1. Semantics of the Qur’an
The Quran is approachable by a number of different points of view such as theological, philosophical, sociological, grammatical, exegetical, etc. For each of these methods, the Quran presents many differences but equally important aspects. So, become evident if we can relate semantic methodology to Quranic studies and we will see whether there is any real advantage in approaching Quran by this method.
“Semantics” according to etymology is a science concerned with the phenomenon of meaning in the widest sense of the word, so wide, indeed, that almost anything that may be considered to have any meaning at all is fully entitled to constitute an object of semantics.
We don’t have regularity of semantics science. Everybody has different theories of meaning. Who speaks of semantics has considered himself entitled to define and understand the word as he likes. Izutsu has his own conception of semantics and describe the major concern of a semanticist. In the manner of methodological principles can be known the most concrete and profound problems raised by the language of the Quran.
According to Izutsu, “semantics” is an analytic study of the key-terms of a language with a view to arriving eventually at a conceptual grasp of the weltanschauung or world view of the people who use that language as a tool not only of speaking and thinking, but more important still of conceptualizing and interpreting the world that surrounds them.
Semantics of the Quran is a research of analytically and methodologically the major concepts, those are the concepts that seem to have played a certain role in the formation of the Quranic vision of the universe.
2. Integration of Individual Concepts
All of the most important words which represent the major concepts such as Allah, Islam, Nabi, Iman, Kafir, etc. when under study (examine) the meaning of each of them in the Quranic context, is not so simple. One word with another one have separated position in the Quran, but they are closely interdependent and produce the concrete meanings from the entire system of relations accurately. Because of that, in analyzing the individual key concepts that are found in the Quran we should never lose sight of the multiple relations which each of them bears to others in the whole system.
None of the key terms that play a decisive role in the formation of the Quranic world-view including the name of God: Allah, is made in new. Almost all of them had been used in some forms or other in pre-Islamic times. When the Islamic Revelation began to use these words in the general context struck the Mecca’s people as something quite strange, unfamiliar, and become unacceptable.
Islam brought these words and combined them into a new concept entirely which until that era was still unknown. And the most important, the transmission of these concepts, and re-arrangement basically of moral and religious values so radically evolutionized the Arab conception of the world and human existence.
Eventhough there is impact of context on word-meanings (before and after pre-Islamic times), the word in the new system still keeps hold on the same basic meaning which it had in the old system.
Example:
“Allah” had known by Arabic’s people pre-Islamic times. The name was appeared in:
· Pre-Islamic poetry
· Personal names
· Old inscriptions
· Some people or some ethnics in Arab believed in God named Allah and recognized Him as Creator
Arabic’s people believed that “Allah” as one of Gods. But Muhammad said that “Allah” as absolutely supreme, unique, the one, and only God in existence, degrading all other gods to the position of batil (false) as opposed to haqq (real). The new Islamic conception of the supreme God affected the whole structure of the vision of the universe
3. “Basic” Meaning and “Relational” Meaning
At this topic, Toshihiko would like to explain a technical distinction between ‘basic’ meaning and ‘relationsl’ meaning, as one of the major methodological concepts of semantic, in order to make easily analytic work later.
The ‘basic’ meaning of a word is something inherent in the word itself, which it carries with it wherever it goes. And the ‘relational’ meaning is something connotative that comes to be attached and added to the former by the word’s having taken a particular position in a particular field, standing in diverse relation to all other important words in that system.
The example of this term such are; the word “kitab” (book), basically this word mean the same whether it is found in the Qur’an or outside of the Qur’an. This word as long as it is actually felt by the speech community to be one word. Keeps it fundamental meaning –a general meaning of book- wherever it is found, whether is happens to be used as a key term in a given system of concepts or more generally outside of that particular system.
As the relational meaning is constructed in a system consisted of many words referring to a certain concept, this system is then called semantic field. The word of yawm, basically means day, is introduced by the Qur’an in a neighborhood with other words like qiyamah, ba’ts, din, hisab, etc. This combination forms a semantic field, which associates to a concept of resurrection and the Last Judgment. The words in this neighborhood composition inter-impact to the meaning of each individual word.
