Volume 8, Issue 1

In this article, I take issue with one alleged characteristic of pre-Islamic Arabia: namely, the notion that the Arabians frequently, and disturbingly, practiced female infanticide by burying their daughters alive. This is what the Islamic-era religious scholars inferred on the basis of two qurʾānic passages (Q Naḥl 16:57–59 and al-Takwīr 81:8–9). However, I will argue that the classical Muslim scholars’ interpretation of these verses is highly tendentious. By analyzing the specific qurʾānic passages and comparing the crucial word al-mawʾūdah (Q 81:8), usually translated as “the daughter buried alive,” with early Arabic poetry, I conclude that the conventional understanding of it is unlikely.

The first part of this study presents evidence from the Qurʾān and early Arabic writings to argue that dīn in the Qurʾān often means “worship” instead of “religion” and that islām means exclusive worship of the One God rather than “submission” to Him. Specifically, I show that the noun dīn and the verb dāna frequently convey the ideas of “service” and “servitude” in early Arabic texts, a usage that underlies the qurʾānic meaning of dīn as “service” or “worship” offered to God. Moreover, in line with strong indications from the Qur’an, several early works of exegesis and lexicography understand islām as exclusive devotion to and monotheistic worship of God instead of submission to His will. In the second part, the study reinterprets the three verses that use the terms dīn and islām (Q 3:19, 3:85, and 5:3). It focuses on Q 5:3, which prohibits ten animal food items, announces the completion of the Believers’ dīn , and identifies this dīn as islām . As I argue, the new food restrictions of this verse are not simply dietary but also cultic, as their goal is to distinguish the Believers’ way of worship from that of the mushrikūn (“pagans”). In particular, the “cultic decalogue” of Q 5:3 bans the meat of animals that die violently (during hunting or otherwise), in order to ensure that the Believers eat meat only from animals that are slaughtered properly. Such slaughter involves the explicit and exclusive invocation of Allāh’s name, an act that showcases and safeguards the Believers’ adherence to monotheistic worship, namely, islām .

A review of the works of the most authoritative Ḥanafī theologians and jurists shows that the later madhhab taught that its eponym, Abū Ḥanīfah (d. 150/767), held the Qurʾān to be the uncreated and eternal speech of God. According to this understanding, he and his followers believed the linguistic composition of the Qurʾān in Arabic to be a component of its miraculous nature. However, a closer examination of Ḥanafī sources leads one to conclude that the claim that Abū Ḥanīfah believed Arabic to be integral to the Qurʾān’s composition is not without contention. Abū Ḥanīfah permitted recitation of the Qurʾān within ritual prayer in Persian, which later Ḥanafī jurists used as a basis to argue that the Qurʾān, for Abū Ḥanīfah, consisted only of its meaning, not its expression in Arabic. After the Miḥnah, Abū Ḥanīfah’s permissive position became associated with the newly heterodox view of the “Created Qurʾān,” placing pressure on later Ḥanafī jurists to ensure that Abū Ḥanīfah was not associated with heresy. Whereas earlier Ḥanafīs contended that the Qurʾān was miraculous solely in its meaning and guiding capacities, later Ḥanafīs, when faced with scandal, condemned the earlier view and reinterpreted Abū Ḥanīfah’s views. The characterization of the miraculous nature of the Qurʾān as inhering in its canonized Arabic expression allowed the Qurʾān to serve as evidence of the prophethood of Muḥammad. This article traces the shift within Ḥanafism on the connection between language and the ontology of the Qurʾān to align with the Sunnī orthodoxy of the uncreated and fully inimitable Arabic Qurʾān. Although some aspects of the roles of Abū Ḥanīfah and Ḥanafism in this evolution have been studied by other scholars, I focus here on an overlooked figure, the proto-Ḥanafī Abū ʿIṣmah Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam (d. 173/789). This case study on the recitation of the Qurʾān in Persian examines and explores the impact of the understudied aspects of this evolution.

The seemingly ungrammatical wording of Q Ṭā-Hā 20:63 ʾinna hādhāni la-sāḥirāni has been cause for much debate, both in traditional Muslim sources as well as in modern discussion. This paper sets out to reevaluate the grammar of the various reading that are present by comparing them not against the normative grammar as it is established by the medieval grammarians, but rather by comparing its grammar to other, comparable construction in the Qurʾān. By analyzing this Qurʾānic verse within its intra-Qurʾānic parallels it is argued that the minority reading ʾin hadhāni la-sāḥirāni is the original intended reading of the ʿUthmānic text, while the grammatically problematic majority reading ʾinna hādhāni la-sāḥirāni is to be understood as an approximation to popular non-ʿUthmānic readings. Through the comparison with other verses, it is also shown that we may gain deeper understanding into verses of constructions of the type found in Q al-Ṭāriq 86:4 ( wa-ʾin kullu nafsin la-mā ʿalayhā ḥāfiẓun ) and shed light on some of the competing canonical readings in these verses.

This study investigates the meaning of the term mubīn and its cognates in the Qurʾān. It examines the debate over whether mubīn has the basic meaning of “clear” or “clarifying,” weighing the various arguments that have been made for the two sides. Consideration of the requirements of qurʾānic end-rhyme and the distribution of the adjectives bayyin (masc.) and bayyinah (fem.) “clear” suggest that mubīn means “clear” and not “clarifying.” The meanings of the other cognates of mubīn are examined as well. It is argued that the feminine singular mubayyinah , an anomalous form that occur three times in the reading of Ḥafṣ, might instead be rendered bayyinah or mubīnah , both attested variants meaning “clear.” It is also suggested that a possible way to resolve the anomaly of the feminine plural mubayyināt , which also occurs three times in the reading of Ḥafṣ, would be to emend it to the feminine plural bayyināt “clear,” which occurs frequently in very similar contexts.

The word nabtahil , which appears only once in the Qur’an in Q 3:61, has become the basis of a fairly well-known practice in pre-modern and modern Islam called mubāhala , “mutual cursing” due to the verse’s alleged connection to a cursing duel between Muhammad and Christians from Najran . Some exegetes, however, took it to mean “to pray humbly/sincerely”. This article argues that among the two explanations offered by Muslim scholars and exegetes for ibtahala , “to pray” and “to curse”, the latter is quite probably incorrect and arose from a misinterpretation of the word’s solitary usage in the qur’anic verse whereas the former explanation fares better in view of the comparative Semitic evidence. Having evaluated the attestations of the word in Muslim sources and in other languages, I offer a third explanation, namely that the word ibtahala means “to debate”, based on a Classical Ethiopic cognate.