The Qur’an An Abiding Wonder
The Qur’an —The Prophet’s Miracle
~ 70 ~
The 8th century AD 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 had a strong influence on all of them, being
the language from which they were all derived, but
itself survived only as the official language of the
Roman Catholic Church. No longer a living tongue,
it was ultimately only of historical interest,
although it did continue to provide the linguistic
bases for 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 have always left a deep imprint on the
languages of the affected peoples. These factors
