The Quran’s command to read has a direction
March 30, 2025 2:16 PM Subscribe
To command an unlettered man to Read unsettles the essential pillar that reading is largely, or exclusively, the one dimensional act of decoding printed symbols. The Arabic word, “Iqra,” often translated as to “read” contains a curious ambiguity — it simultaneously means “to read” and “to recite.” To recite is to engage in a primarily oral act, externally expressive. To read is to engage in something more private and solitary, internally reflective. from The Lost Art of Research as Leisure [Kasurian]
"Through these communities, much like the Bloomsbury Group, the Inklings, Gertrude Stein’s Salon, or the Vienna Circle, we nurture the living networks through which ideas are tested, refined, cross-pollinated, and passed along."
😂
and Eliot gave a fragment that was partially curated by someone else who went on to re-fragment, ah, Kulture.
foundations that need to be rebuilt. eliot is telling you no, root and branch twas not a liliac colored tank on a field of the narrative turned minted chips of the snarley fogged reality.
you cannot build a foundation on acronymity, sheer motivation from inflated snippets of a cultural potash.
Akhenatens temple as filldirt, a common practice to rebuild or destroy the image forever all for the lack of an imagination of a steam shovel.
posted by clavdivs at 3:03 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
😂
and Eliot gave a fragment that was partially curated by someone else who went on to re-fragment, ah, Kulture.
foundations that need to be rebuilt. eliot is telling you no, root and branch twas not a liliac colored tank on a field of the narrative turned minted chips of the snarley fogged reality.
you cannot build a foundation on acronymity, sheer motivation from inflated snippets of a cultural potash.
Akhenatens temple as filldirt, a common practice to rebuild or destroy the image forever all for the lack of an imagination of a steam shovel.
posted by clavdivs at 3:03 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
and Eliot gave a fragment that was partially curated by someone else who went on to re-fragment, ah, Kulture.Reading this, I feel like I'm having a stroke
foundations that need to be rebuilt. eliot is telling you no, root and branch twas not a liliac colored tank on a field of the narrative turned minted chips of the snarley fogged reality.
you cannot build a foundation on acronymity, sheer motivation from inflated snippets of a cultural potash.
Akhenatens temple as filldirt, a common practice to rebuild or destroy the image forever all for the lack of an imagination of a steam shovel.
posted by slater at 3:44 PM on March 30 [10 favorites]
Yes, reading can be a solitary activity. I read a lot. I live within my own library, thousands of books. But the one thing missing, for me, is what to do after I read a book. There was a time, college to be specific, where reading was coupled with discussion, taking a stand, defending it, and learning from others as they take a stand. Almost twenty years after leaving college, I got involved with a weekly group of about 10 to 15 people, to gather together and read and discuss a single book, Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. They had been active for over twenty years before I joined. I was with them for about three years. It was wonderful. Why? Because of the sharing.
Yes, to read but also to recite, to share. It is in the sharing that we grow as individuals. Culture, or to quote Clavdivs, Kulture (Pound?), is the sharing. I was surprised to discover, after reading the article posted above, that it is from a journal devoted to the rebirth of the lively intellectual culture once found within Islam. While Europe meandered about in its dark times, Islam was busy creating literature, mathematics, and more.
Where are the salons today? Where do people gather to share their insights, to learn from other’s insights, to create new ways of thought? It all happens when people gather together to share, but I’m afraid that this online world is not anywhere close to the experience to be had when people are physically gathered together, to share, to argue, to learn, to create…
posted by njohnson23 at 4:11 PM on March 30 [11 favorites]
Yes, to read but also to recite, to share. It is in the sharing that we grow as individuals. Culture, or to quote Clavdivs, Kulture (Pound?), is the sharing. I was surprised to discover, after reading the article posted above, that it is from a journal devoted to the rebirth of the lively intellectual culture once found within Islam. While Europe meandered about in its dark times, Islam was busy creating literature, mathematics, and more.
Where are the salons today? Where do people gather to share their insights, to learn from other’s insights, to create new ways of thought? It all happens when people gather together to share, but I’m afraid that this online world is not anywhere close to the experience to be had when people are physically gathered together, to share, to argue, to learn, to create…
posted by njohnson23 at 4:11 PM on March 30 [11 favorites]
Reading this, I feel like I'm having a stroke
the journey has only begun
posted by ginger.beef at 5:01 PM on March 30 [9 favorites]
the journey has only begun
posted by ginger.beef at 5:01 PM on March 30 [9 favorites]
Hundreds of words to decry the fall of "civilization" only to state:Today, these communities are everywhere. Substack, YouTube, Discord, Twitter. They exist in small-scale book clubs, writing circles, and informal discussion groups that meet in living rooms and coffee shops across the world.
