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

124 Hani HayajnehSyriac reading of the Qur'an and argues that the Qur'anic text in its current formis originally based on Syriac Christian documents that reached the current textuaLform of the Qur'an through editing. According to his assumption, Syriac words inthe Qur'an were arabicized through the development of the Arabic orthography.The proposed Syriac reading of the Qur'an allows us, according to him, to reconsiderthe original meanings of the words. The Arab exegetes were not able tounderstand the original language of the Qur' an and were forced to resort to thelater developed Arabic etymology for their analysis.Against Luxenberg, we have to bear in mind that oral transmission played animportant role in preserving the integrity of the Qur' an, a fact that he totally ignores. •·He tries to convince his readers that a hybrid language (Arabic and Syriac) existedin Mecca at that time. Yet there is no epigraphical or textual evidence from Mecca· ·or its vicinity to support this argument. In addition, we have no Syriac works from,Mecca from that time. He is constantly struggling to re-interpret single wordsusing corresponding Syriac cognates, without taking into consideration the contextof the verse and its structure. His method, as Angelika Neuwirth· states, ··"'"""""··-·poses its very results: the facticity of a Syriac layer underlying the Arabic text." 34Neuwirth adds that "Much of his material relies on obvious circular argument. Onehas to keep in mind that principally Syriac, which is linguistically closely related toArabic, will offer innumerable cases of etymological parallels for individual words·or expressions of the Qur' an; particularly since religious vocabulary is aboundingin Syriac. These parallels in many cases are simply due to the close linguistic relationbetween the two Semitic languages and do not necessarily reflect a culturalcontact."Arabs in Arabia borrowed heavily from Aramaic and other surrounding ..languages, e.g. Old Ethiopic, Ancient South Arabian etc. Such lexical materialbecame an integral part of the dialects that dominated in Arabia. Therefore,cannot consider the process of borrowing from other languages and-cultures as a·major factor that makes Arabic a mixed language. It is the phonology, morphology ..and syntax that establish the basic elements of linguistic clustering andand that lead, at the end, to a recognition cif the affiliation of a certain ,=••l'.ual'."other language(s). The lexicon comes at the end of this chain. It is clearLuxenberg's method that he mixes the structUral elements of two dil:Ier·ent:_,:languages, Syriac and Arabic, which leads him to the wrong results.In his work "A Comparative Lexical Study of Qur'anic Arabic" 35 Martin R.Zammit intended to carry out a quantitative analysis of a substantial corpus of theQur'anic lexicon with a view to investigating the lexical relationship betweenArabic and the major variants of Semitic. He tried to interpret the commonfeatures, rather than pointing towards particular genetic affinities, as indicators .of different levels of socio-cultural links in general and linguistic exchange in -.34 Neuwirth, "Qur'an and History- A Disputed Relationship, 9.35 Martin R. Zammit;-A-Comparative-texica/-Study -oj-Qur'iinic -Ar.~bi•~~fiandbc>ok--of'-Orienl'al ,,_,Studies 2, 61. Leiden, Boston, Koln: Brill, 2002.Arabian languages as a source for Qur ·anic vocabulary 125d'"'""''"a', which characterized the various areas of Semitic. As a result, he considthedistribution of lexical items in nine Semitic languages on the basis of acorpus collated from Qur'anic inventory. This study, however, lacks the;•contextual and critical study of the roots and their derivatives in both the Qur' anicas well as in the Semitic cognates. The study was restricted to listing the-nmnoJlYDmc roots and derivatives without any discussion or analysis. They are notaccording to their semantic fields. For example, listing the Qur'anic word'in this work under the root ~-n-' "to do, make" 36 is not helpful for a better,pnder·standiing of the Qur'anic word, as this root in Semitic languages has produced- basic meanings, the first "to do, make", and the second "to fortify, consoli­(see discussion below under the entry ma~ani '). The same is applicable toQur'anic word babl, which should be interpreted as "covenant" instead of. Both meanings are attested in Semitic languages as derivatives from theroot-morphemes. A further example is the root sh-r-b, >yhich is known inlanguages with two meanings, "to protect" and "to open; explain, expand".semantic dichotomy should have been critically examined on the basis of theanic passage in which the word occurs.Trapper and Hani Hayajneh 37 address the Ugaritic sentence ltpn if d pid andre!:aticms:b.ip to Qur'anic vocabulary and translate it as "der scharfsinnige, der;VeJrstiilndige Gott." This translation is based on the conformity of certain etymathoughts,as both terms ltp and pid occur in Arabic and, in particular, the· text.Kropp's various lexical contributions on the Qur'anic texts in the lightn;present milestones in this field, for example, in his study on the Oldorigins of the Arabic word shaytan, 38 and his attempts to trace Oldloanwords in the Qur'an. 39 In the latter article Kropp discusses problems.swrotmat'r tg lexical borrowing from Old Ethiopic. He analyzes when such wordsinto the Qur'anic corpus, whether they were part of the spoken Arabic:laDlgul:tge before Islam, and thus whether they could be classified as innovationsJlr,ne!JIOJgis:ms. Such studies suggest that further research is needed to investigatewide category of Qur' anic words in the Ancient Semitic context, especiallythat have not been labeled by Arab philologists as "foreign" or "loanwords"to their assimilation into an Arabic morphology. 40 So too the Qur'anbe seen as a very important source of linguistic and cultural knowledgeoo . .