Reflection on Two Quranic Words IBLIS and JUDI With Attention to the Theories of a Mingana

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A Reflection on Two Qurʾānic Words (Iblīs and Jūdī), with Attention to the Theories of A.

MinganaAuthor(s): Gabriel Said ReynoldsReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 124, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 2004), pp. 675-689Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4132112 .

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A Reflection on Two Qur'anicWords (Iblis and Jiidi),with Attention to the Theories of A. Mingana

GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDSNOTREDAME UNIVERSITY

The extent to which scholars of Qur'anicstudies today are divided is evident from recent

publications n the field. One work, Understandinghe Qur'an(1999), by MuhammadAbdel

Haleemof the School of OrientalandAfricanStudies,London,castsoff the criticaltradition

of Westernscholarshipwith hardly a footnote; whereas anotherwork, ChristophLuxen-

berg's Die Syro-AramiiischeLesart des Koran(2000), casts doubt on the reliabilityof the

entire traditionof Islamic scholarshipon the Qur'ln. Both publicationsshow thatthe divi-

sions within Qur'anicstudies aremarkedby presuppositions,methods and conclusions.It is both a comfortand a warning,then,to realizethat this state of affairs s nothingnew.

At the turnof the twentiethcenturyscholarswere likewise divided over the Qur'an.J. von

Hammerarguedthat the Qur'an s "astrulyMuhammad'sword as the Muhammadanshold

it to be the word of God."T. Nbldeke expressed this sentiment in a differentmanner,de-

claring:"derKoranenthilt nur echte Stiicke"1 althoughelsewherehe is moreskeptical).2A

second groupof scholars found no reason for such confidence in the historicalauthenticityof the Qur'anic ext, amongthem the English scholars H. Hirschfeld and D. S. Margoliouthand the Belgian scholar H. Lammens.In this lattergroupas well was Alphonse Mingana,a scholarfrom the region aroundMawsil in Iraq,who made a name for himself in Birming-ham,

England.Mingana, one of the most colorful and controversialfigures in the history of Islamic

studies,had a peculiarapproach o the Qurldn,maintaining hat it could not be fully under-

stood withoutappreciating he role thatSyriac played in its composition.His theoriesabout

the Qur'an,however,have been largely forgotten,at least until the appearanceof the above

mentionedwork of Luxenberg.In the present paper,Mingana'stheories areonce more in-

troducedandput to the test in two separatecase studies.

1. MINGANA'S ARGUMENT FOR SYRIAC INFLUENCE ON THE QUR'AN

Mingana never clearly articulated his position on the historical development of the

Qurlanicext.The view often attributedo him is that the collectionof the

Qur'andatesto the

time of al-Hajjaj bn Yiisuf (d. 96/714).3 He takes this position in a two-partarticle, "The

1. N61deke,OrientalischeSkizzen(Berlin:Paetel, 1892), 56.

2. In the Geschichtedes QoransNildeke writes: "Ich stimme abermit Fischer darintiberein,dass die Mtiglich-keit von Interpolationenn Qordnunbedingtzugegebenwerdenmuss."T.Nildeke andE Schwally,Geschichtedes

Qorans,2nd ed. (Leipzig:Dieter, 1909), 1:99. On the referencesto Hammer,Nildeke et al., see A. Mingana,"The

Transmissionof the Koran,"The Moslem World7 (July 1917), 3, 223-24.

3. Minganabases this argument, n part,on the account of the anonymousChristianpolemicist known as al-

Kindi (Risilat al-Hashimiild 'l-Kindiwa-risilat al-Kindiild 'l-Hashimi),who describes variousways in which the

Qur'anwas changed n the firstdecadesof Islam.According o al-Kindi,the finalcodificationof the text was due not

to the caliph Uthmhn(644-56), but to al-HIajjaj:Then followed the business of al-Hajjijibn Yisuf, who gathered

together every single copy he could lay hold of, and caused to be omitted from the text a great many passages ..

Journal of the AmericanOrientalSociety 124.4 (2004) 675



676 Journalof the AmericanOrientalSociety 124.4 (2004)

Transmissionof the Kur'~n,"4 nd defends it with reference to Syriac and Arabic Christian

accounts.5 This assertionhas recentlybeen addressedand refuted.6Yet in two other works

(one written before the aforementionedand one after)Minganaseems to accept the histo-

ricity of the cUthmaniccodex, for on both occasions he claims to have discovered remnants

of pre-'UthmanicQur'ans.7In any case, Mingana's actualposition on this question is notof central concernto this paper,which is concernedinstead with his claim that the Qur'dn,

being the first Arabicbook, was in large partshapedby the influence of Syriac.8

Mingana's claim does not dependon a late date for the codification of the Qur'an,but

ratheron his assertion that the languageof the Qurlanreflects an early stage in the devel-

opmentof writtenArabic,a stagethatonly anticipatesclassical 'arabiyya.The consequencesof his argument, f correct,would be far-reaching.Scholars would have anentirelynew lan-

guage and literature(Syriac) in which to seek answersfor Qur'anicriddles of vocabularyandgrammar.The theorywould also have far-reachingconsequences for the historyof re-

ligion, demandinga new understanding f the first Islamiccentury,a centuryfrom which we

have (otherthanthe Qur'an)few Islamic sources. Why is it, then, that such a provocativetheoryhas been largely ignored?

For one thing, Mingana'sscholarshiphas been consideredsuspect, owing to accusations

thathe tamperedwith two differentSyriacmanuscripts.9This skepticismis understandable;

After thathe called in anddestroyedall theprecedingcopies, even as cUthmanhad done beforehim"(TheApology

of al Kindy,trans.W. Muir,London:Society for PromotingChristianKnowledge, 1887,77). Al-Kindi's account,

Mingana argues, gains credence n lightof thereferencesamongMuslim historians uchas IbnDuqmiq (d. ca. 800/

1398) andal-Maqrizi(d. 845/1442) who credital-Hajjajwith establishingthe scriptio plena of the Qur'ln and de-

stroyingvariantsto his version (A. Mingana,"The Transmissionof the Koran,"The Moslem World7 (1917), 4,

413-14.4. Mingana,"Transmission," , 223-32, 402-14.

5. In discussing the witness of Syriac Christian works to early Islamic history (which antedatethe earliest

Muslim works), Mingana concludes: "From these quotations and from many passages of some contemporarywriters, t is evidentthat theChristianhistoriansof the whole of the seventhcenturyhad no ideathat the 'Hagarian'

conquerorshad any sacred Book; similar is the case among historiansand theologians of the beginning of the

eighth century.It is only towards the end of the firstquarterof this centurythatthe Kur'anbecame the theme of

conversation n Nestorian,JacobiteandMelchite ecclesiastical circles."Mingana,"Transmission," 406.

6. See H. Motzki, who takes an optimisticview towardsthe authenticityof Islamic accounts:"TheCollection

of the Qur'an:A Reconsiderationof WesternViews in Lightof RecentMethodological Developments,"Der Islam

78 (2001): 1-35. E. Whelan does the same, arguing hatepigraphicalevidence from the Dome of the Rock supportsan early date for the Qur'dn'scodification;see "ForgottenWitness: Evidence for the Early Codificationof the

Qur'fn,"JAOS 118

(1998):1-14.

7. A. MinganaandA. S. Lewis, Leaves rom ThreeAncientQur'ans,possibly pre-Othminic (Cambridge:Cam-

bridgeUniv. Press, 1914); A. Mingana,"AnAncient SyriacTranslationof the Kur'fnExhibitingNew Verses and

Variants,"Bulletinof the JohnRylandsLibrary9 (1925): 188-235.