TL;DR : the kids are alright.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:12 PM on March 30 [5 favorites]
TL;DR : the kids are alright.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:12 PM on March 30 [5 favorites]
to pick up on the opening anecdote, it's worth remarking that while the prophet is known to be illiterate, the culture he was in was heavily predisposed to orators and reciters and keeping knowledge and the arts alive through oral tradition. That's why poets have a place in society, even mingling at religious sites, declaiming about the divine - and also why there were verses in the Quran that extols the quality of the Arabic it's in, and challenged the skeptics to come in with anything half as good. Hmm a whole book of rap battles, won't that be something.
But that's probably also why iqra' has the meaning of recite - orators were necessary to transmit knowledge, they were living books in a way. Reciters were how the Quran was even passed through from person to person - but also why one of the dimensions of Quranic study involves linguistics as the Arabic dialects can vary from town to town (meaningfully enough to impact recall and then retelling). I always thought it was a feat of governance that the third caliph launched essentially a version control project to bound together a coherent (lexically) volume of the Quran, so that it's the most accurate to the dialect the prophet had used.
posted by cendawanita at 6:14 PM on March 30 [12 favorites]
But that's probably also why iqra' has the meaning of recite - orators were necessary to transmit knowledge, they were living books in a way. Reciters were how the Quran was even passed through from person to person - but also why one of the dimensions of Quranic study involves linguistics as the Arabic dialects can vary from town to town (meaningfully enough to impact recall and then retelling). I always thought it was a feat of governance that the third caliph launched essentially a version control project to bound together a coherent (lexically) volume of the Quran, so that it's the most accurate to the dialect the prophet had used.
posted by cendawanita at 6:14 PM on March 30 [12 favorites]
Ooh, so, something vaguely within my area of expertise. Cendawanita is mostly correct.
Pre-Islamic Arab tribes were nomadic; specifically, they moved their livestock on a circuit within their territory to whatever land was suitable for grazing at that season. Periodically, two tribes would meet at the same border patch of grass. They would fight for who got to graze. A lot of people got killed this way, and it was unsustainable. So they went through a phase where instead of an all-out battle, it was three on three champions. Still too many people died.
So they switched (nobody is super clear how) to poetry slams: the tribes would get together over a fire and each tribe's poet would do their poetry and the winner's tribe got the bigger share of the grazing land. The poetry is in a totally separate dialect of Arabic from the regular spoken sort: much fancier, with all sorts of grammatical bells and whistles and a specialized vocabulary. The poetry has a pretty rigid form, where essentially the poet, playing the part of a great warrior and/or poet, extols his toughness, and it's all really a metaphor for how tough his tribe is. There are certain other types of poetry: one is the domain of women, and it's elegies for relatives killed in battle, and another is the poet playing the role of drunken, gambling outcaste who's still super tough.
So when Muhammad begins preaching and eventually becomes the political leader, the biggest threats to him are the poets of other tribes, and they're the first ones he goes after. And the Qur'an really is superlative poetry, which is one of the many reasons it's basically impossible to translate meaningfully: there's too much going on in form and content to make a translation complete. If we can believe the history written by the victors, the other poets were ultimately forced to acknowledge that what Muhammad was reciting had them beat. There's a real famous poem called Bánat Su3ád where the poet is acknowledging that the pagan days are over and we're all believers now.
To the present day, the poetry dialect survives, remarkably intact, as the language of literature, religious studies and fancy political speeches; the spoken dialects spread out with the conquests, merged with local languages (notably in Egypt) and diverged.
And "read" means "recite" in nearly every other language. I think it's Thomas Aquinas, centuries after Muhammad, who was the first person widely known to be able to read silently, and it freaked people out.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:44 PM on March 30 [16 favorites]
Pre-Islamic Arab tribes were nomadic; specifically, they moved their livestock on a circuit within their territory to whatever land was suitable for grazing at that season. Periodically, two tribes would meet at the same border patch of grass. They would fight for who got to graze. A lot of people got killed this way, and it was unsustainable. So they went through a phase where instead of an all-out battle, it was three on three champions. Still too many people died.
So they switched (nobody is super clear how) to poetry slams: the tribes would get together over a fire and each tribe's poet would do their poetry and the winner's tribe got the bigger share of the grazing land. The poetry is in a totally separate dialect of Arabic from the regular spoken sort: much fancier, with all sorts of grammatical bells and whistles and a specialized vocabulary. The poetry has a pretty rigid form, where essentially the poet, playing the part of a great warrior and/or poet, extols his toughness, and it's all really a metaphor for how tough his tribe is. There are certain other types of poetry: one is the domain of women, and it's elegies for relatives killed in battle, and another is the poet playing the role of drunken, gambling outcaste who's still super tough.
