The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran
The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran is an English-language edition of Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache by the pseudonymous author Christoph Luxenberg.
The book received considerable attention from the popular press in North America and Europe at its release, perhaps in large part to its argument that the Qur'anic term Houri refers not to beautiful virgins in paradise, but to grapes there.
The thesis of the book is that the text of the Qur'an was substantially derived from [Syriac Christianity|Syriac Christian liturgy], arguing that many obscure portions become clear when they are back-translated and interpreted as Syriacisms. While there is a scholarly consensus classical Arabic was influenced by Syro-Aramaic, since the latter used to be the lingua franca of the Ancient Near East, Luxenberg's thesis goes beyond mainstream scholarly consensus in Qur'anic studies and was widely received with skepticism in reviews. The book asserted that the language of the early compositions of the Qur'an was not exclusively Arabic, as assumed by the classical commentators, but rather is rooted in the Syriac language of the 7th century. Luxenberg's premise is that the Syriac language, which was prevalent throughout the Middle East during the early period of Islam, and was the language of culture and Christian liturgy, had a profound influence on the scriptural composition and meaning of the contents of the Qur'an.
Thesis
The work advances the thesis that critical sections of the Qur'an have been misread by generations of readers and Muslim and Western scholars, who consider classical Arabic the language of the Qur'an. Luxenberg's analysis suggests that the prevalent Syro-Aramaic language up to the seventh century formed a stronger etymological basis for its meaning.A notable trait of early written Arabic was that it lacked vowel signs and diacritics which would later distinguish, for example, ب, ت, ن, ي, and thus was prone to mispronunciation. Arabic diacritics were added around the turn of the eighth century on orders of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, governor of Iraq.
Luxenberg asserts that the Qur'an contains much ambiguous and even inexplicable language. On top of that, he even asserts even Muslim scholars find some passages difficult to parse and have written reams of Qur'anic commentary attempting to explain these passages. However, according to him, the assumption behind their endeavours has always been that any difficult passage is true, meaningful, and pure Arabic, and that it can be deciphered with the tools of traditional Muslim scholarship. Luxenberg accuses Western academic scholars of the Qur'an of taking a timid and imitative approach, relying too heavily on the work of Muslim scholars.
Luxenberg argues that the Qur'an was not originally written exclusively in Arabic but in a mixture with Syriac, the dominant spoken and written language in the Arabian peninsula through the eighth century.
Luxenberg posits that scholars must start afresh, ignore the old Islamic commentaries, and use only the latest in linguistic and historical methods. Hence, if a particular Qur'anic word or phrase seems meaningless in Arabic, or can be given meaning only by tortuous conjectures, it makes sense to look to Syriac as well as Arabic.
Luxenberg argues that the Qur'an is based on earlier texts, namely Syriac lectionaries used in Christian churches of Syria, and that it was the work of several generations who adapted these texts into the Qur'an as known today.
With his approach of research, Luxenberg is a representative of the Saarbrücken School, which belongs to the Revisionist school of Islamic studies.
Proposed methodology
- Check whether a plausible, overlooked explanation can be found in Tafsir al-Tabari.
- Check if there is a plausible explanation in the Ibn Manzur's Lisān al-ʿArab, the most extensive Arabic dictionary.
- Check if the Arabic expression has a homonymous root in Syriac or Aramaic with a different meaning that fits the context.
- Judge whether or not the meaning of the Syriac/Aramaic root word might make better sense of the passage.
- Check to see if there is a Syriac word which would make sense of the passage.
- Experiment with different placements of the diacritics later added to the earliest text, the rasm. Perhaps there is a version of the rasm that will give an Arabic word that makes sense of the passage.
- If there is no Arabic word that works, repeat the experiment and look for Syriac words.
- Translate the Arabic phrase into Syriac and check the Syrian literature for a phrase that might have been translated literally into Arabic; the original meaning in Syriac may make more sense than the resulting Arabic phrase.
- Check to see if there is a corresponding phrase in the old Syrian literature, which may be an analog of an Arabic phrase now lost.
- Check to see if it is a correct Arabic expression written in Arabic script, but in Syriac orthography.
