Quran corpus - Surraiya Encyclopaedia of Quran

Linguistic Semantics is the study of meanings as inherent at the levels of words, phrases, sentences and larger units of discourse-text. It is used for understanding human expression through language. The discourse-text of Grand Qur’ān is in Arabic: a perspicuous, eloquent, distinctive and precisely expressive language; the language of the sons of soil of Arabian Peninsula.

Experts suggest that it is useful to view the vocabulary of a language/text as a set of words referring to a series of conceptual fields. In linguistics, these divisions are called Semantic fields. A semantic field or semantic domain is a set of words grouped by meaning referring to a specific subject; languages will have fields of distance, location, size, shape, time, emotion, beliefs, economics, academic subjects, natural phenomena, etc. Each field can have many sub-divisions or lexical sets: actual words and expressions. Semantic fields are arranged hierarchically, going from the more general to the more specific. Linguists generally refer the general word by umbrella term "superordinate" and the specific word as "hyponym". The propositional meaning carried by a general word or superordinate is part of the meaning of each of its hyponyms but not vice versa.

1. The source of guidance is but unitary, be it for a single cell or for human being with hundred trillion cells in his body. There is only one star in the Sky that comes to the rescue of a man in bewilderment of clueless location to show him the direction [refer 16:16]. The guidance: information code for aright course for sustaining life of a cell is encoded in the DNA. DNA contains the instructions for growth and development in humans and all living creatures. Our DNA is packaged into chromosomes that contain all of our genes. The guidance for humanity is encoded in the Grand Qur’ān: the constitution for aright conduct and the guarantor of sustained life. It is the "DNA" for growth and development to an exaltation that will render him eligible to be piloted beyond the ascensions of earthly universe to his original abode to live the truly living life of the Hereafter.

Genetics is quite a delicate and complicated discipline. Being a person of ordinary prudence, I have but to restrict to non-technical and elementary approach. I, however, understand that the Source-Originator of information is since Unitary, therefore, the transmission and decoding of guidance in the DNA and the Book of Allah the Exalted: Grand Qur’ān must have similarities, resemblances and are governed by similar rules. Genetic scientists tell us that the genetic code is a set of rules that defines how the four-letter code of DNA is translated into 20-letter code of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.

Likewise, the linguists and grammarians have the set of rules for translating a source-language text into target-language text. Deviations from the rules will produce a defective protein and a defective translation.

Guidance for humanity is:

the Parlance—verbal Message of Allah the Exalted. Like Messenger RNA, it was in timeline transferred—transcribed to the elevated human Messenger of Allah the Exalted for onward communication-delivery verbatim to public:

They were a galaxy of men of personal choice of Allah the Exalted described by Adjective resembling participle:

signifying the person who is the Chosen, elevated and given Distinction and exaltation over all others in timeline since their birth. However, they were assigned the responsibility of the Messenger only upon attaining strengthen maturity to convey the Message of Allah to the people of their time and nation in their respective language. The same is the case in human genome that the mature Messenger RNA does the same job.

The last in the galaxy of men of personal choice of Allah the Exalted, described by Adjective resembling participle:

is the final universal Messenger who is unique by virtue of having been appointed for the humanity for the entire time-span. The Universal Messenger Muhammad Sal'lallaa'hoalaih'wa'salam is perpetually the sole Warner and survivalist for all those whom Grand Qur’ān reaches in time and space:

2. "Semantics" of DNA is decoding—to transform an encoded message into an understandable form—the 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes in the human genome. And perhaps there are a similar number of sentences in the text of Grand Qur’ān. A gene comprises of a sequence of Codons. A codon is a set of three consecutive nucleotides in Messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule that codes for one amino acid. Thus each gene encodes the sequence of amino acids that will produce a specific protein. Proteins are polymers of amino acids. Each protein has a unique sequence of amino acids. The sequence of amino acids specifies protein shape and function.

In verbal language, a gene corresponds to a sentence of a text that conveys a complete thought/proposition-concept. And a codon corresponds to a word or phrase—grammatical unit in a sentence imparting only one meaning. And their sequence in a sentence signifies the type of sentence by structure and function—meanings-message-communication.

