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

158 Gerd-R. Puincomparable to the "dagger a/if." More interesting is the occurrence of thesevowel letters within the words, which are sometimes hardly distinguished fromthe bigger normal letters.(40) >,Jil DaJwuwd thus in StT 16 times (e.g. 34:10).In old manuscripts the writing is usually ,\_,,, which makes sense, since one couldnot necessarily expect, in old manuscripts, a plene writing of the /a:/ in thesyllable. But the only two early bearers of the name ",\.f> I Du'iid" were presum"ably Christians 12 whose names were certainly "David"! Thus, the alif can be ..explained by indicating either a glottal stop plus a short vowel or a short vowel-.after the mute preceding letter: ,1_;• > or >\j' >. This is not a unique case. In a very -·.similar configuration we find that ~:i;il of the Standard Text (Q 14:37) is written as ·,,\.;\ = Erul in manuscripts D and H. It would have; been natural to expect that in •Arabi~ the name of David is written -'-:!~' > I Dawiyd (DiiwTd), according to itsHebrew/Syriac origin, but this orthography would have immediately been associ~.ated with ..l,lj~, which is "a poor little mite" and thus not really appropriate for arevered prophet!The next examples from the Standard Text are not related to the alif. They have.more in common with similar problems which occur in writing two ya 'sbelow 2.3.2). However, they raise the question whether the insertion of the smallwaw or ya 'is due only to (later) grammatical consciousness and not based on theactual pronunciation /jalu:na, jasu:/ at the time when the rasm was fixed ..Vowel letters and ortho-epic writing in the Qur'an 159Correcting the pronunciation of the wiiworthography of a couple of nouns shows the influence of Syriac, with a wawthe Arabic language would prefer the pronunciation with an /a/ sound.~?alawtazakawtaribaw'Jl;!ayaWtagadaWtiin Standard Text e.g. 2:83,in StT e.g. 2:83,in StT e.g. 2:276,in StT e.g. 2:86,in StT 6:52; 18:28.· The old "Syriac" writing preserved in the rasm was "Arabized" later by the addi­. fion of a small ( ortho-epic) alif on top of the waw. A similar feature is the writing- small alifon top of the ya' (cf. below 2.3.3). Generally, the small letter on top_' rn,u.-~.u;;u the "correct" pronunciation of the vowel letter underneath, according to-"'".,~'"'"Arabic.application of this method is not limited to the re-definition. of _v?welbut occurs - in the Standard Text at least- with the Sad also: 11.-;;.) in1.~:1 in 2:245; the opposite pronunciation is expressed in [>_,~~: ~!i\ in- , and similarly 88:22. In both cases the alternative spelling with a sinvariant observed in the Standard Text as well as in other transmissions and(41) [>,~ yalwuwna(42) .S.;,J wuwriya(43) ip'£1 li_yasuw-•uwJin StT, e.g. 3:78,in StT 7:20,in StT 17:7.the addition of a waw, the ya' was used to disambiguate the phoneticalof the alif.In this final case the different orthographic solutions in some recent Qur'iineditions seem worth citing: 13 ·17:7ip'£!StT #8 #7 #9 # 10 #112 Abii Du'ad Jariya b. al-~lajjiij al-lyiidi", al-f:li"ra, ca. 480-540 or 550 AD, cf. Sezgin, GAS II, 161seq., and Abii Du'ad Yazi"d b. Mu'awiya b. 'Umar al-Ru'iisl, al-f:lijiiz, cf. Sezgin, GAS II, 414.13 The numbers used here are abbreviations for Qur'iin editions whose full bibliography is foundbelow in section 4.2.- SIT is the Standard Text f:laf~ 'an 'A~im; # 8 and# 7 are Qaliin 'an Nafi'versions;# 9 and# 10 are Warsh 'an Nail' versions;# I is the Indian; and# 18 is the Ottoman_­tradition.Tlze additional yii' at tlze beginning of a word!i_'Jiylafi and kJ""\ JiYla'fihim in StT 106:1, 2.'JiylaJfi is considered to be a direct derivation ofthe root' -1-fthe verbal noun offourth stem would be in Classical Arabic, ..:.')1.5\, whence ..:.')41 by assimilation;'would be written,"plene", exactly as in SUra 106:1. Thin the problem isthe second occurrence of the word in the next verse: 'JiYlafihim. Here the ya'part of the rasm; it is added separately between the initial alif and the" " -'--- lam: kJ"-~·are tw~- p~ssible explanations for the different orthography. Either therasm (without the ya) is the older one_- and the scriptio difficilior- in thatthe first rasm is an example of a mater lectionis in order to ensure the vocalofthe a/if as a short Iii sound. This implies that the word is not derivedthe root '-1-f, but it had to be protected from misreading, say, of..:.'~\ Iwu'"~u.uu~- of." Or the first rasm is the correct one, and the second one was