - faaza yang artinya menang. Sehingga فائز faa-i-zun (1 orang yang menang), dan فائزون - faa i zuun atau فائزين - faa i ziin artinya orang-orang yang menang. Sedangkan فائذين - faa i dziin, nah ini artinya jadi lain, bukan orang-orang yang menang.

Jadi yang muantaff itu nulisnya mestinya faaiziin, atau kalau kelihatan aneh faizin. Jangan faaidziin, atau faidzin. Getoh...

Kesimpulan:
Minal 'aa-idin wal faa-izin artinya: (semoga engkau) bagian dari orang-orang yang kembali (suci) dan bagian dari orang-orang yang menang.

Sebagai penutup ada hadist (kalau tidak salah), mengenai ucapan menyambut idul fitri ini yaitu: taqabbalallahu minnaa wa min kum (semoga Allah menerima [amalan puasa] dari kami dan [amalan puasa] dari kalian). Allahu a'lam bish-showwab.

Fieldwork begins

First of all: a belated Eid Mubarak everybody!

Second: Tomorrow I'm flying to Algeria, and heading to Tabelbala soon after to document Korandje (Kwarandji), a northern Songhay language spoken only there. I don't yet know how accessible the Internet is in Tabelbala, so blogging may be even more irregular than so far, or even impossible. If it is reasonably accessible, I plan to recount my experiences doing research out there - so stay tuned...

الأديـــان مـن صـنـع الإنـسـان .. أثير العرا

Atheeriraqi has dedicated his blog to the promotion of atheism (in Arabic). What more is there to say? Well quite a lot actually. If you read Arabic or want to use Google's web page translator you can read his (very) detailed arguments. Atheer writes:

"The blog is about criticizing relegions, mostly Islam because I know more about it, but also something about christianity and judism, focusing on the conflict between science and the holy books, which proves definetly(from my point of view) that the religions are man-made not from the creator, the blog does not discuss about the existance of a God(although I am interested in) because I do not have yet a clear opinion about that, I think that the existance of a God is a very complicated issue."

Eid Mubarak

SalamsHave a great EID with your family and friends!

Language learning link

I recently found out just how much downloadable language material - mainly Peace Corps manuals, grammars, and dictionaries - there was on a site called ERIC, including but not limited to Hassaniya, Fulfulde, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Malagasy, Tashelhiyt ("Tashelheet"), Hausa, Ilocano, Sinhala... It seems only fair to spread the word.

Child triglossia: an anecdote

While I was in Algeria, I was watching a cousin's toddler play with one of those toy computers that play a word when you press on a letter. The words, in this case, were in Arabic - Fusha (Classical), of course. Several times she repeated after the machine and then, with a very emphatic tone, added the Darja (Algerian dialect) translation - for example:

Machine: qird (monkey)
Toddler: qird! šadi!

Then she got to "bird" (Arabic ṭā'ir) and came out with the memorable line:

ṭā'ir! u b-əṛ-ṛumiyaa nqulu-lu ḷa ṭa'ir.
(ṭā'ir! And in French we call it ḷa ṭa'ir.)

Gets you wondering, really... how do kids acquire di/triglossia? It's certainly not just a matter of what they learn in school, as this case illustrates.

So Long And Thanks For All The Wossnames

OK folks, new blog up and running: Probably Madrid. I might update this one if anything interesting happens in the UAE.

