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

110 Robert G. Hoyland"Akrabos ben Samuel from Maqna" as an Arabian Jew. Negev (1977, 73-74) says ·that this reading is implausible, but does not offer an alternative. 45 It is hard to seehow the two letters between the's' and the aliph in the word read by Rothenberg/Shapir as Samuel could be read as 'm' and 'w', and with this falls the whole case ·for this being a Jewish inscription.ConclusionsReviewing these texts, there are a number ofthings that strike one straight away:They span quite a large period of time, at the very least the first century BCEto the fourth century CE.2 They are relatively few in number (only around thirty even if we accepted allof them as Jewish).3 They are written in different languages and scripts, though there is a predominanceofNabataean Aramaic.4 They are mostly very brief and of very limited content; there is just one(possibly two) commemorative text (no. 2, on the sundial, and no. 31 ?), onlysix or seven tomb inscriptions (nos. 1, 3, 5-6, 11, 18 and 30; 31 ?); the rest aresimple graffiti.5 They are not geographically very widespread, principally hailing only fromal-Ula and Mada'in Salih.It is perhaps the limited nature ofthis epigraphic crop- in terms of number, quality ·and spread (points 2 and 4-5 above) - that most surprises, particularly in the lightof the very frequent reference to Jews in the Qur' an. This latter fact promptedCharles Torrey, in one of his well-known lectures on "The Jewish Foundations ofIslam", to wax lyrical about our solid knowledge of the Jews of the Hijaz: "TheIsraelite tribes with their rabbis, their books, sacred and secular, their cominunityof faith and action, and their living contact with the past, are there; they are nophantom. All through the Qur'an there is evidence of a Jewish culture, whichMulJammad greatly admired, and of Jewish learning, which he very imperfectlyassimilated". In the view of Torrey, and those who would follow him, we canspeak of "an ancient and extensive movement of colonization, a. Hebrew migrationsouthward into the Hijaz in the sixth century B.C., an ethnic transplanting ·which rooted deep and for many generations obeyed the injunction to be fruitful ·and multiply ... It implies a genuine Hebrew stock, and an authentic religious andliterary tradition always kept alive and in continuous connection with the learned ·centres in the greater world outside Arabia. While presenting no historical45 He does refer to J. Naveh, "He'arot Sinayiyot," in Sefer Shmuel Yevin: Studies in the Bible,Archaeology, Language and the Hist01y of the people of Israel, Jerusalem: Qiryat Sefer, 1970,371-74, who reads: "[Linel]-w br s 'd'lhy [Line2] dkyr s 'd'lhy br b1y 'w." This fits well with theproposed reading above, except for the dkyr at the beginning of line 2.The Jews of the Hijaz in the Qur 'an 111··_ difficulty, it can fully account for the relatively high civilization in the Jewish.· •.communities of Mecca; Yathrib, Tayma, Khaybar, and other cities ofthat region. " 46And yet not a single clearly Jewish inscription has yet been found at Mecca,· Yathrib or Khaybar despite quite a number of epigraphic surveys conducted at allsites.· ·. What are we to make of this apparent discrepancy? Should we think in terms of,.. as Torrey puts it, "a genuine Hebrew stock" 47 linked "with the learned centres inthe greater world outside Arabia" and possessing a "relatively high civilization,".or rather of a community mostly made up of Arab converts (with probably a·number of Jews who migrated there for various reasons- trade, refuge, etc. -and··'·stayed on) substantially integrated within Arabian society and barely in touch;with non-Arabian Jewish communities, and possessing a relatively low level of'J~wish education? The latter of these two models would patently better suit the.epigraphic evidence that we have. It would also make it easier to account for thealmost total dearth of information about these north Arabian Jewish communities.• in Jewish sources of the .Levant and Iraq if we assume that they had little contact·•\yith the wider Jewish world and participated minimally in the Jewish religious,debates of their age. 48 If substantially integrated within Arabian society, the JewsArabia (whether Arab converts to Judaism or heavily Arabized Jews)have been more likely to sport Arabian names rather than classic Jewish/•'Hebrew ones, and so it is not surprising that such classic Jewish/Hebrew names._ are rare in the epigraphic record of the Hijaz (point no. 2 above). And it may well· that some of the thousands of graffiti found in that region, written in AncientArabian dialects (often labelled "Thamudic"), could be by Jews, hiddenour view by their adoption of Arabian names and their decision not to deploydistinctively Jewish expressions. 49 Moreover, as well-integrated members of46 C.C. Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of Islam, New York: Jewish Institute of Religion, 1933,. 26-27.47 Cf. the discussion in A.J. Wensinck, Muhammad and the Jews of Arabia, trans. W. Behn, Freiburg:.Schwarz, 1975, 30-32, where it is asserted that at least some of the Jews of Medina must havebeen of "a stock who originated in Palestine," and in H.Z. Hirschberg, Yisrael be- 'Arav,Tel Aviv: Bialik Foundation, 1946, 192: "The documents and the sources testify that ArabianJewry did not differ from that of all other lands ... They lived in accordance with accepted Jewishtradition.", '48 .TI1e only contender for a rabbi from the north Arabian Peninsula (as opposed to the Roman provinceof Arabia and Iranian province of Beth Arabaye) is a certain Simeon the Temaniteffaymanite(championed by Torrey, Jewish Foundation, "lecture 2"}, though even this is unsure inasmuch asthe adjective could refer to the Edomite city (or district) ofTeman (Petra area).Certainly, the vast majority of the Jews who are mentioned in the various Muslim biographies·.of the Prophet Muhammad bear names that are also held by pagan, Christian and Muslim,'Arabs. Moreover, t?e persons who feature in the Jewish inscriptions of south Arabia very rarelybear a Jewish name. Of course, it was very common for Jews in the Near East to follow-local naming patterns, and also names and trends in names (e.g; Greek versus Biblical) went in· and out of fashion, so names are by no means infallible indicators of cultural assimilation oridentity.