More proposed emendations to the text of the Koran.

• Author: Bellamy, James A.

For Franz Rosenthal, the first recipient of the American Oriental Society Medal of Merit, awarded at Madison, Wisconsin, on March 22, 1994.

Those who read this journal regularly will be aware that for the past few years I have been conducting a survey of the Koran with the purpose of isolating copyists' errors in the text and emending them wherever possible. So far this has resulted in the publication of three articles;(1) the present article is the fourth and last in the series, since the survey is now complete. Of course, I cannot claim to have found every mistake in the Koranic text, but I do hope that I may have aroused sufficient interest in the textual criticism of the Koran so that other scholars may pursue the study further and that ultimately we may get a text that is somewhat closer to what the prophet really said.

Most of the mistakes that we find in the Koran are of the same sort that occur in other MSS. The copyist or, more likely, the man who dictated to him, misread the text for one of the usual reasons: poor handwriting, damage to the papyrus or vellum, failure to grasp the meaning, or perhaps just plain carelessness. The first two mistakes we will look at, however, are of a different kind and are of particular interest, since they will give us some small insight into how the Koran was composed and copied. These two, I believe, resulted from misunderstood corrections in the text; that is, the copyist (or dictator) caught his mistake and corrected it, but a subsequent copyist misunderstood the correction and so produced a new error.

1. WA-INNA KULLAN LAMMA

   In Surah 11:111 we read: wa-inna kullan lamma layuwaffiyannahum rabbuka a malahum (see translation below). The crux here is the word lamma, for which we find the variants: la-ma lamman (acc.), which is said to mean "all" (jami an), or inna is changed into in-negative and lamma given the sense of illa "except."(2) The latter variant was facilitated by the fact that we do find in kullun lamma (= in kullun illa) elsewhere in the Koran.

   R. Bell, p. 215, translates "not yet" and notes that the construction is uncertain and disputed. However, lamma cannot possibly mean "not yet" before an energetic expressing an emphatic future. R. Blachere, p. 450, says that lamma does not offer any acceptable sense. Neither scholar proposes any improvement in the text.

   G. Bergstrasser, p. 14, has a long note on this problem, in which he cites the variants and proposes his own solution. He reads in kullan lamma, taking kullan as a preposed object and lamma as meaning illa. R. Paret, Kommentar, p. 245, cites Bergstrasser with approval but notes that his explanation goes against Tabari's express statement that in Arabic a verb following ilia cannot govern the accusative in a noun preceding illa.

   The best suggestion was made by J. Barth, p. 136, who correctly says that lamma cannot be construed and probably ought to be deleted. I would add that once this is done the sentence is good grammatical Arabic and fits perfectly in the context: "Surely to all your Lord will give full requital for their deeds."

   Barth, however, did not go far enough, for he does not explain how the intrusive lamma got into the text, an essential element in emendation. The copyist's eye, after he had written inna kullan strayed back to v. 109, where we find wa-inna la-muwaffuhum nasibahum (indeed, we shall give them their full portion). He proceeded to write la-muwaffuhum, but caught his mistake after writing only lam and mim, which he then cancelled with a vertical stroke. This stroke was read by a later copyist as alif after the mim, thus producing the meaningless lamma.

2. WA-QILIHI: AND HIS WORDS

   Surah 43:88 reads wa-qilihi ya rabbi inna ha lai qawmun la yu minun (And his words, O my Lord, verily these are a people that do not believe), for which we find the variants wa-qilahu and wa-qiluhu,(3) none of which can be construed. Blachere, p. 267, notes that the commentators make vain efforts to determine the case of qil, and he thinks that the word is certainly displaced. This is probably not correct. Displacements of blocks of text do occur in MSS, but it is rare - if indeed it occurs at all - that a single word is removed from a position so remote that it cannot be located, and inserted in a place where the word makes no sense. I have checked several pages before and after v. 88, but cannot find any place where the word can be fitted in, however it is vocalized. We are on much firmer ground if we assume that the word has always been in its present location, and try to get at the meaning through emendation.

   I believe that it should be read wa-qablahu, and that it was inserted by a copyist to indicate that v. 87 was displaced and that v. 88 should be put before it. Orientalists have always been willing to find displaced verses in the Koran - perhaps too many - but certainly some such errors must have occurred in a book the size of the Koran, and some were doubtless found by the copyists and/or editors.

   What would a copyist do if he found he had made such a mistake? He could tear up the whole sheet and start again from scratch, or he could cross out the displaced passage and copy it again in its correct position, but both procedures would result in the loss of valuable papyrus or vellum. The sensible thing to do would be to add a note at the head of the verse to indicate its displacement. In later Arabic MSS the words muqaddam and mu akhkhar are used for this purpose, but wa-qablahu is just as effective. In this case the notation crept into the text and its real purpose was forgotten.

3. THE PROPHET SHU AYB

   The earliest version of the story of the prophet Shu ayb is found in Surah 26:177-89, in which it is told how he was sent to the People of the Thicket (Ashab al-aykah), whom he urged to fear God and obey the prophet, to give honest weight and measure, and not to engage in fraud, or work corruption in the land. He was rejected by his people, who were punished by a Day of Shadow. In the later versions, the Ashab al-aykah are replaced by the people of Midian (Madyan); however, they are mentioned three more times in the Koran on lists of ancient peoples who disobeyed their prophets and so perished.(4)

   There are two major problems in the story of Shu ayb, first, the form of his name, and second, the identity of the Ashab al-aykah. The name Shu ayb does not appear in pre-Islamic Arabic sources nor in the proto-Arabic inscriptions from North Arabia, in which thousands of personal names have been preserved.

   The name has no good etymology in Arabic. It has the form of a diminutive of either sha b "people, tribe," or shi b "road, ravine," neither of which is suitable for a man's name. However it contains an ayn, which, if correct, allows us to assume a Semitic origin, but I have not been able to find any Shu aybs in Hebrew or Aramaic.

   Under these circumstances, we must assume that the text is corrupt and seek an appropriate emendation. The only place to look in hopes of finding a prophet with a Semitic name that is not Arabic, but could have been known to the Arabs, is the Old Testament, and here the search is not long or difficult. I believe that Shu ayb is a mistake for Sha ya (spelled with final alif), the Arabic form of Isaiah. The emendation is easily justifiable palaeographically since the difference between Sha ya and Shu ayban (in the accusative) is only a single minim; so Shu ayb in the original source was probably in the accusative.(5)

   We should ask, however, since the name Shu ayb appears eleven times in the Koran, how the same mistake could have been repeated so often. There are two possible answers to this question; first, that the mistake occurred only once at the first recording of the name and that subsequently it was copied from, or at least checked against, its first occurrence. Second, since the name is from a foreign source, it is more likely that the mistake was already in the pre-Koranic source from which the name was taken.

   It should not surprise us that such a mistake could have occurred in a sacred text. Since there was no Jewish colony in Mecca, the source was probably Christian, or possibly the Hunafa, who were interested in sacred scriptures. But the Meccans could not have known the biblical languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac, so must have gotten their biblical lore from other sources, such as preachers'...