Luxenberg Syriac Liturgy

Syriac Liturgy and the “Mysterious Letters” in the Qur’ān:
A Comparative Liturgical Study
Christoph Luxenberg
The present article was first published in German in Markus Gross and Karl-
Heinz-Ohlig, eds., Schlaglichter: Die Beiden Ersten Islamischen Jahrhunderte
[Flashlights: The First Two Centuries of Islam] (Berlin, 2008). Because of its
outstanding importance, this English version will appear simultaneously both
in the present anthology and in the English translation of the original collection
of essays. Unlike all other theories and views brought forward by Islamological
“revisionists,” Luxenberg’s explanation of the mysterious letters in the Koran
has no “traditional” alternative. If asked about the life of the prophet, the edi-
tion of the Koran and the meaning of most Koranic verses, Islamic scholars will
adduce quotations from the Islamic traditional literature and agree at least
about the main points. Not so about the mysterious letters: there is consensus
neither among Islamic nor Islamological scholars about their meaning and ori-
gin. If any of Luxenberg’s theories should have a chance to be accepted or at
least discussed in the Islamic world, it’s those expounded in the following
article.
1. Introduction
The meaning of the letters that appear before twenty-nine Qur’ānic Surahs
has perplexed scholars in both East and West since the beginning of the
Qur’ānic exegetical tradition. For example, Ṭabarī (d. 923), considered in Is-
lamic tradition as the most important and most prolific Qur’ānic commen-
tator, discussed this enigma in an effort to explain the first set of letters ‫ الم‬/
alm, found at the beginning of Surah 2 (“al-Baqara” [“The Cow”]).1 After his
stereotypical remarks by way of introduction—“there are different opinions
among the Qur’ānic commentators concerning God’s word ‫ الم‬/ alm”—he lists
fourteen interpretations, generally supported by lists of transmitters. These
meanings can be summarized thus:
1) The letters denote one of the names of the Qur’ān;
2) They are “introductory” letters (‫ فواتح‬/ fawātiḥ), with which God
“introduces, opens” the Qur’ān (from this meaning comes the
traditional Islamic term ‫“[ فواتح السور‬the introductory {letters} of the
Surahs”]);
3) They denote the names of the Surahs;
4) They denote the names of the exalted God;
505
506 PART 5: CHRISTOPH LUXENBERG
5) They denote oath-formulae, with which God swears and which allude
to his name;
6) They are individual letters representing nouns and verbs, so that each
letter has a different meaning;
7) They are specific letters of the alphabet (without further explanation);
8) They are letters, of which each one may have its own distinct meaning
(as in 6 above);
9) They are letters that represent an entire sentence;
10) Every book contains a secret, and the secret of the Qur’ān is its
introductory letters (hence the name “mysterious letters”);
11) A few Arabic philologists defend the position that they are letters
which take the place of the twenty-eight letters (of the Arabic
alphabet);
12) The Surahs begin with these letters in order to open the hearing (in
order to focus attention upon the Surahs) of the mušrikīn (“the
associators” = those who associate other gods with the one God);
13) They are letters with which God introduces his word;
14) If one inquires after the meaning of these letters, one learns that the
Prophet supposedly interpreted these letters as representing numbers
(following the Syro-Aramaic number-system of the alphabet). ( If this
is true, then the letters ‫ الم‬/ alm (=ʾlm)2 would stand for the number 71
[a = 1; l = 30; m = 40; 1+30+40=71]. It is interesting in this regard
that the Prophet asked his hearers whether they knew that the time of
a prophet’s activity and the duration of his community supposedly
lasts 71 years. The Prophet used ascending number-values to follow
this number-symbolism, by means of the following groups of letters:
‫ المص‬/ almṣ [a = 1; l = 30; m = 40; ṣ = 90] = 161 years; ‫ الر‬/ alr [a = 1; l
= 30; r = 200] = 231 years; ‫ المر‬/ almr [a = 1; l = 30; m = 40; r = 200] =
271 years. Indeed, the sums agree with the respective roots, but the
progressive order of the letters does not correspond to the degressive
Aramaic number system, where the letter with the highest value
appears first. Nonetheless, the hint at the possibility that specific
letters represent numbers is not without interest, as the interpretation
of the individual letters will attest. The Qur’ānic number-mysticism
that developed in later Islam—possibly connected with Jewish tra-
ditions—can be traced back to these number-letters that were ori-
ginally Aramaic but were taken over by the Arabs.)
Ṭabarī considers each of the Qur’ānic commentators’ various interpretive
attempts, and he expends a great deal of effort assigning authority to each
one. He concludes by defending the point of view that the letters in question
do not represent words that are to be taken together, but rather should be
seen as divided letters (hence the term ‫ حروف مقطعة‬/ ḥurūf muqaṭṭa‘a) that can
have different meanings. With this conclusion he justifies the opinions of the
Luxenberg: Syriac Liturgy and the “Mysterious Letters” 507
Qur’ānic commentators that he describes, without committing himself to

firm decisions. Ṭabarī is not unjustified in taking this tentative line, because
these letters (and letter-combinations), as we will see, can in fact mean dif-
ferent things. Further, such a position leaves room for the later Islamic tra-
dition to offer further attempts at explanation, as the literature shows, ample
as it is even into our own day. We will not focus here on this later literature,
as it rests entirely on speculations that would not bring us any closer to the
solving of the mystery. Rather, we will first discuss briefly the Western
Qur’ānic scholarship that has dealt with the question of the “mysterious
letters.”
2. The Current State of Western Qur’ānic Scholarship
In his collection of essays entitled Der Koran, Rudi Paret lists in section VI
(pp. 330–385) the most important contributions to Western scholarship
concerning the “mysterious letters.” He provides this information “because
the phenomenon has been only partially explained” and in order to spare
someone who “wants to continue to speculate” a time-consuming search.3 In
his introduction he discusses his sixth section on the mysterious letters with
these words:
As I have already noted above, in section VI I attempt to gather together as
fully as possible the new publications concerning the enigmatic letters that
precede a few Surahs and should be understood as sigla, that is, signs
(German: “Siglen”). However, I have omitted Arthur Jeffery’s contribution in
The Moslem World 14 (1924), pp. 247–260, because it only refers to the work
of others, without offering anything original. I have also left out (for reasons
of space and the age of the items in question) the works of Loth (Zeitschrift der
Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 35 [1881], pp. 603–610) and Hartwig
Hirschfeld (New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran
[London, 1902], pp. 141–143), although these works are important in their
own right. I should also mention another recently-published treatment, name-
ly, James A. Bellamy’s ‘The Mysterious Letters of the Koran: Old Abbre-
viations of the Basmalah’ from the Journal of the American Oriental Society 93
(1973), pp. 267–285, although Bellamy also fails to offer a convincing solution
to the problem.4 In my opinion, the foundational work on this topic remains
the results of Hans Bauer’s investigations (published in 1921). According to
Bauer the sigla appear to be very old and to function as pointers to collections
of Surahs that already existed at the time of the production of ‘Uṯmān’s edition
of the Qur’ān and that were, just like the edition itself, ordered according to
the principle of declining length. Bauer also offers perceptive thoughts con-
cerning the meaning of the individual letters and the combinations of letters.
However, he did not succeed in coming to a full explanation of this difficult