Remember Allah

Anas ibn Malik related that Rasulullah صلى الله عليه وسلم said:When Lailat al-Qadr comes Gabriel descends with a company of angels who ask for blessings on everyone who is remembering Allah, whether they are sitting or standing. [Baihaqi]

Night of Power

Aisha رضى الله عنها related that the Prophetصلى الله عليه وسلم said:Look for Lailat al-Qadr on an odd-numbered night during the last ten nights of Ramadan. [Bukhari]

Pleasant Discussions at a Diwaniya

I went today to a diwaniya which is the Kuwaiti custom of men gathering in a certain parlour room of a house or a tent. I had a pleasant evening filled with thoughtful and stimulating discussion. The parlor room for the diwaniya was decorated in a very elegant and refined manner. When I first entered, my friend Badr was not at the moment present which was a little unusual since I didn’t know anyone else there. But shortly later Badr came and introduced me to those others sitting and explained that I was here in Kuwait on a scholarship to do research. It seems when I explained to him that that Fulbright Scholarship was funded from US State Dept he took it to mean that it was somehow connected politically with the US government for he stated or implied a few times that evening that my interlocutors ought to be giving me an idealized image of Kuwait as I am here as researcher for the US government. I should make a greater emphasis that there is no political connection with my research, perhaps stating next time when asked that the Fulbright scholarship is awarded from a the International Institute of Education.
Nevertheless, I struck up a conversation with an educated man who appeared to be in his 30s. He had a very clean-cut dark black beard on his rather white complexion. It was correct to presume by his appearance that he was an Islamist or a strong Muslim. He studied Sharia and Islam and was currently doing his PhD in Morocco. He spoke excellent Arabic which I wished everyone else could speak. It was very noticeable the drop in the eloquence of speech when someone else spoke.
When we spoke about the topic of women’s rights, he immediately asked me if I was judging the situation in Kuwait based on a western or eastern viewpoint. He of course took the notion that the women in Kuwait do not want to imitate women as in the West with regard to the women’s rights movement, because women in Kuwait have their rights as Muslims and Islam guarantees them that. In that regard he truly spoke from an Islamic perspective on the issue. He believed that, as according to Islam, men and women had their proper roles in societies. It is for women to stay home and raise children and men to be the breadwinners and provide for their families. He mentioned how in the West women who are independent and working are seen in a more respectful light than women who remain homemakers because the working women are seen as having greater influence in trying to contribute to and improve society. He countered this notion with the argument that women at home are likewise having an important role in the shaping of society in her work to raise children with good characters and an education.
He also noted the irony that after women in Kuwait were given the right to vote, in the subsequent parliamentary election most of the women’s vote went to the very same Islamist candidates who had opposed giving them the right to vote. His other arguments against women entering into politics other than that her primary role is the raising of children, is that she lacks the mental constitution and qualities to be a leader. He said that a woman is more emotive than a man and is indecisive.
However, when asked what I thought of women entering into politics in America, I mentioned that according to his logic, that women should not enter into politics because that would distract from their role as caretakers, that if a woman in the US after having raised her children and they have left the house, there would be no harm in her choosing to use her experience and education to want to aid in the ruling and improvement of her society. I was simply trying to argue that women should have a welcomed voice in government in principle. I also noted that women, in general, have different priorities than men. They emphasize issues such as healthcare and education while men focus on national security and military spending. Thus, to have women in parliament advocating these issues would be a positive thing. It was at this point that it was fortunate that another person should criticize the US that although women have had the right to vote for 80 years, the healthcare system is in a poor condition as based on the movie Sicko by Michael Moore. I easily used this point to my advantage by stating that the major figure at the moment in American politics who wants to correct this issue of unequal access to healthcare is a woman, Hillary Clinton, and that is this woman who is renowned for seeking reforms to address this issue.
Throughout the course of the evening, a few other issues were treated as well. I was asked about how life is in Kuwait and my thoughts on the country. Rather than give the usual positive and reassuring answer. I highlighted two issues that were pressing on my mind these past few days. One was the lack of literacy or reading in Kuwait. I mentioned that if the reading level of an average American child and average Kuwait child from the same grade level were compared, it is undoubted that the American child would read with much greater fluency and understanding than the Kuwaiti child or any other Arab child for that matter. Literacy is of great importance as books are the preservers of mankind’s accumulated knowledge from thousands of generations. Reading is the keys into these portals of education and to be without this skill or deficient in it is to be deficient in the ability to improve and develop oneself, society, or civilization. The next major issue I took aim at was the manner in which Kuwait’s oil wealth was distributed amongst its citizens by creating unnecessary government jobs for them and providing for the material needs of their citizens to the extent that their motivation to work is absent or very weak. I mentioned the statistic that 90% of Kuwaiti’s in the workforce are employed in the government leaving the majority in the private sector to be foreign workers which does not lend itself to a sound and healthy society. Although my Islamist interlocutor agreed with my observations on these points, I fear they did not make me popular with my host who seemed indignant and the pride in country hurt. I often ask myself if it is I who focuses too much on the negative aspects of Kuwaiti society and not enough on the positive. I feel often challenged to raise these issues in a delicate and dignified manner.
All in all, it was a wonderful and stimulating evening and one of the better diwaniyas that I’ve been to.

