Acknowledgements – 5th – To Others

Acknowledgements – 5th – To Others

All my nearly 80 years of life I have been a student learning languages, literature and law by studying articles, books, essays, judgments, magazines, opinions, stories, and translations in Arabic, English, Punjabi and Urdu.   I have used the Encyclopedias, Mulla’s “Mahomedan Law” and even visited Wikipedia.   I admit that most of what I read and the source is forgotten or buried deep in my memory.   I can’t always recall what, when, where, why and how I learnt any fact, figure or fallacy.   I acknowledge, however, that all my acquired knowledge is learnt.

Islamic Jurisprudence is one example I read in several books and recall only some of it.   Initially it developed in the Arabic in which are the Holy Qor-aan and Ahadeeth – the reports of the acts and sayings of the Holy Prophet s.a.w.   As jurisprudence flourished in Arabic in Arab states like Syria, Egypt, Morocco and Spain, it was also translated in Persian (farsi) presenting the Shiite view.   The medieval ages saw its translations in the European languages including the French, Latin and Spanish.   When the British Empire came to rule India and parts of the Southeast Asia where Moslems applied Moslem Law to all personal and family affairs, the Brits needed to know what was that law.   Thus translations from French to English grew. It was further extrapolated under the dominance of the British-India courts and their judgments that in some cases went up to the Privy Council in England.

Transliterating Arabic terms is another example of how the European languages used apostrophe coma in doing so, such as the word Qur’aan.   This type of use in the British English is not common and has no place at all in the phonetically spelled American English.   I did not need a Persian or French conduit using apostrophes to write for accurate pronunciation of Arabic words or terms.   I have transliterated the Arabic into American English phonetically and spelled the words as Arabs speak — like Qor-aan and Isslaam — even when the likes of Google have universalized different transliterations.

 
Literature is expressing in unique combination of words and phrases the known ideas and concepts.   Its expansion rests upon continually adding, subtracting, enlarging or building upon prior info.   It is done in all cultures, in academic writings, religious decrees and judicial pronouncements.   That is why I have admitted upfront that I can’t always recall a source when I read of a fact first.   That is why I reproduced a quotation in original if I could recall who was my first time source.   That is why I state that I present facts I learnt sometime in the past which got stuck in memory.   That is why I verbalize in my own choice of words the accumulations percolating in my mind.   That is why I have drawn the simplest possible conclusions from the facts as stored in memory.   Time could have fogged my memory, and others could differently see them today than before.   That is why I put on this site words I choose as were found legal, logical, ethical and reasonable.   That is why I take full responsibility for the accuracy of facts I have stated with maximum care.

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