03-28-2008, 12:53 PM
Dear Christina
Just wanted to drop a quick note for you here. Please, if Islamic studies are your comparative-religious ???cup of tea???, then do not yet give up on Prof. Sawma???s book. Here???s why:
He appears too educated to waste his time scholasticizing over an issue that could end his life.
He of all people would realize this, being not an outsider.
Thumbing through the Bibliography alone one can tell that this is not some mere ???brain fart???.
Without accusing him of pure knowledge, the book???s content otherwise seems rather compelling.
He is conversant enough through interdisciplinary studies to write on p.21 ???In an effort to make the Qur???an easily understood, the author has compiled ???Syriac and Aramaic Lexicon of the Qur???an??? to be published soon.???
And essentially, with his background and credibility aside, as well as his move to go ???across the grain??? ???.
Most folks are completely ignorant of Arabic and Islam???s history. When I set down Hal Lindsey, Michael Evans, and the ???Left Behind??? gang???s propaganda literature, and sniffed out Bernard Lewis, Mark Gabriel, and Ibn Warraq???s more informed postures, I learned that this topic, honestly, is bigger than I can presently handle; that is, unless I drop everything else to delve into it alone. So I???m not necessarily trying to go ???cross-grain??? with what akhan Paul said (since he is far more qualified in his overall understanding), but leaving Prof. Sawma aside for the moment, realize that he wasn???t the first one with this idea of his, and that any immediate negative attention paid to it certainly defends its position in light of Islam???s mainstream theological attitude (and the Church???s).
Now philologically and what I do intend to point out, however, is based on what Paul mentioned about Aramaicisms versus Aramaic Primacy. May I mention first, though, that despite having many books, that???s not to say that I???ve read them all yet. But what I do read I always intend to digest properly, and frankly, the subject of Islam and its Qur???an deserves more than a brief or superficial (or sarcastic) overview paid attention to it. In fact, back in the day I had the opportunity to sit in an Islamic meeting, except that it was cancelled due to extraneous circumstances, so I instead migrated to a Buddhist meeting which disappointed. That???s how close I could have come to a life-altering encounter with it, personally. It???s taken some seriously weird and unexpected turns in my walk with Y???shua to discover what???s behind each of these religions and all religions, really. It???s not what you think, I assure you (do you realize how integral Islam is to a very conspicuous social branch of Freemasonry?).
So my purpose is not to do a one-time ???drive-by shooting??? with bullets of opinionated ignorance here, but to offer my ???note??? here before I can reach that time I???d some day soon like, to really dig seriously into Arabic???s and Islam???s etiologies. I think in light of current events, it???s sort of important, ya know? So there???s one thing that I notice consistently popping up, mentioned also apparently by Christoph Luxenberg who I noticed you discovered at Wikipedia (thanks by the way, since I wasn???t aware that his German work had recently been made available in English), and that would be that Classical Arabic was written in Defective Script. Now whereas Sawma argues for Aramaic primacy, Luxenberg takes what we Peshitta folks would call a Text-critical approach; hybridization of Classical Arabic and Classical Aramaic. My food-for-thought examples will be drawn from Ibn Warraq with all of this in mind, specifically ones with any notions of assonance, cadence, or homogeny; with your awareness of Hadithic influences presumed:
The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam???s Holy Book, Prometheus Books 1998, p.47
??????. And if such a character appeared after Muhammad, still he could never be anything but an imitator, like the false prophets who arose about the time of his death and afterward. That the adversaries should produce any sample whatsoever of poetry or rhetoric equal to the Koran is not at all what the Prophet demands. In that case he would have been put to shame, even in the eyes of many of his own followers, by the first poem that came to hand. Nevertheless, it is on such a false interpretation of this challenge that the dogma of the incomparable excellence of the style and diction of the Koran is based. The rest has been accomplished by dogmatic prejudice, which is quite capable of working other miracles besides turning a defective literary production into an unrivaled masterpiece in the eyes of believers.???
[essay ???The Koran??? by Theodor N??ldeke ??? who under ???Contributors??? p.409 is stated as being the late 19th Century eminent German scholar responsible for the 1860 Geschichte des Qor??ns which ???became the foundation of all later Koranic studies???and is considered an indispensable tool for further research on the Koran.???]
