VOLUME II by JACOBUS ADRIAAN NA UDE Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requireme nts f or ' the degree of DOCTOR LIT'TE RARUf1 In the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Decemb er 1971. Univer:;i ty of :Pretoria, Pr etoria~ I . NO'rES TO CHAPTER ONE 1) COLlpare SD.ra II, 138(132) ; :ib ~a means "colour" and the root is co:nmon S em itic. "Since it refers to the practice of colouring by imme rsion lD dye, a secondary meaning , 'to baptize', developed in Arabic. This meaning is us ed in Arabic litera ture in connection with Christians and Jews, according to Lane, Ar~~~c-.:::. Englis h Lex icon , reprinted 1968, s.v. Amongst the "pe ople of the Book" the Koran mentions in three places (11,62(59); V,69(73); XXII, 17) the al-$a b i'ir~.s.G J. \Il/ellhausen, Reste ara bi sch en H e id en tum~, reprinted 1961, p. 237 (followed by B. Carra de Vaux, EI, sov.) e qualled the root .x 2..:_ to _9bc using the Hebrew script a nd unde rstood the name Sabians. (not to be confused with the Sabaeans of South Arabia, cf~ XXVII, 22 ) to mean the Baptists. On this basis they we r e ide ntified with the Mandaeans (or Elke saites) and t h e bapt ismal rites of these sects compared to the Islamic a blutions before the ritual prayers. It was also pointed out that the Moslems were at first known as the Sa. bians, according to the tradition. Admittedly the guttural and other emphatic sound~ show a marked tendency to smooth out in Mandaic, so that Mandaic sba means 'to baptize '. Nevertheless it should b e kept "in mind that sbcis t h e form of the wo rd in Syriac, the other Ara ma ic dialects and Hebrew. It should also be remembered tha t this ~ is nothinG else than the repre,sentation of ~ in the defe ctive TIeb r c Vl script (compare e.go t h e transliterations of the ~ in Hebrew names by the Septuagint). Remembering that t he Koran uses the roots ~b ' and ~b"~ distin ctly the present write r is c onvinced t hat it is not justified to id n tify the M a~ daeans with the nbi ans, or at l east , in his opinion the Ar a b s did no~ unde rs ~ a nd the Dam e al-sgbi 'ina to me 0n 'the B ptize r s '. The Man d aean s did n ot c 11 the~ - selves subba , and, s a ma t ter of i ntere t , p r e s~n t - -ft "-­ d a y Ma nd aean s do not want to be t h e Sabians of t h e ad chCJ.p~ T. Koran. It is significa nt tha t Ar abic sources n eve r associate the S~bi an s with i mm e r sion i n wa ter. The only o connection remains the (doubtful !) etymologyo We refer only to the comprehensive trea tment of K. Rudolph, Die Manda...:..~£ , 1960, I, pp. 36-A1 wh o thinks that the term was used ambig iously from the beg inn:Lng and soon lost its connection with baptizers ( Mandaeans) completelyo 2 ) God 0 f Just i c e , 1960, p. 8. 3) Een n i euw geluid o12-het g e"9ied der Ko ranexeg ese, 1962, pp ~ 5f 0 4) This train of thought has been forcefully expr e ssed by Sir Mu ~am mad Iqb~l, The reconstruction of religious thought in Islam, 1934. 5) We think here of the use of the·verb p~radidoomi used -in--- ma lem-_. pa r t ern In Ma rk 7:8 (cf. ~1atthe w 26: 15) In contrast with i ts use In II Thessalonians 2: 15~ 6) The nature of t he Ha di!.!2, apart from ques tions of genuineness , prevents an optimistic approach to this material as a source for Mohamme d1s understanding of his God. According to S.M~ Zw em er, OPe cit., po 30, Mohammed did not express himself on the nature and being of All~h out.side the Koran. He continued: liThe great Imams are agreed regarding the dang~rand impiety of studying or discussing the nature of the b e ing of God. 1I 7) E.go XXIX, 46(45); XLI,43; XLV I,12(11); X,9/+. Since we do not know who the Sgbiars wR r e , theywere left out of account . 