A reflection on two Qur'anic words (iblis and judi), with attention to the theories of A. Mingana.

• Author: Reynolds, Gabriel Said

The extent to which scholars of Qur'anic studies today are divided is evident from recent publications in the field. One work, Understanding the Qur'an (1999), by Muhammad Abdel Haleem of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, casts off the critical tradition of Western scholarship with hardly a footnote; whereas another work, Christoph Luxenberg's Die Syro-Aramaische Lesart des Koran (2000), casts doubt on the reliability of the entire tradition of Islamic scholarship on the Qur'an. Both publications show that the divisions within Qur'anic studies are marked by presuppositions, methods and conclusions.

It is both a comfort and a warning, then, to realize that this state of affairs is nothing new. At the turn of the twentieth century scholars were likewise divided over the Qur'an. J. von Hammer argued that the Qur'an is "as truly Muhammad's word as the Muhammadans hold it to be the word of God." T. Noldeke expressed this sentiment in a different manner, declaring: "der Koran enthalt nur echte Stucke" (1) (although elsewhere he is more skeptical). (2) A second group of scholars found no reason for such confidence in the historical authenticity of the Qur'anic text, among them the English scholars H. Hirschfeld and D. S. Margoliouth and the Belgian scholar H. Lammens. In this latter group as well was Alphonse Mingana, a scholar from the region around Mawsil in Iraq, who made a name for himself in Birmingham, England.

Mingana, one of the most colorful and controversial figures in the history of Islamic studies, had a peculiar approach to the Qur'an, maintaining that it could not be fully understood without appreciating the role that Syriac played in its composition. His theories about the Qur'an, however, have been largely forgotten, at least until the appearance of the above mentioned work of Luxenberg. In the present paper, Mingana's theories are once more introduced and put to the test in two separate case studies.

1. MINGANA'S ARGUMENT FOR SYRIAC INFLUENCE ON THE QUR'AN

   Mingana never clearly articulated his position on the historical development of the Qur'anic text. The view often attributed to him is that the collection of the Qur'an dates to the time of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (d. 96/714). (3) He takes this position in a two-part article, "The Transmission of the Kur'an," (4) and defends it with reference to Syriac and Arabic Christian accounts. (5) This assertion has recently been addressed and refuted. (6) Yet in two other works (one written before the aforementioned and one after) Mingana seems to accept the historicity of the 'Uthmanic codex, for on both occasions he claims to have discovered remnants of pre-'Uthmanic Qur'ans. (7) In any case, Mingana's actual position on this question is not of central concern to this paper, which is concerned instead with his claim that the Qur'an, being the first Arabic book, was in large part shaped by the influence of Syriac. (8)

   Mingana's claim does not depend on a late date for the codification of the Qur'an, but rather on his assertion that the language of the Qur'an reflects an early stage in the development of written Arabic, a stage that only anticipates classical 'arabiyya. The consequences of his argument, if correct, would be far-reaching. Scholars would have an entirely new language and literature (Syriac) in which to seek answers for Qur'anic riddles of vocabulary and grammar. The theory would also have far-reaching consequences for the history of religion, demanding a new understanding of the first Islamic century, a century from which we have (other than the Qur'an) few Islamic sources. Why is it, then, that such a provocative theory has been largely ignored?

   For one thing, Mingana's scholarship has been considered suspect, owing to accusations that he tampered with two different Syriac manuscripts. (9) This skepticism is understandable; yet there may be another reason for it. Mingana's argument regarding Syriac influence is problematic for both Muslim and Western scholars, in light of the Qur'an's own claim to be "clear" or "plain" (mubin) (according to the standard understanding) (cf. suras 12:1, 16:103), (10) and Noldeke's scholarly confirmation of the same. (11) Noldeke's monumental philological work, however, has at its foundation his trust in the canonical accounts of the Qur'an's proclamation and composition. (12) It is this foundation that Mingana was testing.