After the First Segment (Chapter), there are 29 untranslatable binding-sites in the Qur’ān where only letters of alphabet and diacritical mark appear. Interestingly, the alphabet of Arabic also comprises of 29 segments, one letter and 28 consonants. [So called Mystery of Initial Letter/Consonants]. Thus the Grand Qur’ān has thirty translatable segments.

4. The ribosome is a complex molecular machine found within all living cells, that serves as the site of biological protein synthesis- translation. Ribosome link amino acids together in the order specified by messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules. Ribosome consist of two major components: the small ribosomal subunit, which reads the RNA, and the large subunit, which joins amino acids to form a polypeptide chain.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule is a single strand. Similarly Arabic text is a single continuous strand depicting first word to its last word as a chain. In both, there is neither capital letter to indicate the start of a sentence nor end markers like full stop, exclamation and question mark. The ribosome binds to the single strand of Messenger RNA. As the ribosome binds, we are also directed to consciously bind ourselves with the "strand of Allah the Exalted":

5. Human Genome Project has highlighted that the structure of the genetic language is very simple and that the rules for reading the genetic code are simple. The "Author" of Genetic code and Grand Qur’ān is Allah the Exalted. He the Exalted has proclaimed about Qur’ān:

6. For accurate decoding-translation of a codon, the basic unit of genetic code, there is an anticodon which is a trinucleotide sequence complementary to that of codon in a messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence. An anticodon is found at one end of a transfer RNA (tRNA) molecule. During protein synthesis, each time an amino acid is added to the growing protein, a tRNA forms base-pairs with its complementary sequence on the mRNA molecule, ensuring that the appropriate amino acid is inserted into the protein.

Like the triplet code of codon and corresponding anticodon for translation of a gene for producing a protein, for accurate translation of a sentence (gene) in the text of Grand Qur’ān, there is a "triplet anticodon": Root + Morphology + syntax for every word - element (codon) of the sentence. Without applying this "anticodon", any attempted translation will be but faulty, inaccurate, erroneous, incomplete or vague.

The language of Grand Qur’ān is Arabic: language of the exalted universal Messenger-Spokesperson of Allah the Supreme Sovereign, and of sons of soil of Arabian peninsula.

Arabic words, nouns and verbs, stem from Roots. Root is a cluster of three, in some cases four or rare five, consonants of Alphabet placed in a peculiar sequence. Out of 29 letters of Arabic alphabet, Aleph is not a consonant since it has no sound, hence it is never the part of a Root. All 28 consonants may function as root radicals. However, there are no roots with identical consonants in the first and second position while at the second and third position radicals of a root can be the same consonant. Such roots are termed geminate roots.

Though a combination of three unique consonants can constitute six Roots, for example consonants:

Roots are comparable to proper names as both are with unique semantic reference. However, there is a profound difference between proper names and roots. The former designate identifiable entities with real existence, whereas root is pure abstraction. The root is the common element shared by its derivatives.

The Root has specific, defined, distinct, conspicuous and apparent concept, phenomenon, perception and signification folded in it. It is the source, the reservoir of knowledge. Roots can be termed as "repertory of frames" of Arabic language if we follow frames approach to semantic analysis.

The amazing fact about the Roots of Arabic is that the perception infolded in them is reflective of physical—scientific realities pertaining both to matter and life. They seem as if they are the baseline for scientific study and investigation.

For semantics, Root is like the first of trinucleotide sequence of anticodon. It is well know that vocabulary is of vital importance in language study because it is the essence of a language. Linguist D. A. Wilkins (1972) has the famous line : "Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. (p.11)".

That book is conveniently understandable which uses minimum vocabulary of the language. The entire vocabulary of Grand Qur’ān, nouns and verbs, stems from just 1646 Roots. Therefore, at preliminary stage, we should feel pleased that learning the skill for real-time translation of Qur’ān is rendered facilitative by the use of a small part of otherwise large vocabulary of Arabic in its discourse. If we merely run through the basic perception infolded in these Roots, we will gain a fairly good understanding of meanings of the words of Grand Qur’ān, even before learning the meanings added by other features of the language; morphology and syntax.