8. A. Mingana,"SyriacInfluenceon the Style of the Kur'fn,"Bulletinof the JohnRylandsLibrary11 (1928):77-98.

9. Mingana, it seems clear, was somehow associated with the additionof text to a manuscriptof the Syriac

Chronicleof Bar Hadbeshabba,a fact thatwas pointedoutby the SyriacistJ.-B. Chabot.Moretroubling s the case

of the SyriacChronicleofArbela, the authenticityof which was doubtedby P.Peetersandultimately disprovenbythe historianof the EasternChurchJ.-M.Fiey. Minganawas also knownto sign his paperswith "Dr.,"althoughhe

had never been granteda Ph.D.Thus he was never fully trustedby the Western academicestablishment,a fact re-

flectedin the controversysurrounding is publicationof thepolemicaltreatiseof cAllal-Tabari,Kitabal-Din wa-'l-dawla. Both Peeters and M. Bouygesdoubted he authenticity f thiswork,andBouyges implicitlyaccusedMingana

of being its author.Ultimately Bouyges would, despite himself, help vindicate Minganaon this point by findinganotherwork of Tabari(the Radd 'ala 'l-nasdrai)that quotes the K. al-Din wa-'l-dawla. On this latter contro-

versy, see A. Mingana,"The Book of Religion andEmpire,"Journalof theRoyalAsiatic Society (1920): 481-88;



REYNOLDS:A Reflectionon TwoQur'dnicWords Iblis and Jidi) 677

yet there may be another reason for it. Mingana's argumentregarding Syriac influence is

problematicfor both Muslim and Westernscholars, in light of the Qur)an'sown claim to

be "clear"or "plain" mubin)(accordingto the standardunderstanding) cf. sfiras 12:1, 16:

103),10andNildeke's scholarlyconfirmationof the same.11Nildeke's monumentalphilo-

logical work, however, has at its foundation his trust in the canonical accounts of theQur'an'sproclamationand composition.12It is this foundation thatMinganawas testing.

Mingana's argument,and its fate, resembles that of Muslim scholars who held that the

Qur'ancontains words of non-Arabicorigin (mu'arrab).The earliestQur'ancommentators

(accordingto the statements attributed o them), including Ibn CAbbdsd. 68/687) and Ibn

Islhaq d. 150/767), openly speculatedon the foreign origin of Qur~anicerms.The Basran

grammarianSibawayh(d. 177/793) devotedtwo chapters o the questionof mu'arrab ermsfrom Persianin his al-Kitab.13Yet the exigencies of religious apology encouragedthe idea

that the Qur'anwas not affected by anything foreign. Meanwhile, the Muctazilitedoctrine

of the un-createdness of the Qur'andiscouragedscholars from finding temporalor secular

qualitiestherein.While theQurlanmighthave spokento theProphet's mmediatemilieu, thatmilieu did not ultimately affect its nature.Thus, as al-Suyiiti (d. 911/1505) states, the ma-

jority of scholarsrejectedthe presence of non-Arabic words in the Qurdan:

M. Bouyges, "Le kitabaddinwad-daulatr6cemment6dit6et traduitpar Minganaest-il authentique?"M9langesde

l'Universitd de St.Joseph(1924): 16; idem,"Le kitab addin wad-daulatn'est pas authentique,"Milanges de l'Uni-

versitd de St. Joseph (1925): 17-20; A. Mingana,Bulletinof theJohnRylandsLibrary9 (1925): 236-40 (responseto Bouyges). On the life of Mingana,see the entertainingbooklet of S. K. Samir,AlphonseMingana 1878-1937

(Selly Oaks,Birmingham:Selly Oaks, 1990); see also Lucy-AnneHunt,TheMinganaand Related Collections:A

Survey of IllustratedArabic, Greek,EasternChristian,Persian and TurkishManuscripts n theSelly OakColleges,Birmingham Birmingham:CadburyTrust,1997), 2-9.

10. Note also siara41:44, "Hadwe madeit [theQur'an] n a foreign tongue, they wouldhave said, 'Would that

its verses were divided into non-Arabicand Arabic.'"Cf. also the comments of R. Blachere,Introductionau Coran

(Paris:Besson & Chantemerle,1959), 156-63.

11. N•ldeke, in maintainingthat the Qurl'n preserves pure 'arabiyya, writes, "Esbleibt also dabei, daBder

Koran n dercArabija erfaBtworden st, einerSprache,deren Gebiet sich weit ausdehnteund die natiirlichmanche

mundartlicheVerschiedenheitenaufwies,""ZurSprachedes Korans,"Beitrdgeund neue Beitrdgezur semitischen

Sprachwissenschaft, 2 vols. (Amsterdam:APA-Philo, 1982), 2: 5. Elsewhere he argues that 'arabiyya was the

spokenlanguageof the Quraysh:"Mir st es dagegen sehrunwahrscheinlich,daBMuhammed n Koraneine ganzandereForm derSprache angewandthhtte als die in Mekkatibliche,daBer namentlichauf sorgfiltigste die Kasus-

undModusendungen i'rab] angebrachthitte, wenn sie seine Landsleutenicht gebrauchten," DasklassischeAra-

bisch und die arabischenDialekte,"Beitrdge

und neueBeitrdge,

1:2. In bothcases Nildeke isreacting

to the thesis

of K. Vollers (VolksspracheundSchriftsprache m alten Arabien [StraBburg: riibner,1906], esp. ch. 5), that the

Qur'anwas initially composed in the vulgarArabic of theHijaz, lackingthe case endings and other featuresof the

classic/poetic 'arabiyya.It is also important o note thatNdldekedoes not rejectthe presenceof foreign vocabularyin the Qur'an (see his section on "Willkiirlichund mil3verstandlich ebrauchteFremdwarterm

Koran,"n "Zur

Sprachedes Korans,"23ff.). The key differencebetweenhim andMingana s that whereasNi1ldekearguesthat the

Qur'an s the organic productof a literaryculturethat hadalready ncorporated oreignwordsinto its lexicon, Min-

ganamaintainsthat there is a total disjunctionbetween the languageof the Qur'anand that of the seventh-centuryArabsof the

.Iijaz.The Qur'fnwas the first Arabicbook, and its author(s) ntegratedSyriacinto the text in thepro-

cess of composition.12. Compare he statementby the authorof earlyChurchhistory,J.T.Lienhard,"Thetheoryof the Alexandrian

canon is not the only instance in which Germanscholarshiphas erected a magnificentstructurewithoutanyone's

noticing that the building lacked a groundfloor."He cites no further nstances,but Lienhardmight feel his bold

statement ustified by the case of Nildeke. J. T Lienhard,TheBible, the Churchand Authority Collegeville, Minn.:LiturgicalPress, 1995), 71.

13. Sibawayh,KitdbSibawayhi(Bilaq: 1898-90), 2: 342ff.



678 Journalof the American OrientalSociety 124.4 (2004)

The mams iffer egardingheoccurrencef non-Arabic ords n theQur'an. hemajority,n-

cluding mimal-Shdfi'i,bnJarir,Abi CUbayda,adiAbilBakrandIbnFaris,holdthat heydo notoccur herein, ue o Hisstatement,Ifwemadet aforeignQur'an,heywouldhavesaid,'whyare tsversesnot dividedbetween hose oreignand hoseArabic?Q41:44]'14

Al-Suyiiti is one of those scholarswho, along with al-Subki(d. 771/1370) and IbnHajaral-

'Asqalani(d. 852/1449), held theminoritypositionthat there areforeignwords in the Qur'an,and that the presence thereof is an argumentfor, not against, its divine provenance. Al-

Suy-tti,who in his Mutawakkilidescribes 118 foreignwordsin the Qur'an,arguesthatnon-

Arabic vocabularyis a sign of the Qur'an'suniversality.To this effect he reportsa hadith,on the authorityof Wahbb. Munabbih(d. 110/728, consideredan experton Jewish, Chris-

tian, and South Arabiannarratives), hat at least one word fromevery languageon earthcan

be found in the Qur7an.5

Al-Suy-iti'sapproachs a responseto the sameproblemthat faced Mingana.Much of the

Qur'an s unexplainableby recourse o 'arabiyya.This fact leads even themufassirpar excel-

lence Abl Ja'faral-Tabarid. 310/923) to admitrepeatedlythat the originof Qur'anic ermsandphrasesis unclear.16 It leads al-Suyiiti,meanwhile,to speculateon the foreign originof

otherwiseincomprehensiblevocabulary.Yet al-Suyiiti'sapproach o the Qur'anwas in large

part forgotten,as the pureArabiclanguageof the Qurlanremaineda sine qua non for Mus-

lim scholars.

