A small thread on the Islamic theological theories of language:
Quran verse 2:31 “He taught Adam all the names” is central to the Islamic discussion on the nature of language. The majority of theologians among the Muʿtazila, early Ashʿarī, and Māturīdī schools understood... 1/
Quran verse 2:31 “He taught Adam all the names” is central to the Islamic discussion on the nature of language. The majority of theologians among the Muʿtazila, early Ashʿarī, and Māturīdī schools understood... 1/
...ʿallama in its apparent meaning of ‘taught’, as in that language, both in form (lafẓa) and meaning (maʿanā), was in one way or another divinely imposed (bi-l-tawqīfi) on the first human(s). But a minority among the Muʿtazila proposed an alternative semantic meaning... 2/
...for ʿallama as ‘inspired with the impulse to do a thing’, whereby only the impulse is divinely imposed but the lingual form and meaning is naturally and rationally constructed by humans themselves. The later Ashʿarī and Māturīdī eventually held that both views were possible 3/
Meaning, later Islamic theology generally upheld an agnostic position on the origins of human language.
Some nice sources on this are:
—Fakhr al-dīn al-Rāzī in his al-Tafsīr al-kabīr on Q.2:31.
—Bernard Weiss, The search for God’s law: Islamic jurisprudence in the writings 4/
Some nice sources on this are:
—Fakhr al-dīn al-Rāzī in his al-Tafsīr al-kabīr on Q.2:31.
—Bernard Weiss, The search for God’s law: Islamic jurisprudence in the writings 4/
... of Sayf al-Dīn alĀmīdī (United States: University of Utah Press, 2010), 117–9.
—Mustafa Shah, “Classical Islamic Discourse on the Origins of Language: Cultural Memory and the Defense of Orthodoxy”, Numen 58, no. 2 (2011): 314–343.
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—Mustafa Shah, “Classical Islamic Discourse on the Origins of Language: Cultural Memory and the Defense of Orthodoxy”, Numen 58, no. 2 (2011): 314–343.
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