8) Compare e. g . F.V. Winnett and W.L. Reed, Ancient Recor ds fro~N<2.~ .!!2._Ar ab i , 1970, p. ixc vJe take t his opport unj:DJ to r efer to t h e mo st interesting reconstruction of the pre--Islamic history of All§h by J. Chelh od, Les str uc tuT3::, d u sacr ~ c he z les A r a ~ es, 1964, pp. 93ff. The limit·d data, apa r t from the fact tha t t hey are s c a tter ed a nd lia ble to d i f ferent i nterpretation s , Ce use Chelhod1s vielii s to be hardly o:lythi ng more tha:] his p e r s onal reco:'l s t ru.c "cion. • 149 . a d chap. I. 9) We t ake the quotation i n translat i on from R.R. Pfeiffe r 1 s I9;.troduc ~tio n to t h e 01.d Te s t amen t ., 1 966 e 10) EI, (neH edition) , s ~ v . _l lah& 11) Thi.s point of view is not exactly the s am e as that of R. Blach~re, wh o based his s tudy of t he life of the Proph et , Le P robl ~ me ~e Ma home t , 1 952 , on t he prem i se that the Ko ran is the only r e liabl e source. 12 ) Co nvenient collections of textual varia nts can be found in the c ontribution of G. Bergstr~sser a nd O. Fretzl to Th. Nold eke 1 s Qesc ~ichte d_e s Qura ns, reprin t ed 1961, i. e . volume III, a nd A6 Jeffery, On t he ma teria ls for the textual criticism of t h~r ' an , 1937 . 13 ) For this reason the textua l criticism of t he Koran i s not exactly compar able to that of the Old or Ne w Test am ent. 14) Reprinted 1 970, pp. 1-54. 15) This i s the view of H. Fleisch, R. Blach~re and C. Rabin. We r e fer only to' C. Rabin, ~lh~be g innin g,s of ClassicD.1 Ar~bic, Studia I s l a mic a, 4/1 955, pp. 1 9 -37; F. Altheim a nd R. Stiehl, Qie~ra ber ~~d e I.:.. ~l ten ! elt, 1 96L~, II, pp. 3 57-369 and IV, pp. 1-14; and to the contrary vieHs of P. Kahle ,The Ara bic Rea.?-e rs of the Koran, JNE,S , 8/2, 1949, pp. 65-71 restating t he views of Kar l Vollers. 16) It i s no~ our intention to give a tre atment of the t horny problem of the o rig ins of written Ara bic. Wh at is g ive n here , is ou r understanding of the problematic ortho­ graphy of t he Koran. 1 7) On t he formE3 of wo rds at t he end of a verse cf c \ATu WriC;h0 1 A e;ramma r of t he Ar.a bic l a n g ua g e, reprinted 1 96'7 , II, pp 0 368ff. 18) Compare e ~ g . q e 1'8.: hi for k eti b: h0 i n Gen esis 3 :20. 19) We c10 no t s hare the opinion of C . Re: b i n? EI (nevJ edi t :i.CYi .), s .v. CArgb i yy a , t h a t t his phen omenon i s d ue to a pure s pG l ling a rc h a i s m. .+ 20 ) Co n p .1'8 No ldeke, op . Cl v . , III, pp. 26ff9 for f u ~ th e~ d eta ils . I I . NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO 1) He brew dB' a!' means Ilwo :f.'cl ll as well as what is r epresent ed by the wo rd vi z II ma t ter , thing ll" This identity i s bes t illustrated by the pronunciation of a curse or bless ing . Since a curse once pr onounced inevitabl y mat eria lizes and the sa ~ir e of the shac i r had such c rus hing eff ect on hostile tribes, the birth of a poet was regarded the greatest s t roke of l uck . Co mpa r e also SUra III, 61 (54). This connecti on betwe en word and reality is t he basis of the pronunciation of fo rmuluc in the Semitic world ee gc for divorce in Islam (cf . Ho sea 2 :4); for marriage (Tobit 7:11); adopt; i on (I I Samuel 7:14) etc . Instead of certain f oods presented to the dead in Egypt , only ,the names (bread, meat ) were written on the stel ae in l ater times, t o take their place. 2 ) The us e of Egyptian ma teria l is justif i ed s ince a) Egyptian forms pa£t of the larger complex of languages called Hamito- Semiti c; b) I.