The problem that both al-Suyiti and Mingana were addressing,and which still exists

today, is the gap that exists between the composition of the Qur')n andthatof the earliest

tafsirs. Manybasic elements of the Qur'an,such as the meaningof the "mysterious"etters

atthe openingof twenty-ninesiirasand the identityof the

S.bi'in(see Q:2:62,5:69, 22:17),

are indeedmysteriousfor themufassirmin.

hegrammatical, yntactical,andlexical irregular-

ities (irregularwhen seen fromthe perspectiveof 'arabiyya)of the Qur'an,meanwhile, ledto a genreof works,often entitledMutashibihal-Qur'tn, that wrestles with these problems.The authorsof these worksattempt o overcome the "hermeneutical ap"with recourse o

'arabiyyaand to pre-IslamicArabicpoetry,a corpusthat has been scouredby both Muslim

andWestern scholarsfor explanationsof Qur'anicvocabulary.Thusone can understand he

interestthat Muslim scholars hadin defendingthe authenticityof this supposedly paganlit-

erature,which led to a bitterpolemic againstTahdIHusayn ponthe publicationof his work

on pre-Islamic poetry,Fi'l-shi'r al-jahill. Western scholarshave also had an interestin de-

fending the authenticityof this poetry,now that over a centuryof scholarshiphas relied on

its testimony.

Mingana,however, regardsMuslim views on 'arabiyyawith great skepticism:

Settingasideas irrelevantheSouthArabian ndothernscriptions-Ibelieve hatwe havenotasinglepageon whichwecan ayourhandswithsafetyand aythat t is pre-Islamic,nd holdwithMargoliouthhatall theedificeof pre-Islamic oetrys shakyandunstable, nd hat he

Kurlans the firstgenuineArabichatwe possess. 7

If Minganais rightaboutthis, andthe Qur'anstands as the first Arabicbook, thenthe lan-

guage of the Qur'anstands as proto-'arabiyya.The author(andeditorsor redactors)of the

14. Al-Suytiti, al-Itqtn fi 'ulim al-Qurh'n (Cairo:Matbacat l-Maymaniyya,1317/1899), 136.

15. Al-Suyfiti,TheMutawakkili,d. and rans.W.Bell(Cairo:Nile MissionPress,1924),17.16. Luxenberg,orexample,eeks oapply ismethodn theplaces"woderKontext ffensichtlichnklarst,wo

die arabischen orankommentatorenuasiamEnde hresArabischind,wo es bei Tabarimmerwieder II••L~1

,Uj~AbLJCi. . ." C. Luxenberg,Die Syro-AramiiischeLesart des Koran(Berlin:Das arabischeBuch, 2000), 10.

17. Mingana, Syriacnfluence,"7.



REYNOLDS: A Reflectionon TwoQur'inic Words Iblis and Jildi) 679

Qurlan therefore would have had a tremendous task: to adapt new religious ideas to a

language with no written tradition. The author'ssolution, Minganamaintains,was to takerecourse to "a language akin to his [Muhammad's]that had become an ecclesiastical and

religious language centuriesbefore his birthand the adherentsof which were surrounding

him in all directionsin highly organisedcommunities,bishopricsand monasteries." 8Thislanguagewas Syriac.

In classifying the foreignvocabularyof the Qur'anMinganaestimated thatthirtypercentcomes fromEthiopic, Hebrew, Persian,andGraeco-Roman anguages, but seventy percentfrom Syriac/Aramaicalone. Yet Mingana's theory is as much historical as it is linguistic.He envisions a special relationshipbetween the languageand contentof the Qur'dnand the

Syriac Christian context in which it was formed. In line with this belief, Minganaarguesthatthe Arabicscript developed from the Syriacscript,a theorywhich has recentlyreceivednew attention fromFrench scholars.19

It is this linguistic and historical vision that informs Mingana's understandingof the

Qur'an. He argues that it "suffers from the disabilities that always characterise a firstattempt n a new literary anguage which is under the influence of an older and more fixedliterature.This older and more fixed literature s, in ourjudgment, undoubtedlySyriacmorethan any other."20Thus Minganamaintains that the secret to unravelingmany knotty pas-sages in the Qur'an,passages that have confounded both Muslim mufassiriinand Western

philologists, is a prudentapplicationof Syriac.He appliedthis methodologyto a numberof

Qur'anicwords in a short article,21but never publishedan exhaustive study of Syriac vo-

cabularyin the Qur'dn.

Mingana'sassertions were in part supportedby the conclusions of A. Jefferyin 1938.22

Jeffery followed Nildeke in referringto Muhammadas the author of the Qur'an,and re-

gardedthe Islamic accounts of thecomposition

of the Qur'anand the CUthmanicodex asmore or less trustworthy.Yet he had his doubts regardingpre-Islamicpoetry,and inclinedtowardsMingana'sview thatthe Qur'in is the first Arabicbook.23 More importantly,per-haps, Jefferyfound that the Qur'andoes not reflect a paganArabianenvironment:

Oneof the fewdistinctmpressionsleanedrom hefirstperusal f thebewilderingonfusionof theQur'dn,s thatof theamount f materialhereinwhich s borrowedrom hegreatreli-

gionsthatwereactive n Arabia t the timewhen heQur'anwas inprocessof formation. romthefactthatMuhammadas anArab,brought pin themidstof Arabian aganism ndprac-tising ts riteshimself untilwell on intomanhood, ne wouldnaturally aveexpectedo findthat slamhad ts rootsdeepdown n this oldArabian aganism.tcomes herefore,s no little

18. Ibid.,78.19. Theprevailingcholarly iew,oftenassociatedwithGermancholars,s that heArabic criptdeveloped

fromNabatean. his"Germanchool" oints o thewell-knownnscriptionf thekingImru'l-QaysnNamarainthesouthernyrian esert), atedoA.D. 28,tosupporthisview.See,e.g.,B.Gruendler,heDevelopmentftheArabicScriptsAtlanta:cholars ress,1993).Yetanumber f scholarswritingnFrench avearguedhat he n-fluence f Syriacsmore ignificant.eeJ.Starcky,Petra t laNabatdne,"upplementuDictionnaireelaBible(Paris:Letouze tAnd,1966),7:932-34;D.Cohen,"Langueshamito-sdmitiques,"es anguesdans e monde n-cientet moderne,d. J. PerrotParis:CNRS,1988),32-33; G.Troupeau,RdflexionsurI'origine yriaque el'dcriturerabe,"emiticStudies nHonorof WolfLeslauWiesbaden: arrassowitz,991),1562-70;andA.-L.dePrdmare,esFondations e l 'Islam Paris: euil,2002),231-45. Fora recent eviewof thisquestion,eeJ.EHealey,"TheEarlyHistory f theSyriacScript,"ournal fSemitic tudies 5 (Spring 000):1,62ff.

20. Mingana, Syriacnfluence,"8.

21. Mingana,"SyriacInfluenceon the Style of the Kur'hn."22. Jeffery,TheForeign Vocabularyof the Qur'dn (Baroda:OrientalInstitute,1938).23. Ibid., 2.




surprise,ofindhow ittleof thereligiousife of thisArabianaganisms reflectedn thepagesof theQur'fn.... 24 tmaybetrue,as W.Rudolphnsists, hat nmanypassages f theQur'antheIslamicvarnish nly thinlycoversa heathenubstratum,ut evena cursory eading f thebook makes t plainthatMuhammadrewhis inspiration ot from hereligious ife andex-

periences f hisown landandhis ownpeople,butfrom hegreatmonotheisticeligionswhichwerepressing own nto Arabian hisday.25

Mingana'smethodologyhas recentlyseen new life in the above-mentionedwork of Lux-

enberg (Die Syro-AramiiischeLesart des Koran),who proposes a wide rangeof new read-

ings of Qur'anicpassages based on Syriac. My goals in this article are much moremodest.I shall analyze the backgroundof two Qurlanic erms-iblis and iidi-in the light of Min-

gana's methodology. I will arguethat he is right in identifying a Syriac connection witheach term,but that in neithercase didhe explainthat connection well. Thus while Mingana'swritings should not serve as a textbook for Qur'anicstudies, his conceptualmodel mightserve as a guide for futureresearch.

2. IBLIS

The Qur'anhas two names for the devil: iblis (Q2:34, 7:11, 15:31-32, 17:61, 18:50, 20:

116, etc.) and al-shayttan 2:36, 20:120, etc.). Each of these names correspondsclearly to

one role that the devil plays. When he is the rebel, the one who refuses God's command to

bow to Adam(e.g., 2:34, 20:116), he is iblis. When he is thetempter,who leads Adam to sin

(e.g., 2:36, 20:120), he isal-shayta.n.

