The Problem of the Quranic al-samad.

• Author: Hammond, Andrew

INTRODUCTION

In her recent quranic study Angelika Neuwirth presents a compelling argument that sura 112 (commonly titled al-Ikhlas) makes intentional reference to Deuteronomy 6:4, often termed the Jewish creed, and to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed of 381 CE, making the short sura a form of commentary on key elements of Jewish and Christian belief that gives succinct expression to the Muslim concept of God. Neuwirth's theory would match the sura's first verse, qui huwa Allahu ahadun, (1) with Deuteronomy's shma' Yxsra'el, adonai elohenu adonai ehad, (2) both of which direct listeners toward monotheistic belief in a single divinity. Neuwirth then connects the remaining verses with the opening section of the Nicene creed, first composed in Greek. (3) Specifically, Neuwirth's proposal links Q 112:2 with the first line of the Nicene creed's reference to God as almighty, the third verse with "God's only begotten son, begotten from the Father / begotten, not created," and the fourth with the son being of "one essence" with the father, a concept sometimes rendered in English as consubstantiality. In other words, samad is equated with pantokrator (almighty), the verbal forms of walida (to give birth) with gennethenta (begotten), and kufitwan (equal) (4) with homoousion (of one essence or substance). (5)

The terminology, grammar, and meaning of the third to last sura have all generated huge debate in both traditional Muslim and modern Western scholarship. In the standardized 'Uthmanic codex, the sura contains not just one hapax legomenon--samad--but two, in that kufu' occurs nowhere else in the Quran, and even three, if we consider that 112:1 proffers the sole case of ahad as an adjective, in contrast to its use as a noun in 112:4 and elsewhere in the text. Islamic tradition elaborates both ahad and samad as among the ninety-nine names of God. It also records numerous alternative names for the sura--al-Ikhlas is the fourth of twenty listed by al-Razi (d. 1210), including al-Tawhid by which it is commonly known in Shi'i tradition (6)--and, while divided over whether the sura is Meccan or Medinan, the tradition leans toward Mecca. (7) Modern scholarship has also suggested that the sura be considered a pilgrim prayer (talbiya), not least since it precedes two suras that are clearly worded as talismanic invocations (sg. ta'widh). (8) To this point, some scholars have regarded sura 112 as a counterpoint to the opening al-Fatiha, so that the final suras, 113 and 114, would have been added during the process of edition and canonization under 'Uthman (r. 644-656). (9) Indeed, sura 112 is the final sura in the recension of Ibn Mas'ud (d. ca. 653) preserved in the tradition. Ibn Mas'ud also gives the most radical alternative wording among the variant readings: he omits qui in the first verse and replaces ahad with al-wahid (which resolves the grammatical problem that exercised the minds of classical exegetes of how to parse huwa Allah ahad), includes only al-samad in the second, and reverses order in the third (lam yulad wa-lam yalid). (10) Theodor Noldeke and John Wansbrough considered it to be among the quranic verses for which qui serves to indicate the liturgical instruction of a lectionary. (11)

While incomplete quranic manuscripts that have been dated to the 600s do not appear to include the sura, (12) the verses feature in the outer wall inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, completed under the caliph 'Abd al-Malik in 692, and on gold, silver, and copper coins minted across the empire from 77h (696f.), and possibly as early as 15h, as part of 'Abd al-Malik's post-civil war reforms, aimed at asserting identity, orthodoxy, and legitimacy before a highly heterogeneous population in terms of belief and language. (13) The outer inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock mix various bits of quranic material (35:56, 17:111, 64:1, 57:2) with talbiya-style invocations around the theme of one God and Muhammad as his messenger, leading with the entirety of sura 112 (including qui huwa and preceded by bi-smi llah al-rahman al-rahim la ilaha ilia llah wahdahu la sharika lahu). (14) The first in a series of gold coin issues from 11 h extracts what appears to have been considered the main message of the sura in using only the words Allah ahad Allah al-samad lam yalid wa-lam yulad and omitting 112:4 (with la ilaha ilia llah wahdahu la sharika lahu on the reverse side), (15) while some of the silver coins issued from 19h give the sura in full. (16) Minting such coins from Spain to Central Asia until its collapse in 750, the Umayyad state appears to have deployed the sura as a fundamental statement of official ideology and one directed first and foremost at its Christian subjects, who were most likely a demographic majority within the empire's central lands at this time, with an increasing percentage of Arabic speakers among them. But, at least in numismatic terms, the declaration lost its prominent status in the early Abbasid era, by which time the sectarian map had evolved significantly.