On p.16 of the selfsame book, within Ibn???s own essay entitled simply ???Introduction???, he quotes Charles Adams [Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987]:
???It is of some importance to call attention to a possible source of misunderstanding with regard to the variant readings of the Quran. The seven (versions) refer to actual written and oral text, to distinct versions of Quranic verses, whose differences, though they may not be great, are nonetheless substantial. Since the very existence of variant readings and versions of the Quran goes against the doctrinal position toward the Holy Book held by many modern Muslims, it is not uncommon in an apologetic context to hear the seven (versions) explained as modes of recitation; in fact the manner and technique of recitation are an entirely different matter.???
Following, Ibn states on pp.16-17:
???If we allow that there were omissions, then why not additions? The authenticity of many verses in the Koran has been called into question by Muslims themselves. Many Kharijites, who were followers of ???Ali in the early history of Islam, found the sura recounting the story of Joseph offensive, an erotic tale that did not belong in the Koran.???
???Most scholars believe that there are interpolations in the Koran; these interpolations can be seen as interpretative glosses on certain rare words in need of explanation. More serious are the interpolations of a dogmatic or political character, which seem to have been added to justify the elevation of ???Uthman as caliph to the detriment of ???Ali. Then there are other verses that have been added in the interest of rhyme, or to join together two short passages that on their own lack any connection.???
And one more from this book, p.17:
???Bell and Watt carefully go through many of the emendments and revisions and point to the unevenness of the Koranic style as evidence for a great many alterations in the Koran:
What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, & Commentary, Prometheus Books 2002, pp.23-24
???.???Jackson Mathews also singles out another feature that is most difficult to translate: ???Rhythm is the one feature of a foreign language that we can probably never learn to hear purely. Rhythm and the meaning of rhythm lie too deep in us. They are absorbed into the habits of the body and the uses of the voice along with all our earliest apprehensions of ourselves and the world. Rhythm forms the sensibility, becomes part of the personality; and one???s sense of rhythm is shaped once and for all on one???s native tongue.??? Thus, we can grant that in any translation, whatever the language concerned, there will be inevitable loss of melody and evocative power. However matters are, as we shall see, even more complicated when it comes to Arabic.???
???Many educated Muslims whose native tongue is not Arabic do learn it in order to learn the Koran; but then again, the vast majority do not understand Arabic, even though many do learn parts of the Koran by heart without understanding a word.???
???In other words, the majority of Muslims have to read the Koran in translation in order to understand it???Even for contemporary Arabic-speaking peoples, reading the Koran is far from being a straightforward matter. The Koran is putatively (as we shall see, it is very difficult to decide exactly what the language of the Koran is) written in what we call Classical Arabic (CA), but modern Arab populations, leaving aside the problem of illiteracy in Arab countries, do not speak, read, or write, let alone think, in CA.???
Sounds like the same human dilemma most Christians struggle with, no? But I???m not going to go there. Thank God for the Peshitta, because the Qur???anic ???textual-jihad??? sounds an awful lot like Greek Primacy, doesn???t it!
In fact, this is why I???m suggesting another look for this provocative book .???
???Muslim commentators do not understand the rules of Syriac grammar, they interpret Syriac prefix prepositions as if they were Arabic, and render erroneous interpretations accordingly. In many cases, Muslim commentators rendered contradicting interpretations to the same verse, as we shall see. In many verses, the commentators are frustrated about what meaning should they render to a verse; such a frustration is shown in the use of words like: ???if??? (Ali???s commentary # 2602); ???I think??? (Ali???s commentary # 2013), ???perhaps??? (Ali???s commentary # 2000), ???may mean??? (Ali???s commentary # 2546), etc. In other cases, the same commentator renders two interpretations having opposite meaning to a Qur???anic word. For example, in his commentary on verse 20: 16, A. Yusuf Ali explains the Qur???anic word ???ukhfiha??? (to hide) as following: ???Ukhfi may mean either ???keep it hidden???, or ???make it manifest??? (Ali???s commentary # 2546). The reason for this contradiction is due to lack of knowledge of Syriac and Aramaic. He is unable to interpret a book, which is written in a language, alien to him.???
[Sawma, pp.16-17]
???There are numerous Qur???anic verses that are borrowed from the Old Testament. We will examine those similarities in this book. Others are taken from the Talmud; the following chapters will show the sources of those verses. Certain verses are borrowed from ecclesiastical writings of early Christian authorities that are known to exist, and yet were omitted from the authorized New Testament. There are 16 verses from chapter 18 that are taken from the story of the Cave written by the Syriac Metropolitan, Jacob of Suruj (431-521 A.D.).???
[p.17, Sawma]
???The Qur???an says its language is Arabic ???Qur???aanan ???Arabiyyan???. In Syriac the Qur???anic word ??? ???Arabiyyan??? means ???western??? i.e. the setting of the sun. In other words, the Qur???an says it is a ???western reading???. Syriac ???qeryono ???arboyo, or qeryana arabaya??? means ???western reading???.???
[p.19, Sawma]
And finally, considering whether this topic or particular author is worthwhile or not, this should do, for now ???.
???The tools I used to write this book are: Biblia Hebraica, Biblical Aramaic, the Syriac Peshito (Fshito), the liturgy and hymns of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch as taught by Professor, the late Patriarch Jacob III of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, and Professor Malfono Asmar El-Khoury; the dialect of Eastern Syriac as spoken in the region of Tur Abdin in South East Turkey and the Jazirah district in east Syria; the magnificent handwritten Syriac Bible of the Four Gospels scribed by my late professor, Malfono Asmar El-Khoury, of St. Severius College in Beirut, Lebanon, to whom I owe my knowledge of Syriac; the Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (H&EL) ???.???
[p.21, Sawma]
I???m actually provoked more now through that information given at Wikipedia, than I was when I first got Sawma???s book a while ago. Granted we???re no masters of Comparative Semitic, we somehow nevertheless broke through King James and acknowledged the truth of Eastern Aramaic???s Peshitta. Whatever the case be, any cadence to be found within Quranic textualism appears to be under serious suspicion. For now that???s all I???ll say, since it is about all I can say, until perhaps another day?
Shlama w???burkate,
Ryan
Just wanted to drop a quick note for you here. Please, if Islamic studies are your comparative-religious ???cup of tea???, then do not yet give up on Prof. Sawma???s book. Here???s why:
He appears too educated to waste his time scholasticizing over an issue that could end his life.
He of all people would realize this, being not an outsider.
Thumbing through the Bibliography alone one can tell that this is not some mere ???brain fart???.
Without accusing him of pure knowledge, the book???s content otherwise seems rather compelling.
He is conversant enough through interdisciplinary studies to write on p.21 ???In an effort to make the Qur???an easily understood, the author has compiled ???Syriac and Aramaic Lexicon of the Qur???an??? to be published soon.???
And essentially, with his background and credibility aside, as well as his move to go ???across the grain??? ???.
Most folks are completely ignorant of Arabic and Islam???s history. When I set down Hal Lindsey, Michael Evans, and the ???Left Behind??? gang???s propaganda literature, and sniffed out Bernard Lewis, Mark Gabriel, and Ibn Warraq???s more informed postures, I learned that this topic, honestly, is bigger than I can presently handle; that is, unless I drop everything else to delve into it alone. So I???m not necessarily trying to go ???cross-grain??? with what akhan Paul said (since he is far more qualified in his overall understanding), but leaving Prof. Sawma aside for the moment, realize that he wasn???t the first one with this idea of his, and that any immediate negative attention paid to it certainly defends its position in light of Islam???s mainstream theological attitude (and the Church???s).
Now philologically and what I do intend to point out, however, is based on what Paul mentioned about Aramaicisms versus Aramaic Primacy. May I mention first, though, that despite having many books, that???s not to say that I???ve read them all yet. But what I do read I always intend to digest properly, and frankly, the subject of Islam and its Qur???an deserves more than a brief or superficial (or sarcastic) overview paid attention to it. In fact, back in the day I had the opportunity to sit in an Islamic meeting, except that it was cancelled due to extraneous circumstances, so I instead migrated to a Buddhist meeting which disappointed. That???s how close I could have come to a life-altering encounter with it, personally. It???s taken some seriously weird and unexpected turns in my walk with Y???shua to discover what???s behind each of these religions and all religions, really. It???s not what you think, I assure you (do you realize how integral Islam is to a very conspicuous social branch of Freemasonry?).
