Latin Language Branch of Islam

What POD can make a branch of Islam to adopt Latin language (ala Catholicism) in their religious ritual? Not in everyday life, but having a Latin translation of the Quran as standard use.
Maybe they want to spread Islam to Europe and using Latin so new converts wouldn't have culture shock?
POD is up to you.

Thanks in advance!
 
It would be hard. Arab is the language of the Qu'ran, the language of the revelation made to Muhammad. Therefore, it have a status hard to overthrow, while the evengelic message was in the Bible vowed to be said in as many languages you could.

Futhermore, you have the political presence of Arab language, thanks to the Arab elites that ruled almost alone. The latins enclave in Arabo-Islamic countries, as North Africa but even more Sicily and Al-Andalus tended to use Arab currently after 2 or 3 generation at the great worry of christian clergy.

For the expand of Islam outside Arabo-Islamic countries, the problem is that Islam up to the XIX, almost never expanded if not by conquest, as since one territory became islamized it can't be ruled by non-Muslims.

At last, for culture shock, it does not matter the translation : absence of alcool and pig in a cultures that made a really important use of it is problematic : it's one of the reasons of why Christianity accepted that.
 
You'd basically have to provide some political impetus to have Mohammed allow it during his own life, paralleling the compromise that made Mecca a holy city.

Bonus fun points if the canonical translation is a bad one, done by somebody who didn't really speak one or the other of the languages involved very well.
 
What POD can make a branch of Islam to adopt Latin language (ala Catholicism) in their religious ritual? Not in everyday life, but having a Latin translation of the Quran as standard use.
Maybe they want to spread Islam to Europe and using Latin so new converts wouldn't have culture shock?
POD is up to you.

Thanks in advance!

Almost impossible. Arabic being the language of the Qu'ran did not stop the majority of Al-Andalus (Spain & Portugal) to become predominately Muslim by the 10th century. There was no cultural shock, at least enough to make it that much of a problem for a European to convert.
 
Well, what if the Roman Empire manages to conquer Arabia several centuries before Muhammad's birth (POD could be Aelius Gallus' expedition never gets struck with that unknown malady which severely weakened his forces)? Depending on the level of damage to the local governments and/or culture, I suppose it's possible for Latin to catch on and stick in the region until the fall of the Roman Empire; then we'd have a Romance language, albeit one heavily influenced by Semitic languages. This is, of course, assuming butterflies don't do their wicked work on the creation of Islam (or an Islam analogue, for that matter).
 
How about the trade routes to England or Central Europe? Anywhere NOT in the direct-borders of the muslim world. I think Al-Andalus adopted Arab version because they too speak Arabs? Moors? Not sure.
But about further north?
Muslim traders use Atlantic routes to London or "Holland" and want to spread their religion. Seeing that the population were already accustomed to Latin (or Celtic, but that's another matter), they translate the Koran into said language?
 
How about the trade routes to England or Central Europe? Anywhere NOT in the direct-borders of the muslim world. I think Al-Andalus adopted Arab version because they too speak Arabs? Moors? Not sure.
I don't get the question here.

Al-Andalus had many languages, the prestige and most widespread one being Arab for said reasons, Berber for well...Berbers (critically the military) and mozarabic romance for mozarabs.

Outside Al-Andalus, as the Arabs wasn't the language of elite and of social progression, it wasn't used.

But about further north?
As I said, what would be the reason? Arab was the language of Arabo-Islamic political and social elites. Where this elite is not present, neither the language.


Muslim traders use Atlantic routes to London or "Holland" and want to spread their religion.
No, they didn't.
The traders wanted to make trade. And in fact, the islamic traders were mostly focused on mediterranean shores, while the most important markets were the northern ones (at least in Europe).

Add to that, the fact the islamic traders were often little but pirates and/or slavers for populations, an eventual message would have trouble to pass.

Historically, it was the latins traders that made the junction up to Al-Andalus, with the slave trade from eastern Europe by exemple.