Analyses
Muqatta'at
Devin J. Stewart argues the Muqattaʿat letters are integral to the text and establish a rhyme and a rhythm, similarly to rhyming chants such as, intended to introduce spells, charms or something connected to the supernatural. Christoph Luxenberg proposed that substantial portions of the text of the Qur'an were directly taken from Syriac liturgy. His explanation of certain sets of disjoined letters in the text is that they are remnants of indications for the liturgical recitation for the Syriac hymns that ended up being copied into the Arabic text. In a series of interviews with Sami Aldeeb, Luxenberg clarifies which sequence of letters are abbreviations of which phrase, among other things changing the commonly cited explanations of some verses.Terminology
Qur'an
According to Luxenberg, the word qur'an is a rendition of the Aramaic word qeryan-a, a book of liturgical readings; i.e., the term for a Syriac lectionary, with hymns and Biblical extracts, created for use in Christian services. Luxenberg cites the suggestion by Theodor Nöldeke, "The term qurʿān is not an inner-Arabic development out of the synonymous infinitive, but a borrowing from that Syriac word with a simultaneous assimilation of the type fulʿān."Houri
The word houris, meaning "maidens with intensely black eyes set against the whiteness of their irises", who will serve the faithful in Paradise; Qur'an 44:54, 52:20, 55:72, 56:22) means "white grapes" or "raisins". He says that many Christian descriptions of Paradise describe it as abounding in pure white grapes. The possibility that the suicide bombers would be expecting beautiful women and getting grapes was met with mockery in the Western media. The viral news story was also repeated in non-Muslim parts of Asia.Khātam
The passage in surat al-Ahzab that has usually been translated as "seal of the prophets" means "witness". By this reading, Muhammad is not the last of the prophets, but a witness to those prophets who came before him.Aya analysis
In the Luxenberg's Syro-Aramaic Reading analysis on Qur'an, the part "they should draw their veils over their bosoms" means literally as "snap their belts around their waists", an idiom, the belt was a symbol for chastity and does not order any organ to be covered with cloth. According to him, the meanings of the words in the relevant part of the verse are as follows: خِمار khimār; cummerbund, جيب jayb; sinus, sac, وَلْيَضْرِبْنَ; "let them hit."Ibrahim's sacrifice
The verse 37:103, considered to be about Ibrahim's sacrifice of his son, reads when translated into English from Arabic, "And when they had both submitted and he put him down upon his forehead". But using Syriac instead of Arabic for almost the same Arabic rasm, "he put him down upon his forehead", changes the meaning to "he tied him to the firewood".Reception
Luxenberg's book has been reviewed by Blois, Neuwirth and following the English translation by King and Saleh.The most detailed scholarly review is by Daniel King, a Syriacist at the University of Cardiff, who endorses some of Luxenberg's emendations and readings and cites other scholars who have done the same but concludes:
The conclusion of King's article summarizes the most prominent reviews of Luxenberg's work that have been published by other scholars.
Gabriel Said Reynolds says that Luxenberg "consults very few sources"—only one exegete —and seldom integrates the work of earlier critical studies into his work; "turns from orthography to phonology and back again"; and that his use of Syriac is "largely based on modern dictionaries".
Robert Hoyland argues against Luxenberg's thesis that Syro-Aramaic language was prevalent in the Hijaz during the time of the Qur'an's inception, finding Arabic script on funerary text, building text inscriptions, graffiti, and stone inscriptions of that era in the area. He further argues that Arabic evolved from Nabataean Aramaic script not Syriac. He concludes that by the 7th century Arabic was widely written and spoken, and was used for literary and sacred expression. He proposes that the rise of an Arabic script in the sixth century was likely the work of Arab tribes allied to Rome and Christian missionaries working to convert Arab tribes.
The Qur'an is the translation of a Syriac text is how Angelika Neuwirth describes Luxenberg's thesis: "The general thesis underlying his entire book thus is that the Qur'an is a corpus of translations and paraphrases of original Syriac texts recited in church services as elements of a lectionary." She considers it as "an extremely pretentious hypothesis which is unfortunately relying on rather modest foundations." Neuwirth points out that Luxenberg doesn't consider the previous work in Qur'an studies, but "limits himself to a very mechanistic, positivist linguistic method without caring for theoretical considerations developed in modern linguistics."
Dutch archaeologist Richard Kroes describes Luxenberg's book in a review article as "almost unreadable, certainly for the layman. One needs knowledge of eight languages and of five different alphabets to comprehend the book fully. A good working knowledge of German, Arabic and Syriac is indispensable to be able to assess the book Luxenberg's main problem, however, is that his line of reasoning doesn't follow the simple and strict method that he set out at the beginning of his book".
Richard Kroes' conclusion about the book is, "certainly not everything Luxenberg writes is nonsense or too far-fetched, but quite a few of his theories are doubtful and motivated too much by a Christian apologetic agenda. Even his greatest critics admit he touches on a field of research that was touched on by others before and that deserves more attention. However, this needs to be done with a strictly scientific approach. In fact, his investigations should be done again, taking into account all the scholarly work that Luxenberg doesn't seem to know".
A March 2002 New York Times article describes Luxenberg's research:
In 2002, The Guardian newspaper published an article which stated:
In 2003, the Pakistani government banned a 2003 issue of Newsweeks international edition discussing Luxenberg's thesis on grounds that it was offensive to Islam.
Francois de Blois has postulated that Luxenberg is not German but rather a Lebanese Christian. He believes that the individual is a dilettante whose Syro-Aramaic reading "does not actually make better sense" than the standard Classical Arabic reading. He writes that the theory is not novel but seems to be adapted from earlier works by James A. Bellamy and Günter Lüling. The fact that Luxenberg does not cite them in his bibliography "poses questions about scholarly integrity." He posits that Luxenberg has an articulate knowledge of dialectal Arabic, passable command of Classical Arabic, and a basic command of Syriac. He ultimately concludes that German academics have no reason to hide their identity:
It is necessary, in conclusion, to say a little about the authorship, or rather the non authorship, the pseudonymity of this book. An article published in the New York Times on 2nd March 2002 referred to this book as the work of 'Christoph Luxenberg, a scholar of ancient Semitic languages in Germany'. It is, I think, sufficiently clear from this review that the person in question is not 'a scholar of ancient Semitic languages'. He is someone who evidently speaks some Arabic dialect, has a passable, but not flawless command of classical Arabic, knows enough Syriac so as to be able to consult a dictionary, but is innocent of any real understanding of the methodology of comparative Semitic linguistics. His book is not a work of scholarship but of dilettantism .
