Minan ur Rahman

A short Treatise, namely Minan-ur-Rahman (1895) English translation by Qazi Abdul Hameed, Lahore (1963)

Apparently the book appears to be in response to Max Muller's belief that:

Ahmad strongly reacted to this claim and refuted Max Muller's proposition by referring him to the NT Acts II:4-6, explaining that the Disciples only spoke languages already known and understood by all the Jews Ahmad writes, he very earnestly prayed to God, and asked for true knowledge in this regard. So God Almighty diverted his attention to a verse of the Holy Quran 30:23.

[The Quran, 30:23] And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your tongues and colours. In that surely are Signs for those who possess knowledge.

Ahmad claimed in light of Quranic verses:

He claimed, the true Science of Languages has been taught in the Holy Quran, explaining the unique characteristics of the Arabic language. "He created man then taught him speech and guided him " (page 85).

Unique Characteristics of Arabic

In this book Minan-ur-Rahman Ahmad claimed that Arabic was the very First Language, taught to man by God. Ahmad describes the system of Mufradaat [the Simples or the Roots of words] in the Arabic Language had a unique scientific organization and a system, unknown in any other language. He described the five peculiarities of Arabic and claimed, all other languages of man, were derived from Arabic,

He explained, in the Arabic language, even the lonely alphabets (a, b, c etc.) at times manifest full and extensive meanings. e.g.:( see pp. 10–11)

فِ (fi) 'Be faithful'

قِ (qi) 'Keep an eye on'

لِ (li) 'Come nearer'

عِ ('I) 'Call to mind'

اِ (I) 'Promise'

خِ (Khe) 'Go, neither slowly nor fast, but with rather moderate pace'

ہِ (hi) 'Burst thyself, or become weak'

دِ (di) 'Pay blood-money'

رِ (ri) 'Flare up, become brighter, or come out of the fireplace.' or 'Become dirty'

شِ (shi) 'Paint thy garments with patterns '

نِ (ni) 'Be slow or lazy'

Ahmad goes on explaining, sometimes even small single words give extensive meanings: e.g.

عرضتُ (araztu) means: "I have roamed about Makkah, Madina, and all the habitations around them."

طہفلتُ (Tahfaltu) means: "I eat and have determined always to eat Millet bread ."

جثمَ (Jasama) means: "Half the night has passed".

حیعلَ (Haya-al) means: "Come; Pray! It is proper time."

The Mother Language

"The Arabic language possesses excellent qualities and signs which, in the eyes of scholars, invest it with the status of a Mother in relation to other languages, and these languages are like a shadow in relation to Arabic or like sparrows in relation to a preying falcon." (page 100).

Ahmad believed that Arabic, being the First Language, however, in due course of time, great changes in the structure and form of the vocal apparatus, man's ecology and environment, and many other unknown factors, caused a diversification of Arabic language into thousands of tongues, all derived from Arabic. He writes, quoting from the Hebrew Torah, Genesis 11:1:-

He after commenting upon the relationship of Hebrew, or Sanskrit to Arabic, writes:

Five Points of Excellence

Ahmad highlighted Five points of the excellence of the Arabic language: [page. 17]

1. Arabic has a complete organised structure of roots, that is to say, the roots meet fully all the needs of human beings in the field of expression ; the other languages are not so fitted.

2. In Arabic, the names of the Divine Being, the names of the principal constituent parts of the universe, of plants, animals and minerals and of the members of the human body, possess, in the why and wherefore of their contents, deep philosophy and learning.

3. The Additions and the roots of Arabic words are perfectly organised. The scope of this organisation, by linking into one philosophical chain, all the verbs and nouns, belonging to the same root, points out their interrelationships. This is not to be found, to this degree of excellence, in other languages.

4. In Arabic expressions, words are few but meanings are many, that is to say, the Arabic language makes use of (ا) [alif], and (ل) [laam] and nunnation (تنوین) and the sequence of words, in such a way that to express the same meaning the other languages need a number of sentences to be linked up for the same purpose.

5. Arabic possesses roots and expressions which are the perfect means of portraying the most delicate and deep things of the mind and human ideas.

A greater part of the book is devoted to manifest these characteristic in further details. He writes, " Thousands of languages are stricken with the calamity of a drawback that instead of root-words they make use of complex grammatical constructions, which shows that at a time of need such constructions have been invented by man." [page. 22]

Arabic follows the Law of Nature

After the above Introductory details, the rest of the treatise is in a very lucid and elegant Arabic.[page 27-127] He explains that Arabic is unique to follow the patterns we observe in Nature. Two distinct features, i.e.'the pre-existing' Grace of God, like the bounties of Nature, the qualities inherent in the soil and earth, the sun and the changing weathers etc. And the second aspect being human efforts, labour and endeavours, these combine to give birth to the fruit of human endeavours. To fulfil these Two requirements, Arabic has Two distinct words for Mercy, Rahman [رحمان]and Raheem. [رحیم]. To explain his point, Ahmad writes:

Ten Categories of Arabic Roots

Ahmad believed that Arabic was the Language of Divine Realization and designed to fulfill the Physical and Spiritual needs of man. He classified the Arabic Root-Words, into ten categories, calling them as the Ten Circles of Roots. He describes them as follows: (pp: 38-40)

Language as the Evolution of Names

How did language come into being? To quote Encyclopædia Britannica: " On the ultimate origin of language speculation has been rife, more, however, among philosophers than among philologists, who have very often been too matter-of-fact to take an interest in this problem. Some scholars (among them quite recently W. Schmidt) see the insufficiency of the usual theories, and giving up all attempts at explaining it in a natural way fall back on the religious belief that the first language was directly given to the first men by God through a miracle."

Further Contributions

A renowned Philologist Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar (1896-1993) has contributed immensely to the work of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and studied the various languages (around 35) and traced them to their Arabic Root-Words. The works, which trace the Arabic Roots, are the dictionary format, are easily available, can be downloaded freely by pasting the links in the browser's address bar. Most of the work is yet unpublished and in MSS forms.

The Source of All Languages [22MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [3]

Dutch and Swedish Traced to Arabic [4MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [4]

Egyptian Traced to Arabic [3MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [5]

English Traced to Arabic [26MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [6]

Hausa Traced to Arabic [8MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [7]

Italian Traced to Arabic [4MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [8]

Japanese Traced to Arabic [5MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [9]

Sanskrit Traced to Arabic [18MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [10]

Sumerian, Akkadian, Bantu Traced to Arabic [2MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [11]

Yoruba Traced to Arabic [7MB pdf] - by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar [12]

Related Link

Islam Ahmadiyya - Arabic Website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community [13]