4. Vocabulary and Weltanschauung
We must know that the words in a language form are a closely-knit system. The main pattern of that system is determined by a certain number of particularly important words. It is necessary to note that not all the words in a vocabulary are the equal value in forming the basic structure of ontological conception underlying the vocabulary, however important they may appear from other points of view.
Toshihiko Izutsu said that those word which play a really decisive role in making up the basic conceptual structure of the Qur’anic world view. He called them “key terms” of the Qur’an, such as Allah, Islam, Iman (believe), Kafir (infidel), Nabiy (prophet), Rasul (apostle of God), etc.
Semantic fields are often composed in the larger system namely vocabulary. In this system, the relations among semantic fields are composed by the multi-relations of each key-term. Thus, the relations form a diagram of overlapping system within a bigger system. At simple, we can say that vocabulary is a multi-strata structure. The composition of key-words with their complexities forms a semantic field, as a stratum, and then the composition of semantic fields, also with their complexities and complicated overlapping pictures, shape a multi-bigger-strata named vocabulary.
Considering the complicated and overlapping composition among semantic fields, then how to detect an individual semantic field is structured, so we could find the weltanschauung of it, is the next complicated step. To know a conception of an individual semantic field, we have to isolate it from its complicated composition, and a new technical term is then needed, focus word. Focus word is a particularly important key-word which indicates and delimits an independent and distinctive conceptual sphere, semantic field, within the larger system, whole vocabulary.
Focus word is farily flexible. It is important notion that a key-word could be in not one semantic fields. And it is this fact which makes the overlapping scheme of semantic fields within vocabulary. In relation to focus word, certain key-word could considered focus word in certain semantic field, but it just become the ordinary key-word in the other semantic fields. Therefore, to this focus word might be a help to isolate a semantic fields one to another, and then to be understood word view.
The Quran is approachable by a number of different points of view such as theological, philosophical, sociological, grammatical, exegetical, etc. For each of these methods, the Quran presents many differences but equally important aspects. So, become evident if we can relate semantic methodology to Quranic studies and we will see whether there is any real advantage in approaching Quran by this method.
“Semantics” according to etymology is a science concerned with the phenomenon of meaning in the widest sense of the word, so wide, indeed, that almost anything that may be considered to have any meaning at all is fully entitled to constitute an object of semantics.
We don’t have regularity of semantics science. Everybody has different theories of meaning. Who speaks of semantics has considered himself entitled to define and understand the word as he likes. Izutsu has his own conception of semantics and describe the major concern of a semanticist. In the manner of methodological principles can be known the most concrete and profound problems raised by the language of the Quran.
According to Izutsu, “semantics” is an analytic study of the key-terms of a language with a view to arriving eventually at a conceptual grasp of the weltanschauung or world view of the people who use that language as a tool not only of speaking and thinking, but more important still of conceptualizing and interpreting the world that surrounds them.
Semantics of the Quran is a research of analytically and methodologically the major concepts, those are the concepts that seem to have played a certain role in the formation of the Quranic vision of the universe.
2. Integration of Individual Concepts
All of the most important words which represent the major concepts such as Allah, Islam, Nabi, Iman, Kafir, etc. when under study (examine) the meaning of each of them in the Quranic context, is not so simple. One word with another one have separated position in the Quran, but they are closely interdependent and produce the concrete meanings from the entire system of relations accurately. Because of that, in analyzing the individual key concepts that are found in the Quran we should never lose sight of the multiple relations which each of them bears to others in the whole system.
None of the key terms that play a decisive role in the formation of the Quranic world-view including the name of God: Allah, is made in new. Almost all of them had been used in some forms or other in pre-Islamic times. When the Islamic Revelation began to use these words in the general context struck the Mecca’s people as something quite strange, unfamiliar, and become unacceptable.
Islam brought these words and combined them into a new concept entirely which until that era was still unknown. And the most important, the transmission of these concepts, and re-arrangement basically of moral and religious values so radically evolutionized the Arab conception of the world and human existence.