Classical tradition employs the word Root, but in reality, the concept resembles exactly to a "seed" which is either monocotyledon or dicotyledonous and contains the DNA to sprout and grow into a plant in a specific environment. "Seeds" of Arabic language have distinction of monocotyledon-nominal and dicotyledonous-verbal. Unique assemblage and sequencing of consonants is like a DNA that encodes complete tree of a unique concept-field of understanding which "germinates" in specific environment.

Morphology deals with word structures. Arabic morphology is highly systematic. It involves the study of patterns and forms of words found in the language with regard to their origin, derivation, construction and meanings. Words originate from the Roots on various well defined patterns-moulds-structuring frames. But they retain the original perception infolded in the Root, dominantly and conspicuously. Additional meanings and connotation, shades and colours get added to the perception-concept-meanings infolded in the Root by the peculiar pattern - placing of vowels—syllabification and addition of consonants. Moreover, relational aspect of the semantic field will also influence and add connotations to the word with reference to its collocates. Hence; the meanings, perception and connotation of an Arabic word is the composite whole of the perception infolded in its Root, coupled with meanings associated with its pattern, and its relation to the semantic field where it is used—collocates.

It signifies that the basic meanings of a Root and word do not exhaust when they are used in a different semantic field, relational area, while necessarily retaining the base meanings. This phenomenon is particular to the words which are other than those coined to denote and identify a specific tangible object, or person, i.e. substantive nouns. Actions and gestures, bodily actions or body language has various levels of intensity, depth, magnitude proportionally reflecting the feel and state of heart and mind.

For semantics, morphology is like the second of trinucleotide sequence of anticodon. All the words stemming from a particular root are enumerated in the root page and their morphological features are mentioned therein. Moreover, all words are segregated by their types.

Syntax- (Arabic: النحو العربي‎ or قواعد اللغة العربية)

It is the other branch of Arabic grammar that deals with the set of rules, principles, and process that govern the structure of sentences. It deals with how words or other elements of sentence structure are combined to form grammatical sentences-complete expressions. The subject of syntax [Nahw-] revolves around word itself and the speech. The benefit of grammar is protection against error in speech, and likewise in writing. Syntax is concerned with the expression-word as it exists within the context of a sentence. It is not particularly concerned with the expression-word itself which is the main subject of other branch of Arabic grammar, i.e. morphology-Tasreef.

Syntax is all about the concept called grammatical inflection-I‘rāb إﻋﺮﺍﺏ. It is considered the core of grammar and everything else revolves around it. Experts say understand this concept is understanding the Arabic language and failing to understand it is failing to understand the language.

Syntax of Grand Qur’ān is the simplest because we have only to observe the vowel on the last consonant of a noun. The last vowel reveals the role and function of a noun in the sentence. Nouns having vowel sign ـُُ, ,ـُـُ on their last consonant are termed "nominative- مَرْفُوْع"; those with vowel sign [ــًــ, ـَ] are termed "accusative-مَنْصُوْب", and third case-ending with vowel sign [ـِ .. -ٍ ] are termed "genitive-مَجْرُوْر".

There are 8 roles that nouns play in sentences when they have case ending ـُُ, ,ـُـُ —"nominative- مَرْفُوْع";

There are 12 roles that nouns play in sentences when they have case ending [ــًــ, ـَ]—"accusative-مَنْصُوْب"; and

There are 2 roles that nouns play in sentences when they have case ending [ـِ .. -ٍ ]—"genitive-مَجْرُوْر"

Thus there are only 22 positions for reflecting the role and function a noun performs in sentences and discourse. There are 20 standard amino acids, and a start and a stop codon in protein-coded gene translation. In Arabic, there are twenty two declensions of a noun that signify its role in the sentence: two genitive, eight nominative, and twelve accusative.

The Dictionary of Roots enumerates all the nouns, with different case endings, stemming from them that are used in the Grand Qur’ān.

The Universal Messenger Muhammad Sal'lallaa'hoalaih'wa'salam has relayed and Grand Qur’ān has since reached us. It is like the Messenger RNA has reached to the cytoplasm, where the ribosome are located. It is the job of the individual and ribosome in cell to translate the message: