Jonah Winters' Notes

1) The sense of "laws" has been brought up before. The term HudUd means "edge, border; boundary, limit" and by extension "ordinance, statute, punishment." In possessive construct with allAh, the Hans Wehr dictionary gives "the bounds or restrictions that God has placed on man's freedom of action." In the next sentence [see next posting] Baha'u'llah contrasts the HudUd allAhi, the HudUd of God, with the HudUd al-nafsi, the HudUd of self. The authorized translation renders these "precepts laid down by God" and "dictates of your evil passions," resp. 2) The Arabic words which the authorized version renders "abject and foolish"--hamaj and ra`A`--were somewhat difficult to translate with exalted language, for they are most colorful terms. Wehr renders them as follows: hamaj: "small flies, gnats; riffraff, rabble, ragtag; savages, barbarians. ra`A`: "rabble, mob, riffraff, scum; ragtag; rowdies, hooligans." See previous post re the repetition of synonyms in Arabic.