Yetwhile the etymology of the latterterm is generallyclear (it is related to the Hebrew

ha-idt.in,26which also tends to occur with the definite

article), that of iblis is not. Most Islamic sources explain this name with reference to a

verbal root b.l.s., which they define (with referenceto iblis), "to be cut off" (quti'a), "to

become silent"(sakata), "to be despondent" ya'isa), or "toregret" nadima).27Yet even ifb.l.s. is considered a genuineroot (andnot inventedsimply to explainiblis), this etymologyis problematic,since iblis (if'il) is a nominal form with few parallels, particularlyamongpersonalnames. Most philologists attempt o deriveit from the af'al form.28Othersarenot

24. W. C. Smith chose thispassageas the prototypical xampleof historical-criticalcholarshiphatis offensive

to Muslims. See his TheMeaningand End of Religion (Minneapolis:Fortress,1991), 107. Smithwrites here as a

theologian seeking to lower the boundaries hatseparatedifferentreligioustraditions see his comments on p. 319,n. 4).

25. Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,1. Regarding Rudolph, see W. Rudolph,Die Abhdngigkeitdes Qorans von

Judenthumund ChristentumStuttgart:Kohlhammer,1922), 26, n. 9.

26. The diphthong "ay"in the Arabic version of the name is most likely accountablefor by the fact that, in

earlyQurfinicmanuscripts particularlyn the hijdzi script),the consonantalshapefor "yd" s also used as a mater

lectionis for "d."Eventually,this practicewas continuedonly for the final consonantalposition (the so-called alif

maqs#ira) nd medial matreslectionis were read as thoughthey werein fact "yd"consonants.On this see A. Rippin,TheQur'en and its InterpretiveTraditionAldershot:Ashgate,2001), xv; see also the forthcomingcontributionof

M. Kroppon the place of Ethiopicin the etymology of shaytiin,in Oriens Christianus89 (2005).

27. See IbnManztir,Lisin al-'arab (BeirutDir IThy~)l-Turth al-'Arabi,1418/1997), 1: 482. IbnManztiradds

(on the authorityof IbnIshliq)that beforebeing called iblis (a title that he earned for his rebellion),he was called

'Izrh'il.Al-Tabarireports(also on the authorityof IbnIshfq) thathe was previouslynamedCAzazil.See al-Tabari,

Jimi' al-baydn(Cairo:Mustafaal-Bibi al-Halabi,1954-68), 1: 224. Al-Tabariadds that "he was one of the most

industriousangels and the greatestof them in knowledge which is what led him to arrogance." n general the

sources are confused as to whether Iblis was an angel (since he was ordered o bow down to Adamalong with the

otherangels) or one of thejinn (amongwhom Q18:50 includeshim). Al-Tabari olves this problemby quotingtra-ditions to the effect that he was from a tribe (qabila) of angels called "Jinn."

28. See E. Lane, An Arabic-EnglishLexicon(London:Williams andNorgate, 1863-93), 1:248.



REYNOLDS: A Reflectionon TwoQur'dnicWords Iblisand Jildi) 681

convinced. IbnIshaq(d. 150/767), accordingto IbnManz4r(d. 711/1311), holds iblis to bea foreign (a'jami) term.Al-Zamakhsharimaintainsthe same.29

Most Western scholars likewise recognize iblis to be a'jami. One of the first to do sowas A. Geiger, who in 1833 proposedthat iblis is related to the Greek8td3poxog,30he term

used for the devil in the New Testament and to translate the Hebrew ha-raittainn the Sep-tuagint.31With reference to the phonological similarityof iblis and 68tIpokog, number ofscholars followed Geiger's etymology,32amongthenMingana.YetMinganaarguesthat this

termdid not enterdirectlyfromGreek into Arabic,but ratherpassed throughSyriacd.b.l.s.

(as dibliis or diydbilliis).33This extrastep, Mingana argues,would account for the missing"d" n the Arabic version of theword. He arguesthat anearlyqdri'mistook the initial Arabic

dal for an alif

Jefferyrecognizes the merits of this argument,yet he inclines towardsanother heoryofhow this transmission took place, that of J. Horovitz.34According to Horovitz, when the

Syriac d.b.l.s. was taken into Arabic as propername, the dalath was assumed not to be a

proper part of the name, but rather the genitive particle that so often precedes nouns inSyriac. It was consequently removed. An alif was put in its place to carry the orphanedvowel and the word iblis appeared.This argument s strengthened,Jeffery points out, byparallelswith other Arabic words which in the original Greekbegan with "d,"an attributethat they seem to have lost when they passed through Syriac. One such case is the Greek

o6ucevrpia (English "dysentery"),which in Arabic became LL,La;Uj.35Horovitz, by the way, wrote on this subject before Mingana, yet the latter makes no

mention of his theory.(Mingana rarely dignified other scholars with a footnote, let alone a

quotation).YetHorovitz'sexplanationof this etymology is certainly ess arbitrary.t shouldbe added, however, thatthe finalform of the Qur'anic erm iblis most likely took shapedueto the Qurdan's racticeof assimilating propernames to one another(ibrahim/isma'il,

Cisa/misa). In this case iblis and idris areassimilated.36

Jefferyalso pointsout a weaknessin the argument or a Syriacoriginof iblis, one which,to my knowledge, has never been properlyaddressed.In the Peshitta the termsdtaind see,

e.g., Mark 1:13) appearsfor the Hebrew ?idtanand Greekoudiv. The Greek 8tdipoog istranslatedas dkelqdrse (e.g., Matt4:11), a compoundidiom derivedultimatelyfrom Akka-

29. A1-Zamakhshari,l-Kashshif, ed. Mustafi HusaynAhmad,4 vols. (Beirut:Ddr al-Kitabal-'Arabi,1966),3: 23 (Q 19:57).

30. See W. Bauer, A Greek-EnglishLexicon of the New Testamentand OtherEarly

ChristianLiterature,ed.and trans.W. Arndt andE W. Gingrich(Chicago:Univ. of ChicagoPress, 1979), 182.

31. A. Geiger, Was hat Mohammedaus demJudenthumeaufgenommen? Bonn: Baaden, 1833), 5.32. See, e.g., A. Sprenger,Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad,3 vols. (Berlin: Nicolai, 1869), 2: 242;

S. Fraenkel, De vocabulis in antiquis Arabumcarminibus et in Corano peregrinis (Leiden: Brill, 1880), 24;

Rudolph,Abhiingigkeit,35.

33. Mingana, "SyriacInfluence,"89-90. See also ThesaurusSyriacus,ed. Payne Smith, vol. 1 (Oxford:Clar-

endonPress, 1879), vol. 2 (1901), 1: 864, 867.

34. Horovitz,KoranischeUntersuchungenBerlin:De Gruyter,1926), 87. Cf. H. Speyer,Die biblischeErziihl-ungen im Qoran (Hildesheim:G. Olms, 1988), 55, n. 3.

35. A second case is 7, "balance,measure" rom utKanc-lg,judge."See Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,48.36. The etymology of idris is complicated n its own right.Althoughthe Qur'fniccharacterdrts is often iden-

tifiedby Islamictraditionas Enoch,thename morelikely goes back to the prophetEzra(fromGk.Lbpac;this is the

theoryof Torrey)or to Andrew(fromGk. av6piaS),eitherthe Apostle (Nildeke) or the cook andservantof Alex-ander the Greatwho received immortality(Hartmann).On this see Jeffery, Foreign Vocabulary,51-52; G. Vajda,"Idris,"TheEncyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. (Leiden:Brill, 1954-2005), 3:1030 (henceforthEl2).




dian, meaning "accuser,slanderer."37 kelqdrsj, therefore,has a meaning quite close tothat of Hebrew iatiann.b. Job 1:9-11), and is semantically equivalentto Syriacsadtand.n

Syriac literature,meanwhile,othertermsappear or the devil, most frequentlybishi, mean-

ing "the evil one"(used to translate he Greeknovqp6g;cf., e.g., Mark13:19,John 17:15).38

The termshidd is often used for a possessing demon.39The termd.b.l.s., by comparison,appears nfrequently n Syriacliterature.The only reference thatthe ThesaurusSyriacusof

Payne-Smithprovidesfor d.b.l.s. is to the work of the EastSyrian(Nestorian) exicographerBar Bahluil d. 963).