Berber Qur'an translations

Thanks to the efforts of various press agencies, there has been a story floating around the Internet this year about the "first Tamazight Quran". In reality, it's more like the last first Tamazight Quran. I'll try to describe the situation to date as best I can; if any readers know of relevant material I have omitted, please tell me!

You will find occasional reports online that the medieval Berghouata kingdom put together a Berber Qur'an translation; these are misunderstandings. If you look at what al-Bakri (the oldest source I can think of offhand for this) actually says about the Berghouata, he says their second king Salih ibn Tarif claimed to have received a revelation in Berber in 80 chapters which he called a Qur'an, but whose contents (some of which al-Bakri gives translated into Arabic) had nothing to do with the Qur'an. In fact, a later Berghouata king massacred thousands of Muslims in his kingdom for refusing to convert from Islam to the Berghouata religion. It would not surprise me at all to learn of a medieval Berber translation of the Qur'an; I know of such works for Turkish, Spanish, Persian, and Kanuri. However, discounting occasional ill-sourced reports of a no longer extant Almohad one, the earliest reference to such translation that I have come across is a fatwa by the Moroccan shaykh Al-Ḥasan bin Mas`ūd al-Yūsī in 1102 AH (1691 AD) judging translation of the Qur'ān into Tamazight to be permissible, mentioned in Jouhadi Hocine's translation's foreword; such a fatwa implies sporadic translation, but, as far as I am aware, no full written translation from the period has turned up.

Oral translations may be another matter. In Mali, there is reportedly a longstanding tradition of oral translation of the Qur'an into Tamasheq, the Berber language of the Tuareg; this was recorded in a series of 44 cassettes in 1989 by the Ahmed Baba Historical Documentation and Research Centre. Similar cases may well have existed elsewhere.

Serious published efforts at Qur'an translation seem to begin in the 1990s. The earliest partial translation to be printed seems to be Kamal Nait Zerrad's 1998 Lexique religieux berbère et néologie : un essai de traduction partielle du Coran. This work is primarily an effort to design a "purist" Berber religious vocabulary, one drawing on native lexical resources rather than Arabic borrowings, with a translation of a selection of suras added essentially as a proof of feasibility (the book's author, a well-known Berber linguist, does not in fact appear to be particularly strongly committed to Islam.) While the translation is basically into the author's native Kabyle, neologisms and words from other Berber varieties are so frequent as to make the translation rather difficult for native speakers of Kabyle to follow. This work uses the Latin orthography that has become more or less standard in Kabyle usage.