complex of questions.5
In these observations we see Paret’s correct understanding that the problem

of the mysterious letters has not been solved despite their acute insights. A
short review of the works mentioned by Paret will show us why their efforts
could not lead to a conclusive result.
a) Hans Bauer, “Über die Anordnung der Suren und über die geheimnisvollen
Buchstaben im Qoran” (1921)6 [Concerning the Order of the Surahs and
the Mysterious Letters of the Qur’an]
Bauer’s point of departure is his acceptance of the idea that “in four (or five)
cases” the letters ys (Q7 36), ṣ (Q38), q (Q 50), ṭh (Q 20), and (possibly) n (Q
68) played the same function as the titles by which we now know the Surahs,
but this thesis contradicts the historical constitution of the Qur’anic text, in
so far as Bauer overlooks the fact that the earliest Qur’ānic manuscripts of
which we are aware bear no Surah titles at all. Rather, these were added by
later Qur’ānic editors, largely according to arbitrary criteria. In the course of
this editorial work, the letters we are considering here were made into titles,
from which one can deduce that they stood at the heads of the Surahs in
question from the very beginning. However, we should not exclude his sug-
gestion that these sigla could have belonged to other texts. Bauer ends his
treatment with a brief consideration of this last problem; his conclusion is as
follows: “The explanation of these questions demands further investigations
dedicated to individual aspects of the matter.”8 He is surely mistaken, how-
ever, in accepting that “the meaning of the abbreviations is to be gained di-
rectly from the Surahs they precede” or that one can find “definite internal or
external relationships between these Surahs” and the letters that precede
them.9
b) Eduard Goossens, “Ursprung und Bedeutung der koranischen Siglen”
(1923)10 [Origin and Meaning of the Koranic Signs]
Goossens’ contribution is more extensive and is designed in the form of a
doctoral thesis. Here he recognizes that these letters represent abbreviations
that to some degree are of a technical sort and were once generally under-
stood; however, he does not even approximately succeed in delineating their
individual meanings. Nonetheless, he does conclude with the general state-
ment that these “abbreviations” are “in these 29 Surahs to be set in parallel
with the extant titles of the Surahs.” One would not be unjustified, he says, in
assuming “that the mysterious letters and groups of letters represent nothing
other than old titles.” In his introduction,11 Goossens reproduces the fol-
lowing table of the data concerning these sigla, derived from Schwally’s list:12
Root Surah(s)
’lr 10, 11, 12, 14, 15
’lm 2, 3, 29, 30, 31, 32
’lmr 13
’lmṣ 7
ḥm 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46
ḥm‘sq 42
ṣ 38
ṭs 27
ṭsm 26, 28
ṭh 20
q 50
khy‘ṣ 19
n 68
ys 36
In section III (p. 344 in Paret’s edition) Goossens attempts to interpret the
individual signs. However, despite the effort he expends, his interpretations
are based upon assumptions that do not lead to any plausible result because
he does not recognize the actual function of these sigla.
c) Morris S. Seale, “The Mysterious Letters in the Qur’ān” (1957/59)13

In this essay Seale points rather interestingly to “one example of memoria
technica from the Talmud” (Y‘ALKGM). Also, his suggestion concerning the
explanation of the letter-group KHY‘Ṣ at the beginning of the “Surah
Maryam” (Q 19) is thought-provoking. However, in this as in his other sug-
gestions, he does not distinguish himself from his erring predecessors Bauer
and Goossens, in that he (like they) sees in the individual letters the roots of
names or expressions, which he then seeks in the corresponding Surahs.
d) Alan Jones, “The Mystical Letters of the Qur’ān” (1962)14

Jones sees a purely mystical meaning in the Qur’ānic sigla. His closing re-
marks are as follows:
My own feeling is that the letters are intentionally mysterious and have no
specific meaning.
He also appropriates an early opinion of Nöldeke (one that Nöldeke himself

later abandoned), whom he then cites as follows:
The prophet himself can hardly have attached any particular meaning to these
symbols; they served their purpose if they conveyed an impression of
solemnity and enigmatical obscurity.15
e) James A. Bellamy, “Again the Mysterious Letters” (see above, n. 3)

In the afore-mentioned article by Bellamy, he again discusses our theme and
strengthens his position that these unexplained letters actually concern other
ways of writing an ancient basmalah (the shortened form of bi-smi llāh ar-
raḥmān ar-raḥīm / “in the name of God, the Gracious One, the Merciful
One”). He traces the bold emendations that he suggests in order to justify his
thesis back to mistakes made by copyists. He summarizes his argument with
the following conclusion:
I am more than ever convinced that the fawātiḥ are indeed old abbreviations
of the basmalah that suffered corruption at the hands of later copyists. And
after all, what can more properly stand before a Surah than the basmalah?
Even if Bellamy was thinking at least partially in the right direction, it is not
possible that all the abbreviations, attested multiple times in the early
Qur’ānic manuscripts, can be traced back to earlier mis-transcriptions.
These various attempts by western scholars to explain the problem of the
“mysterious letters” in the Qur’ān are hardly distinct from the solutions
proposed by the Qur’ānic commentators. They all fail to consider the Qur-
’ānic text in its context of the history of religions, a problem of historico-
cultural relevance. Since these works were published, it has become a widely-
accepted fact that the Qur’ān arose in a Syro-Aramaic context. The dis-
cussions that follow will seek to demonstrate consistently these historico-
cultural connections and to make plausible the thesis that the so-called
“mysterious letters” of the Qur’ān originally dealt with a tradition closely
related to the Syrian (Syriac) Christian liturgy.
3. Terms Constituting the Framework of the Qur’ān

