Robert M. Kerr - Quranic Mileu: Correspondence with Mohammad Lamsiah
Dear Lamsiah,
It was, as always, very nice to hear your voice this morning. In the meantime, I have had a chance to look at everything again. You mentioned that there was criticism about the map in my article « The Language of the Koran ». As I mentioned, the map originates from a Durch Newspaper article by our friend Eildert Mulder (attached here), which was intended for a GENERAL Audience, this was later translated into French by Père Gallez, thence into English by Anouar Majid, into German by Markus Groß, and into Arabic by yourself. It seems to have taken on a life of its own. The map, was intended to give general geographical information for non-specialists. It was never intended to be used in a scientific context. It is unfortunate that my article upon which the interview and its translations are based, « Von der arabischen Lesekultur zur arabischen Schreibkultur » is not cited in academic works. One must make a distinction between non-specialist and specialised articles. In the long German article (attached here), I go into more detail.
I used the term Arabia Petraea in a general, descriptive sense. Not as a designation of Roman provincial borders. These borders changed with administrative reforms. Indeed you will see that the ‹ classical › Roman Province named Arabia Petraea, encompasses roughly the modern State of Israel + the Sinai Peninsula, to its North lay Syria (<صور, I.e. the hinterland of Tyre; NOT from Assyria!!). Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix were never Roman Provinces, just general descriptors. This is how Arabia Petraea was intended here.
My argument is quite simple: a) to the South of Arabia Petraea we find but few Nabataean Inscriptions, excepting graffiti on the incense route and some oases. One must distinguish between formal epigrapy and informal epigraphy (such as graffiti) b) Ancient South Arabic and Ancient North Arabic inscriptions in pre-islamic times, use derivations of the Sabaic script (خط المسند); Ancient North Arabian is attested in Northern Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Southern Syria — If the Qur’an had been written in الحجاز, we would expect it to have been written in this script. For the inscriptions from this region see Khālid ibn Muḥammad ʿAbbās Askūbī ,ثموديييية من منطقة رم بين ثليثوات وقيعان الصنيع جنوبغرب تيماء Riyadh, 2007/1428 with numerous examples. c) The language (or Semitic dialect) which very closely resembles what became classical Arabic is Safaitic which seems concentrated in Southern Syria, Eastern Jordan and NW Saudi Arabia. Dialect geography makes clear that this was not the language of the Hedjaz.
We now have two independent criteria: script and language (or dialect) distribution, both of which point to Syria and Jordan (the Roman provinces of Syria and Arabia Petraea) and not to Arabia Deserta or Felix.
Another argument is that if the Qurʾān had emerged in the Hedjaz, the we would find traces of Christianity there. Outside of the Roman Empire there was no heresy (cf. the Nestorians in Asia). But in the Hedjaz, there are no traces of Christianity. Furthermore, the Christological debates, to which the Qur’an bears witness seem to be concentrated in groups which were concentrated in Syria (i.e. the human nature of Jesus, avoiding alcohol as a rejection of the Eucharist [Council of Gangra]; emphasis on Martyrdom (ܣܗܕܐ into Arabic as شهيد etc.). But we would also need to explain all of the allusions to and from Jewish literature (such as the Talmud — if there were Jewish tribes in Arabia in the 7th century, which I very much doubt, then they would hardly have transported the Talmud on their camels —) which also points to Syria/Iraq (Babylonian Talmud). The decisive area is الجزيرة العربية in the old sense of the word.
Here we can conclude that script, language and theology of the Qur’an, three independent strains of evidence, point to Syria/Iraq/Jordan as the place of origin of the Qur’an.
This in turn explains why we find Syro-Aramaic influence (Fehllesungen) in the Qurʾān and why the theological vocabulary of the Qurʾān is largely borrowed from Eastern Aramaic (both Syriac and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, the language of the Babylonian Talmud) are Eastern Aramaic dialects as Luxenberg (Syro-Aramaic Reading) and myself (Aramaisms in the Qurʾān and their significance, in Ibn Warraq ed., Christmas in the Qur’an) have shown (i.e. just as in Western European languages, such as French or German the Christian theological vocabulary is borrowed from Latin, the language of the missionaries whilst in Russian the borrowing is from Greek, the language of the missionaries to the Slavic peoples). This we also find in Ancient Ethiopic (Ge`ez) since Ethiopia was converted to Christianity by Syriac missionaries. Since there is no evidence of either Christianity (see above) or (Syriac) Christian missions to the Hedjaz, a Qurʾān originating in the Hedjaz is even more of an anomaly.
Now we have four independent witnesses: script, language, theology and vocabulary. All point to the Syro-Mesopotamian region.
As we discussed on the telephone, inscriptions must be viewed in the context in which they were written. So, for example, we find Palmyrene (a dialect of Aramaic) text on an inscription for a deceased Germanic lady in Britain:
https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/1065Now nobody will ever claim that Palmyrene was a widely spoken language in Roman Britain! And Germanic Palmyrene speakers … But when we look closely at the text we see that a Palmyrene Aramaic speaker in the Roman Army married a Germanic woman who died whilst he was stationed in Britain. So the two Latin (!) inscriptions from the Yemen (
http://db.edcs.eu/epigr/epimap.php…) or Farasan Kabir (
http://db.edcs.eu/epigr/epimap.php…) do not indicate that Latin was widely spoken in the Red Sea or Southern Arabia (=Felix).
This applies equally to inscriptions written in a (Ancient North) Arabic predecessor to the language of the Qurʾān. The biggest concentration of such in an official context (i.e. formal epigraphy, i.e. written by rulers such as the Namarah inscription (100 km SE of Damascus;
https://www.islamic-awareness.org/…/inscriptio…/namarah.html) point to Syria, not the Hedjaz. Inscriptions, i.e. graffiti along the frankincense road through Arabia are manifold, and in various languages from various times. Such cannot be used to draw a map of the linguistic landscape of a given region at a given time.
The concentration of inscriptions in a script relevant to the Qurʾān in a closely related earlier form of the language point to Syria, not to the Hedjaz.
I add maps for your convenience. One could take the map you already have and recue the size of Arabia Petraea and add « Syria » to the North. I hope that this helps. If not, let me know.
Godbless,
Robert
Topic: Qur'anic studies today