Yet elsewhere Jeffery might have unwittingly provided the explanationas to why the

Syriac d.b.l.s. appearsin the Qur'an,when he adds that in patristicwritings "t&dp3oog"came to referprimarily o the "chief of the hosts of evil."40This is a very differentrole thanthat of "accuser,slanderer"dkelqdrsjor sdtadnd),he primarybiblical role of the devil. It is

noteworthy, hen,thatthe Qur'anat one point(26:59) speaksof the uniid iblis, the "soldiers"or "hosts" of iblis. Elsewhere the Qur'~nrefers to the devil as iblis when he is the disobe-

dient angel, but not when he is the tempterof humans. Thus Q20:116 (cf. 2:34): "For wesaid to the angels 'Bow down before Adam!' andthey all bowed down except for iblis. Herefused."41Whenthe devil appearsas dkelqdrsj/sditand,he Qur~an as al-shaytadn.42husseveral verses later(20:120, cf. 2:36) both the role and the name of the devil have changed:"Butal-shaytainwhisperedto him, saying 'O Adam,shall I lead you to the tree of eternity,to an inexhaustiblepossession?'"

It seems reasonable, hen,thatSyriacd.b.l.s. entered he Qur'an as iblis) with reference o

only one aspectof the devil's character,hat of the rebelliousangel (the6t~ioogoof patristicChristianwritings).43The aspectrepresentedby the Syriac akelqdrs-orsdtadnd,n the other

hand,entered he Qur'anas al-shaytadn.44his explanationhas the addedbenefit of clarifying

whythe terms iblis and

al-shaytatnareused in such different

waysin the

Qur'an.

37. See TheAssyrian Dictionary K (Chicago:OrientalInstitute,1971), 222, underkarsu(a). The transforma-tion of Akkadian "k" to "q"in Aramaic/Syriac ed to a traditional but false) definitionof this term as "eater of

flesh" or "bread." am grateful to Profs. GaryAnderson and Eugene Ulrich of Notre Dame University for this

reference.

38. ThesaurusSyriacus, 1: 441. When bisha appears n the Old Testament, t often corresponds o Hebrew

ebydn,a term thatthe Arabicrajim(al-shaytain l-rajim)translates.

39. See, e.g., the Syriactext TransitusMariae,StudiaSinaitica 11, ed. andtrans.Agnes SmithLewis, in Apoc-

ryphaSyriaca (London:Clay, 1902), 57-58 (of Syriactext).40.

Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,8. On the

developmentof easternchurchdoctrine on the

devil,see E. Man-

genot, "Ddmond'apresles peres,"art."Demon,"Dictionnaire de thdologie catholique,ed. Vacant andMangenot,25 partsin 15 vols. (Paris:Letouzey, 1908-50), 4: 377-78.

41. Cf. the early (perhapsfourthcenturyA.D.but the date is much disputed) Syriac Christian ext, Cave ofTreasures. n the account of the angelicprostrationo Adamtherein,which is closely connected to the Qur'dn, he

devil is described as the "leaderof the lesser order,"La caverne de trdsors,CSCO207,ed. and trans.S.-M. Ri (Leu-ven: Peeters, 1987), 21 (ch. 3, v. 1, Westernrecension).

42. As with ha-?iitainn the HebrewBible, al-shaytin of the Qur'anusually appearswith the definitearticle;there are six exceptions. See A. Rippin, "Shaytan,"El2, 9: 408.

43. Incidentally, he word thatcame to be used for the anti-Christ n later Islamictexts, al-dajjal, is likewise of

Syriac provenance.The termal-dajjal,which does not appear n the Qur'fin, omes fromSyriacdaggild, the name

given to the anti-Christby EphraemandPseudo-Methodius,amongothers(see A. Abel, "al-Dajjfl,"EI2,2: 75-77).

Daggald, meanwhile,comes fromthe verbdaggel, "tolie, deceive." In Arabic Islamicwritingsthe phraseal-masihal-dajjal is also used for the anti-Christ,a direct translationof the common Syriac phrasemshiha daggalda,"the

deceiving Christ."

44. "Iblis, then, is the one who is proudanddisobedient,while al-Shaytfin s the tempterand it is in that role

that theemphasisfalls within the Kur'an n speakingof him in othercontexts as well." A. Rippin,"Shayt~in,": 407.



REYNOLDS:Reflectionon TwoQur'dnicWords Iblis and Jildi) 683

3. JUDI

I turn then to a second Qur'anictermwhich, accordingto Mingana,was borrowed from

Syriac. Here the termin questionis not the name of a person,but ratherof a mountain,the

mountainuponwhich the arkof Noah landed

(apobaterion).It

appearsn

Qur'in11:44a:

Itwassaid,"Oearth, wallowyourwaters!" nd"Osky,begone."Sothewaterdisappearedndthe matterwas concluded.The[ark] ettledonal-jitdi.45

The philological mystery surroundingal-judi comes fromthe absence of any relatedterm

in Jewish or Christian literatureon Noah. The Hebrew Bible refers to the "mountains of

ardrat"(Genesis 8:4)46in this context. In the Syriac Peshitta and Aramaictargums,how-

ever, the termqarda appears n the place of ardrat. Latertexts, accordingly,whetherHe-

brew, Aramaic, or Syriac, name Noah's apobaterionqardti (cf. Armenian Kordukh).47

Qardi is almost universallyidentifiedas a peak near the headwaters of the Tigris river, in

what is todayextremesoutheasternTurkey, n a mountain chaingenerallyreferred o by the

Greek name Gordyene(cognate of qardii). Unlike the imposing solitarypeak to the norththat was latergiven the name Mt. Ararat(it is moreproperlycalled Masik, or Masis, both

Armenianterms),qardiiis a mountain of less impressive height (2089 meters), one peak in

a mass of similar mountains.

The association of qardi with the great flood is an ancient one, going back at least to

Babylonian tradition,48whence it made its way into biblical and later Judaeo-Christian

tradition.49The qardii in Gen. 8:4 of the Peshittaand the Aramaictargumsis a gloss on

Cf. Speyer,BiblischeErziihlungen,60, who arguesthatin Christianity he devil plays the role of tempter,while in

Judaismhe plays the role of opponentto God. Cf. also M. Grtinbaum,Neue Beitriigezur semitischenSagenkunde

(Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1893), 60. There are two other noteworthytheoriesregarding he etymology of iblis. The first,proposed by H. Grimme (Zeitschriftfiir Assyriologie 26 [1912], 164), is that the word came ultimately from

Ethiopic, having passed throughSouth Arabian.I am unable to evaluate this theory, being unfamiliar with these

languages,but Jeffery(Foreign Vocabulary,48) questionsits validity.The secondtheoryis thatof D. Kiinstlinger("Die Herkunft des Wortes Iblis im

Kur~'n,"RocznikOrjentalistyczny6 [1928]: 76-83), who proposes that iblis

ultimatelystems fromthe Hebrewbeliya'al, which he defines (p. 76) as "einer derniedrigeGedankenhat,Nichts-

mutzigkeit,daherauchUnterwelt,Verderben."While Ktinstlinger pp. 78-79) is able to show thatbeliya'al appearsas the name of the devil in apocryphalJewish works (and in its Greekform in apocryphalChristianworks), his

theoryof how the termchangedinto iblis requiresa fanciful imagination.He relies (p. 80) on the fact that at some

pointthe vocalizationof the term was intentionallychanged,as Italianssay "diascolo" or "diabolo."A similarshift,he suggests (p. 82), occurredwith beliya'al amongthe Jews of Arabia.

45. 11:44bbegins the narrativeof God condemningNoah's son. It seems to be included with this verse for the

purposeof

rhyme.46. Cf. Tobit 1:21, wherein it is said that two sons of the Assyrianking Sennacherib,afterassassinatingtheir

father,escapedinto the mountainsof Ararat.The locationof Ninevah wouldsuggest, althoughcertainlynot neces-

sitate,that the mountainsof Ararat n this case are theGordyenemountainsof Mesopotamia,as wouldthereference

to mountains n theplural(themodem dayMt. Araratconsists of two isolatedpeaks:Greaterand LesserArarat,ex-

tinct volcanic cones rising from a plain).47. Most likely Qardpis related to the term "Kurd."See below and ThesaurusSyriacus, 2: 3731; Th. Bois,

"Kurds,Kurdistan,"EP, 5: 448.

