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

42 Andrew Rippinforeign is not clear:· no mention is made of a foreign influence on the meaning ofthe wordsfitrqan or din, for example. Ambros, it should be noted, solves the lexicographicalproblem of proper names by placing them in a separate section of thedictionary (as he also does with pronouns and particles- items which are givenextensive treatment in their alphabetic position in Badawi and Abdel Haleem).Such observations lead us immediately to consideration of the controversialrole of etymology in establishing meaning. Walid Saleh has recently written verycritically about the use of etymology by scholars dealing with the Qur' an. 19 Attimes Saleh seems to go so far as to wish to reject all notions of etymology, or atleast those that are outside the realm of Arabic usage. However, if we understandetymology to be the history of a word's usage and not the determination (and theimplied limitation) of its meaning, it certainly is of some historical interest.Etymology cannot determine, dictate or limit meaning, but it is a tool. In thisregard it must be commented that Zammit's A Comparative Lexical Study ofQur 'anic Arabic is not a dictionary as such, nor even a resource for etymologicalinvestigation (although it may be useful that way) but an attempt to define therelationship of a defined corpus of Arabic in relationship to other Semitic languagesand thus to determine the historical stability of cognate words. The results showthat one-third of roots have no parallel across languages. Words are also analysedaccording to semantic category versus other languages, with the result thatcommonalities are found extending across the range of semantic categories. Thefinal result indicates a close linlc between Arabic and both North-West and SouthArabian Semitic languages while at the same time recognizing the extensiveindependence of Arabic itself (given the one-third of words that have no parallel).While the above comments by no means cover all of the complexities thatcompilers of dictionaries face (and may indeed be thought to be a rather randomcollection of reflections), they do provide some ideas that may help refine what itis that dictionaries could helpfully accomplish in order to meet scholarly needs. Inorder to clarify this further, two sample instances of minor but problematic wordsfrom the Qur' an will be of some assistance.The first example deals with an instance in which contextual usage in the textof the Qur'an does not provide sufficient data to determine a meaning beyondsomething extremely general. The question then becomes one of where else toturn for information. One place is in later usage of a word, often even iii a moderncontext, because of an underlying suggestion that vocabulary in the Qur'anpreserves and maintains a deep sense of continuity and is not just a usage that isreflective of an isolated Qur'anic usage. The exegetical tradition is also drawnupon as a reserve of medieval understandings.Talb is commonly defined iii dictionaries as either acacia or banana, two meaningsthat certainly have a common element (trees providing shade) but are clearly19 "The etymological fallacy and Qur'anic studies: Muhammad, paradise, and late antiquity," inA. Neuwirth et al. {eds), The Qur'an in Context, Leiden: Brill, 2009,649-98. Available online at: {accessed January 31, 20 II)Studies in Qur 'anic vocabulary 43quite different. 20 Tlie debate between these two meanings is, on one level, clear.Talb today means a specific kind of Acacia tree found in Africa and Arabia. Butto what extent can we extrapolate backwards in this way? To what extent has themodern usage been affected by the tradition of lexicography connected to theQur' an? 21 Would it ever be possible to determine so specifically what Mul)ammad• and his compatriots might have meant by this word? While modern meaningscannot simply be declared to be irrelevant, the pitfalls must be acknowledged.What can history tell us? The word could be bananas; that fruit was known andcultivated in the Mediterranean around the time of the rise of Islam. Even if onethought this a good meaning, it is worthy of note that Penrice says the meaning is- :~'bananas or plantain", which draws attention to the fact that we still might wish to-determine what kind of banana {alb isYThese meanings are deduced from the context ofthe Qur'anic passage in whichthe word is used through a speculative method.The Companions of the Right (0 Companions of the Right!), mid thornlesslote-trees (sidr ·makh~iid) and serried acacias (talb man~iid) and spreadingshade (?ill mamdiid).(Q 56:27-30, Arberry translation)_-Heaven is the reward for the "companions of the right" and the surroundings are_.conceived to be appropriate. The word man~iid which comes after {alb is understoodas a description meaning "neatly stacked or piled on top of one another" (althoughthat word itself is hardly transparent, given its only other usage is iii Qur' an 11:82,. where it follows the much-discussed term sijfll, often understood as a reference toclay tablets), taken to refer to the leaves of what is understood to be a tree iii conjuncwiththe preceding sidr, Jote~tree, that is described as being "without thorns,"makh~iid. Heaven being a place with shade that is provided by trees seems to beconfirmed by the final phrase?ill mamdiir:f, "spreading shade~" Here we face contex­. tual meaning derived through -ari imagmailve rend.eii.ng combined with a notion of- -the historical usage of Arabic that is muddied with contemporary usage.Some of these sorts of issues might be solved by drawing on a greater range of- lexicographical resources. F. Quinsat2 3 has drawn attention to the need to draw20 See M.I.H. Farooqi, Plants af the Qur 'an, Lucknow: Sidrah Publishers, 1992, 124-27, on "Acaciaor banana;" also see L.J. Musselman, Figs, Dates, Laurel, and Myrrh. Plants of the Bible and theQur'an, Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2007,38-41, on Acacia.21 See L. Kopf, Studies in Arabic and Hebrew Lexicography, Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1976,esp. 19-45.See Andrew M. Watson, Agricultural Innovation in the early Islamic World The Diflusion ofCrops and Farming Techniques, 700-1100, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983,Chapter 8 on the banana and plantain.,23 F. Quinsat, "Le Coran et Ia lexicographie historique de l'arabe," in M.S. Kropp (ed.), Results ofContempormy Research on the Qur 'an. The Question of a Historico-critical Text of the Qur 'an,Beirut: Ergon Verlag WUrzburg in Kommission, 2007, 175-91, and "Le fichier historique dulexique arabe {FHILA)," Fonda/ion Mox van Berchem Bulletin 22, December 2008, 1-3.