So when Muhammad begins preaching and eventually becomes the political leader, the biggest threats to him are the poets of other tribes, and they're the first ones he goes after. And the Qur'an really is superlative poetry, which is one of the many reasons it's basically impossible to translate meaningfully: there's too much going on in form and content to make a translation complete. If we can believe the history written by the victors, the other poets were ultimately forced to acknowledge that what Muhammad was reciting had them beat. There's a real famous poem called Bánat Su3ád where the poet is acknowledging that the pagan days are over and we're all believers now.
To the present day, the poetry dialect survives, remarkably intact, as the language of literature, religious studies and fancy political speeches; the spoken dialects spread out with the conquests, merged with local languages (notably in Egypt) and diverged.
And "read" means "recite" in nearly every other language. I think it's Thomas Aquinas, centuries after Muhammad, who was the first person widely known to be able to read silently, and it freaked people out.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:44 PM on March 30 [16 favorites]
"but also why one of the dimensions of Quranic study involves linguistics as the Arabic dialects can vary from town"
would this entail Qira'at and Tajwid concerning the dimensional aspects of various dialect linguistically.
While secular in nature, I thought of the French Revolution where official documents had to be "carefully"worded due to the various dialects throughout France at that time.
the journey has only begun
"oh, the movie never ends."
(impersonation John Belushi at short stop)
rather effective.
Culture, or to quote Clavdivs, Kulture (Pound?), is the sharing.
'Guide to Kulchur'.
"But Pound emphasizes throughout the book that his contractual obligation is not to guide “through” human culture but to guide “to” it.The anti-handholding, pro-indexical model nonetheless seems to render “culture” a thing abstracted from the book’s readers.
and here. 'A Culture In Crisis
These fears have not been unfounded. Today, we find ourselves in precisely the cultural crisis that Woolf, White, and Sontag anticipated—not a world without books, but a world where fragmented attention and superficial engagement have eroded the foundations of shared meaning and cultural coherence.'
I see that, is it new? In for a ¢ ( for the old guy) in fer a £. 1913. ' Salutation the Second'
"Here they stand without quaint devices"
posted by clavdivs at 7:09 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
would this entail Qira'at and Tajwid concerning the dimensional aspects of various dialect linguistically.
While secular in nature, I thought of the French Revolution where official documents had to be "carefully"worded due to the various dialects throughout France at that time.
the journey has only begun
"oh, the movie never ends."
(impersonation John Belushi at short stop)
rather effective.
Culture, or to quote Clavdivs, Kulture (Pound?), is the sharing.
'Guide to Kulchur'.
"But Pound emphasizes throughout the book that his contractual obligation is not to guide “through” human culture but to guide “to” it.The anti-handholding, pro-indexical model nonetheless seems to render “culture” a thing abstracted from the book’s readers.
and here. 'A Culture In Crisis
These fears have not been unfounded. Today, we find ourselves in precisely the cultural crisis that Woolf, White, and Sontag anticipated—not a world without books, but a world where fragmented attention and superficial engagement have eroded the foundations of shared meaning and cultural coherence.'
I see that, is it new? In for a ¢ ( for the old guy) in fer a £. 1913. ' Salutation the Second'
"Here they stand without quaint devices"
posted by clavdivs at 7:09 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
but a world where fragmented attention and superficial engagement have eroded the foundations of shared meaning and cultural coherence.'
do we not have a department of education, are the work houses not in full order.
I use satire to agree to some extent.
to be fair, pound could not make it cohere but that was of his own doing. I like the article, read it through 60mph winds.
posted by clavdivs at 7:18 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
do we not have a department of education, are the work houses not in full order.
I use satire to agree to some extent.
to be fair, pound could not make it cohere but that was of his own doing. I like the article, read it through 60mph winds.
posted by clavdivs at 7:18 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
one more.
a perfect example of fragment thesis with recitation albiet stream of consciousness
tour.
"winning"
-Charle Sheen T-shirt
posted by clavdivs at 7:28 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
a perfect example of fragment thesis with recitation albiet stream of consciousness
tour.
"winning"
-Charle Sheen T-shirt
posted by clavdivs at 7:28 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
I don't need to be convinced that reading is, in and of itself, a pursuit beneficial to everyone that engages in it. But this was a great read - thanks for posting it.
posted by dg at 8:32 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
posted by dg at 8:32 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
would this entail Qira'at and Tajwid concerning the dimensional aspects of various dialect linguistically.