48. The BabylonianBerossusreportsthat his boat landednearthe mountains of Kopuaviov.See Jeffery,For-

eign Vocabulary,107,n. 1;M. Streck,"Djidi,"E2, 2: 574. The Gilgameshepic, however,identifies the apobaterionas Nisir, a mountainmost likely identical with the modernPir 'Umar Gudriin n southern Kurdistan along the

frontierof modern IraqandIran,about 600 km from QardtiJiidi).49. See, e.g., the references to Noah and Mt. Qardi~in the aforementionedCave of Treasures, 148, 206. Else-

where(p. 154), the Cave refers to a village namedtmainin, r "eighty,"where the eight survivorsof the GreatFloodsettled. This name is preserved by Islamic tradition, appearingin Arabic works as thaminin (likely due to the

influence of the Syriacname, as the nominative Arabicformof the word is thamtiniin).The Kurdishnamefor the

village, Hashtiam, ikewise reflects this tradition.




(and not a variantof) the Hebrewardrat.50Arirat (Assyrian Urartu),as Streckexplains,is the name of a district and not a single mountain.51 t was only later that Masik (Greater

Ararat) earnedthe title of Ararat. Streck concludes that since Masik is "thehighest and

best known mountain"of the region of Arirat, it was assumed that "Noah must have been

strandedon it."52This assumptionhadalreadybeen madeby the fifteenthcentury,since theSpanishtravelerClavijoreportsuponpassingMasik in the year 1404 thatit was considered

by locals to be the location uponwhich Noah's ark came to rest (althoughhe does not refer

to the mountain as Ardrat).53Yet the older tradition ooks instead to the smaller mountain

namedqardti,which also lies in the district of Ararat.54Muslim scholars identify thejiidi of Q11:44 with this same mountain. For this reason,

the peak is today known asjabal jiidi (Ar.) orjtidi dagh (Tur.).The references tojiidi as a

mountain n Mesopotamiacome quite early.The mufassirMuqatilb. Sulayman(d. 150/767)

places jiidi nearMawsil.55Abi Ja'faral-Tabari eportsa numberof traditionson the subject,all of which havejiidi in Mesopotamia,andone, on the authorityof al-Dahhak56n the re-

gion of Mawsil.57The historiansal-Yacqibi(d. 292/897) and al-Masiidi (d. 345/956) bothplacejuidinearMawsil.58Mas'iidi relates:"jiudis a mountain n the countryof ... JaziratIbn'Umar, n theterritory f Mawsil.Thereareeightyparasangsbetweenjitdi and theTigris.The site where the boat rested is on the peak of this mountain."59

The geographersarelikewise in agreementthat idi is a mountain n Mesopotamia.Al-

Istakhri(d. early4th/10thcentury) places it near JaziratIbncUmar,60as does al-Muqaddasi(d. 375/985).61 Ibn Hawqal(d. late 4th/10th century),who was born in Mesopotamia(Na-

sibin), namesjtidi as a mountain n this region.62Al-Qazwini(d. 682/1283) describesj/idi

as

a mountain o the east of Jazirat bn'Umar.He adds that themosquethat Noah himself built

remained there to his day, and thatpeople came on pilgrimageto visit it.63The geographer

Yqdit (d. 626/1229) providesa

particularlyaccurate

description:

50. See ThesaurusSyriacus,2: 3731.

51. "AncientArmenian radition ertainlyknows nothingof a mountainon which the arkrested;and when one

is mentioned n later Armenian radition, his is clearlydue to the gradually ncreasing nfluenceof theBible, which

makes the ark reston the mountains(or a mountain)of Ararat," treck,"Djidi,"574.

52. Ibid.

53. RuyGonzalez de Clavijo,Embassyto Tamerlane1403-1406, trans.G.Le Strange 1928; rpt.Frankfurt:n-

stitutfiirGeschichte der arabisch-islamischenWissenschaft,1994), 142-44. Although Clavijohimself never refers

to Masik as Ararat,Le Strangeaddsthe latterterm in brackets o several passages.54. The two terms

maybe even more

closelyrelated.

Accordingto one

theory,qardiiis

etymologicallyrelated

to Assyrianurartu,andhence Hebrewararat,Th. Bois, "Kurds," 48.

55. Muqdtilb. Sulaymin, Tafsir 1969; rpt.Beirut:Dir Ihya' al-Turithal-'Arabi,2002), 2: 283.

56. On al-Dahhlkb. Muzahimal-Khurdsdnid. 105/723), see F Sezgin, Geschichtedes arabischenSchrifttums,12 vols. (Leiden:Brill, 1967-2000), 1: 29.

57. Al-Tabari,Jami' al-baydn, 12:48.

58. See al-Ya'qtbi, Ta'rikh,ed. Houtsma,2 vols. (Leiden:Brill, 1883), 1: 12.

59. Al-Mas 1di,Murij al-dhahab, ed. BarbierdMeynardand Pavet de Courteille (rpt. Beirut: al-Jfmi'a al-

Lubnfniyya, 1966), 1:43-44. Cf. 1: 252; 2: 521, 5: 151.

60. Al-Istakhri,al-Masalikwa-l-mamalik Cairo:Daral-Qalam,1381/1961), 55. See also G.Le Strange,Lands

of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge: CambridgeUniv. Press, 1905), 94, cf. 182. He reportsthatjabal jfldi isvisible to the East of Jazirat bn CUmar.

61. Al-Muqaddasi,Ahsanal-taqdsimfi ma'rifatal-aqdlim(Leiden:Brill, 1904), 139.

62. Ibn Hawqal,KitabSi ratal-ard (Frankfurt: rankfurtUniv., 1992), 203.63. He also mentionsthat the wood of Noah's ark remainedon this mountainuntil the time of the 'Abbasids.

Al-Qazwini, 'Ajd'ib al-makhliiqat,ed. H. Wiistenfeld,2 vols. (1848; rpt.Wiesbaden:FranzSteiner, 1967), 1: 156.



REYNOLDS: A Reflectionon TwoQur'dnicWords Iblis and Jildi) 685

Itis ahighground,ntheprovinces f Mosul,aboveJaziratbn Umaro theeastof theTigris,uponwhichNoah'sboat ettledwhen hewaterdried... Thispronunciationi.e., iidi] s aletter

byletter rabizationta'rib)rom heTorah. hemosque f Noah peaceby uponhim) spresentto thisdayonJidi.64

JaziratIbn CUmars the present-dayCizre, a town in the southeast corner of Turkey,south-

west of Lake Van andon the banks of the Tigris (being in fact an island formedby a canal

between two partsof the Tigris), close to the bordersof both Syria andIraq.Ydqit's refer-

ence matchesprecisely the mountainreferred o in moderntimes by Muslims asjabal jiidiorjiidi dagh and by Christians and Jews as qardu. Ydqiqt's

mention of a mosque of Noah

is most likely the very sanctuary hat GertrudeBell describesin the earlytwentiethcenturyas the destination of Jewish, Christian,andMuslim pilgrims.65

Everything, then, seems to be in perfect harmony regardingthe apobaterionof Noah.

The only riddle that remains is the fact that Islamic tradition,against the sum of Mesopo-tamian andJudaeo-Christianradition,refers to this place not as qardii,but asjidi. Western

scholars have come up with two different answers to this riddle.The first is thatof Ndldeke, who discusses the qardiV/jidiproblemin an article entitled

"Karduand Kurden."66N•$ldekerelies in large parton a referencefrom Yqilt to a second

peak named iidi in the territoryof the BangiTayyi' in the Arabianpeninsula. Yaqilt quotesa verse in praise of this mountainby an early poet named AbuiSa'taraal-Bawlani.67The

verse comes from theHamasaof AbilTammdmd. ca. 231/845),68who quotesthereference

to jiidi in the course of his panegyric to the BandiTayyi', from whom he claimed descent

(despite the fact that he was the son of a DamasceneChristian).On the weight of this evi-

dence, Nildeke identified this Arabianmountain, n the regionof AbilTammam'sTayyi*,69as the originalreferent of Qur'an11:44.

It should be added,however, thatjldi is also mentioned in another text attributed o apre-Islamic poet, the famous hanif Umayya b. Abi 1-Salt.70However, Nildeke himself, in

an articlepublishedfourteenyearslater,in 1912, arguesthatthis text is from the Islamicera,since the mentionof jidi thereinis clearly taken from the Qur'an.7'Thusthe only founda-tion for the Niildeke theory is the Abi Tammamreference.

