Muhammad a Prophet For all Humanity
15. The Qur’an—The Prophet’s Miracle
~ 359 ~
The 8th century A.D. was an age of Muslim
conquest. The Romans were forced to take refuge in
Constantinople, which became the capital of the
eastern half of the Empire, until in 1453 the Turks
took Constantinople and banished the Romans from
this, their last stronghold. The decline of the Roman
Empire enabled various local languages to flourish,
notably French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Latin, the parent language, had a strong influence
on all of them, but itself remained only as the
official language of the Roman Catholic Church. No
longer a living tongue, it retained only historic
interest, and continued to be used to explain
technical, legal and scientific terms. Without a good
grasp of Latin, for instance, one cannot read
Newton’s Principia in the original.
Every classical language followed much the same
pattern, changing along with social circumstances
until, eventually, the original language gave way to
another,
completely
changed
one.
Ethnic
integration, political revolutions, and cultural
clashes always left a deep mark on the language
that they affected. These factors have been at work
on the Arabic language over the last 1500 years, but,
