Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall

Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall's classic translation of The Glorious Koran exemplifies one of the only three important and 'divinely accountable amal' recognised in Islam where man can continue to benefit in his 'alam barzark' after this short sojourn on Planet Earth: ilm for other lesser mortals, like millions and millions of us, to educate and motivate ourselves individually in 'our journeying toward that final meeting with the Lord of the universe'. The other two are 'sedekah jariah' and lastly,'soleh and solehah' offsprings who continually 'dua' and pray for their parents' well being' in the 'afterlife'.[ The last one sounds easy but at best, if our children just do not 'burden' us from their kufr activities and thus become a 'fitnah' to us in our graves, 'we' should already be contented! Have we given them enough 'education' to expect those 'dua and prayers' when we ourselves are yet not 'Muslim enough'??]


Pickthall has[ the accent if you notice is in the 'present tense' as ulema' like him never die ] an enviable position. Just how many millions of us got enlightened on a daily basis via his Old English translation of The Glorious Koran. Purists among us will say, and my God! They will continue to say until Doomsday, that the Qur'an must be only appreciated in it's original Arabic. As usual, so many champions of Form over Substance!


'Future' history will finally tell us that the 'battleground' of Truth, Justice, Fairness and PEACE will finally be fought and won on the hallowed fields of Europe! Not in the Middle East[ nothing is worst in this world than an agnostic Arab, and we have just too many Qaruns now lording over massive amount of petrodollars ], nor Confucious and mainly 'pagan and materialist' Asia [ how many billion Chinese are there whose main preoccupation and god is MONEY ]. After Europe, America will just fall like a domino. I have no doubt about this: World dominance in the future is not about nuclear warheads or economic superiority. It is about Truth, Forgiveness and Peace and man's innate romance with these virtues. Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, along with Abdullah Yusuf Ali, is a purveyor of Truth, Forgiveness and Peace to the English speaking world.


Truth: One cannot put a lid over it for very long. It is bubbling to come out.
In present day world without borders,Truth, when it get a real chance to appeal to the "rational" man of Europe, would be more potent than a thousand ICBM's!


When Allah's succour and the triumph cometh[1] And then seest mankind entering the religion of Allah in troops,[2] Then hymm the praises of thy Lord, and seek forgiveness of Him. Lo! He is ever ready to show mercy.[3]
[ An-Nasr , 110 ]


http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/bmh/BMM-AHM-pickthall_bio.htm

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