Despite this, Jeffery agrees with Nildeke, articulatingthe theory as follows: "It wouldseem that Muhammadimagined that the people of Noah like those of 'Ad and those of

Thamigdwere dwellers of Arabia."Accordingto the theory,Muhammadchose an Arabian

64. Ydqit, Mu?jam l-buldan,ed. H. Wtistenfeld,6 vols. (Leipzig:Brockhaus,1866-73), 2: 144-45.65. See Bell, Amurath o Amurath London:Macmillan,1924). Bell visited Qardil/Jfdi n 1909 andfound the

ruinedremains of anEastSyrianmonasteryanda Muslim shrine.She notes, "Christian,Moslem andJew still visitthe mountupon a certainday in the summerandoffer theiroblationsto the ProphetNoah"(p. 292).

66. T.Nildeke, "KarduundKurden,"FestschriftfiirH. Kiepert:Beitriigezuralten Geschichte undGeographie(Berlin:D. Reimer, 1898), 77.

67.YAiqut,Mujam al-bulddin,1: 145.

68. See Abi Tammam,Diwan al-hamlsa, ed. Ahmad Salih (Baghdad:Dar al-Rashid, 1980), 386 (=Hamasaecarmina cum Tebrisiischoliis, ed. G. Freytag[Bonn:in officinaBaadeni, 1828], 564). TheIHamasas a collection

of poetryattributed o lesserknownpoets fromthepre-IslamicorearlyIslamicperiod;AbCTammamhimself refersto his work as al-Ikhtiyarat min shi'r al-shu'ar7B.

69. The traditionalarea of the BanOTayyi' is in fact mountainous,consisting of two chains, aja' andsalma,

which togetherformJabald Tayyi'.See W. Caskel, "Adia'and Salma,"El2, 1: 203.70. See E Schulthess,Umajja bn Abi s Salt: Die unter seinemNameniiberliefertenGedichtfragmente esam-melt undiibersetzt(Leipzig:Hinrichs, 1911), 57.

71. T.Niildeke, "Umaijab. AbisSalt,"ZeitschriftfiirAssyriologie und verwandteGebiete 27 (1912): 165.



686 Journalof the American OrientalSociety 124.4 (2004)

mountain namedjiidi as the apobaterionbecause it was "thehighest peak in the neighbor-hood."72Lateron, Muslim scholars earnedof the Mesopotamian-Jewish-Christianradition

of Mt. Qardi. CastingasideMuhammad's,orbetter,the Qur'an's,vision of the matter, heyswitched the title of jidi to this latter mountain. Streckagreeswith this theory, concluding

thatNildeke "is clearly right."73Is the matterreallythis clear?Would Islamic traditionhave been so quickto abandon he

Qurfin's identification n favor of the JewishandChristianone?Furthermore, ssumingthat

Abi Tammamhas accuratelyquotedAbuiSa'taraal-Bawlani,can this quotationbe acceptedas pre-Islamic? Perhaps t is, like the quotationattributed o Umayya b. Abi 1-Salt,more a

reflection of the Qur'anthan an anticipationof it. Moreover,while Yaqilt recognizes the

existence of an Arabian idi, he mentions it only in passing in his descriptionof Jabala

Tayyi) and ignores it entirely in his discussion of Noah's jiidi. All signs point to the con-

clusion that thejidi of AbUiTammim's adoptedBantiTayyi' was named(perhapsby Abti

Tammamhimself) in homage to thejiidi of Mesopotamia,not vice versa.

Indeed, Muslim traditionfrom the earliest periodheld thejidi of Qur'an11:44 to be amountain of Mesopotamia,a point that Streck himself accepts.74Thus we are left with the

fact that nowhere in Arabic literature s there a single mention, the verse of the Hamdsa

notwithstanding, hat the Arabian iidi is in anywayconnectedwith Noah and his boat. The

Ni•ldeke theory is, ultimately,an argumentumex silentio. In fact, there is some reason to

believe that if N5ldeke had written his article "Karduand Kurden" n 1912, not 1898, he

would have taken a differentapproach.We turn,therefore, o a second theory,that of Mingana,who shows no knowledge of (or

interestin?) the Nildeke theoryor the HIamdsa eference to an Arabian iidi. Minganacon-

cludes that the term iidi is simply a corruptionof Syriacqardii,which is hardlyan obvious

conclusion, since the two termsshareonly one consonant.Minganaderives iAdi romqardiin two steps, one phonologicalandone orthographical.First,he maintainsthatqardiicame

to the Qur'~nthroughsomeone who spoke with a Bedouin dialect andpronouncedthe qafas gdf, which was recordedby a qdri' as a jim.75 Second, Minganaholds that the rd' be-

came a waw when an arabicizedform of qardliwas misread,since the two Arabic letters

are similar in early Arabic scripts(i.e., hijdziandkitfi). Minganaleaves a thirdproblem-the finalyd' injidi instead of thewdwof Qardil-unmentioned.He is nonethelessconvinced

by his etymology, concluding:"No otherexplanationof the wordjiidi seems to me worth

mentioning."76Tomy knowledge, no one other thanMinganasharedthis conviction. Yet, in light of the

weaknesses of the

N55ldekeheory, the Mingana theory deserves to be taken seriously.

Moreover,the theoryclearlybenefits fromYaqilt'sstatementonjidi quotedabove (a state-ment thatMinganashows no awarenessof), that udi is "aletterby letterArabization rom

the Tawrat."Like Mingana, Yqilt arguesthatjtidi is not an Arabicterm,but rathera bor-

rowing from the Tawrat.If the Tawratthat Yaqilt has in mind here is the Peshitta or the

AramaicTargum, hen uidiwouldbe, exactly as Minganaargues,a corrupted ransliteration

of qardit.

72. Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,107.

73. Streck,"Djfidi"574.74. Ibid.

75. Mingana, "SyriacInfluence,"97.76. Ibid.



REYNOLDS: A Reflectionon TwoQur'dnicWords Iblis and Jiidi) 687

We might ask, however, if Mingana captured he most likely way in which the translit-

eration of qardiitojiidi could have takenplace. The one piece of the puzzle thatMinganaleaves out, the appearanceof the "i" in jidi, is in fact the least problematic.The regionaround abal jidi, known in Syriac as bet qardii, is known in Arabic as qardd (ae), as is

reported by Baladhuri(d. 279/892), Masliidi, TabariandYaquit,among others.77Thus the

Syriac ii had entered into Arabic as ;, a shape which can also be readas a yd'.This can be explained in anotherfashion.78The Syriac adjectivefor qardii is qardwaya

("formaantiquior") r qiirdayd("utrecentior").79 he Qur'lnic term idi mightbe seen as a

substantiveadjectivewith a nisba ending;thatis, the mountainwas referred o by the local,

Syriac-speakingpopulationby its adjectivalform,as qardwaya(qirdayd) or turaqardwaya

(qiirddyd)and it was this form that was adopted nto Qur'~nicArabic. The Arabicyi' came

from the Syriac yd'. This scenario is perhapsmore plausible in light of anotherreason to

believe that iidi is actually a nisba, which I shall discuss below.

The next problematicetter in idi, then,is the Arabicwdw, which, according o Mingana,

came from a misreadingof an Arabicra'. This is certainly possible. In bothhijdziandkilfscript these two letters are quite similarand can easily be confused. It is also possible, al-

though perhaps less likely, that the scriptural corruptioncame from a misreading of the

Syriac rish. The skeletal shape of the dalath or rish in the serta Syriac scriptis very close

to the Arabic wdw.While it has been traditionallyassumed thatserta did not develop untilthe eighth century,80 . E Healey hasrecentlyshown that certainelementsof the serta script,

notablythe skeletal form of the ddlath/rish, appearas early as the fifth century.81The transformation f the firstletter,froma qdf to ajim, would then seem to be the most

problematic.The link here is providedby G. R. Driver n an articleon theoriginsof the term

"Kurd."82 riverargues convincingly that the Syriactermqardiicomes from the same root

as the term Kurd.83He also providesa table of the forms that this word took among Greekand Latin writers to refer to the Kurdsor Kurdistan.In many of these forms the first con-

sonantappearsnot as "k"or "q"but ratheras "g" (Gordyene, Gordyaeus,Gordyaea,etc.).

Ptolemy,for example, gives ad op6auta6prl,"the Kurdishmountain,"a termequivalentto

Syriac.tird

gurdwdyd. 4Clearly,the firstconsonant of qardfi,and its adjectiveqardwaydor qurdwayd,was often pronounced "g."85

77. Al-Balddhuri,Kitab Futithal-buldan, ed. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1866), 176; Mas'uidi,Muriij, 1: 122;

al-Tabari,Ta'rikh,ed. de Goeje, 16 vols. (Leiden:Brill, 1879-1901), 3: 610; Ydqit, Mu'jamal-buldan;4: 56; cf.