It seems important here to remind the reader that the three terms concerning
the Qur’ān (Qur’ān, Sūra, and Āya) were all borrowed from the Syro-
Aramaic language. I will now briefly discuss their etymology.
3.1 ‫ قران‬/ Qur’ān < / Qeryān
Western Qur’ānic scholars since Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930) have recog-
nized that ‫ قران‬/ Qur’ān, as the name of the holy book of Islam, was taken over
from the Syro-Aramaic ecclesiastical term / Qeryān (“lectionary, rea-
ding”).16 The author has expounded upon this topic more fully in his study
Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran.17 There the author argued that the
loan-word Qur’ān / Koran (actually Qeryān) provides the key for under-
standing the Qur’ānic language. But two other expressions also arise in this
discussion of the Qur’ānic text: the first of them, Surah (‫ سورة‬/ sūra [“Surah”
= “chapter”]), indicates the individual chapters, and the second term, aya,(‫ اية‬/
āya [“sign”]) refers to each individual “letter” of this text (and by extension,
the written word of God), and not “verses” of the Koran as it was later falsely
interpreted.
3.2 ‫ سورة‬/ sūra < ‫ ܨܘܪܬ‬/ ṣūrtā
The term “Surah” as a title above the individual chapters of the Qur’ān is
clearly a later addition, because it does not appear in the earliest Qur’ānic
manuscripts. There are ten Qur’ānic verses in which this word appears
(Surahs 2:23; 9:64, 86, 124, 127; 10:38; 11:13; 24:1; 47:20 [2x]; nine of these
occurences are in the singular, one in the plural); from these texts it has been
concluded that the Qur’ān refers by this word to the individual textual units,
which were not at that time defined more distinctly. This understanding was
justified by the introductory verse to Surah 24, and from this point the term
was taken over into the later Islamic tradition with regard to all the Qur’ānic
chapters, in connection with the names for the Surahs which were later
derived from the individual texts themselves.
3.2.1 Concerning the Etymology of ‫ سورة‬/ sūra
Before the term sūra (“Surah”) became a technical term indicating the indi-
vidual chapters of the Qur’ān, well-known Arab philologists (and later wes-
tern Qur’ānic scholars) had attempted to explain its etymology. While Ṭabarī
supposed that this word was generally familiar, Lisān al-‘Arab (IV:386a f.)
cited the lexicographer al-Ǧawharī (d. 1005), who explained its basic meaning
as ‫“( كل منزلة من البناء‬any portion of a building”); with regard to the Qur’ān,
then, it said that ‫ سورة‬/ sūra means “partition, section” because it divides the
textual portions of the Qur’ān from one another. This explanation gives Lisān
an advantage over the other philologists’ explanations that are derived from
folk etymologies.
In Paret’s commentary on Surah 24:1 (p. 358), he reproduces the im-
portant results of western Qur’ānic scholarship concerning the etymology of
sūra:
The etymology of the word sūra is controversial. Nöldeke considers it a likely
derivation from the Hebrew šūrā (“row”), while Bell thinks it comes from the
Syriac surtā (ṣūrtā, sūrtā) (“writing, written text”). Cf. Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge,
26; Geschichte des Qorans, I:30 f; Horovitz, Proper Names, 211f.; Bell, Origin of
Islam, 52; footnote and introduction, 51f., 131; Jeffery, Foreign Vocabulary,
180–182.”18
Among the authorities cited only Bell came close to the truth with his thesis
that sūra could be a loan-word from the Syriac ‫ ܨܘܪܬ‬/ ṣūrtā, not from
‫ ܪ ـ‬/ surṭā, as Jeffery had conjectured:
The most probable solution is that it is from the Syr. ‫ ܪ ـ‬, a “writing” (n. 2
here: Bell, Origin, 52; the suggestion of derivation from ‫ܬ‬ , “preaching,”
made by Margoliouth, ERE, x, 539, is not so near. Cf. Horovitz, JPN, 212, a
word which occurs in a sense very like our English lines (PSm, 2738), and thus
is closely parallel to Muḥammad’s use of ‫ قرآن‬and ‫كتاب‬, both of which are
likewise of Syriac origin.19
One could superficially consider the two Syriac written forms ‫ ܪ ـ‬/ surṭā
and ‫ ܨܘܪܬ‬/ ṣūrtā to be merely emphatic variants, but in reality they are dis-
tinct from one another both in their forms and in their verbal roots. The
masculine form ‫ ܪ ـ‬/ surṭā is based on the root ‫ ܛ‬/ srṭ, which cor-
responds to both the Arabic form with metathesis ‫ سطر‬/ saṭara (“to draw,
write, mark a line”) and the Syriac variant‫ ܬܪܨ‬/ traṣ (“to be straight, to make
straight”).20 The feminine form ‫ ܨܘܪܬ‬/ ṣūrtā, however, derives from the
verbal root ‫ ܨܘܪ‬/ ṣwar (variants ‫ ܨ‬/ ṣyar and ‫ ܨܪ‬/ ṣār) (“to present, to depict,
to draw, to note”) and leads to the Arabic forms ‫ ص ّور‬/ ṣawwar (“to present, to
depict, to draw”), ‫ صيّر‬/ ṣayyar (“to make, to do”), and ‫ صار‬/ ṣār (“to be-
come”). Consequently, the Syriac form has the meaning of “record” (literally:
“drawing”); such a meaning is widely attested in the well-known expression
‫ ܨܘܪܬ ܒ‬/ ṣūrāṯ kṯāḇ (“the “drawing” = writing of the book” = “the text of
the Bible”).21
In the Qur’ān one finds the root ṣwr once in the nominal form (still
current today) ‫ صورة‬/ ṣūra (“picture, design”) (Q 82:8) and four times in the
second verbal stem with the meaning “to form” (= “to make”) (Surahs 3:6;
7:11; 40:64; 64:3); in the latter two cases, the repetition of the Syro-Aramaic
infinitive (or verbal substantive) ‫ ܨܘܘܪ‬/ ṣuwwārā has been considered an
Arabic plural form because of the Qurānic defective written form (‫ صوركم‬/
ṣwr-km) and because this particular form of the infinitive is foreign to Arabic
grammar. As a result, in both places the canonical text reads as follows:
‫ وصوركم فاحسن صوركم‬/ wa-ṣawwara-kum fa-aḥsana ṣuwara-kum (“He has
formed you and made your images beautiful”); the second form should be
ṣuwwāra-kum, according to the way the Syro-Aramaic builds its infinitives of
the intensive stem Pa‘el. According to Arabic verbal paradigms, the infinitive
form should read ‫ وصوركم فاحسن تصويركم‬/ wa-ṣawwara-kum fa-aḥsana ta-ṣwīra-
kum ( literally: “He has formed you and made your forming [that is, the way
in which he has formed you] beautiful”). This way of building infinitives in
Syro-Aramaic is preserved in a few Arabic substantives, but the Arab philo-
logists did not recognize this morphological phenomenon. Among such
terms is the common word ‫ كتاب‬/ kuttāb (“school,” especially a “Qur’anic
school ”); one would normally consider this form an Arabic plural of ‫ كاتب‬/
kātib (“writer, author”), but it has actually preserved faithfully the Syro-
Aramaic verbal noun katteḇ (= Arabic kattaba), which corresponds in Arabic
to the form ‫ تكتيب‬/ ta-ktīb (= “to cause to write”). Understood from an
Aramaic point of view, kuttāb then means a school in which one learns not
only reading but especially writing.
The Qur’ān offers a similar form in Q 108:1 titled al-Kawṯar ; here the
readers of the Qur’ān have not been able to recognize in the spelling ‫ الكوثر‬an
Aramaic nominal form from the intensive stem ‫ ܪ‬/ kattar (“to await, to
persist”). For this reason they also misread the medial ‫ و‬/ w, which in Aramaic
orthography can serve as a mater lectionis for a short u in a closed syllable
( ‫ ܬܪ‬/ kuttārā), as the diphthong aw (kawṯar). If the morphologically
identical form ‫ كتّب‬/ kuttāb (written defectively) had indeed had a ‫ و‬/ w as a
mater lectionis for short u (‫)كوتب‬, then the Arab readers would not have been
able to read this strange written form other than as kawtab (instead of kuttāb)
(and then also kawṯar instead of kuttār).22
3.2.2 Excursus
Returning to the Qur’ānic usage of the Syro-Aramaic root ṣwr / ṣyr, we would
no longer deprive the curious reader of the remarkable mis-reading and mis-
interpretation of a Syro-Aramaic form in the Qur’ān that belongs to this root.
In terms of its topic, the term concerns the famous “satanic verses” (Q
53:19–20) that name the three goddesses al-Lāt, al-‘Uzzā, and Manāt
(actually Manwa). In the canonical edition of the Qur’ān, the worshipers of
these divinities are initially asked (v. 21) whether it is appropriate to attribute
female natures to God when they themselves desire male children. The text
continues in v. 22 thus:
‫تلك اذا قسمة ضيزى‬
(Canonical reading: tilka iḏan qismatun ḍīzā)
Paret (p. 53) translates the clause thus:
That would be an unjust division. [Das ware eine ungerechte Verteilung.]
Here Paret does not even question the underlined adjective in the way that he
normally does with doubtful expressions; he and the other Qur’ānic scholars
do not recognize that the phrase in question is in fact problematic. Indeed,
Blachère and Bell cast no doubt upon this unusual word and translate it in
same manner:
Blachère, p. 561: This, then, would be an unrighteous division! [Cela, alors,
serait un partage inique!]
Bell, II:541: In that case it is a division unfair.
With such translations the most authoritative Western translators of the

