Inscriptional Evidence of Pre-Islamic Classical Arabic: Selected Readings in the Nabataean, Musnad, and Akkadian Inscriptions

City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Publications and Research Baruch College 2013 Inscriptional Evidence of Pre-Islamic Classical Arabic: Selected Readings in the Nabataean, Musnad, and Akkadian Inscriptions Saad D. Abulhab CUNY Bernard M Baruch College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/bb_pubs/54 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Inscriptional Evidence of Pre-Islamic Classical Arabic Selected Readings in the Nabataean, Musnad, and Akkadian Inscriptions With a Revealing New Reading in the Epic of Gilgamesh Saad D. Abulhab B l a u t o p f Publishing New York ~ Ulm blautopfpublishing.com B l a u t o p f Publishing New York ~ Ulm blautopfpublishing.com Copyright © 2013 by Saad D. Abulhab All rights reserved, including right of reproduction in whole or in part, in any form. Colophon English text set in Arabetics Latte, designed by the author. Arabic text set in Jalil, Sabine, Yasmine, and Arabetics Latte fonts, designed by author. Cover Design by Author A zoomed-in image of part of the ʿAyn ʿAbdat Nabataean inscription found in the Negev Desert and dated to around First Century CE, which included two verses of Classical Arabic poetry Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data Abulhab, Saad D. Inscriptional Evidence of Pre-Islamic Classical Arabic: Selected Readings in the Nabataean, Musnad, and Akkadian Inscriptions / Saad D. Abulhab. p. cm. 1. Arabic Language – History. 2. Inscriptions, Nabataean 3. Inscriptions – Arabia, Southern. 4. Cuneiform Inscriptions, Akkadian. 5. Gilgamesh. I. Title. PJ6123.A285 2013 492.711–dc22 Library of Congress Control Number: 2013901220 CIP ISBN: 978-0-9849843-3-6 (hardcover) ISBN: 978-0-9849843-4-3 (paperback) ISBN: 978-0-9849843-5-0 (electronic) First Edition 20 18 16 14 13 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 DEDICATION In memory of my father, uncle, and aunt, who raised me in a nurturing and responsible environment. CONTENTS Preface 1 Introduction to the History of the Arabs and Classical Arabic 5 Part 1 29 Nabataean Inscriptional Sample: The al-Namārah Inscription 1 Introduction to Part One 30 2 Historical and Geographical Overview 34 3 On the Usage of the Word Nafs by the Nabataeans and Arabs 40 4 Detailed Reading of the Umm al-Jimāl Nabataean Inscription 67 5 Arabic Grammar Prelude 80 6 Detailed Reading of al-Namārah Nabataean Inscription 86 7 Summary of Part One 111 Part 2 115 Yemen Inscriptional Sample: The SaʿadTaʾlib Inscription 1 Introduction of Part One 116 2 Reading Musnad Inscriptions from Yemen 119 3 Detailed Reading of the SaʿadTaʾlib Musnad Inscription 121 4 Summary of Part Two 135 Part 3 137 Akkadian Inscriptional Sample: The Epic of Gilgamesh 1 Introduction of Part Three 138 2 About the Akkadian Arabic Language and Gilgamesh 142 3 A Comparative Detailed Reading in the Babylonian Tablets 155 4 A Comparative Detailed Reading in the Assyrian Tablets 193 5 Summary of Part Three 225 Selected Bibliography 229 Preface Some of the results of my research in this book—like my new readings of the al-Namārah and Umm al-Jimāl Nabataean In- scriptions—were first presentd in my book “DeArabizing Arabia: Tracing Western Scholarship on the History of the Arabs and Arabic Language and Script”, which was published in late 2011. However, while translating that book to Arabic, I felt it was necessary to ex- pand my research to further support my conclusions regarding the history of pre-Islamic Classical Arabic, or Standard Arabic, and to present all my inscriptional reasearch as an independent book in both Arabic and English languages. In this book, I will continue with my re-tracing and re- reading of the modern Nabataean inscriptional evidence introduced by Western scholars from the 19th century until today. This evidence is, according to many, the key evidence behind the new modern-day radical theories about the history of the Arabs and Arabic language and script. In this book, I will also read an important Akkadian inscriptional sample from the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is important to note here that the intended audience of this book is not limited to the professional scholars but to anyone interested in this field of knowledge, particularly among the Arabs and Muslims, who should be most concerned with studying their own history based on the important material evidence of modern findings. As a matter of fact, I am not a professional Arabic linguist or an archeologist. I am an Electrical Engineer in my academic training, a professional Arabic type designer in my hobby, and a librarian spe- cialized in Arabic, science, business, and library technology, in my profession. However, I should bring to light here that the person who had finally succeeded in deciphering the Cuneiform symbols in- scribed on key tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh was not a specialist but a young English accountant working in a bank in Great Britain. That was in the early third decade of the twentieth century, sixty years after their discovery in a library of an Assyrian palace buried under a mound in the Iraqi providence of Mosul, and after their sub- sequent shipment to the British Library Museum. To help the reader, I divided this book into three parts de- pending on the nature of the inscriptions being studied. Each part has its own introduction, chapters, and summary. I have also provid- ed, in the beginning of the book, a detailed table containing the historical varied shapes of the Nabataean and Musnad scripts, to aid readers who are not familiar with these historical scripts. Finally, I would like to sincerley thank all those who helped me with the research and writing of this book, particularly my wife Sabine for her continued and unlimited support and understanding; Iraqi poets Saadī Yūsuf, ʿAbd al-Razzaq ʿAbd al-Wāḥid, and Ṣalah ʿAwwād for reviewing my readings of key historical Arabic poem verses; my brother Osama for providing me with high resolution pic- tures of the al-Namārah inscription; Denis Carter for sharing the SaʿadTaʾlib Musnad inscription stone; The City University of New York Research Foundation (CUNY-RF) for their generous grants; Vladimir Wertsman for his inspiring friendship over 25 years; Rāʾid Naʿīm for providing online al-Baḥith al-ʿArabi database; University of Pennsylvania for providing the online Pennsylvania Sumerian Diction- ary (ePSD); Chicago University for providing freely the Chicago As- syrian Dictionary (CAD); Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Founda- tion and the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies for providing the Romanized texts of the Epic of Gilgamesh. 2 A table with Nabataean and Musnad scripts letter shapes and their corresponding modern Arabic script letters, which was compiled by the author in his previous studies 4 Introduction to the History of the Arabs and Classical Arabic Most modern Western theories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries assume that Arabic language was a younger language compared to Hebrew or Aramaic. As for classical Arabic, many Arab- ists and Oriantalists claim it was created by the Abbasids linguists based on the language of the Quran or the tongue of the Arabs of Hijāz. Most Orientalists believe the dialects of the Yemenis, Thamudis, Nabataeans, and other Arab groups are independent non- Arabic languages, and that modern post Islamic Arabic writing, and other writings of the region like Phoenician, are not related to the old Musnad Arabic writing. And much more. For example, M. S. A. Macdonald, the respected Orientalist and expert in old Arabic languages, treated the above dialects as independent non-Arabic languages, which are related to each other through their classification as “Semitic” languages. As such, the relation of Nabataean to Thamudi would be similar to the relation of Hebrew and Akkadian. As for the Southern Arabian languages, Mac- Donald believes “neither the Ancient nor the Modern South Arabian languages are in any sense ‘Arabic’.” Then he adds “Old Arabic was a minority language in the Arabian Peninsula and only became the Arabic language for the majority after Islam”. [28] Generally, West- ern theories distinguish between the so-called “Classical Arabic” and “Standard Arabic”, also known as al-ʿArabiyyah al-fuṣḥā among Arabs. According to them, Classical Arabic is the language of the Quran and the words of Prophet Muhammad, or Ḥadith, and Stand- ard Arabic is the language used in modern day Arabic writing since Inscriptional Evidence of Pre-Islamic Classical Arabic the Abbasids. I think this distinction is not only arbitrary but also not logical since it assumes, firstly, the two languages were static and not evolving over time, and secondly, their vocabulary and grammat- ical rules were significantly different and independent. It is not clear why wouldn’t Western scholars classify the two as “Old Standard Arabic” and “Modern Standard Arabic” as it is the case for English or German, for example. Ironically, many of the supporters of the above views of MacDonald and other Arabits would rush to quote the following par- agraph from the Introduction of Ibn Khaldūn to prove their thesis: “.. the Muḍar tongue and Ḥimīr tongue were in a similar situation before the changes that occurred to many of the words of Ḥimīr tongue among the people of Muḍar. This is evident through available historical quotes, in contradiction with those who assume through ignorance that the two were one language and attempt to measure the Ḥimīr language based on the measurements of the Muḍar language and its grammar rules, as in the claims of some that the word al-qīl in Ḥimīr tongue is derived from al-qawl, and many other similar examples, which are not correct.

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