The Qur’an An Abiding Wonder
The Qur’an —The Prophet’s Miracle
~ 77 ~
Semitic civilizations, Arabic language and culture
faced a new crisis. The grandsons of the emperors
and lords of Persia arose to resurrect the civilization
of their forefathers.
These events had a profound effect on the Arabic
language. The state that it had reached by the time
of the poet Mutanabbi (915-965 AD) is expressed in
the following lines:
“The buildings of Iran excel all others in
beauty as the season of spring excels all other
seasons. An Arab youth goes amongst them,
His face, his hands, his tongue, a stranger in
their midst.
Solomon, they say, used to converse with the
jinns.
But were he to visit the Iranians, he would
need a translator.”
(Diwan al-Mutanabbi)
It was the Qur’an’s literary greatness alone which
kept Arabic from being permanently scarred by
