MISTAKES IN THE ARABIC OF THE QURAN

Muslims believe Arabic is the language of Allah. They believe that the Arabic Quran is the perfect, ex­act representation of Allah's words. That is why only the Arabic Quran is considered authoritative and why so many Muslims who know no Arabic memorize portions of the Quran in Arabic. However, Muhammad used a number of foreign words or phrases in the Quran, leaving questioners wondering if "God's language" is deficient enough to need help from other languages.

Foreign Words

(1) "Pharaoh" comes from the Egyptian language and means king or potentate. It is repeated eighty-four times in the Quran.
(2) "Adam" and "Eden," repeated twenty-four times, are Accadian words. A more correct term for "Adam" in Arabic would be basharan or insan, meaning mankind. "Eden" would be the Arabic janna, or garden.
(3) "Abraham" comes from the Assyrian language, and would be more accurately represented by the Arabic Abu Raheem.
(4) Haroot and Maroot are Persian, not Arabic, names of angels. Additionally, Sirat should have been Altareeq, which means "the path." Hooris the Persian word whose Arabic counterpart is Tilmeeth, meaning "a disciple." Jinn normally refers to good spirits or evil demons, and the Arabic word is ruh. Firdaus is a Persian word which means Jannah in Arabic and re­fers to the highest, or seventh, heaven.
(5) Taboot, taghouth, zakat, malakout are Syriac words.
(6) Heber, sakinah, niaoon, turat, and jehannim come from the Hebrew language.
(7) Injil, which means "gospel," comes from the Greek language, and the correct word in Arabic is bisharah.