   Mingana's argument, and its fate, resembles that of Muslim scholars who held that the Qur'an contains words of non-Arabic origin (mu'arrab). The earliest Qur'an commentators (according to the statements attributed to them), including Ibn 'Abbas (d. 68/687) and Ibn Ishaq (d. 150/767), openly speculated on the foreign origin of Qur'anic terms. The Basran grammarian Sibawayh (d. 177/793) devoted two chapters to the question of mu'arrab terms from Persian in his al-Kitab. (13) Yet the exigencies of religious apology encouraged the idea that the Qur'an was not affected by anything foreign. Meanwhile, the Mu'tazilite doctrine of the un-createdness of the Qur'an discouraged scholars from finding temporal or secular qualities therein. While the Qur'an might have spoken to the Prophet's immediate milieu, that milieu did not ultimately affect its nature. Thus, as al-Suyuti (d. 911/1505) states, the majority of scholars rejected the presence of non-Arabic words in the Qur'an:

   The imams differ regarding the occurrence of non-Arabic words in the Qur'an. The majority, including Imam al-Shafi'i, Ibn Jarir, Abu 'Ubayda, Qadi Abu Bakr and Ibn Faris, hold that they do not occur therein, due to His statement, "If we made it a foreign Qur'an, they would have said, 'why are its verses not divided between those foreign and those Arabic? [Q41:44]'" (14) Al-Suyuti is one of those scholars who, along with al-Subki (d. 771/1370) and Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani (d. 852/1449), held the minority position that there are foreign words in the Qur'an, and that the presence thereof is an argument for, not against, its divine provenance. Al-Suyuti, who in his Mutawakkili describes 118 foreign words in the Qur'an, argues that non-Arabic vocabulary is a sign of the Qur'an's universality. To this effect he reports a hadith, on the authority of Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 110/728, considered an expert on Jewish, Christian, and South Arabian narratives), that at least one word from every language on earth can be found in the Qur'an. (15)

   Al-Suyuti's approach is a response to the same problem that faced Mingana. Much of the Qur'an is unexplainable by recourse to 'arabiyya. This fact leads even the mufassir par excellence Abu Ja'far al-Tabari (d. 310/923) to admit repeatedly that the origin of Qur'anic terms and phrases is unclear. (16) It leads al-Suyuti, meanwhile, to speculate on the foreign origin of otherwise incomprehensible vocabulary. Yet al-Suyuti's approach to the Qur'an was in large part forgotten, as the pure Arabic language of the Qur'an remained a sine qua non for Muslim scholars.

   The problem that both al-Suyuti and Mingana were addressing, and which still exists today, is the gap that exists between the composition of the Qur'an and that of the earliest tafsirs. Many basic elements of the Qur'an, such as the meaning of the "mysterious" letters at the opening of twenty-nine suras and the identity of the Sabi'un (see Q:2:62, 5:69, 22:17), are indeed mysterious for the mufassirun. The grammatical, syntactical, and lexical irregularities (irregular when seen from the perspective of 'arabiyya) of the Qur'an, meanwhile, led to a genre of works, often entitled Mutashabih al-Qur'an, that wrestles with these problems.

   The authors of these works attempt to overcome the "hermeneutical gap" with recourse to 'arabiyya and to pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, a corpus that has been scoured by both Muslim and Western scholars for explanations of Qur'anic vocabulary. Thus one can understand the interest that Muslim scholars had in defending the authenticity of this supposedly pagan literature, which led to a bitter polemic against Taha Husayn upon the publication of his work on pre-Islamic poetry, Fi'l-shi'r al-jahili. Western scholars have also had an interest in defending the authenticity of this poetry, now that over a century of scholarship has relied on its testimony.

   Mingana, however, regards Muslim views on 'arabiyya with great skepticism:

   Setting aside as irrelevant the South Arabian and other inscriptions--I believe that we have not a single page on which we can lay our hands with safety and say that it is pre-Islamic, and I hold with Margoliouth that all the edifice of pre-Islamic poetry is shaky and unstable, and that the Kur'an is the first genuine Arabic that we possess. (17) If Mingana is right about this, and the Qur'an stands as the first Arabic book, then the language of the Qur'an stands as proto-'arabiyya. The author (and editors or redactors) of the Qur'an therefore would have had a tremendous task: to adapt new religious ideas to a language with no written tradition. The author's solution, Mingana maintains, was to take recourse to "a language akin to his [Muhammad's] that had become an ecclesiastical and religious language centuries before his birth and the adherents of which were surrounding him in all directions in highly organised communities, bishoprics and monasteries." (18) This language was Syriac.

   In classifying the foreign vocabulary of the Qur'an Mingana estimated that thirty percent comes from Ethiopic, Hebrew, Persian, and Graeco-Roman languages, but seventy percent from Syriac/Aramaic alone. Yet Mingana's theory is as much historical as it is linguistic. He envisions a special relationship between the language and content of the Qur'an and the Syriac Christian context in which it was formed. In line with this belief, Mingana argues that the Arabic script developed from the Syriac script, a theory which has recently received new attention from French scholars. (19)

   It is this linguistic and...