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

102 Robert G. HoylandNo.24Place: al-UlaType: GraffitoDate: uncertainScript/Lang.: Hebrew/ArabicBib!.: JS Hebl; Noja 1979, XXVIII; Hopkins 2007/8Text: "Na'Im/Nu'aym son oflsaac trusts in God. He has written (this)." (n 'ym bn's(lq b 'ld/h ytq ktb). 33This and the following five texts (nos 25-29) appear together in Jaussen andSavignac's famous volumes on the archaeology of northwest Arabia in a shortsection on Hebrew inscriptions. In his review of these volumes Halper ("RecentOrientalia and Judaica", Jewish Quarterly Review 15, 1924/5, 243) makes thevery short, but very significant, observation that the inscriptions categorized asHebrew by Jaussen and Savignac "are Hebrew only in script, the language beingArabic". This explains why the name Isaac is written as it is (is(liiq) rather than inits usual Hebrew form (yitz(laq), and it allows us to give a reading of the graffito(the simple Arabic expression "he trusts in God"), whereas trying to read it as anAramaic or Hebrew text yields no intelligible interpretation. The last letter of Godeither should be a 'h' - Jaussen and Savignac may have missed a faint downwardstroke (no photograph is provided)- or it is intentionally a 'd', a device to disguisethe divine name.Nos 25 and 26Place: ai-UiaType: GraffitoDate: uncertainScript/Lang.: Hebrew/Arabic 34Bib!.: JS Heb3 + 5; Noja 1979, XXIV-XXV; Hopkins 2007/8Text: "This is what has written ... " (hd mh ktb) and "this is what ... " (hd mh)Jaussen and Savignac wondered whether these texts might be an allusion to theAramaean god of thunder Hadad, but, again using Halper's insight that these graffitiare in Arabic, we can read, more simply, "this is what has written" and "this iswhat". Since the two texts "are right next to each other and engraved in the sameThe Jews of the Hijaz in the Qur 'iin 103. way", A.F.L. Beeston reasoned, very sensibly, that they "are both unfinishedexperiments in Afabic by one and the same person". 35uncertain:Hebrew/Arabic· JS Heb8; Noja 1979, XXVII; Hopkins 2007/8"And Isma'II son ofSdq has written" (w-ktb 'sm 'yl bn ~dq)•Again, it makes good sense to read this as Arabic, since the first name Isma 'IIthe Arabic form rather than the Hebrew one (ysm ''I). The second name' might be Arabic too (i.e. Sadiq rather than Sadoq), but since the long vowel is not· written we cannot tell.· Type: Graffito. :.Date: uncertain·Hebrew/ArabicJS Heb4; Noja 1979, XXIX; Hopkins 2007/8. . . . is a three-line inscription of which all parts are contested. Jaussen and· Savignac only made an attempt at the first line, which they read as: "God is eternal,[Abi] Samuel". Halper ("Recent", 243) rejected this interpretation ( '/ '!m), prefer­Jing again to read it as Arabic, namely "the scholar ( '[- 'lm) [Abu] Sai:nuel"; the.. rtext two lines he understood as a prayer for a dead father: "hls children hope that'. .. went on high" (rjw' bnyh 'n 'lh 'ly). Noja, on the other hand, chose to keep: Jaussen and Savignac's first line, but then, like Halper, assumed the rest was• j\rabic, though he came up with a very different reading: "I have constructed. a repulsive thing, it is my fault" (rjz' bnyt 'n '!h 'ly). 36 Given the bad state of· of the graffito, no sure reading can be given.33 Noja 1979, 313-14, suggests reading "he wrote with the chisel" (ktb bi-1-rytq), which seems' hissplausible.34 Winne! and Reed ARNA, 163, says these "are in Aramaic" without explanation; Hopkins 2007/8replies to this as follows: "Aramaic may be possible as far as the [demonstrative] pronoun isconcerned, but the syntax of the text to my mind reads better as Arabic.". 35 In personal communication to Noja (Noja 1979, n. 71).~.6: He suggests that the reference might be to idol worship; presumably he takes the Arabic to be ana· 'ilia ''alayya- as. Noja says, "trascurando grammatica e sintassi dell arabo classico"! .