Quranic Text

Question

I don't know much about English language but i try to learn.Can anyone tell me what is the exact meaning of 'Generally accepted' in the following text:

"The recension of Uthman had been handed down to us unaltered. So
carefully, indeed, has it been preserved, that there are no variations of
importance -- we might almost say no variations at all -- among the
innumerable copies of the Quran scattered throughout the vast bounds of
the empire of Islam. Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise
in the murder of Uthman himself within a quarter of a century from the
death of Muhammad, have ever since rent the Muhammadan world. Yet
but ONE QURAN has been generally accepted amongst them; and the
consentaneous use by them all in every age up to the present day of the
same Scripture, is an irrefutable proof that we have now before us the
very text prepared by command of the unfortunate Caliph. There is
probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve
centuries with so pure a text."

please help me....

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Hi;

Welcome to the Forums!

Generally accepted means that no one has made a serious objection to Uthman's rendition of the text of the Quran.

Boota · Answer

If i say that instead of 'generally accepted' the word 'current' is present in the above text then what will be it's meaning,like:

"Yet but ONE QURAN has been current amongst them".

AlpheccaStars · Answer

No, current does not make sense in that sentence.

Current is about the present time. The text is talking about history - all the time since Uthman produced this rendition of the Quran.

The murder of Uthman caused sectarian fighting among Islam's faithful; yet all of these sects (Shi'ite, Sunni, and others) agree on and use the ONE Quran that Uthman compiled from all the sources of his time. This ONE QURAN has been constant and unchanged all over the world and through history.

Boota · Answer

I have taken this text from a book in which some pages are dedicated to the Quranic text and was written by a famous Christian missionary 'Sir William Muir'. In the original text the word is 'current" and not 'generally accepted'.

CSnyder · Answer

Hundred-year-old texts in English use what are now non-standard uses of words.  While "current" and "generally accepted" might have been synonymous when Muir wrote, they aren't now.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

I am curious. Why did you ask about the phrase "generally accepted" when that was not in the original text? Why did you not cite the original author or the time frame of the writing?

As CSnyder has remarked, the text is from at least 150 years ago, and vocabulary usage has changed over time. According to my Oxford English Dictionary, "current" (like currency, meaning money) originally had the meaning of "genuine," "generally accepted." In modern English usage, it has lost that particular definition.

Boota · Answer

AlpheccaStarsI am curious. Why did you ask about the phrase "generally accepted" when that was not in the original text? Why did you not cite the original author or the time frame of the writing?

Sorry i forgot to tell you in my first post that the text belongs to 19th century because i didn't know that English and English vocabulary usage have changed over time. Some one told me that these both(current and generally accepted) are equivalent that's why i replaced the original word "current" by the phrase "generally accepted" for ease and then asked for help and i see that it's wrong as you and CSnyder have said.

AlpheccaStarsAs CSnyder has remarked, the text is from at least 150 years ago, and vocabulary usage has changed over time. According to my Oxford English Dictionary, "current" (like currency, meaning money) originally had the meaning of "genuine," "generally accepted." In modern English usage, it has lost that particular definition.

Now my confusion is all gone,thanks both of you!

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Noah Webster compiled the first American Dictionary in 1828. Some of it is on line, so you can look up old definitions.

Here is "current" http://www.1828-dictionary.com/d/word/current

Webster was responsible for the divergence in American and British English spelling conventions. He wanted to simplify some of the spelling, since pronunciation had changed and words were no longer spelled the way they were pronounced. But his spelling reform was not too radical; i.e. he did not change the spelling of "knee" to "nee" (the K used to be pronounced.)

The first major British English dictionary was Johnson's. Google has several scanned editions on line from 1783 through the early 1800s. If you read the original http://books.google.com/books?id=Z1BAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+dictionary+of+the+English+language&hl=en&ei=ddRkTq-bBeiIsQLqzbyQCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false, you can get a sense of how much English has changed since that time. In the body you can see many words which are no longer used such as brainpan (skull), ambry (cupboard), bottlescrew (corkscrew), conycatcher (a thief, cheater).

The Oxford English dictionary is the most complete and up-to-date English dictionary. It has the historical definitions, and reference citations for every word; even obsolete words that are not in use today. It is a commercial product and not available on-line.

Finally, there is an on-line which traces the origins of many English words back to Proto-Indo-European (PIE), Latin, Greek, Old English, Old French, Old Norse and other languages.

Here is what it says about current:

c.1300, "running, flowing," from O.Fr. corant "running, lively, eager, swift," prp. of corre "to run," from L. currere "to run, move quickly" (of persons or things), from PIE *kers- "to run" (cf. Gk. -khouros "running," Lith. karsiu "go quickly," O.N. horskr "swift," O.Ir., M.Welsh carr "cart, wagon," Bret. karr "chariot," Welsh carrog "torrent"). Meaning "prevalent, generally accepted" is from 1560s. The noun is late 14c., from M.Fr. corant (Mod.Fr. courant), from O.Fr. corant. Applied 1747 to the flow of electrical force.

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