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An Arabian Qur'ān: Towards a Theory of Peninsular Origins

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An Arabian Qur'ān: Towards a Theory of Peninsular Origins THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO AN ARABIAN QUR’ĀN: TOWARDS A THEORY OF PENINSULAR ORIGINS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF NEAR EASTERN LANGUAGES AND CIVILIZATIONS BY SULEYMAN DOST CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2017 Table of Contents List of Tables iv List of Figures v Sigla of Editions of Inscriptions vii Sigla of Lexicons viii Introduction 1 Qur’ānic Studies until the WW2 3 From Speyer to Wansbrough: The Qur’ān and the Biblical Studies 10 A New Solution for Form Criticism: The Qur’ān as a Late Antique Text 18 Research Plan: Revisiting Peninsular Sources 22 Chapter 1- Gods of the Qur’ān – Idols of Arabia 29 Introduction 29 Arabian Goddesses: Al-Lāt, al-ʿUzzā and Manāt the Third 31 Al-Lāt 33 Al-ʿUzzā 45 Manāt 50 “Do not Abandon your Gods”: Noahic Idols in Southern Arabia 54 Baʿal of Elijah: the Only Biblical God of the Qur’ān 61 From Arabian Idols to the qur’anic God 63 Allāh and al-Raḥmān in Epigraphy and the Qur’ān 68 Qur’anic Divine Attributes as Distinct Deities In Epigraphy 77 Conclusions 81 Chapter 2 - “Praise Your Lord and Do not Associate Partners with Him”: Religious Vocabulary of the Qur’ān and its Arabian Background 85 Introduction 85 State of the Research: “The Etymological Fallacy” 86 Jāhilī Religious Terms and Practices in the Qur’ān and Epigraphy 95 Approaching the Divine Properly: From ʿlmqh to al-Raḥmān 102 ḥmd, “praising God”: 104 šrk, “associating partners with god”: 112 nṣr, “divine assistance and victory”: 123 ʿdhb, “God’s punishment”: 132 twb, “divine recompense”: 136 Conclusion 138 ii Chapter 3 – History and Historical Geography in the Qur’ān: From Biblical to Arabian 140 Introduction 140 Biblical Figures in their Arabian Garb: The Cases of Noah, Abraham and Lot 145 Thamūd, Ṣāliḥ, al-Ḥijr, God’s She-camel 154 ʿĀd and the Columns of Iram 164 Madyan, al-Ayka and Shuʿayb 168 Al-Muʾtafikāt and al-Rass 176 “Arabian” Prophets against “Arabian” Goddesses 179 People of tubbaʿ: Kings of Ḥimyar? 181 Sabaʾ of the Qur’ān and the Targum Sheni 184 Historical Geography of the Qur’ān: From Yemen to Sinai 192 Conclusion 195 Chapter 4 – Qur’anic Prophetology in Light of Enochic and Jubilaic Traditions 199 Introduction 199 Prophet, Messenger, Angel 201 A Brief Summary of the Qur’ān’s Prophetology Based on Qur’anic Evidence 204 Qur’anic Prophetology and its Context 209 Parallels to Qur’ān’s Prophetology: Looking from the South 212 The Heavenly Tablets as the Source of Prophetic Message 216 Creation of Adam, Fall and Earthly Corruption Before Noah 224 Enoch as a Prophet in the Qur’ān 232 Abraham the Monotheist: The Pinnacle of Qur’anic Prophetology 234 “We gave Jacob to Abraham”: A Mistake in the Qur’ān or a Jubilaic Insertion? 242 “Earlier Scriptures” and “the Scripture of Abraham and Moses” 248 Conclusion 252 Appendix - Jesus and His Anṣār: A Re-evaluation of Some Ethiopic Loanwords in the Qur’ān 256 ḥawāreyā, ḥawārī, “Disciple of Jesus” 259 māʾedd, māʾida, “Table, Eucharistic Offering, Last Supper (?)” 260 manāfeq, munāfiq, “Hypocrite, Doubter, Heretic” 263 tabāhala, ibtahala, “to speak with one another, debate” 265 Epilogue - The Origins of the Qur’ān and the Problem of Sources 270 The Ḥijāz Between the Nabataeans and the Himyarites 272 Contributions of The Present Work 278 Bibliography 285 iii List of Tables Table 1. Punishment Sequences in the Qur’ān………………………………………………………………………….197 iv List of Figures Figure 1. Map of Arabia Before Islam…………………………………………………………………………………………..vi Figure 2. Ptolemy’s Northeastern Arabia………………………………………………………………………………….198 v Figure 1. Map of Arabia Before Islam (source: M.C.A Macdonald, “Ancient Arabia and the Written Word”, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, Vol. 40, pp. 6) vi Sigla of Editions of Inscriptions BynM – Inscriptions of the Museum of Baynūn CIAS – Beeston, Pirenne & Robin, Corpus des inscriptions et antiquités sud-arabes, 1977-1986 CIH – Corpus Inscriptionum Himyariticarum, CIS pars IV CIS – Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, 1881- Fa – Ahmed Fakhry, An Archaeological Journey to Yemen (March-May 1947), 1952 FB-Ḥawkam – Francois Bron, Trois Nouvelles Dédicaces Qatabanites à Ḥawkam, 2009 FB-Maḥram Bilqīs – Francois Bron, Une Nouvelle Inscription Sabéenne du Règne de Laḥayʿathat Yarkham, roi de Sabaʾ et dhū-Raydān, 2012 FB-as-Sawdāʾ - Francois Bron, Nouvelles Inscriptions Sudarabiques, 2010 Gar Sharahbil – Giovanni Garbini, Una nuova Iscrizione di Šaraḥbiʾil Yaʿfur, 1969 Hu. – Taymanitic, Hismaic and Thamudic inscriptions copied by C. Huber and renumbered in van den Branden, Les Inscriptions Thamoudéens, 1950 Ingrams – Harold Ingrams, From Cana (Husn Ghorab) to Sabbatha (Shabwa): the South Arabian Incense Road, 1945 Ir – Muṭahhar al-Iryānī, Fī Taʾrikh al-Yaman, Cairo, 1973 Ja – Albert Jamme, Sabaean and Hasaean Inscriptions from Saudi Arabia, 1966 JS – Jaussen & Savignac, Mission Archaeologique en Arabie, Paris, 1909-1914 