reynolds-the-quran-in-its-historical-context-2

302 Sidney Griffithwhose beliefs and practices the Qur' an alludes in the passages inChristians concerned are called al-nafiara.The philology and lexicography of the name al-Naiji1ri1In early Islamic tradition there is already considerable discussion of themeaning, the etymology and the grammatical typology of the term at-nmwr.a.most commonly attested, plural form of the word, and its singular an--na~rmEarlier commentators, such ·as Abu Ja'far al-Taban (d. 310/923), wereconsider it to be a geographical term referring to the village of Natjira, where,said Jesus, son of Mary, and his mother had lived. 4 However, as time wentbecame more common in the Islamic commentary tradition to derive the termthe Arabic root n-tj-r, in the form of the participle nafiir (pl. an/jar) in the"helper/s" or "supporter/s," and to assign a scriptural meaning to the term byring to the passage in the Qur'an that speaks of Jesus's disciplesdeclaring themselves to be "God's helpers" (an/jar Allah): "Jesus said,be my helpers (an!jarf) toward God?' The disciples said, 'We are God's(Al 'Jmran [3] 52). 5 So one might on this basis assume thattheNatjara of theare thought to be the spiritual descendants of Jesus's first disciples. Thistion is widespread in the Islamic community, with some commentatorsit excludes those who both yesterday and today call themselves at-·Ml1Sl!~tvvtlr.Muslim commentators have all approached the term na!jranz/natjaraassumption that it functions as an Arabic word, and that its grammatical andstates are to be, and can be adequately explained in reference to theclassical Ariibic grammar and-lexicography. Cortttari.Wi.se, rton-Musli.J:n,Western scholars have considered the term to be pari of the "foreign vu