Qur’ān are following uncritically the philologically untenable explanations of
the Arab commentators and lexicographers. It would be unnecessary to
discuss the root ḍa’aza / ḍayaza, which does not even exist in Arabic, as
Ṭabarī (XXVII:60f.) does so doggedly in his efforts to explain this incompre-

hensible reading, calling as he does on the authorities of classical Arabic. A
verse from (post-Qur’ānic) poetry becomes an incontrovertible argument for
him; in the verse in question, the Qur’ānic word (in fact, misread word)
appears in the presumed participial form ‫ مضئوز‬/ maḍ’ūz (without further
explanation), as Ṭabarī says at third-hand, reportedly from al-Aḫfaš.23
The various readings from some “Arabs” that Ṭabarī wants to have exa-
mined are just as arbitrary as the meanings contrived for them. The putative
“Arabs” disagree even as they approach the vocalization of this peculiar word;
some apparently spoke the Qur’ānic word as ḍayzā, others as ḍa’zā, and still
others as ḍū’zā. Because the Qur’ānic readers seem not to have known these
“dialectal” variants, Ṭabarī prefers the traditional reading ḍīzā, which he
considers morphologically to be a secondary form of the feminine adjective
ḍūzā. The famous philologist al-Farrā’ (from Kūfā, d. 822) opposed this ex-
planation, as Ṭabarī notes; according to the former, a feminine adjectival
form could be ḍayzā or ḍūzā, and the pronunciation ḍīzā is possible only for
noun forms. Of course, al-Farrā’ did not recognize that this form corresponds
to the Syro-Aramaic passive participle of the form p‘īl / p‘īlā.
Ṭabarī then considers the meaning of this formally controversial word in
the Qur’ānic expression qismatun ḍīzā, and he lists the following four defi-
nitions (supported by chains of tradition): 1) a twisted division; 2) an unjust
division; 3) a faulty division; and 4) a disputed division. For the final
meaning he cites Ibn Wahb, who has Ibn Zayd saying that aḍ-ḍīzā “in the
spoken usage of the Arabs” means “opposition.” However, it should be noted
that Ṭabarī introduces all the meanings listed here by assigning them to the
“Arabs.”
Western Qur’ānic scholars seem to have come to a consensus on the
definition “unfair division” (German: ungerechte Teilung; French: partage
inique). Because no Western scholar had ever doubted the truthfulness of this
conclusion, Hans Wehr believed in all earnestness that the expression in
question, considered to be “classical,” could not be left out of his famous
dictionary [Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart / A
Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic]; he was clearly unaware of the fact that
this Qur’ānic hapax legomenon, mis-read and mis-understood from the very
beginning, never became established in the “spoken usage of the Arabs.” As a
result, under the presumed (but not named) root ḍyz, he includes the ex-
pression ‫ قسمة ضيزى‬/ qisma ḍīzā (“unjust division”), as though it had become a
“winged word.” But it surprises every Arabic speaker to hear the word ḍīzā,
as it does not sound Arabic at all; perhaps it merely elicits a shake of the head
or a restrained smile because of the association that this word bears in
connection with a similar term (“ṭīz – buttocks, derrière”) that sounds bawdy
to contemporary Arabs.
Just like countless other mis-readings in the Qur’ān, this phrase reduces
the traditional legend of an “oral tradition” of the Qur’ānic text (which func-
tions as a dogma for some scholars of Arabic or Islamic studies) ad absur-
dum. Even the “variant readings” literature, (qirā’āt) documented in the Isla-
mic tradition, is no argument for an oral transmission of the text, as some
Qur’ān scholars tend to think, but rather a testimony to redactional diversity.
3.2.3 Deciphering the Enigmatic Term ‫ ضيزى‬/ ḍīzā
With this example the Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran will prove its
efficiency in solving such problems. We must simply erase in our minds the
two diacritical points above the term ‫ضيزى‬, as these were added at a later date
by an incompetent scribe and led to this mis-reading. When the term has
been purified in this way, we are left with the written form ‫ ;صيرى‬if we pre-
serve the Qur’ānic vocalization, we have the term ṣīrā. In reality, the reading
ṣīrā might sound no less strange to an Arab than ḍīzā, and rightly so. The
reason is that at first glance he would not recognize the otherwise familiar
verbal root ṣwr (“to depict, to draw”), because the orthography of ‫ صيرى‬would
appear entirely unusual to him.
In actual fact, this orthography can only be explained with the aid of the
Syro-Aramaic verbal paradigm. According to the latter, verbs with a medial w
/ y (just like the other triliteral verbs) build their passive participles on the
first stem following the pattern p‘īl.24 The written form in the Qur’ān suggests
that the Syro-Aramaic root ‫ ܨܘܪ‬/ ṣwar > ‫ ܨܪ‬/ ṣār (“to depict, to draw”) is the
one in question; this root corresponds to the Arabic ‫ صور‬/ ṣwr. However,
because in Arabic the first verbal stem of this root is still current only in the
contracted secondary form ‫ صار‬/ ṣāra (basic meaning: “to become”), we can-
not conclude with certainty that the root ‫ صور‬/ ṣwr (basic meaning: “to de-
pict”) is meant, especially because this root is only current in the second and
fifth Arabic verbal stems (ṣawwara / ta-ṣawwara [“to depict, to draw” / “to
visualize, to imagine”]).
Syro-Aramaic grammar turns out to be an indispensable key for deciphe-
ring this unusual Arabic spelling ‫ صيرى‬/ ṣīrā.25 Under the Syro-Aramaic
participial form ‫ ܨ‬/ ṣīrā (in the status emphaticus), the Thesaurus (II:3384)
gives as an Arabic correspondence the form ‫ مص ّور‬/ mu-ṣawwar. For the
semantics of the verb ‫ ܨܪ‬/ ṣār, Mannā (632b, under [4]) gives the Arabic
meanings ‫ تص ّور‬/ ta-ṣawwara), ‫ تخ ّيل‬/ ta-ḫayyala (“to visualize, to imagine”).
Conclusion:
In understanding the term ‫ ضيزى‬/ ḍīzā, a Qur’ānic expression (Q 53:22) that
has not even yet been recognized as problematic and that has nonetheless
been mis-read and mis-understood, the Syro-Aramaic language has proven to
be an unavoidable prerequisite for explaining both its morphology and its