"KarddandBgzabdd,"EI2,4: 639.

78. C. Luxenberghas communicated his lattertheoryto me in private correspondence.79. ThesaurusSyriacus,2: 3731.

80. See, e.g., T Muraoka,Classical Syriac (Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz,1997), 2.

81. Healey, "EarlyHistory,"59. Note also the ms. thatHealeyreproduceson p. 57. See also the charton p. 62,

containing examples in which the dalath/rish is written without the diacriticalpoint.82. Driver, "The Name Kurdand its Philological Connexions,"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1923):

393-403.

83. The firstmention of the common root of Kurd andqardi is a reference n a Sumerian ablet from the thirdmillennium B.C. o the "landof Kar-da."See Driver,393, 397.

84. On this see also Jeffery, Foreign Vocabulary,106.

85. The close relationshipof the Syriacgamal andqdf/ktifhasrecentlybeen pointedout by C. Luxenberg,who

notes that the verbzlag ("toshine")also appearscommonly as zlaq. See Luxenberg,Die Syro-AramiiischeLexart,

142; ThesaurusSyriacus, 1: 1131; I am grateful to Luxenberg for this reference. This phenomenon can also be

seen in the name of anothermountain,karah khlshib in Kurdish,which in Syriac becomes gardid-khishib. See

A. Maclean,A Dictionary of the Dialects of VernacularSyriac (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1901), 55a.




Most likely, then, the mountain n questionwas referred o as ttura urdwdya,which wastaken into Arabic as al-jabal al-gurdi, or "theKurdishmountain."86 his phrasewas abbre-viated as al-gurdi, and the "g"was written with a im, as is typical for Syro-Aramaicwordsin Arabic (cf. among place names, Arabicjubayl [diminutive form], "Byblos,"vs. Syriacgbel; Arabic al-jalil, "Galilee,"vs. Syriac glild).87The rd' was misreadas a wdw and al-

jiidi appeared.Thus, while by no means simple, an etymology of jidi from qardii is notanomalous. It deserves to be taken seriously, in light of the referencefrom Yaqiltand theweaknesses of the Ndldeke theory.

4. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Forboth terms discussedin this paper, blis and iidi, Minganaproposes etymologies with

Syriac, supporting hem more with self-confidence than with philological evidence. In both

cases Mingana's explanationfor how the terms went from Syriacto Arabic is wanting.Yetthe

principlebehind his theories is not. Iblis and

jidiare

partof a

greatertrendof

Syriacterminologyin the Qur'~n includingthe veryterm" Qur'an,"romSyriac qerydan).Luxen-

berg explores this even further,arguing that the Qur'anis reliant on Syriac not only in

terms of vocabulary,but also in terms of grammarandsyntax, an argument hatis beyondthe scope of this paper.

While Mingana was not the most meticulous of scholars, he was certainly among themost precocious, a quality that led him to speculate on possibilities thatmore responsiblescholars would not consider. Yet his conviction regardingthe relationshipof Syriac to the

Qur'anis more insightful than reckless. The Qur'an,of course, describes itself as clear

Arabic,at one point specifically denying the claims of some that a non-Arabicspeakerwas

its source.88Yet why, on one hand,is the Qur'anso concerned to assertrepeatedlythat it is

clear Arabic? On the otherhand,what was "clear Arabic" at the time of the Quran's com-

position, a periodfor which we have few (if any) literarysources other than the Qur'an t-self? J. Wansbroughcomments: "As much as any other, it was this process of convertinginto Arabicthe traditional ontentof Judaeo-Christianmonotheism hatmade of thatmediumthe lingua sacra of Islam."89 ndeed, the developmentof the Qur'ancannot be fully dis-cussed withoutconsideringthe developmentof Arabic.

In supportof Mingana'sconviction aboutSyriac is the historicalfact that much of pre-Islamic Arabia and Syria was bilingual; the spoken language was Arabic, yet the eccle-

siastical language was Syriac. That the scriptural anguage was Syriac is reflected in the

extraordinary act that although Christianitywas widespread among the Arabs in the pre-

Islamicera,there is no firmevidence for anyArabic translationof the Bible in thisperiod.90

86. This form is similarto terms thatappear n Akkadian(ca. 1400 B.C.E.),Qortieor Kortie,in Assyrian(ca.1100 B.C.),Kortie,and the later Greek and Latin formCyrtii,but there s no reasonto think that there s any specific

etymological relation. On this see M. R. Izady, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook(Washington,D.C.: Taylorand

Francis, 1992), 31; V.Minorsky,"Kurds,Kurdistan," l2, 5: 448.

87. See L. Costaz,DictionnaireSyriaque-Frangais Beirut:ImprimerieCatholique,1963), 406.

88. "We know thatthey say, 'It is only a personwho is teachinghim.' The languageof the one to whom theyreferis foreign,but this languageis clear Arabic,"Qur'hn,al-Nahl (16): 103.

89. J. Wansbrough,The SectarianMilieu (Oxford:OxfordUniv. Press, 1978), 127.

90. On this see J. S.Trimingham,

Christianity among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times(London:Longman,1979), 188-202; pace I. Shahid and his remarks n a review of Trimingham'swork,Journalof Semitic Studies26

(1981): 150-53. As describedby S. Griffith,Shahid'sarguments or apre-IslamicArabicBible are based on "hints

and clues of it which remainin the worksof the pre-IslamicChristian Arabicpoets,"S. Griffith,"TheGospel in



REYNOLDS: A Reflectionon TwoQur'dnicWords Iblis and Jidi) 689

Would we not expect, then, thatSyriacwould exert a greatforce when Arabic did developinto a scriptural anguage?91These areprobes into a matterthatdeserves a critical andin-

depthstudy.Yetthere is reason to believe, even fromthe two case studies of this paper,thatwe have not yet fully appreciated he circumstances n which the Qur'anbecame scripture,

and its language a lingua sacra.

Arabic: An Inquiry nto its Appearance n the FirstAbbasidCentury,"Oriens Christianus69 (1985): 159. Griffithhimself concludes that "all one can say about the possibility of a pre-Islamic,Christianversion of the Gospel inArabic is that no sure sign of its actualexistence has yet emerged"(166). An earlierversion of this debatetook

place betweenA. BaumstarkandG. Grif. Once again,the moreconvincing argument, hat of Grif, is thatthere isno reliableevidence of pre-IslamicArabicBible translations.See Baumstark,"Die sonntigliche Evangelienlesungim vorbyzantinischenJerusalem,"ByzantinischeZeitschrift30 (1929-30): 350-59; "DasProblemeines vorislam-ischen christlich-kirchlichenSchrifttums n arabischenSprache," slamica 4 (1931): 562-75; "Eine altarabische

Evangelientibersetzungus dem

Christlich-Palistinensischen," eitschriftfiirSemitistik8

(1932): 201-9;"Deralt-

este erhaltenegriechisch-arabischeext von Psalm 110,"OriensChristianus9 (1934): 55-56. Grif retorts:"Jedochbesteht zu dieser Erklirung wenigstens kein zwingenderGrund.Veilmehrsprechenfiir die zweite M6glichkeit,namlichUebernahmederPerikopennotizen useinemgriechischenExemplarund damitEntstehungderUebersetz-

ung auch noch nach 630 (abervor 843) folgende Erwigungen,"G. Grdif,Geschichteder christlichenarabischenLiteratur Rome:Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,1947), 1: 144.

91. On this subject see T. Andrae,Les origines de l'islam et le christianisme,trans.J. Roche (Paris;Adrien

Maisonneuve,1955);J. Bowman,"The Debt of Islam to MonophysiteSyriacChristianity," ederlandsTheologischTijdschrift19 (1964-65): 177-201 (rpt. n Essays in Honourof GriffithesWheelerThatcher Sydney:SydneyUniv.

Press, 1967], 191-261); E. Grif, "Zuden christlichenEinfltissen m Koran," l-Bahith,FestschriftJosephHennigerzum70 Geburtstag Bonn:Verlagdes Anthropos-Instituts, 976), 111-44; E Nau, Les arabeschretiensde Misopo-tamie et Syriedu Vile au VIIIesikcle (Paris:ImprimerieNationale, 1933).

Reflection on Two Quranic Words IBLIS and JUDI With Attention to the Theories of a Mingana

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