Eventhough there is impact of context on word-meanings (before and after pre-Islamic times), the word in the new system still keeps hold on the same basic meaning which it had in the old system.
Example:
“Allah” had known by Arabic’s people pre-Islamic times. The name was appeared in:
· Pre-Islamic poetry
· Personal names
· Old inscriptions
· Some people or some ethnics in Arab believed in God named Allah and recognized Him as Creator
Arabic’s people believed that “Allah” as one of Gods. But Muhammad said that “Allah” as absolutely supreme, unique, the one, and only God in existence, degrading all other gods to the position of batil (false) as opposed to haqq (real). The new Islamic conception of the supreme God affected the whole structure of the vision of the universe
3. “Basic” Meaning and “Relational” Meaning
At this topic, Toshihiko would like to explain a technical distinction between ‘basic’ meaning and ‘relationsl’ meaning, as one of the major methodological concepts of semantic, in order to make easily analytic work later.
The ‘basic’ meaning of a word is something inherent in the word itself, which it carries with it wherever it goes. And the ‘relational’ meaning is something connotative that comes to be attached and added to the former by the word’s having taken a particular position in a particular field, standing in diverse relation to all other important words in that system.
The example of this term such are; the word “kitab” (book), basically this word mean the same whether it is found in the Qur’an or outside of the Qur’an. This word as long as it is actually felt by the speech community to be one word. Keeps it fundamental meaning –a general meaning of book- wherever it is found, whether is happens to be used as a key term in a given system of concepts or more generally outside of that particular system.
As the relational meaning is constructed in a system consisted of many words referring to a certain concept, this system is then called semantic field. The word of yawm, basically means day, is introduced by the Qur’an in a neighborhood with other words like qiyamah, ba’ts, din, hisab, etc. This combination forms a semantic field, which associates to a concept of resurrection and the Last Judgment. The words in this neighborhood composition inter-impact to the meaning of each individual word.
4. Vocabulary and Weltanschauung
We must know that the words in a language form are a closely-knit system. The main pattern of that system is determined by a certain number of particularly important words. It is necessary to note that not all the words in a vocabulary are the equal value in forming the basic structure of ontological conception underlying the vocabulary, however important they may appear from other points of view.
Toshihiko Izutsu said that those word which play a really decisive role in making up the basic conceptual structure of the Qur’anic world view. He called them “key terms” of the Qur’an, such as Allah, Islam, Iman (believe), Kafir (infidel), Nabiy (prophet), Rasul (apostle of God), etc.
Semantic fields are often composed in the larger system namely vocabulary. In this system, the relations among semantic fields are composed by the multi-relations of each key-term. Thus, the relations form a diagram of overlapping system within a bigger system. At simple, we can say that vocabulary is a multi-strata structure. The composition of key-words with their complexities forms a semantic field, as a stratum, and then the composition of semantic fields, also with their complexities and complicated overlapping pictures, shape a multi-bigger-strata named vocabulary.
Considering the complicated and overlapping composition among semantic fields, then how to detect an individual semantic field is structured, so we could find the weltanschauung of it, is the next complicated step. To know a conception of an individual semantic field, we have to isolate it from its complicated composition, and a new technical term is then needed, focus word. Focus word is a particularly important key-word which indicates and delimits an independent and distinctive conceptual sphere, semantic field, within the larger system, whole vocabulary.
Focus word is farily flexible. It is important notion that a key-word could be in not one semantic fields. And it is this fact which makes the overlapping scheme of semantic fields within vocabulary. In relation to focus word, certain key-word could considered focus word in certain semantic field, but it just become the ordinary key-word in the other semantic fields. Therefore, to this focus word might be a help to isolate a semantic fields one to another, and then to be understood word view.
loading...
Share this
Silahkan Tuliskan Komentar Anda disini. jika anda belum mempunyai Google Account atau Open ID, Anda bisa Menggunakan Name/Url (disarankan menggunakan opsi ini) atau Anonimous. Mohon berkomentar dengan bijak dan jangan spamSilahkan komentar