semantics. This new understanding gives the following result:
Mis-transcribed Arabic: ‫تلك اذا قسمة ضيزى‬

Canonical reading: tilka iḏan qismatun ḍīzā
Resulting meaning: “That would be an unjust division”
Corrected Syro-Arabic: ‫تلك اذا قسمة صيرى‬

New reading: tilka iḏan qismatun ṣīrā26
New meaning: “This is therefore a fictional attribution.”27
If we were to bring this statement into contemporary Arabic, it would read

thus:
‫تاك اذا قسمة مص ّورة = مخ ّيلة = خيالية‬
(tilka iḏan qismatun mu-ṣawwara = mu-ḫayyala = ḫayālīya)
3.2.4 On the Qur’ānic Spelling ‫ سورة‬/ sūra

Our discussion of the semantic field of the root ‫ صور‬/ ṣwr concludes with
some comments on the Qur’ānic spelling ‫ سورة‬/ sūra (with ‫ ســ‬/ s), over against
the Syro-Aramaic spelling ‫ ܨܘܪܬ‬/ ṣūrtā (with the emphatic ‫ ص‬/ ṣ). The
interchangeability of the voiceless sibilant ‫ س‬/ s and the emphatic ‫ ص‬/ ṣ is
hardly rare in Semitic languages. As just one example, one might think of the
Syro-Aramaic / saybar (“to undergo, to endure”) and the Arabic ‫ صبر‬/
ṣabara (“to be patient, to persevere”); the two ways of writing the Qur’ānic
form ‫ صراط‬/ ṣirāṭ (“line, way”) with ‫ ص‬/ṣ or with ‫ س‬/s as ‫ سراط‬/ sirāṭ, are also
well-known (even though here there is no phonetic difference due to the
emphatic ‫ ط‬/ ṭ). In the case of sūra, Lisān (IV:387a) provides an interesting
note concerning the inhabitants of Baṣra (in what is now southern Iraq), who
apparently built the plurals of ‫ سورة‬/ sūra and ‫ صورة‬/ ṣūra in precisely the
same way; unfortunately, the text does not give any other information
regarding a possible difference in meaning.
It is likely no accident, however, that we find the decisive evidence for
writing sūra with ‫ س‬/ s rather than with ‫ ص‬/ ṣ in southern Babylonia, namely,
in Mandaean. The Mandaean lexicon offers us the following testimony:
Surah 2 for ṣura? in surẖ udmutẖ ḏ-gabra Gy 391:6 the image (?) and likeness
of a man.28
The question marks are unnecessary, for the Qur’ān provides further evi-
dence that the word sūra could be written in Mesopotamia either with ‫ س‬/ s
or with ‫ ص‬/ ṣ. This surprising testimony from Mandaean adds another detail
in favor of the thesis that the Qur’ānic text emerged in the region of Eastern
Syria/Mesopotamia.
Finally, from the perspective of the history of religions, we must ask how
the Qur’ān came to describe its own text with the term sūra. I have already
anticipated the answer above (n. 20):
unde ‫( ܨܘܪܬ‬ṣūrtā) etiam sine ‫( ܒ‬kṯāḇ) valet textus Scripturarum, B.O. iii.
i. 87, 97, 153, 166, 174, 261; ‫( ܨܘܪܬ‬ṣūrtā) “Vetus et Novum Testamentum,”
Ass. C.B.V. iii. 280 ult.”
Following this evidence, in the Syrian Christian tradition, the word ‫ ܨܘܪܬ‬/
ṣūrtā (> Arabic ‫ صورة‬/ ṣūra = ‫ سورة‬/ sūra = “transcription”) meant the entire
text of the Old and New Testaments, just as “Scripture” meant “Bible.” By
using the term sūra, then, as it repeatedly expressed, the Qur’ān understood
itself originally as a partial reproduction of the Syriac ‫ ܨܘܪܬ‬/ ṣūrtā, that is,
“Scripture” = the “Bible.” However, that the Qur’ān used the term to indicate
its own individual chapters does not change its fundamental self-
understanding, according to which it wanted to see itself as a part of the
entire text of the Bible.
3.3 ‫ اية‬/ āya < ‫ ܐܬ‬/ āṯā
As the third and final term in this series of words concerning textual units,
the word ‫ اية‬/ āya means the smallest element of the Qur’ānic sūra (=
“transcription, text, wording”), that is, the individual letters. When God
speaks in the Qur’ān of his ‫ ايات‬/ āyāt (in the plural), he means by this term
the contents of the written signs that make up his recorded, transcribed
words. As a result, the word āya (a word that in Syriac also meant “wondrous
sign”) became a synonym for ‫ كلمة اللــه‬/ kalimat Allāh, the “Word of God.”
This is why one encounters repeatedly the phrase ‫ ايات اللــه‬/ āyāt Allāh (“the
written signs of God”) in the Qur’ān.29
An innovation here is the use of ‫ اية‬/ āya in the sense of “verse,” that is, to
indicate units from the division of the Qur’ānic Surahs into individual
sentences (or units thereof), a process that was introduced in the later Islamic
tradition, following the example of the Bible. When the Qur’ān speaks of ‫ايت‬
‫ محكمت‬/ āyāt muḥkamāt and ‫ واخر متشبھت‬/ wa-uḫar mutašābihāt in Q 3:7,
however, it does not mean “distinct and ambiguous verses” in the modern
sense, as Paret translates it (44), but rather “precise, faithful,” or (following
Syro-Aramaic understanding) “well-known sections of the mother-text (i.e.,
corresponding to the Bible) and other (non-canonical sections) comparable
(to these canonical parts, in content).”30
3.3.1 On the Etymology of ‫ اية‬/ āya
Arthur Jeffery, following Alphonse Mingana, considered it more likely that
the Arabs took this strange word over from Syriac-speaking Christians than
from the Hebrew word ‫ אות‬/ ōṯ.31 However, Mingana (himself an Eastern
Syrian) seems not to have recognized that the Syriac word ‫ ܐܬ‬/ āṯā, as a
Qur’ānic rasm, must have read as ‫ اثة‬/ āṯa rather than as ‫ اية‬/ āya (following
traditional pronunciation).32 But he could not have doubted his conclusion,
because the Qur’ānic mis-reading had been taken over into Christian Arabic
long ago in the past, namely, in the Arabic translation of the Bible. It is there-
fore no surprise that even famous German scholars of Semitics—men such as
Theodor Nöldeke, Carl Brockelmann, Wilhelm Gesenius, as well as the The-
saurus (to name only a few) —saw no reason, in the case of the Qur’ānic mis-
reading ‫ اية‬/ āya, to suspect anything other than the etymologically adequate,
classical Arabic expression corresponding to the Syro-Aramaic (or Hebrew)
one.33 However, the absence of this expression in the Arabic dialects makes its
presence in the Qur’ān quite glaring, as an unmediated loan-word from Syro-
Aramaic, as Jeffrey rightly noted.34 But concerning what Jeffrey mentions in
conclusion, namely, its appearance in the so-called “Old Arabic” poetry, we
must conclude that either this poetry was post-Qur’ānic, or the word was just
as mis-read when it was written down in the ninth or tenth century as it was
in the Qur’ān; either possibility would contradict the theory of oral
transmission.35
In fact, the Qur’ān itself provides testimony for the pronunciation ‫ اثة‬/ āṯa.
Qur’ānic scholars in both East and West up to the present day have over-
looked the fact that the Qur’ān has preserved the etymologically-correct
written form of the plural (following Syro-Aramaic pronunciation) in Surah
19:74. There the text reads (following the canonical reading):
‫وكم اھلكنا قبلھم من قرن ھم احسن اثثا وريا‬
(wa-kam ahlaknā qablahum min qarnin hum aḥsanu aṯāṯan wa-ri’ya)
Paret, 252: But how many generations have we allowed to perish before them
—generations who were better endowed and presented themselves better
(than they)! [Aber wie viele Generationen haben wir vor ihnen zugrunde
gehen lassen, die besser ausgestattet waren und mehr vorstellten (als sie)!]
The two expressions ‫ اثثا‬/ aṯāṯan and ‫ ريا‬/ ri’yā ( read as ru’yā in contemporary
and classical Arabic) are synonyms that explain one another. While ‫ اثثا‬/
aṯāṯan reproduces the Syro-Aramaic plural form ‫ܐܬܘܬ‬ ܵ / āṯwāṯā (after the
disappearance of the unstressed medial semi-vowel w before the stressed,
long ā > āṯāṯā) in its contracted form36, ‫ ريا‬/ ri’yā (ru’yā) is a loan-translation
from the Syro-Aramaic ‫ ܬ‬/ ḥzāṯā. Mannā gives the following Arabic
correspondences for the two expressions: a) (46a) ‫ ܐܬ‬/ āṯā (8): ‫ عبرة‬/ ‘ibra
(“example, model”); b) (230b) ‫ ܬ‬/ ḥzāṯā (4, besides the basic meaning of
“seeing, sight, appearance”): ‫ عبرة‬.‫ مثال‬.‫ قدوة‬/ qudwa, miṯāl, ‘ibra (“example,
model”).
Ṭabarī (XVI:117ff.) cites fourteen chains of transmission concerning
these two Arabic expressions, and he then gives the explanations of the
traditional commentators as follows: he says a) that ‫ اثاث‬/ aṯāṯ means
“possession” or “furnishing” (hence the meaning of “furniture” in modern

