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198 Shawkat M Toorawaparticular frequency <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> second part and determ<strong>in</strong>e what words occurmany ti<strong>in</strong>es.2 9Mul}ammad Isma'II Ibrahim's 1998 Mu 'jam al-a~ wa-1-a 'lam al-Qur'("Dictionary of Qur'anic words and proper names") attempts to surpass <strong>its</strong>decessors by provid<strong>in</strong>g def<strong>in</strong>itions for each r.oot or word/ 0 but his def<strong>in</strong>itionssometimes imprecise. For tall;, for example, Ibrahim has "banana tree" butno reference to <strong>the</strong> acacia tree, a def<strong>in</strong>ition rout<strong>in</strong>ely supplied <strong>in</strong> ex(:geticaiLworks. 31 The verses (ayas) <strong>in</strong> which <strong>the</strong> various words appear follow <strong>the</strong>tions, but as <strong>the</strong>se appear <strong>in</strong> a cont<strong>in</strong>uous paragraph, ra<strong>the</strong>r than as a list,makes <strong>the</strong> work very user-unfriendly. There are several o<strong>the</strong>r problems too. 'ai-Baq'i lists occurrences after every lexeme, whereas Ibrahim does so onlyeach root. Thus, for <strong>the</strong> root lf-S-B, for <strong>in</strong>stance, Ibrahim's head<strong>in</strong>g is(5)", whereas 'Abd al-Baq'i has "I:Ia~ab" and "I;Ia~iban (4)", which hel1nfullvisolates <strong>the</strong> word hasab. 32In 2002 'Atif ~l~Ma!Iji published al-Alfo~ al-wabfda fi al-Qur 'an("S<strong>in</strong>gle-occurr<strong>in</strong>g words <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> Qur'an"). 33 This slim book is, to <strong>the</strong> best ofknowledge, <strong>the</strong> only Arabic work specifically ~evoted to <strong>the</strong> topic of hapaxes .· ·<strong>the</strong> Qur'an, but it offers no l<strong>in</strong>guistic or rhetorical analysis of <strong>the</strong>se. It is<strong>in</strong>to four parts: ( 1) s<strong>in</strong>gle-occurr<strong>in</strong>g words deriv<strong>in</strong>g from a triliteral root, listedSiira; (2) s<strong>in</strong>gle-occurr<strong>in</strong>g words deriv<strong>in</strong>g from a non-triliteral root, l1t~llll1otatcally;(3) s<strong>in</strong>gle-occurr<strong>in</strong>g names of persons, peoples.and places, alu,halJeti:calland ( 4) s<strong>in</strong>gle-occurr<strong>in</strong>g triliteral roots, alphabetically. The first three parts<strong>the</strong> verses <strong>in</strong> which <strong>the</strong> hapaxes appear and brief def<strong>in</strong>itions of <strong>the</strong>Al-Mal'ij'i's book is- a largely error-free catalog of 410 lexemes deriv<strong>in</strong>gs<strong>in</strong>gle-occurr<strong>in</strong>g roots, 371 from triliteral roots, 19 from quadriliteral roots,20 proper names. He concedes that non-hapax roots account for <strong>the</strong> majorityHapaxes <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> Qur'an 199.Qur'an's words- which he reckons at 51,884, exclud<strong>in</strong>g most particles- but'nn·•nn.r<strong>in</strong>n-h• advances that 371 hapax trilateral roots out of 1,620 Qur'anic rootshis reckon<strong>in</strong>g), i.e. nearly a quarter, is a rhetorically significant propor­Al-Maliji does not expla<strong>in</strong> his criteria of <strong>in</strong>clusion, but <strong>the</strong>se can be <strong>in</strong>ferred.· word abar"iq (ewers or goblets), for <strong>in</strong>stance- <strong>in</strong> my estimation a hapaxnotappear <strong>in</strong> his catalog; al-Mal'iji appears to have excluded it because forit shares roots witli barq ("lightn<strong>in</strong>g, dazzle") and istabraq ("silk brocade").. . occasion, <strong>the</strong> decision to exclude words "shar<strong>in</strong>g" roots leads him astray: <strong>the</strong>· yadussuhu and dassaha, for example, have both been excluded, but <strong>the</strong>irare different, D-S-S and D-S-Y, respectively. And as we shill! see below,are good reasons for regard<strong>in</strong>g proper nouns as a separate category.a long time, one of <strong>the</strong> most widely cited and most widely used sources onvocabulary was Arthur Jeffery's 1938 The Foreign Vocabulary of <strong>the</strong>•'an, recently reissued. 35 Jeffery analyzes 322 loanwords, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g 66 properwhich he divides <strong>in</strong>to (a) words of non-Arabic orig<strong>in</strong> (e.g. namariq) orno attested Arabic root (e.g. jibt), (b) Semitic words, which <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> Qur'ana different mean<strong>in</strong>g (e.g. baraka), and (c) genu<strong>in</strong>e Arabic words used asof cognate words <strong>in</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r languages (e.g. m7r). 