vii MAFRAY – Inscriptions from the MAFRAY/CNRS Survey RES – Répertoire d’Epigraphie Sémitique, Paris, 1900- Ry – Gonzague Ryckmans, Inscriptions Sud-Arabes, 1927- YM – Inscriptions of the National Museum of Yemen, Ṣanʿāʾ ZM – Inscriptions of the Museum of Ẓafār Sigla of Lexicons BDB – The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, 1906- Biberstein-Kazimirski – Albert Kazimirski de Biberstein, Dictionnaire Arabe-Français, 1860 CAD – The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1964- Jastrow – Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, 1886-1890 Lane – Edward William Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, 1863 Leslau – Wolf Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Ge’ez, 1987 Payne Smith – Robert Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, an abridgement and translation of Smith’s Thesaurus Syriacus, 1903 viii Introduction In 1833, when Abraham Geiger wrote his short work, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen (What did Muhammad Borrow from Judaism)1, he could have hardly known that he had initiated a parlance of unidirectional borrowing that was to dominate the field of Qur’ānic Studies for at least a century. From that time on, it was clear to the scholars of Islam and scholarly dilettantes of colonial administrations that were well versed in Judeo-Christian scriptures and extra-biblical materials that Muhammad, as the composer of the Qur’ān and the founder of the new dispensation, must have “borrowed” his ideas from somewhere. The “dependence”2 of the Qur’ān on Judaism and Christianity was obvious. The “origins”3 of the Qur’ān had to be sought in its Biblical subtexts. The Qur’ān had “original sources”4, either Jewish or Christian, that awaited discovery. As such, Geiger’s work, brilliant though it was, was 1 Abraham Geiger, Was Hat Mohammed Aus Dem Judenthume Aufgenommen. Eine von Der Königl. Preussischen Rheinuniversität Gekrönte Preisschrift (Bonn: F. Baaden, 1833); translated into English by F. M. Young tr, Judaism and Islam. A Prize Essay (Madras: Printed at the M. D. C. S. P. C. K. press and sold at their depository, Vepery, 1898). 2 Wilhelm Rudolph, Die Abhängigkeit Des Qorans von Judentum Und Christentum (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2011). 3 Tor Andrae, Der Ursprung Des Islams Und Das Christentum., vol. v. 23-25, Kyrkohistorisk Årsskrift v. 23-25, n.d. 4 William St. Clair Tisdall, The Original Sources of the Qur’ân (London,New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge;E. S. Gorham, 1905). 1 not an end to the debate of from where Muhammed borrowed. Rather it was the beginning of a series of works that were produced in the following century by a remarkable set of scholars. It must be conceded that the discourse of borrowing, influence, origins, dependence and many other similar terms laid a simple yet methodologically sound background for further investigation. This was the result of the assumption that the Qur’ān is the work of an historically accessible figure who singlehandedly composed a patchwork of a text and all that was left to the critical scholar was to identify its original sources. Yet, this task proved to be more complicated than it looked. First of all, as Nöldeke observed, the Qur’ān does not have any verbatim quotation from any other source, Biblical or otherwise, other than the oft-cited example of 21:105, a borrowing from Ps. 37:29.5 Secondly, even though the figures and themes that the Qur’ān mentions are mostly Biblical, some of them cannot be identified from the Torah and the Canonical Gospels. Even if the majority of Biblical figures and their stories can be traced back to the Bible, the Qur’ānic versions of their Heilsgeschichte show peculiarities that can either only be accounted for through intermediary sources between the Bible and the Qur’ān or seem altogether unique to the Qur’ān. Nöldeke diagnosed this problem very early: “There can thus be no doubt that Muḥammad’s prime source of information was not the Bible but uncanonical liturgical and dogmatic literature. For this reason the Old Testament stories in the Koran are 5 Theodor Nöldeke Behn, Wolfgang, The History of the Qurʼān (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2013), 6. 2 much closer to Haggadic embellishments than their originals; the New Testament stories are totally legendary and display some common features with the reports of the apocryphal Gospels.”6 The multifaceted nature of Qur’ān’s “sources” made the discourse of borrowing more entrenched but at the same time betrayed the firmness of any one confessional source as the ultimate point of departure for the Qur’ān. Is the Qur’ān, along with the accompanying religion, a predominantly Christian composition? Does the ubiquity of Old Testament characters betray the Jewish origins of the Qur’ān? Or does the obvious existence of both Jewish and Christian material in the Qur’ān in their extra-canonical and apocryphal versions point to a heterodox Jewish-Christian sect? These questions set the tone for the field of Qur’ānic studies from its very beginning.
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