The Quran—The Miracle Given to the Prophet

THE QURAN—THE MIRACLE GIVEN TO THE PROPHET example. But such changes were just on the surface. Arabic proper remained the same as it had been centuries ago when the Quran was revealed. Literary Advancement Once in a while, writers of outstanding status appear on a language’s literary scene. When this happens, the language they write changes, for their literary masterpieces influence the mode of popular expression. In this way, languages continually pass through progressive evolutionary stages until they become quite different from their original form. With Arabic, this did not happen. At the very outset of Arabic history, the Quran set a literary standard that could not be excelled. Arabic maintained the style set for it by the Quran. No masterpiece comparable to the Quran was destined to be produced after it, so Arabic remained cast in the mould of that divine symphony. Take the example of English. In the 7th century A.D., it was just an ordinary local dialect, not geared to express profound intellectual thought. For another five hundred years, this situation continued. The Normans conquered England in 1066, and when the founding father of the English language—Geoffrey Chaucer—was born around 1340, the official language of their court was still French. Chaucer had command of Latin, French and Italian, besides his native English. This, along with his extraordinary gifts of scholarship, enabled him to make English into an academic language. To use Ernest Hauser’s words, he gave