Sure. There'd be pages to unravel how this or that word would play out with different tajwid because of how Arabic (like Hebrew) is formed, being a syllabic language.
something vaguely within my area of expertise. Cendawanita is mostly correct.
My thanks, for elaborating what I kept in the generalities.
posted by cendawanita at 8:44 PM on March 30 [6 favorites]
Sure. There'd be pages to unravel how this or that word would play out with different tajwid because of how Arabic (like Hebrew) is formed, being a syllabic language.
something vaguely within my area of expertise. Cendawanita is mostly correct.
My thanks, for elaborating what I kept in the generalities.
posted by cendawanita at 8:44 PM on March 30 [6 favorites]
Akhenatens temple
posted by HearHere at 3:35 AM on March 31 [4 favorites]
Egyptian architects switched to the small blocks called talatat that characterize constructions of this period. [metmuseum2]as filldirt
Gypsum had long been employed in Egypt as a mortar, a ground for painting, and for its adhesive qualities, but at Amarna it was used to create great long foundation levels, to build up platforms, and in a few instances to form large concrete blocks that functioned like stone. It was used as a mortar for talatat and glue for inlay. It may even have been used to create a whole large stela surface in the newly discovered boundary stela H. And it was used to adhere the elements of the composite statuary created at Amarna, and apparently to construct some balustrades from a three-dimensional mosaic(clavdivs, thank you for the research inspiration & thank you, chavenet, for the read)
posted by HearHere at 3:35 AM on March 31 [4 favorites]
Your Lord has neither forsaken you, nor is He displeased. Indeed what is to come will be better for you than what has gone by. Verily your Lord will soon give you so amply that you will be well-pleased.
Where is this from?
I never knew Muhammed (PBUH) couldn't read! A really informative link, thankyou!
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 11:53 AM on March 31 [2 favorites]
Where is this from?
I never knew Muhammed (PBUH) couldn't read! A really informative link, thankyou!
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 11:53 AM on March 31 [2 favorites]
Thanks HearHere. 'Akhenaten: the Heretic King' I recommend strongly by Donald B. Redford. also did a post on the Gm•(t)-p3-itn. relinking the The Akhenaten Temple Project and Karnak Excavations'. the reuse of buildings, temples, and even personal objects within the 18th dynasy is interesting.
Horemheb is the interesting figure. from III to IV to Tut then Ay, he survived to wipe all but III from history.
my old professor said once when the Ch'in fell, books began to fall out of the walls.
posted by clavdivs at 2:15 PM on March 31 [2 favorites]
Horemheb is the interesting figure. from III to IV to Tut then Ay, he survived to wipe all but III from history.
my old professor said once when the Ch'in fell, books began to fall out of the walls.
posted by clavdivs at 2:15 PM on March 31 [2 favorites]
The Quran’s command to read has a direction
Right to left.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:06 PM on March 31 [1 favorite]
Right to left.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:06 PM on March 31 [1 favorite]
Your Lord has neither forsaken you, nor is He displeased. Indeed what is to come will be better for you than what has gone by. Verily your Lord will soon give you so amply that you will be well-pleased.
Where is this from?
That's from Surah (Chapter) ad-Duha, third verse onwards.
Muhammad being unlettered was a big deal overall, as with the story of the first revelation being the command to Iqra' (and also why if you see Muslims fighting especially with all these regressive islamofascists, you can expect a very salty rejoinder about reading, lol). And in the Islam I was raised in, it was a big deal also that compared to the other known/named prophets, he's the only one without any demonstrations of miracles (eg Jesus with Lazarus or Moses challenging the Pharaoh's sorcerers), and that from that view, the existence of the Quran is his miracle.
posted by cendawanita at 8:03 PM on March 31 [2 favorites]
Where is this from?
That's from Surah (Chapter) ad-Duha, third verse onwards.
Muhammad being unlettered was a big deal overall, as with the story of the first revelation being the command to Iqra' (and also why if you see Muslims fighting especially with all these regressive islamofascists, you can expect a very salty rejoinder about reading, lol). And in the Islam I was raised in, it was a big deal also that compared to the other known/named prophets, he's the only one without any demonstrations of miracles (eg Jesus with Lazarus or Moses challenging the Pharaoh's sorcerers), and that from that view, the existence of the Quran is his miracle.
posted by cendawanita at 8:03 PM on March 31 [2 favorites]
(like, he'd got miracles performed onto him by the angels, but the idea is that he himself had never performed any.)
posted by cendawanita at 8:09 PM on March 31 [2 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 8:09 PM on March 31 [2 favorites]
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posted by Lemkin at 3:00 PM on March 30 [3 favorites]