Hello everyone,
To the arabic speakers: on the whole, who is the best english translator of the Quran - Pickthal, Shakir or Yusif Ali?
With Arabic being my native language, and from what I have been exposed to, Pickthal is most dealt with here.
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51:47 وَالسَّمَاءَ بَنَيْنَاهَا بِأَيْدٍ وَإِنَّا لَمُوسِعُونَ
Lamuassi-oon
The additional letter here "Laam" ( according to "earab", a branch of Arabic language studies ) is a harf-tawkeed --> affirmation-letter.
The word َمُوسِعُونَ is tricky:
it comes from the root و س ع
the only difference that can be made in meaning is by "Tashkeel"
وَسَّعّ : to extent, to widen, to enlarge
أَوْسَعَ : to give generously, to grant willingly
and a word widely used in Arabic: بِوِسْعِيْ : I am able to, I am willing to.
from what I see, Quran doesn't employ the first use of the root ( as no "shaddah" is seen, and it would have been used like this لَمُوَسِّعُوْنْ ).
P.S.
some Quran studiers insist on the use of the word as in "and we built the sky by hand, and we will
expand it", and there is no straightforward way of refuting this, since the Arabic Language is very "rubberlike" and certain phrases can be interpreted in various ways ( and advantage Islam uses from my point of view ).