So my purpose is not to do a one-time ???drive-by shooting??? with bullets of opinionated ignorance here, but to offer my ???note??? here before I can reach that time I???d some day soon like, to really dig seriously into Arabic???s and Islam???s etiologies. I think in light of current events, it???s sort of important, ya know? So there???s one thing that I notice consistently popping up, mentioned also apparently by Christoph Luxenberg who I noticed you discovered at Wikipedia (thanks by the way, since I wasn???t aware that his German work had recently been made available in English), and that would be that Classical Arabic was written in Defective Script. Now whereas Sawma argues for Aramaic primacy, Luxenberg takes what we Peshitta folks would call a Text-critical approach; hybridization of Classical Arabic and Classical Aramaic. My food-for-thought examples will be drawn from Ibn Warraq with all of this in mind, specifically ones with any notions of assonance, cadence, or homogeny; with your awareness of Hadithic influences presumed:
The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam???s Holy Book, Prometheus Books 1998, p.47
??????. And if such a character appeared after Muhammad, still he could never be anything but an imitator, like the false prophets who arose about the time of his death and afterward. That the adversaries should produce any sample whatsoever of poetry or rhetoric equal to the Koran is not at all what the Prophet demands. In that case he would have been put to shame, even in the eyes of many of his own followers, by the first poem that came to hand. Nevertheless, it is on such a false interpretation of this challenge that the dogma of the incomparable excellence of the style and diction of the Koran is based. The rest has been accomplished by dogmatic prejudice, which is quite capable of working other miracles besides turning a defective literary production into an unrivaled masterpiece in the eyes of believers.???
[essay ???The Koran??? by Theodor N??ldeke ??? who under ???Contributors??? p.409 is stated as being the late 19th Century eminent German scholar responsible for the 1860 Geschichte des Qor??ns which ???became the foundation of all later Koranic studies???and is considered an indispensable tool for further research on the Koran.???]
On p.16 of the selfsame book, within Ibn???s own essay entitled simply ???Introduction???, he quotes Charles Adams [Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987]:
???It is of some importance to call attention to a possible source of misunderstanding with regard to the variant readings of the Quran. The seven (versions) refer to actual written and oral text, to distinct versions of Quranic verses, whose differences, though they may not be great, are nonetheless substantial. Since the very existence of variant readings and versions of the Quran goes against the doctrinal position toward the Holy Book held by many modern Muslims, it is not uncommon in an apologetic context to hear the seven (versions) explained as modes of recitation; in fact the manner and technique of recitation are an entirely different matter.???
Following, Ibn states on pp.16-17:
???If we allow that there were omissions, then why not additions? The authenticity of many verses in the Koran has been called into question by Muslims themselves. Many Kharijites, who were followers of ???Ali in the early history of Islam, found the sura recounting the story of Joseph offensive, an erotic tale that did not belong in the Koran.???
???Most scholars believe that there are interpolations in the Koran; these interpolations can be seen as interpretative glosses on certain rare words in need of explanation. More serious are the interpolations of a dogmatic or political character, which seem to have been added to justify the elevation of ???Uthman as caliph to the detriment of ???Ali. Then there are other verses that have been added in the interest of rhyme, or to join together two short passages that on their own lack any connection.???
And one more from this book, p.17:
???Bell and Watt carefully go through many of the emendments and revisions and point to the unevenness of the Koranic style as evidence for a great many alterations in the Koran:
- There are indeed many roughnesses of this kind, and these, it is here claimed, are fundamental evidence for revision. Besides the points already noticed ??? hidden rhymes, and rhyme phrases not woven into the texture of the passage ??? there are the following: abrupt changes of rhyme; repetition of the same rhyme word or rhyme phrase in adjoining verses; the intrusion of an extraneous subject into a passage otherwise homogenous; a differing treatment of the same subject in neighbouring verses, often with repetition of words and phrases; breaks in grammatical construction which raise difficulties in exegesis; abrupt changes in length of verse; sudden changes of the dramatic situation, with changes of pronoun from singular to plural, from second to third person, and so on; the juxtaposition of apparently contrary statements; the juxtaposition of passages of different date, with intrusion of late phrases into early verses;
In many cases a passage has alternative continuations which follow one another in the present text. The second of the alternatives is marked by a break in sense and by a break in grammatical construction, since the connection is not with what immediately precedes, but with what stands some distance back. ???
[quoted from Introduction to the Quran, 1970]
What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, & Commentary, Prometheus Books 2002, pp.23-24
???.???Jackson Mathews also singles out another feature that is most difficult to translate: ???Rhythm is the one feature of a foreign language that we can probably never learn to hear purely. Rhythm and the meaning of rhythm lie too deep in us. They are absorbed into the habits of the body and the uses of the voice along with all our earliest apprehensions of ourselves and the world. Rhythm forms the sensibility, becomes part of the personality; and one???s sense of rhythm is shaped once and for all on one???s native tongue.??? Thus, we can grant that in any translation, whatever the language concerned, there will be inevitable loss of melody and evocative power. However matters are, as we shall see, even more complicated when it comes to Arabic.???