Arabic); and b) that ‫ ريا‬/ ri’yā (ru’yā) means “appearance.” He reports that
the Arab philologists do not agree with one another as to whether ‫ اثاث‬/ aṯāṯ
actually represents a singular or plural form. For example, while al-Aḥmar
defends the position that it is a plural whose singular is ‫ اثاثة‬/ aṯāṯa, al-Farrā’
saw it as a type of collective noun, so that there would be no corresponding
singular form; the latter goes on to say that, if one were to build a plural form
from ‫ اثاث‬/ aṯāṯ, it would be either ‫ آثة‬/ āṯṯa or ‫ أثث‬/ uṯuṯ.
Due to the Qur’ān’s authority, the Lisān (II:110f.) could not help seeing
in this difficult word the verbal root ‫ أثث‬/ aṯaṯa (which does not actually exist
in Arabic). It sets this root with its homophone that bears the basic meaning
of “to be plentiful” and then adduces expressions that have nothing whatso-
ever to do, phraseologically speaking, with this Qur’ānic loan-word.37
Based on the conjectural and inconclusive explanations of the Arab
commentators and philologists, Paret (as opposed to Blachère and Bell)
recognized that the two expressions in question from Surah 19:74 are
enigmatic.
Following Ṭabarī, the two latter translators give the verse under
discussion as follows:
Blachère, 335: [Yet] how many generations before them have We destroyed—
generations that were more impressive in goods and appearance? [Combien
(pourtant), avant eux, avons-Nous fait périr de générations qui en impo-
saient advantage par les biens et l’apparence?)
Bell, I:290, 75: But how many a generation have We destroyed before them,
better both in goods and in repute?
The preceding philological analysis has shown that these two enigmatic
expressions can be explained in two different steps, thanks to the
methodology demonstrated in The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: a) ‫اثاث‬
/ āṯāṯ can be explained morphologically as a secondary Aramaic plural form
and semantically with the meaning “examples;” b) by means of back-
translation into Syro-Aramaic, the meaning of the Arabic word ‫ ريا‬/ ri’yā /
ru’yā in its Qur’ānic context can be unlocked, showing the lexically corres-
ponding Syro-Aramaic word to be a synonym of the preceding Qur’ānic
word. Based on these conclusions, then, we should now read and understand
Surah 19:74 in the following way:
‫وكم اھلكنا قبلھم من قرن ھم احسن اثثا وريا‬
wa-kam ahlaknā qablahum min qarnin hum aḥsanu āṯāṯā wa-ru’yā
How many generations before them have we allowed to perish, who
(in comparison) were better examples and (quite) exemplary (lit.
‘example’)!”
3.3.2 Correction of ‫ اية‬/ āya into ‫ اثة‬/ āṯa

At first glance it may appear too daring to make the Syro-Aramaic hapax
legomenon ‫ اثثا‬/ āṯāṯā (< ‫ܐܬܘܬ‬ ܵ / āṯwāṯā), transmitted correctly in the Qur’ān
at Q 19:74, the justification for changing the reading ‫ اية‬/ āya to ‫ اثة‬/ āṯa,
especially since the former appears in at least 382 places in the Qur’ān (in the
singular and the plural, with and without a personal suffix) and has become
standard over the centuries, even beyond the Islamic world. Nevertheless, the
fact that this word has no real Arabic root, just like the many other Qur’ānic
mis-readings that I have demonstrated (among them real Arabic words),
should not exclude the possibility of a later, incompetent setting of diacritical
points to this foreign (Syriac) word. Still, we should not proceed too hastily
to conclude that we have here a mis-reading before we have carefully ana-
lyzed the Syro-Aramaic semantic field.
If we assume that the Qur’ānic plural form ‫ اثثا‬/ āṯāṯā (< ‫ܐܬܘܬ‬ ܵ / āṯwāṯā)
is the correct reading, then the corresponding Syro-Aramaic singular form
would be ‫ ܐܬ‬/ āṯā, which would equal the Arabic ‫ اثة‬/ āṯa, not ‫ اية‬/ āya.
Someone might suggest that the plural form ‫ اثثا‬/ āṯāṯā is a mis-reading, but
we can exclude this possibility on morphological grounds, because external
(i.e., regular) feminine plurals in Arabic cannot take a final-alif (ā). Or, if one
wanted to see here an Arabic accusative of specification (tamyīz) in the
Qur’ānic written form ‫( اثثا‬reading it as ‫ اياتا‬/ āyātan instead of āṯāṯā), then the
final-ā would not be permissible. In other words, the Qur’ānic orthography
faithfully reproduces the Syro-Aramaic plural form with its final-ā.
If we adduce other Syro-Aramaic variants that derive from the verb
underlying our term ( ‫ ܗܘ‬/ hwā [“to be”]), then we find the following pri-
mary nominal constructions (Thesaurus, I:987f.): ‫ ܗܘ‬/ hwāyā (“existence,
birth, generation, creation”); ‫ ܗܘ ܬ‬/ hwāyūṯā, ‫ ܗܘ ܬ‬/ hawyānūṯā (“crea-
tion, bringing into existence”). The form ‫ ܗܘ‬/ hwāytā (“creation, forma-
tion”), known from Neo-Aramaic, leads us to posit a related (but unattested)
form * ‫ ܗܘ‬/ hwīṯā (> Arabic ‫ ھوية‬/ huwīya, or dialectically, hawīya [“nature,
identity”]). From this Syriac form, and by means of sound-shift, comes the
expression of existence ‫ ܐ‬/ īṯ (* ‫ ܗܘ‬/ hwīṯā > * ‫ ܐ‬/ īṯā > ‫ ܐ‬/ īṯ) and
another secondary form, / yāṯā (“essence, existence, nature”). The Syriac
forms with postponed definite article ‫ ܐ‬/ īṯyā and * ‫ ܐ‬/ īṯā must go
back to an Imperial Aramaic form, which in the status absolutus must have