In 2003, with the Moroccan government's decision to raise the position of Tamazight and bring it into the school system, the first complete Berber Qur'an translation (strictly speaking, translation of the meanings of the Qur'an), Jouhadi Lhocine Baamrani's Tarjamat ma`ānī lqur'ān billuġati l'amāzīġiyyah: nūrun `alā nūr / tifawt f tifawt, many years in the making, finally appeared. This complete Moroccan translation (described years earlier, along with the political controversy surrounding it, by The Economist) has priorities more in accordance with one's expectations of such a work: the author's preface concerns itself primarily with reassuring the reader of the work's interpretative accuracy (the author uses the Warsh reading, and, in cases of difficulty, relies on examination of relevant hadith and well-known commentaries), and of the work's religious justification. However, conservative readers have expressed unease at his relative lack of religious training. The work is written in the Tashelhiyt of southern Morocco, a considerably less Arabic-influenced dialect than Kabyle; nonetheless, like Nait-Zerrad although not to the same extent, the author often chooses to use pure Berber vocabulary even when obscure in preference to Arabic loanwords, explicitly drawing an analogy to Fusha Arabic. "Some may say: I do not understand much of the Tamazight in which he has written, and I am Amazigh! I reply that not everyone who speaks Arabic, for example, understands the Qur'an which came down in faultless Arabic. Do not forget, dear reader, that a child spends much effort in gradually learning his native language, so why should you expect to know literary/pure (faṣīħ) Tamazight in a single go?" Apart from some Tifinagh on the cover, the author uses Arabic characters, regularly used by Tashelhiyt authors to write in their native language since the sixteenth century, although he substitutes a variant of Chafik's new orthography (writing all vowels as long instead of short, and using zay with three dots for the emphatic ẓ) which has grown in popularity. He has also published a translation of an-Nawawi's Forty Hadith, as well as some poetry.

Also in 2003, correlating to the Algerian government's gradual expansion of the role of Berber in efforts to conciliate opposition in Kabylie, a Kabyle translation of six hizbs, by Si Muḥend Muḥend Ṭayeb of the Ministry for Religious Affairs (with help from Said Bouziri, Djafar Oulefki, and Mohamed Tahar Ait Aldjet), was published by the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur'an. This translation uses Arabic characters, but not in the systematic way of Jouhadi Lhocine's translation; rather than establishing a fixed phonemic orthography, it gives the impression of trying to fit Kabyle into Arabic characters in much the way that many people try to fit it into French ones, without any consideration for the phonemic rules of the language. For example, strictly phonetic assimilations across word boundaries, like n+r > rr, are written with shadda, and phonetically short a and ə are both written in the same way, with fatha. It was criticised by activists for its extensive use of Arabic vocabulary - although I rather suspect this makes it more readable to the average Kabyle speaker than the strict purism of other editions. A complete translation by the same people is to appear shortly; it is this which has been being carelessly reported as "the first Tamazight Qur'an".

However, when it does appear, it's not even going to be the first complete Kabyle translation. In late 2006, the poet and chemist Remḍan At Menṣur beat the Ministry to it; I saw copies of his complete translation in shop windows in Algiers and Paris, but have not yet got one. This work uses the Latin and Neo-Tifinagh orthographies on facing pages, and comes with an audio CD. The more extreme anti-Islamic wings of the Kabyle autonomy movement criticised the very fact of his translating this as promoting "Arabisation and Islamisation" (huh, who would have thought that translating the Qur'an might be construed as promoting Islam?) A more conservative reader, while praising the work, suggested that it would have been better off using Arabic script, and that the difficult task of translating with an eye to the correct interpretation required the efforts of a whole committee rather than a single man.

More translations are no doubt to be expected, and their quality - both interpretative and linguistic - will hopefully improve. But this cannot take place in isolation; the form Berber translations of the Qur'an end up taking will inevitably be heavily influenced by the form of the language that ends up being taught in the schools and used in other publications, and politics will continue to affect both whether and how the text is translated. It will be interesting to see how the situation develops.

Tarawih

“The one who observes the tarawih salah at night during Ramadan with complete faith and devotion only for the sake of the recompense of the hearafter, will have all of his previous sins forgiven by Allah.” [Bukhari, Muslim]

BLOG INI ISTIRAHAT SAMPAI 1 MINGGU SETELAH IDUL FITRI 1428 H