Seeing that the population were already accustomed to Latin (or Celtic, but that's another matter), they translate the Koran into said language?
Did you read the posts? Arab is the language of revelation, and at the contrary of the christian Bible that state otherwise, Arab became de facto a sacred language.

And, even if they didn't care for religious reason (yeah, not religious reason for religious expansion :rolleyes:), you'll have that : Arabization was the scale of social progression in order to make the local elites less and less rebellious and more and more tied with Arab interests.
Allowing them to keep a cultural importance would have seriously delayed any safety regarding the use of local elites, and that would have been too dangerous, critically in Europe where the Arabs were a tiny, tiny, tiny minority.
 
How about the trade routes to England or Central Europe? Anywhere NOT in the direct-borders of the muslim world. I think Al-Andalus adopted Arab version because they too speak Arabs? Moors? Not sure.
But about further north?
Muslim traders use Atlantic routes to London or "Holland" and want to spread their religion. Seeing that the population were already accustomed to Latin (or Celtic, but that's another matter), they translate the Koran into said language?

See, that's not how it works in Islam (or worked back then, anyway). Arabic is the sacred language of the Qu'ran; the language in which God's words were handed down to Mohammed. The Qu'ran should -only- be in Arabic. Any translations into other languages is something akin to blasphemy.
 
How about the trade routes to England or Central Europe? Anywhere NOT in the direct-borders of the muslim world. I think Al-Andalus adopted Arab version because they too speak Arabs? Moors? Not sure.
But about further north?
Muslim traders use Atlantic routes to London or "Holland" and want to spread their religion. Seeing that the population were already accustomed to Latin (or Celtic, but that's another matter), they translate the Koran into said language?

The thing is there's no issue with translations- the Koran and Islamic teachings were always translated. However, no matter what, only the Arabic language text was considered the valid version. So these converts would probably have to learn at least some Arabic.

I think you need to look at non-Arab Muslims in Persia and India and SE Asia to see how this might be done. In places like this Muslims don't use Arabic on a daily basis at all but most Muslims know have memorised enough to at least recite the prayers and so forth. In Kerala (South India) the local Muslims have actually had a denominational schism about this issue- all three main groups are Sunni but one group has the Friday sermon preached in Arabic and the Imam then gives a glossed translation later while the other two groups have the sermon preached directly in the local language, Malayalam with Arabic being used for prayers and direct quotes from the Quran which are immediately translated by the Imam.
 
I think you need to look at non-Arab Muslims in Persia and India and SE Asia to see how this might be done. In places like this Muslims don't use Arabic on a daily basis at all but most Muslims know have memorised enough to at least recite the prayers and so forth.

And Persian or Indian culture prestige and strength can't be seriously compared to forming romance cultures.
 
And Persian or Indian culture prestige and strength can't be seriously compared to forming romance cultures.

Yeah. It's not as if European cultures ever had a language that the vast majority of people couldn't speak and was only used for religious, scholarly and diplomatic purposes ;)
 
Yeah. It's not as if European cultures ever had a language that the vast majority of people couldn't speak and was only used for religious, scholarly and diplomatic purposes ;)

Wait, Latin as the language of most majority of people? For information, the latin (critically the church latin) was not understable by the majority of romance regions (not talking germanized ones) and it's a recurrent whine of clercks, since the VII at best.

Latin during Middle-Ages was always more elitist than Arab ever could be : while you have non-Islamic layers or society that talk Arab currently since the 3 or 4 generation better than "their" romance language (not even talking latin), you never had more than 2, maybe 3 % of the European society able to discuss in Latin without too many faults.

So, yes, it's not comparable to Farsi that was not only a prestigious language but spoken by the majority of population as roughly one entity.

It was more a scholarly language, rather than a social-politic one. Speaking latin didn't gave you any advantage politically, while when someone used Arab he cesead to be a total dihimmi and could even been considered as Arabized (I exxagerate a bit but not that much).
 
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