Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
Just a thought, but while there are translations of the Koran in English and doubtless many other vernaculars around the world, I believe most muslims believe it should only be read in the original Arabic (i.e., 1300 year old Arabic). Since most muslims do not come from Arabic speaking countries, I wonder how many actually are truly literate in the Arabic that the Koran is written in.
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Bill
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Having numerous British Muslim friends, the answer to that, in the British Pakistani community at least, is "very few". But most British Muslims own "parallel" versions of the Koran, which have the Arabic text printed on one page, and an English translation on the facing page. Most Muslims of my acquantance can read the Koran in Arabic out loud (this is very easy to do, since Arabic is an entirely phonetic language), but can understand very little of the Arabic, other than certain "stock phrases".