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

136 Hani HayajnehAl-Ab 'iis (tribal name from Yiifi' al-'Uiiii)Al-Abqiir (tribal name decendant ofKhawliin)Al-Ajriim (Name of a village at al-I;Iujafiyya)Al-AIJ{llb (tribal and place name in the region of {':abra)Al-A 'diin (tribal name and village name)Al-A 'riish (tribal name)Al-A 'dad (tribal name)Al-A 'niq (name of an 'Uzla)Al-Aji·ii' (tribal name)Al-Akhdad (as a mountain name in the of Shar' ab region)Such plural forms indicating members of ethnic or tribal groups (or other generalplurals) are also known in the Old Ethiopic (Ge'ez) tradition. See for examplethe words ayhiid"Jews;" 83 ahgiir, "cities;" al;Iqiil, "fields;" etc. 84 The presence ofplace names in Yemen in the al-af'iil form would not contradict the fact that theform was originally used for tribal names. Tribes or groups, or a totality of peopleor families, that continue to reside for a long time in a certain place may give theirname to the area. It is evident that the ASA form is preserved in the form al-aj'iil.The ASA determinative suffix -n seems to have been converted into the Arabicdefinite article al-. In a l;Iadfth passage the Prophet uses the form. According to.the report, Qays b. Namat al-HamdiinT was one of the first people to come to theProphet in Mecca and to convert to_the.new.J'aith._Accordingly, the Prophet wrotehim a pact in which he stated: ... fa-inn'i isla 'maltuka 'alii qawmika 'arabihim 85wa-al;Imzlrihim wa-mawiil'ihim: "I used (employed) you over your people, theArabs, the Himyarites, ·and their associates." .Mtitahhar al-IryiinT 86 cites this ·interesting passage as evidence of the form al-af'iil.As a result of the preceding discussion, I would like to propose that the wordal-ukhdiid is a variant of an ASA form *al-akhdiid, which could have appeared in .the ASA vowelless script as * 'khdd(n). It might be understood as a designation of.;the affiliates of a group or tribe, or as a place/region in which the members of sucha tribe had settled. Among Yemenite place names is the toponyme al-Akhdzid fora -mountain in the Shar'ab region. Thus such a name, although not necessarilyrelated to the Qur'iinic word al-ukhdzid, existed. Hence, the following interpretationsof the syntax of the verse and the word al-ukhdzid are possible: ·83 W. Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Ge 'ez (Classical Ethiopic), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,1991,626.84 See C. Brockelmann, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitisclten Sprachen,Lout- und Formenlehre, l, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1966, 432fT., § 234.85 Al-lryiinT, AI-Mu 'jam al-yamanT (a/if), 269fT., understands this word, which is usually read gharbihim,as 'arabiliim and argues that the Prophet meant those tribes that were characterized by a sortof Bedouin way of life and lived to the East of Hamdan, not to the West of Hamdan, i.e. Ar(tab,Nihm, Shakir, Wada 'a, Yiim, Khiirif, Datan, Marhaba, 'Udhr and f:lqjlir.86 Al-lryiinT, AI-Mu }am al-yamani (a/if), 271 ff.Arabian languages as a source for Qur'iinic vocabulmy 137Al-Ukhdiid as a variant of*al-Akhdiid can be understood as a place/area nameto which certain people, described as a~l;Iiib, are attached. The verse then canbe roughly interpreted as "Killed are the people of (the place/area named)al-Ukhdiid."Al-Ukhdiid as a variant of*al-Akhdiid could indicate a totality of people or themembers of a group to whom the digging of the ditch (or ditches) is ascribed;as ifthe Qur'iin intended to say figuratively *qutila al-alchdiid, "killed are theAkhdildites." In this case, one may assume that ulchdiid, in itself, could haveled to this meaning without the usage of the word a~l;Iiib before it. Nevertheless,as the form *al-Alchdiid could not be understood for the Arabic-speakingarea with its South Arabian connotations, if used solely in an Arabic sentence,the word 'a~l;Iiib had to be added to clarify the following al-ulchdiid.Al-Ukhdiid as a variant of *al-Akhdiid could indicate a name of a totality ofpeople/large group of people who lived in an area and, consequently, theplace in later stages bore their name.conclude, an attempt has been presented to see in al-ukhdzid a variant of anassumed South Arabian form *al-Akhdiid. As the latter form belongs to theUnguistic domain of South Arabia, this might give a clue that the incident of.-.mrmm!!' the believers could be associated with the events surrounding the persecuofChristiansby Dhil Nuwiis.• ; A number of modern scholars have doubted the correlation of the toponyme· (ll- 'Ulchdzid near Najriin with the Qur' iinic al-Ukhdzid, arguing that the name wasgiven to the place because Of the Qur'iinic narrative. 87 Still, if we were in a positoaccept this correlation, one might argue that the killing conveyed by thequtila in Qur'iin 85:4, according to my understanding of the verse, couldto the invasion of South Arabia by the Abyssinians as a counter against the