Playing with
palindromes is a fun thing to do. In case you’re not familiar with what a
palindrome is; they are words or phrases that read the same in both directions.
There are even some instances when the DNA sequences in organisms are
palindromic. Several simple words that are palindromes are POP, MOM, EYE,
RACECAR, and many others.
As you can see,
even if we read the words backwards, they stay the same. However, when it comes
to creating a phrase or a sentence, making palindromes can be a bit difficult.
Some examples can be found in this website.
Talking about
palindromes, we can also find some in the Quran. Among them is in Surah
(chapter) Al Mudathir (the cloaked one). The phrase is translated as “magnify
the greatness of your Lord!” In Arabic, it is:
The letter in
the beginning of the sentence means “and”, and is similar to a capital letter
in our sentences. So broken down, the phrase becomes:
ر ب ب ك ف ك ب ب ر
which is also a
palindrome, and an amazing one indeed, as it goes along with the context of
what is being emphasized = to magnify the greatness of your Lord.
When
constructing a palindrome, one must at least know the letters he/she is using
and form them into a sentence. You can even try making one and find out that
it’s not as easy as it seems. However, the palindrome in the Quran that was
just mentioned was recited by a man who didn’t even know how to write or read.
Whenever the
Prophet received revelation, he would recite it to his companions and it would
spread as it is, without any auditing whatsoever. Furthermore, bear in mind
that the Quran was orally transferred, not in writing. The palindromes and linguistic marvels in the Quran were not even recognized until linguistic scholars began
to delve into it.
So we can try to
make palindromes with the language that we are best at. But no matter how hard
we try, or how good we are with the language, we probably would never be able
to create a palindrome as beautiful as the one in the Quran that was just
mentioned.
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