The Qur'an in its historical context (pdf - Islam and Christian-Muslim ...

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ROBERT HOYLAND d Arabic had also long been used for literary expression. Note the parallelism in the Qaryat al-Faw text: “He has placed it (a tomb) under the protection of Kahl, Lah and ‘Athtar al-Shariq from anyone strong or weak, from anyone who would sell it or pawn it” and the poetic ending: “for all time without any derogation, as long as the sky produces rain or the earth herbage” (see n. 7 and earlier). And one can clearly discern deliberate grammatical and semantic Figure 11 Poetry quotation, Mecca (Arabia), AH 98. 64
THE LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND TO THE QUR’AN arrangements in the Oboda text: “He (Obodat) acts (expecting) neither reward nor predilection. Though death has often sought us out, He afforded it no occasion. Though I have often encountered wounding, He has not let it be my destruction.” 47 Furthermore there is the piece of fakhr (rhetorical boasting) at the end of the Nemara inscription: “No king matched his achievements up to the time he died” (see n. 8 and earlier). e Finally one should take note of a piece of wisdom verse inscribed on a rock at Mecca in AH 98/717 CE (Figure 11). It is well known to Muslim authors, who usually attribute it to a bishop of Najran in southwest Arabia named Quss ibn Sa‘ida, or else to one of the pre-Islamic kings of Yemen. 48 The attribution could be wrong, but given its early date the verse is plausibly pre- Islamic and this gives a little push to the idea that the mass of material that we have ostensibly going back to pre-Islamic times, in particular a vast wealth of poetry, does genuinely belong to that period. In conclusion, I would like to challenge the widely held view that Arabic was scarcely used before Islam except for orally transmitted poetry. The hackneyed image of the iceberg that is 90 percent hidden beneath water is worth adducing in this content, for the small number of currently known pre-Islamic Arabic texts are indeed but the visible tips of a now invisible, though nonetheless substantial tradition of writing and speaking Arabic. And this tradition needs to be more fully taken into account if we are to make better sense of the historical and linguistic context in which the Qur’an was revealed. Notes 1 For which see Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, A.F.L. Beeston T.M. Johnstone, R.B. Serjeant and G.B. Smith (eds), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, 27–113 (poetry), 114–31 (prose). For further discussion of the language situation see R. Contini, “Il Hawran preislamico ipotesi di storia linguistica,” Felix Ravenna 1/2, 1987, 25–79; R.G. Hoyland, “Language and identity: The twin histories of Arabic and Aramaic,” Scripta Classica Israelica 23, 2004, 183–99; F.Millar, “Il ruolo delle lingue semitiche nel vicino oriente tardo-romano,” Mediterraneo Antico 1, 1998, 71–94. 2 For some examples of this dialect see P. Mouterde, “Inscriptions en Syriaque dialectal à Kamed (Beq‘a),” MUSJ 22, 1939, 73–106; J. Barclay, “Melkite Orthodox Syro- Byzantine manuscripts in Syriac and Palestinian Aramaic,” Liber Annuus 21, 1991, 205–19 (some as late as the thirteenth century). 3 Bar Hebraeus, Ta’rikh mukhtasar al-duwal, Antun Salihani (ed.), Beirut: al-Matba‘at al-Kathulikiyya li-l-Aba’ al-Yasu‘iyyin, 1890, 18. J. Healey’s article, “Nabataean to Arabic,” is in Manuscripts of the Middle East 5 (1990–91). 4 See most recently F. Briquel Chatonnet M. Debié and A. Desreumaux (eds), Les inscriptions syriaques, Paris: Geuthner, 2004, 45–53. 5 A distinction does need to be made in that there are some small divergences from classical Arabic in these pre-Islamic Arabic texts, and more might be apparent if we had more/lengthier pre-Islamic Arabic texts to compare them fully with classical Arabic texts. See further W. Müller, “Das Altarabische und das klassische Arabisch,” in W. Fischer (ed.), Grundriss der arabischen Philologie I , Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1982, 65
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THE QUR’AN IN ITS HISTORICAL CONT
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THE QUR’AN IN ITS HISTORICAL CONT
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CONTENTS List of images vii Notes o
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IMAGES 1 Epitaph of Imru’ al-Qays
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CONTRIBUTORS Others Saw it (Princet
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FOREWORD Three decades ago, when a
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FOREWORD foundations of the Qur’a
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EGYPT Constantinople ANATOLIA Black
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GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS meaning for a
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GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS in kufischen
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GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS beginning. It
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GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS manuscripts i
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GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS Of these theo
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GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS his writing s
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Page 45: Part 1 LINGUISTIC AND HISTORICAL EV
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Page 62 and 63: FRED M. DONNER and interpretation -
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Page 70 and 71: ROBERT HOYLAND Abu l-Faraj (Bar Heb
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Page 86 and 87: ROBERT HOYLAND when Abu Karib, a Gh
Page 88 and 89: 3 RECENT RESEARCH ON THE CONSTRUCTI
Page 90 and 91: GERHARD BÖWERING correlated with t
Page 92 and 93: GERHARD BÖWERING certain consonant
Page 94 and 95: GERHARD BÖWERING two centuries and
Page 96 and 97: GERHARD BÖWERING for example, the
Page 98 and 99: GERHARD BÖWERING origins of Islam.
