Hi Zeca,
thanks for your answer to my h-j-r question:
Not really. There's not much lack of clarity over the semantics of hijrah ... it clearly refers to an act of leaving or departure. The problem is determining what that leaving/departure refers to. The root is used 31 times in the Qur'an:
http://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=hjr#Almost always the concept is used in a context of believers who are leaving their homeland in order 'to fight for Allah,' as part of a militant expansion, which is quite consistent with how it seems to have been used in the earliest historical references (as Donner says), and quite inconsistent with the idea that it originally designated the migration of a small group of peaceful monotheists from Mecca to Medina.
For me, the hijrah has always been the single least plausible central element of the traditional biography of Muhammad--used to explain why the corpus strangely shifts from a powerless, peaceful, passive, timeless context to a much more specific contemporary context in which joining in jihad is a consuming obligation. The hijrah biographical device does not make a lick of sense on its face, and has no support in the Qur'an itself (which seems completely oblivious to a supposed epochal mass exodus of a Meccan community) or the historical record.
Only in Qur'anic Studies would such a transition within a corpus still be interpreted biographically.
How closed is this discussion on the meaning of h-j-r? I know there are still scholars who doubt a meaning for h-j-r as emigrants. I guess they would say that all 31 cases mentioned here (
http://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=hjr#) are all misreadings...
You have of course Kerr saying it here:
http://www.academia.edu/1564934/Annus_Hegiræ_vel_Annus_H_Agarorum_Etymologische_und_vergleichende_Anmerkungen_zum_Anfang_der_islamischen_Jahres zählungThen I have a reading of the Quran based on Hebrew analogies (from the 80-90´s) and checked this test case (4:34:26) wa-uh'jurūhunna", by accident the "forsake them in bed" verse.... I always thought that a strange punishment for a wife giving her husband a hard time....
This alternative translation gives: "
And those you have married, correct them and cover them, and keep them at home (lit. in the place of rest) and talk to them" . The h-j-r stem would be based on the
Agar and
gur Hebrew words meaning to dwell, to come together, reside...
Is an alternative translation really off the table? The meaning does make more sense to me than the traditional one...Or are grave mistakes made here (I can´t judge, I dont know enough)?