The Quest of a Curious Muslim

The Quest of a Curious Muslim — Page 24

WHY IS THE ARABIC LANGUAGE SO IMPORTANT IN PRAYERS? 24 entreaties in your native tongue so that the humility and meekness that they are born of may touch your heart”. 13 Speaking to God in prayer in our own language is actually very much encouraged and brings about humility and passion in expressing our feelings to God Almighty. However, this is not done at the expense of giving up the original language altogether. Fundamentally, this is necessary because loss of the original language would mean the loss of the whole religion. This is something that Islam lays a claim to with great pride. The Islamic religion has retained t h e o r i g i n a l l a n g u a g e i n w h i c h P ro p h e t Muhammad sa spoke and delivered his message from God. The revelations bestowed upon him are all retained in the original language and come to us in the Holy Quran. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at recognizes that people have a very personal relationship with their own respective language. Hence, the Jama'at has published more than 70 translations of the Quran but care has always been taken to place the translation next to the original Arabic. The basic goal is to ensure that the original words are not lost to history.