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

450 . Emran El-BadawiTo appreciate the need for a study on the Qur'iin and the Syriac Gospels, it is firstnecessary to outline briefly the place ofSyriac in earlier Qur'iinic Studies.With his 1833 landmark work, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthumeaufgenommen?, 6 Abraham Geiger drew attention to the large role that HebrewScripture and rabbinical sources played in shaping the Qur'iin's religiousworldview. The important role that language played in Qur'anic revelationobtained greater value with Theodor NOldeke and Karl Vollers. Following thetraditional theory, Noldeke argued that classical Arabic or fo!iba existed as aspoken language among Arab tribes even prior to the rise of Islam. 7 Vollersrefuted this claim by arguing that, before the rise of Islam, Arab tribes spokevarious dialects of Arabic koimJ and that fit:fba developed with later Islamiccivilization. 8 Broader comparative studies with Judaism and Christianity gave riseto Wilhelm Rudolph's Die Abhiingigkeit des Qorans von Judentum undChristentum, published in 1922, 9 and the investigative approach to extracting thesources of the Qur' an were fully under way by 1926 when Joseph Horovitz wrotehis Koranische Untersuchungen. 10 In that same year Richard Bell's The Origin ofIslam in its Christian Environment was publishf:!d. In it Bell describes the generalinfluence of the Syrian, Mesopotamian and especially Abyssinian church on LateAntique Arabia, emphasizing in particular the remnants of such influences foundin the Qur'iin. Bell also acknowledged that some Qur'iinic terms "indicatepenetration of Aramaic culture into Arabia." 11 The linguistic inquiry into Qur' anicorigins eventually expanded into a discourse that integrated a diversity of LateAntique languages. Arthur Jeffery's The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur 'anunderscores the vital theological and literary function of Qur'anic termsoriginating from other languages such as Aramaic (especially Syriac), Heb.rew,Ethiopic, Greek, and Persian. 12 Jeffery followed this book with other works on theQur'iin such as The Qur'an as Scripture, which situates the Qur'iin within thediverse genre of scripture in the continuously intermingling religious context ofthe ancient (before c. 300 CE) and Late Antique (c. 300-700 CE) Near East (Syria,Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, and Arabia). 13Condemnation in the Qur 'an and the Syriac Gospel of Matthew 451The study of the Qur'iin in relation to Syriac came into being, albeit under theradar, in 1926 with Tor Andrae's Der Urspnmg der !slams und das Christentum. 14After portraying an image of Late Antique Arabia similar to that of Bell's, inwhich the Persian Nestorian and Abyssinian Monophysite churches exercisedmuch influence along Arabian trade routes, Andrae's insightful analysis comparesverses of the Qur'iin with various Syriac works, most notably the hymns ofEphrem (d. 373). 1 s. However, it was the following year that Alphonse Mingana setthe foundation for research on the Qur'iin within the context ofSyriac in an article·entitled "Syriac Influence on the Style of the Kur'iin," in which he provides a brieftypology and somb examples ofSyriac words used in the Qur'iin, while assertingthat 70 percent of the Qur'iin's foreign vocabulary was Syriac in origin. 16 Still,Mingana's article did not have a profound impact on Qur' iinic Studies- and withthe exception of Andrae and Mingana's works, which still do not address theSyriac Gospels directly but ratfier Syriac literature generally, the study of theQur' iin within the context of Syriac was relatively uncommon.Subsequent studies on the Qur'iin include Karl Ahrens' "Christliches imQoran,'>l7 Heinrich Speyer's Die biblischen Erziihlungen im Qoran, whichfrequently cites Syriac sources, and on occasion the Syriac Gospels, 18 DeniseMasson's Le Coran et la rewHationjudeo-chretienne, 19 Johann-Dietrich Thyen'sBibelund Koran, 20 Ugo Bonanate's Bibbia e Corano, 21 and similar works. Duringthis time, scholars of Qur'iinic Studies continued to overlook the impact of theSyriac context, even if they focused with renewed attention on Christian influences.Giinter Luling's Uber den Ur-Qur'an, published in 1971, perceived theQur' lin as part of a strictly pre-Islamic Arabian Christian discourse. LUling arguesthat the Qur'iin was originally composed of ancient Arabian Christian strophichymns that went through progressive stages of Islamization by the exegetes. Hedoes not discuss the role of Syriac language or literature. 226 A. Geiger, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume azifgenommen?, Bonn: Baaden, 1833.7 T. Noldeke, Neue Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaji, Strassburg: 1904; see alsoGeschichte des Qorans, Gottingen, 1860.8 K. Vollers, Vo/kssprache zmd Schrifisprache im a/ten Arabien, Strassburg: K.J. Triibner, 1906,185-95.9 W. Rudolph, Die Abhiingigkeit des Qorans von Judentum zmd Christen/urn, Stuttgart:Kohlhammer, 1922.10 J. Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen, Walter De Gruyter: Berlin & Leipzig, 1926.II R. Bell, The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment, London: Macmillan, 1926, 18-39, 43.See also his discussion therein on Q 105.12 A. Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary oft he Qur 'an, Baroda, India: Oriental Institute, 1938. See alsoA. Rippin, EQ, "Foreign Vocabulary," 2:226.13 A. Jeffery; The Qur'iin as Scripture, New York: R.F. Moore, 1952.14 Andrae's work was originally published in a little-known journal in Uppsala, Sweden calledKyrkshistorisk arsskriji between the years 1923 and 1925; furthermore, the book's title made nodirect claim to be a compamtive work of Qur'iin and Syriac litemture. See T. Andrae, DerUrsprung der !slams und das Christentum, Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1926; Fr. trans. Lesorigines de /'islam et le christianisme, Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1955.15 Andrae, Les origines de /'islam et le christianisme, 151-61.16 A. Mingana, "Syriac influence on the style of the Kur'iin," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 2,1927,80.17 K. Ahrens, "Christliches im Qomn," ZDMG 84, 1930, 148-90.18 H. Speyer, Die bib/ischen Erziihlungen im Qoran, Grlifenhainichen: Schulze, 1931. Republished,Die biblischen Erziihlungen im Qoran, Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1961.19 Denise Masson, Le Caron et Ia revtHationjudeo-chretienne, Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1958.20 J.-D. Thyen, Bibe/und Koran, Koln: Biihlau, 1989.21 U. Bonanate, Bibbia e Carano, Turin:· Bollati Boringhieri, 1995.22 G. LUling, Ober den Ur-Qur'iin, Erlangen, 1971. Eng. trans. A Challenge to Islam for Reformation,Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2003, 423.