36 As might be expected,· <strong>in</strong>vP.r1tn:rv <strong>in</strong>cludes numerous hapaxes. There has been work on loanwordsJeffery but, as Ripp<strong>in</strong> shows, .<strong>the</strong> preoccupation with "foreignness" has verymotivations 37 - I dare say agendas - and "current contributions tend toon <strong>in</strong>dividual words, provid<strong>in</strong>g some ref<strong>in</strong>ement and clarification on smallerFor <strong>the</strong> most part, however, <strong>the</strong> enterprise rema<strong>in</strong>s as contentious with<strong>in</strong>scholarship as it was for medieval Muslims." 3829 In look<strong>in</strong>g up words that occur twenty-three times, for <strong>in</strong>stance, we lea~ that <strong>the</strong>y are:badda/a, aw/ad, anja, dhikra, fulk, fitan, :;ulumat, Ia 'ana (Abii al-Futii]J, Qa 'ima · ~····· -•· · · "-143). In <strong>the</strong> case of nouns, this encompasses <strong>in</strong>stances with attached pronouns, and <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong>verbs, all conjugations and verbal noun (m~dar). T!Jis makes <strong>the</strong> f<strong>in</strong>al list<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> part 2 -words occurr<strong>in</strong>g only once- quite unwieldy; and s<strong>in</strong>ce Abii al-Futii]J does not identifY <strong>the</strong>which <strong>the</strong> item occurs, <strong>the</strong> usefulness of part 2 is fur<strong>the</strong>r severely curtailed. (Alas, <strong>the</strong>re aretypographical errors, e.g. tabiiba 'a, which is a mispr<strong>in</strong>t for tabiiya 'a [properly, tabiiya '111m2:282}) [Abii al-Futiil;l, Qa 'ima majmii 'iyya, 207]. Such cases would be mitigated by awords by root.)30 Ibrahim, Mu 'jam al-alfii;:. Cf. Rii]JT Ba' albaki, ai-Mawrid al-mtifahras li-alfo;: al-Qur 'anBeirut: Dar al-'Ilm li-1-Malay<strong>in</strong>, 1999.31 lbriihim, Mu 'jam al-a/fo;:, 313.32 Ibrahim, Mu 'jam al-a/fii;:, 126; 'Abd al-Baqi, Mu 'jam al-mtifahras, 205. Also, not all <strong>the</strong>are quted. For f:l-S-B, <strong>the</strong>re be<strong>in</strong>g only five citations, all are <strong>in</strong>cluded; but <strong>in</strong> connection319 <strong>in</strong>stances of K-T-B, Ibrahim identifies <strong>the</strong> root's first occurrence (dha/ika 1-kitabu/a[ai-Baqara 2]) but <strong>the</strong>n only notes, wa 1-/aft.fi 230 iiyat ("<strong>the</strong> word appears <strong>in</strong> 230al-Baqi lists and quotes every s<strong>in</strong>gle occurrence and verse (lbriihrm, Mu 'jam al-a/fo;:,'Abd al-Baqi, Mu 'jam al~mtifahras, 591-95).33 'A!if al-Maliji, al-Aifii;: al~wal;ida fi 1-Qur 'an a/-karim wa-sirr i 'jiizihii, Cairo: Horus li-1-wa-1-Nashr, 2002."'"'"-'v'""'"· al-Aifii;: al-wal;ida, 7., repr. A. Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of <strong>the</strong> Qur'an, Leiden: Brill, 2007.FV, 39-41. Zammit notes that of <strong>the</strong> 256 loanwords (i.e. exclud<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> names) treated by, 235 are technical, almost half of which <strong>in</strong> turn treat religious matters. Zammit, Compara­Study, 57."Foreign vocabulary," 235-36. For two excellent recent articles on foreign vocabulary,"The designation of 'foreign' languages <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> exegesis of <strong>the</strong> Qur'an," <strong>in</strong> J.D.·: ~lcAiuliflfe, B.D. Walfish and J W. Goer<strong>in</strong>g (eds), With Reverence for <strong>the</strong> Word: Medieval Scrip­Exegesis <strong>in</strong> Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003,437-44,M. Carter, "Foreign vocabulary," <strong>in</strong>A. Ripp<strong>in</strong> (ed.), The Blaclcwell Companion to <strong>the</strong> Qur'an,' Malden, MA: Blackwell Publish<strong>in</strong>g, 2006, 120-39 .. ·ltipp<strong>in</strong>, "Foreign vocabulary," 236. For <strong>the</strong> early philologists and exegetes, e.g. 'AbdAllah b. 'Abbas68/687), non-Arabic words enhanced <strong>the</strong> Qur'an (both l<strong>in</strong>guistically and rhetorically}, but as time. Muslim scholarship advanced a <strong>the</strong>ology of complete purity for <strong>the</strong> language of <strong>the</strong> Qur' an,•. With <strong>the</strong> exception of a handful of scholars such as al-Jawalrqi ( d 539/1144}, al-Suyii!i (91111505) andal-KhafiiJi ( d 1069/1658). AI-Jawalrqi dist<strong>in</strong>guished between mu 'arrab (Arabized) and a 'jami (non­.. foreign} loans. Some authors, such as al-Khafiijr, used <strong>the</strong> term dakhil (adopted, "foreign''), butKopf has noted, "Arab philologists made no fundaniental dist<strong>in</strong>ction between foreign words and·Jmmwlm!s, <strong>the</strong> terms mu 'arrab and dabil be<strong>in</strong>g applied to both categories. Yet <strong>the</strong>y were very well

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