In view of the long debate in scholarship over the meaning of samad, this article examines Neuwirth's theory to ask what other possibilities there may be within the framework of understanding the sura as a dialogue with existing monotheistic credos. In aligning "of one essence" with "equal to him" Neuwirth seems to gloss over the question of samad, which she translates according to convention as "the constant" and "the absolute," saying nothing further about the matter. In lectures she has also used the word "firm." (17) This apparent uncertainty over what to do with samad is expressed openly in an entry on the database of the Corpus Coranicum project led by Neuwirth. The entry, authored by David Kiltz, Veronika Roth, and Nicolai Sinai, states that samad is a problematic term possibly expressing the Old Testament concept of God as a rock (Hebr. stir) in various passages (Deut. 32:4; Ps. 18:3, 29, 31, 19:15, 31:3, 78:35, 144:1; Is. 26:4, 44:7-8; 2 Sam. 22:32), a theory that Semitic language scholar Raimund Kobert proposed in 1961. (18) They further note that in some of the Old Testament examples, such as Isaiah 44:7-8, the statement that God is a rock is accompanied by the statement that nobody is equal to God, giving further parallels to the concepts expressed in sura 112. However, supporting a link to the Nicene creed, they add that samad is "at least functionally (although probably not semantically) equivalent to jcavtoKpaxopa (pantocrat)." (19) In other words, they acknowledge confusion over what to make of samad while still choosing to align it with pantokrator.

Given the strength of the argument that sura 112 is overtly referencing the Jewish and Christian creeds, it would be reasonable to think of samad as intended to reflect something in those texts. And in view of the correlation between Q 112:1 and the Shma', and the fact that the rest of the Shma' passage does not appear to offer further avenues for exploration, Neuwirth has sensibly looked to the Nicene creed instead. (20) But the notion that pantokrator is the word or concept in question seems problematic. In Neuwirth's favor, the quranic text on one occasion places God's "power over the heavens and earth" at the head of a formulation that reads as a variant response to the Nicene creed, as if the samad of Q 112:2 was an alternative for expressing "He who has power over the heavens and earth, who had no offspring, who had no partner in power, and who created everything according to his decree." (21) But this language is used elsewhere--six instances where God's power (mulk) over the heavens and earth is asserted (Q 3:189, 5:120, 25:2, 35:1, 57:2, 64:1) and two in which he is the one in whose hand is authority (malakut) over all things (23:88, 36:83), while samad stands enigmatically alone. Further, the quranic text contains numerous other single descriptors of God that attest to his power. He is al-'aziz (59 times), 'aziz (28 times), and solely qadir (43 times, including 37 times as specifically (()ala kulli shay'in qadir). He is also shadid al-'iqab (2:221, 3:11, 5:98, 8:13, 8:25, 8:52,40:22, 59:4), al-jabbar (59:23), al-qadir (6:65), al-'alim al-qadir (30:54), 'alim qadir (35:44, 42:50), and al-muqtadir (18:45, 54:42). In terms of eternal and everlasting, common translations of samad, the Quran already describes God as al-qayyiim (2:255, 3:2, 20:111, always preceded by al-hayy) and al-awwal wa-l-akhir (57:3), (22) and although he is not specifically al-baqi--a non-quranic name of God listed among the ninety-nine of the later tradition--he is at one point abqa (20:73), while on other occasions it is "that which God has" (ma Hnd Allah) that is baqin (16:96) and abqa (28:60, 42:36), and God's face (wajh) that will remain (yabqa) while all else perishes (55:27). In other words, there is no shortage of scriptural terms for what samad has been theorized as expressing, which makes one wonder why the text would introduce an innovative new term for a well-worn concept.

The proposal of this article is that while, as a word, samad may well have been plucked from the linguistic and ideational context of Arabic-speaking communities in the late antique Hijaz, the Quran infused it with a new meaning entirely, which was intended as a rejection of the matrix of Christian theologies centered on the theme of God as man and as an assertion of God's indivisible, transcendent nature as a category apart from creation. In this context, the Nicene creed's ousia is a more plausible reference point for the notion of God as samad, an Aristotelian concept at the heart of intense theological and philosophical debate in the centuries preceding the Islamic revolution. Further, early Muslim and Christian interpretations in fact express this rationalist concept of divinity as the strongest among the various meanings offered for the verse, if in highly opaque language. However, later Islamic...