A Comparative Lexical Study of Qur?anic Arabic

THE QUR'ANIC TEXT 47
scholars adopted other criteria for their chronological arrangement.
Grimrne resorts to doctrinal characteristics, whereas Hirschfeld concentrates
on passages rather than on suras." Furthermore, Bell shares
the Muslim authorities' belief that, originally, revelation took place
in short passages. He attributes to Muhammad the task of actually
collecting passages into suras and revising them under divine inspiration.
Bell also recognizes style as an important criterion for dating. 100
Modern research into the classification of the Qur'anic suras has
been pioneered and greatly enriched by the work by Neuwirth. Her
insights about the classification of the suras serve as valid criteria by
which to test the traditional and the new hypotheses concerning the
composition of the Qur'an. 101
2.5 The Qur'dnic lexicon
The items making up the lexical corpus of this work have been
marked for their semantic field. The object behind this exercise is
to have a clear idea about the distribution of different semantic
domains characterizing Qur'anic lexical items, as well as to facilitate
the discussion concerning the lexical relationship between cognate
languages. 102 For this reason, Hallig and Wartburg's classification
system has been adapted to suit the particular needs of this exercise.
103 The Qur'anic items are classified on the basis of the following
semantic categories:
A. The Universe
1. The sky and the atmosphere
2. The Earth (including minerals)
3. Flora
4. Fauna
on the subject." The standard Egyptian chronology is the one adopted in the first
ever printed edition of the Qur'dn by the Muslims in 1925. This edition is also
referred to as the King Fu'ad, or the Royal Egyptian edition.
99
Montgomery Watt 1970: 112.
100
Montgomery Watt 1970: 113. Robinson 1996: 284 states that Noldeke's
approach supplemented by some of Bell's observations offer a better scheme than
the standard Egyptian chronology.
101
See in particular Studien z.wr Komposition der mekkanischen Suren. (1981).
102
See Barr 1968: 165.
103
1952. Other systems of classication could have been adopted, like for example
Louw and Nida's who classify the referents into 93 semantic domains and subdomains
(1989: xxiv-xxv). See also Nida 1984 and Louw 1985.