Page 100 and 101: GERHARD BÖWERING which the Qur’a
Page 102 and 103: GERHARD BÖWERING 8 The Satanic ver
Page 104 and 105: GERHARD BÖWERING 41 D. Chwolsohn,
Page 106 and 107: 4 RECONSIDERING THE AUTHORSHIP OF T
Page 108 and 109: CLAUDE GILLIOT influenced by the th
Page 110 and 111: CLAUDE GILLIOT The case of Waraqa b
Page 112 and 113: CLAUDE GILLIOT ● The (supposedly)
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Page 116 and 117: CLAUDE GILLIOT and this can be cons
Page 118 and 119: CLAUDE GILLIOT The same Van Reeth o
Page 120 and 121: CLAUDE GILLIOT in Journal of Qur’
Page 122 and 123: CLAUDE GILLIOT 29 Tabari (i.e. Bal
Page 124 and 125: CLAUDE GILLIOT 55 Gilliot, Exégès
Page 126 and 127: CLAUDE GILLIOT 96 Qurtubi, Tafsir,
Page 128 and 129: SIDNEY GRIFFITH thematic, they have
Page 130 and 131: SIDNEY GRIFFITH that he thinks that
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH While here is not t
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH these narratives in
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH the cave” (18:10)
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH God’s promise is
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH Furthermore, given
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH and he took the wel
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH al-raqim could just
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH heaven, the Lord
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH So the Qur’an’s
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH sources, most notab
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH 37 See I. Guidi,
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SIDNEY GRIFFITH 68 Bellam y, “Al-
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Part 2 THE RELIGIOUS CONTEXT OF THE
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR the parallels ar
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR interprets this
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR The verb khalaqa
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR condemnation; ev
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR Matthew and Mark
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR The Qur’anic n
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR to which Christ
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR thalathatun inta
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR To Him is referr
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR However, the pri
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SAMIR KHALIL SAMIR 15 See FV, 255-6
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SULEIMAN A. MOURAD hear all and kno
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SULEIMAN A. MOURAD would lead to a
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SULEIMAN A. MOURAD quench our thirs
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SULEIMAN A. MOURAD The majority of
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SULEIMAN A. MOURAD Conclusion The Q
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SULEIMAN A. MOURAD 29 The translati
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL The present invest
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL he found outside t
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL Egyptian metalwork
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL The title of the S
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL The second of the
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL relic of the True
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL apocalyptic terms
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL due to an earlier,
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL Floods of nations
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL It is tempting the
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL What is striking i
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL impossible for the
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL noose from the roo
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KEVIN VAN BLADEL (scil. Gog and Mag
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9 BEYOND SINGLE WORDS Ma’ida - Sh
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MANFRED KROPP perhaps under Indian
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MANFRED KROPP New examples The word
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MANFRED KROPP been understood as a
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MANFRED KROPP lame walk and the dea
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MANFRED KROPP round the Red Sea.”
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MANFRED KROPP R. Paret, Der Koran.
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ABDUL-MASSIH SAADI who had been at
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ABDUL-MASSIH SAADI having accepted
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ABDUL-MASSIH SAADI 22 Saadi, “The
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11 NOTES ON MEDIEVAL AND MODERN EME
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NOTES ON EMENDATIONS OF THE QUR’A
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12 SYRIAC IN THE QUR’AN Classical
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SYRIAC IN THE QUR’AN For classica
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SYRIAC IN THE QUR’AN the exegesis
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SYRIAC IN THE QUR’AN Nabataeans t
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SYRIAC IN THE QUR’AN In the case
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SYRIAC IN THE QUR’AN an obvious c
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SYRIAC IN THE QUR’AN 17 “Nabati
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Ibn Ishaq. See Ibn His
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Chronicle of Siirt, Ch
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Al-A‘zami, Muhammad
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Chwolsohn, D. Die Ssab
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BIBLIOGRAPHY —— “Collecte ou
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BIBLIOGRAPHY —— “The textual
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Rome: The Gregorian Un
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BIBLIOGRAPHY —— “Die Wissensc
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BIBLIOGRAPHY al-Samuk, S.M. Die his
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Wansbrough, J. Qur’a
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21:5-8 188, 192 21:20 188, 192 21:2
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160 227 161 238 180 242 surat al-an
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surat al-najm (53) 19-20 84 (n. 8)
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INDEX OF PEOPLE, PLACES AND SUBJECT
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