The NYT article goes on to state that 'Christoph Luxenberg... is a pseudonym', to compare him with Salman Rushdie, Naguib Mahfouz and Suliman Bashear and to talk about 'threatened violence as well as the widespread reluctance on United States college campuses to criticize other cultures'. I am not sure what precisely the author means with 'in Germany'. According to my information, 'Christoph Luxenberg' is not a German, but a Lebanese Christian. It is thus not a question of some intrepid philologist, pouring over dusty books in obscure languages somewhere in the provinces of Germany and then having to publish his results under a pseudonym so as to avoid the death threats of rabid Muslim extremists, in short an ivory-tower Rushdie. Let us not exaggerate the state of academic freedom in what we still like to call our Western democracies. No European or North American scholar of linguistics, even of Arabic linguistics, needs to conceal his identity, nor does he really have any right to do so. These matters must be discussed in public. In the Near East things are, of course, very different.
Blois describes the book as "not a work of scholarship but of dilettantism" and that Luxenberg's "grasp of Syriac is limited to knowledge of dictionaries and in his Arabic he makes mistakes that are typical for the Arabs of the Middle East."
Walid Saleh describes Luxenberg's method as "so idiosyncratic, so inconsistent, that it is simply impossible to keep his line of argument straight." He adds that according to Luxenberg, for the last two hundred years, Western scholars "have totally misread the Qur'ān" and that, ad hominem, no one can understand the Qur'an as "only he can fret out for us the Syrian skeleton of this text." Summing up his assessment of Luxenberg's method, he states:
Saleh further says that Luxenberg does not follow his own proposed rules.
Richard Kroes says that "Even his greatest critics admit he touches on a field of research that was touched on by others before and that deserves more attention. However, this needs to be done with a strictly scientific approach. In fact, his investigations should be done again, taking into account all the scholarly work that Luxenberg doesn't seem to know" and mentions that he is "unaware of much of the other literature on the subject" and that "quite a few of his theories are doubtful and motivated too much by a Christian apologetic agenda."
Patricia Crone, professor of Islamic history at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, in a 2008 article at OpenDemocracy wrote that the Qur'an language is obscure and that "Sometimes it uses expressions that were unknown even to the earliest exegetes, or words that do not seem to fit entirely, though they can be made to fit more or less; sometimes it seems to give us fragments detached from a long-lost context; and the style is highly allusive." She refers to Luxenberg's work as "open to so many scholarly objections" and "notably amateurism".
In contrast to these commentaries, Robert Phenix and Cornelia Horn of the University of St Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota write:
Christoph Luxenberg
Christoph Luxenberg is the pseudonym of the author of the book, and several articles in anthologies about early Islam.The pseudonym "Christoph Luxenberg" may be a play upon the name of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, the "destroyer of myths," since Lux translates as Licht, 'light'. Luxenberg himself claims to have chosen a pseudonym "upon the counsel of Arab friends, after these became familiar with my work theses," to protect himself against possible violent repercussions.
The real identity of the person behind the pseudonym remains unknown. The most widely circulated version claims that he is a German scholar of Semitic languages. François de Blois, writing in the Journal of Qur'anic Studies, has questioned Luxenberg's knowledge of Arabic.
Works
- Luxenberg, Christoph – Die Syro-Aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler..
- * English version:
- Luxenberg, Christoph – Weihnachten im Koran. in Streit um den Koran, Die Luxenberg Debatte: Standpunkte und Hintergründe Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler. 2004..
- Luxenberg, Christoph – “Der Koran zum Islamischen Kopftuch”, imprimatur 2.
- Luxenberg, Christoph – “Neudeutung der arabischen Inschrift im Felsendom zu Jerusalem”, Die dunklen Anfänge, neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte des Islam. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 2005..
- Luxenberg, Christoph – “Relikte syro-aramäischer Buchstaben in frühen Korankodizes im hejazi- und kufi- Duktus”, Der frühe Islam. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 2007..
- Luxenberg, Christoph – “Die syrische Liturgie und die geheimnisvollen Buchstaben im Koran”, , eds. Markus Groß & Karl-Heinz Ohlig. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 2008., pp. 411–456
Academic press
- Hoyland, Robert: New Documentary Texts and the Early Islamic State, in: BSOAS: vol 9, part 3, 2006
- Corriente, F.: On a proposal for a ‘Syro-Aramaic’ reading of the Qur'an, in: Collectanea Christiana Orientalia No.1.
Popular press
Category:Syriac literature
Category:2007 non-fiction books
Category:2000 non-fiction books
Category:Works about the Quran
Category:Revisionist school of Islamic studies