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

314 Sidney Griffiththan those of the mainline "Melkites," "Jacobites" and ''Nestorians" of theand eighth centuries, whose presence and whose language and lore can actuallyshown to have been present both in Arabia and in the greaterMesopotamian milieu from at least the sixth century onward, well intoIslamic times.The NazoreansAccording to the Qur'an, al-na$ara say, "The Me!lsiah is the son of God,"statement, the text goes on to say, in which "they emulate the language ·the unbelievers of yore" (al-Tawba [9] 30). This Qur'anic critique is atwith what is reported of either the Panarion 's Nazarenes or most other Jewish.Christian groups, 34 none of whom explicitly confess that the Messiah is the Son ofGod. 35 Contrariwise, that Jesus, the Messiah, is the Son of God, and thereforein person, is a basic creedal affirmation of each of the mainline, Nicene '-''Ju '~""'".communities actually contemporary with the Qur' an, albeit that their differingChristologies prevented their ecclesial communion with one another. The Qur'iirinot only does not affirm what these Qur' anic al~na$ara affirm; it explicitly rejectStheir common creed and engages in polemical attacks against it!So why would the Qur'an call the mostly "Jacobite" and ''Nestorian,"and Arabic-speaking Christians in its environs al-na$ara? Perhaps because, asQur'an itself says, the Christians say, "We are na$ara" (al-Ma'ida [5] 14 &But given the whiff of ancient heresy attached to the name, and its limitedin Christian parlance, why would the Christians in the Qur'an's milieu havethemselves by this name? Perhaps they did so just because the MuslimsMedina called them na$ara, the name for Christians that their own texts reported •.as being not infrequently applied to them by other non-Christians, mostin Syriac texts, by Persian officials.As we have seen above, the Arabic name na$ara, as we have it in the Qur'an,is etymologically in all probability a calque on the Syriac name nasriiye, which illSyriac texts, as in Greek in Acts 24:5 and elsewhere, occurs mainly as a name .used for Christians by non-Christian adversaries. Ailld as Jerome said, the others'called Christians ''Nazoreans" "quasi pro obprobrio." 36 In other words, the ·has an anti-Christian ring to it. So why would Arabic-speaking Christianssaid, "We are na$ara," as the Qur'an reports? Or did they? One can only "~··m· 1 ~•·•'in reply. Whereas in general the Qur'an displays a high quotient of awareness34 R. Pritz actually argued, on the basis of passages quoted from the works of Jerome and A"'"'"''""·that while Epiphanius neglected to mention it in the Panarion, the Nazarenes were in· willing to confess that Jesus, the Messiah, is the Son of God. See Pritz, Nozorene Jtnvishanity, 35 & n.8, 54-55, 78, 90.35 One notices the ingenious but tortuous line of reasoning de Blois employs to show that theChristian groups might actually have espoused the Qur'iin's Christology. See de Blois,and lfanif," esp. 14-15. So, according to him, the Christology of the Qur'iin is supposed tocongruent with that of al-n~ara!36 See the text quoted at n. II above.Al-Na~ara in the Qur 'an: a hermeneutical reflection 315CODlteuapc>raiY Christian language and lore, and a considerable amount of biblicalthat allows it to comment on, critique and amplify earlier scriptural narrathecomposer of the Qur'an was probably also well aware of the connotaofthe name al-na$ara among Christians and for this very reason uses thein its text, even putting it into the mouths of the Christian interlocutors'th,.mc •• lu.•c rhetorically precisely because of its potential for suggesting disap­The use of the name immediately sets the non-Christian Muslims, whoof al-na$ara "quasi pro obprobrio," over against the Christians, with whomare in inter-religious controversy in Yathrib/Medina.·.Alternatively, and even more speculatively, should one credit the Qur'an'sas it stands and conclude that Christians in its milieu were in fact wont to"We are na$ara," perhaps, for their part in the local inter-religious contraapologetically?Perhaps from the beginning there were those Arabicspe:akii!lgChrisltiarlsofYathrib/Medina who, like many later Muslim commentators,associated the name na$ara with the root consonants n-$-r and immediatelythought of that place in the Islamic revelation, then circulating orally, where· 's disciples are reported to have declared themselves to be "God's helpersAllah)" (Al 'Imran [3] 52), and so, in their own way, they too would be''Muslims," as the verse goes on to say. On this scenario, being considered theJlt::s~,;eJlaanL:; of God's helpers would rhetorically put the Christians in the environsathrib/Medina on a somewhat higher plane than the other an$ar in the commu­' who welcomed and offered their assistance to the muhajinln from Mecca.· Whatever plausible reason-one finds for the Qur' an's use ofthe name al-na$arathe Christians, or for the Arabic-speaking Christians to use it for themselves,seems historically highly unlikely that the usage was due to the presence in· in the seventh century of a long-forgotten group of Nazorean Jewish.Uuis:tians. The only evidence so far adduced for their presence there is based oninterpretation of certain Qur'anic passages, for which the interpreters werefor sources. However, rhetorically speaking, and taking the Qur' 1in on itsterms, these same passages, which after all reject the claims of al-na$ara, canas well be understood as rejecting the teachings and critiquing the behavior of"Melkite," "Jacobite" and "Nestorian" Christians, whose presence in Arabiathe requisite timeframe is amply documented.Against the verisimilitude of this conclusion, Fran9ois de Blois has cited thefrom the Qur'an that says, "The food of the Scripture people is lawful toand your food is lawful to them" (al-Ma 'ida [5] 5). He argues, "If na$ara'catholic Christians,' then it is very difficult to see how their food should'permitted to you,' seeing that the catholic canon contains statements to thethat Jesus 'declared all food clean' (Mark 7:19) and that catholic Christiansnotorious for their porcophagy." 37 This would certainly be a weighty objectiontext specified al-na$ara instead of"Scripture People." With this phrase the1in clearly speaks only of the Jews here and not of the Christians. In other