Words Don't Matter

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 I think the idea that most reciters of the Qur’an don’t understand the words is really important. I feel like most people would assume that if you don’t know what the words literally mean then you can’t understand the meaning behind them but that’s not true. Prayers, songs, and even prose is usually not about the true meaning of all the words, but rather how it makes you feel when hearing it. I assume this is true for many people who pray, whether it be in a language you are fluent in or not; the prayer is not about the specific words that you say, it’s about the emotion and meaning you convey with those words. I feel similarly when it comes to music. There will be times when I’m listening to music and I find myself singing along to a song I didn’t know I knew the words to. If you asked me to tell you the words to the song at some other point I wouldn’t know them, but in the moment, I do. It’s not that I just forget the words when I’m not hearing the song, it’s more of a connection to the emotion that the song evokes. The words themselves don’t actually matter, they just come out naturally, but they only do because of the meaning behind the song, regardless of the words, and the strong emotion that that meaning evokes. Honestly, I could just be singing random words that I think are correct, but it doesn’t really matter, because regardless of what I’m actually saying, I’m singing along to connect with the inner meaning of the song.


Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausMay 13, 2022 at 6:46 AM

    I totally agree. Maybe sound is the quintessentially appropriate sense to relate to other-than-human -persons, since there is so much more conveyed in sounds than what our human language can contain. We certainly don't need words to understand the meaning of birds singing, dogs barking, cats purring, God's Arabic utterances channelled through the voices of Indonesian female Qur'an reciters on some level.

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  2. Hana MemisevicMay 13, 2022 at 1:55 PM

    I think it is interesting to think of this- sometimes I feel much more from the vibrations of people humming than I do from words. It is more powerful to feel the energy someone is letting go of without words clouding their intended meaning.

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