???Many educated Muslims whose native tongue is not Arabic do learn it in order to learn the Koran; but then again, the vast majority do not understand Arabic, even though many do learn parts of the Koran by heart without understanding a word.???
???In other words, the majority of Muslims have to read the Koran in translation in order to understand it???Even for contemporary Arabic-speaking peoples, reading the Koran is far from being a straightforward matter. The Koran is putatively (as we shall see, it is very difficult to decide exactly what the language of the Koran is) written in what we call Classical Arabic (CA), but modern Arab populations, leaving aside the problem of illiteracy in Arab countries, do not speak, read, or write, let alone think, in CA.???
Sounds like the same human dilemma most Christians struggle with, no? But I???m not going to go there. Thank God for the Peshitta, because the Qur???anic ???textual-jihad??? sounds an awful lot like Greek Primacy, doesn???t it!
In fact, this is why I???m suggesting another look for this provocative book .???
???Muslim commentators do not understand the rules of Syriac grammar, they interpret Syriac prefix prepositions as if they were Arabic, and render erroneous interpretations accordingly. In many cases, Muslim commentators rendered contradicting interpretations to the same verse, as we shall see. In many verses, the commentators are frustrated about what meaning should they render to a verse; such a frustration is shown in the use of words like: ???if??? (Ali???s commentary # 2602); ???I think??? (Ali???s commentary # 2013), ???perhaps??? (Ali???s commentary # 2000), ???may mean??? (Ali???s commentary # 2546), etc. In other cases, the same commentator renders two interpretations having opposite meaning to a Qur???anic word. For example, in his commentary on verse 20: 16, A. Yusuf Ali explains the Qur???anic word ???ukhfiha??? (to hide) as following: ???Ukhfi may mean either ???keep it hidden???, or ???make it manifest??? (Ali???s commentary # 2546). The reason for this contradiction is due to lack of knowledge of Syriac and Aramaic. He is unable to interpret a book, which is written in a language, alien to him.???
[Sawma, pp.16-17]
???There are numerous Qur???anic verses that are borrowed from the Old Testament. We will examine those similarities in this book. Others are taken from the Talmud; the following chapters will show the sources of those verses. Certain verses are borrowed from ecclesiastical writings of early Christian authorities that are known to exist, and yet were omitted from the authorized New Testament. There are 16 verses from chapter 18 that are taken from the story of the Cave written by the Syriac Metropolitan, Jacob of Suruj (431-521 A.D.).???
[p.17, Sawma]
???The Qur???an says its language is Arabic ???Qur???aanan ???Arabiyyan???. In Syriac the Qur???anic word ??? ???Arabiyyan??? means ???western??? i.e. the setting of the sun. In other words, the Qur???an says it is a ???western reading???. Syriac ???qeryono ???arboyo, or qeryana arabaya??? means ???western reading???.???
[p.19, Sawma]
And finally, considering whether this topic or particular author is worthwhile or not, this should do, for now ???.
???The tools I used to write this book are: Biblia Hebraica, Biblical Aramaic, the Syriac Peshito (Fshito), the liturgy and hymns of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch as taught by Professor, the late Patriarch Jacob III of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, and Professor Malfono Asmar El-Khoury; the dialect of Eastern Syriac as spoken in the region of Tur Abdin in South East Turkey and the Jazirah district in east Syria; the magnificent handwritten Syriac Bible of the Four Gospels scribed by my late professor, Malfono Asmar El-Khoury, of St. Severius College in Beirut, Lebanon, to whom I owe my knowledge of Syriac; the Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (H&EL) ???.???
[p.21, Sawma]
I???m actually provoked more now through that information given at Wikipedia, than I was when I first got Sawma???s book a while ago. Granted we???re no masters of Comparative Semitic, we somehow nevertheless broke through King James and acknowledged the truth of Eastern Aramaic???s Peshitta. Whatever the case be, any cadence to be found within Quranic textualism appears to be under serious suspicion. For now that???s all I???ll say, since it is about all I can say, until perhaps another day?
Shlama w???burkate,
Ryan