been *īyā. This form entered Arabic as ‫ إيا‬/ īyā and was used alone as a particle
in connection with the personal suffix as a sign of the accusative (mostly),
e.g., in Q 1:5: ‫ اياك نعبد واياك نستعين‬/ īyāka na‘budu wa-īyāka nasta‘īn (“It is you
we worship and your assistance we request”).38 In the dialects ‫ إيا‬/ īyā is also
used in connection with the personal suffix, but prepositionally (after the
conjunction ‫ و‬/ w), in the sense of “and” or “with,” e.g., ‫ أنا وايّاك‬/ anā w-īyā-k
(“I and ‘your being’” = “I and you” or “I with you”). However, the substantive
‫ آية‬/ āya cannot be derived from this particle ‫ إيا‬/ īyā.
A remnant of the Syriac secondary form / yāṯā (“essence, existence,
being, presence”) (> Arabic yāt) still exists today in the contemporary
colloquial Arabic of the Middle East, in connection with kull / kəll (“entirety”
= “all”), as follows: kull + yāt + nā = kullyātnā (literally, “the entirety of our
being” = “we all”), kull + yāt + kon = kullyātkon (“you all”), kull + yāt + (h)on
= kullyāt(h)on (“they all”). In north Mesopotamian dialects the forms are
contracted: kəllətnā (“we all”), kəllətkən (“you all”), kəllətən (“they all”).
However, there is no trace whatsoever of this form yāt in Arabic literature.
Consequently, it is hard to accept that the hypothetical Qur’ānic reading ‫ آية‬/
āya could have been derived from the Syriac secondary form / yāṯā, or
even from the dialectal Arabo-Aramaic yāt.
These considerations have allowed us to conclude that the diacritical
points placed underneath the word ‫ آية‬/ āya are incorrect in 382 places in the
Qur’ān. In addition, though, an examination of the Qur’ānic usage of ‫ آية‬/ āya
shows that the various semantic nuances that appear (depending on the
context) are exactly the same as those of the Syro-Aramaic ‫ ܐܬ‬/ āṯā.39 So,
for example, we see Q 3:41, where Zechariah asks God for a “sign” (‫ آية‬/ āya)
of what God has announced to him, namely, the birth of John; there God
announces to him as a “sign” that he will communicate with other people for
three days by means of sign-language alone (‫ رمزا‬/ ramzan < Syro-Aramaic
‫ ܪ‬/ rmāzā, remzā [Luke 1:22]). In the Peshitta (the Syriac version of the
Bible), the angel gives the shepherds a “sign” ( ‫ ܐܬ‬/ āṯā) as well, namely, that
they will find a child wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger
(Luke 2:12).
We also find a typical loan-translation in Q 17:12, with the expressions ‫اية‬
‫ اليل‬/ āyat al-layl and ‫ اية النھار‬/ āyat an-nahār, which Paret (228) translates
literally as “sign of the night” and “sign of the day” [Bell, Surah 17:13, trans-
lates in the same manner]. Although the sense of both expressions is clear, in
themselves they remain foreign to the Arabic language. In the Syro-Aramaic
language, however, ‫ܐܬܘܬ‬ ܵ / āṯwāṯā (“sign”) means, among other things, the
heavenly bodies (cf. the English expression “signs of the zodiac”), including
the “sun” and the “moon.”40
Such loan-translations provide especially clear evidence that the Qur’ān
transcribed the Syro-Aramaic orthography ‫ ܐܬ‬/ āṯā to mean the Arabic
word ‫ اثة‬/ āṯa rather than the (at a later date) mis-read and mis-pointed ‫ اية‬/
āya, especially as this word is not known in any Arabic dialect with this
pronunciation. As a result, we can say that the correction of ‫ اية‬/ āya into ‫ اثة‬/
āṯa is well-founded from the perspectives of philology and historical
linguistics. The plural here, then, should no longer read ‫ آيات‬/ āyāt but rather
‫ آثات‬/ āṯāt or ‫ آثاث‬/ āṯāṯ (following the Aramaic spirantizing of the final-t, and
corresponding to the correctly-transmitted form found in Surah 19:74).
We may adduce here two other Qur’ānic texts, where written forms have
been mis-read in the same way. In Surah 44:36 we read:
‫فاتوا بابئنا ان كنتم صدقين‬
(fa-’tū bi-ābā’inā in kuntum ṣādiqīn)
This verse has been understood by the modern Qur’ānic translators just as
Ṭabarī (XXV:128) explained it:
Paret, 414: But produce our (dead) fathers (again), if you speak the truth!
[Bringt doch unsere (verstorbenen) Väter (wieder) herbei, wenn (anders) ihr
die Wahrheit sagt!]
Blachère, 527: Bring our fathers back, if you are truthful! [Faites revenir nos
pères, si vous êtes véridiques!]
Bell, II:500, 35: Produce our fathers, if ye speak the truth.
The Qur’ānic context concerns people who doubt, those who demand for
themselves proofs concerning the resurrection at the last day; they do not ask
for the immediate return of their dead fathers, for there is no discussion of
“fathers” here at all. The mis-read written form ‫ بابائنا‬/ bi-ābā’inā could be
read ‫ باياتنا‬/ bi-āyātinā according to the current mis-reading, but it should now
be read as ‫ باثاتنا‬/ bi-āṯātinā (or, following the Aramaic, ‫ باثاثنا‬/ bi-āṯāṯinā) and
understood thus:
Then bring the proofs (that convince) us (lit.: “our proofs”), if you speak the
truth!41
In a similar way, we should correct the written form found in Surah 45:25
that has been equally mis-pointed:
‫و اذ تتلى عليھم اثــتــنا بينت ما كان حجتھم اال ان قالوا‬
‫ايتوا باثــتــنا ان كنتم صدقين‬
(wa-iḏ tu-tlā ‘alayhim āṯātunā bayyināt(in) mā kāna ḥujjatuhum illā an qālū
aytū bi-āṯātinā in kuntum ṣādiqīn42)
It has been traditionally understood thus:

Paret (417): And when our verses (lit.: “signs”) are read out to them as clear
proofs (baiyināt), they have no other argument (to introduce) than to say,
“Produce our (dead) fathers (again), if you speak the truth!” [Und wenn
ihnen unsere Verse (w.: Zeichen) als klare Beweise (baiyināt) verlesen
warden, haben sie keinen anderen Beweisgrund (anzuführen), als daß sie
sagen: “Bringt unsere (verstorbenen) Väter (wieder) herbei, wenn (anders)
ihr die Wahrheit sagt!”]
Blachère (531): When our clear aya are communicated to them, they have no
other argument than to object: “Bring our fathers back, if you are truthful!”
[Quand Nos claires aya leur sont communiquées, ils n’ont d’autre argument
que d’objecter: “Ramenez-nous nos pères, si vous êtes véridiques!”]
Bell, II:505, 24: And when Our signs are recited to them as Evidences, their
only argument is: “Produce our fathers, if ye speak the truth.”
New understanding:
And when our written signs (i.e., our transcribed words) are recited to them
(so that they are self-)evident 43, they have no other objection than to say,
“Then bring the proofs (lit.: signs) (that convince) us (lit.: “bring our signs”), if
you speak the truth!”
If we include these two emendations (Surahs 44:36; 45:25), then the total
number of textual locations rises to 384 in which one single written form has
been mis-read (in its plene and defective forms). However, because the
Qur’ān, in the verse-numbering of the canonical Cairo edition, has
approximately 6,236 verses, all of which are called by the mis-read word
“āya,” one can easily imagine how difficult it would be for the new reading of
“āṯā” to carry the day. If one takes this reality into account, then one will
have to decide to live with the traditional mis-reading, all the while clarifying
it as a historico-linguistic error. In a similar fashion, all historical linguists
have resigned themselves to accept the arbitrary reading of the loan-word
Qur’ān which should have been read as the original Syro-Aramaic word
Qeryān. Once again, both misreadings are further proof against the “dogma”
of the oral transmission of the Koran.
4. The Christian-Syriac Origin of Friday as Islam’s Weekly Day

of Prayer and Rest
4.1 Introductory Remarks

Even if we have already sufficiently shown the Syro-Aramaic origin of the
three basic terms of the Qur’ān as an originally Christian-Syriac liturgical
book, there still remains the question, relevant for the history of religions, of
whether a Christian-Syriac background (in liturgical perspective) could lie
behind Friday as the weekly day of prayer and rest in Islam. An easy con-
jecture is this: at its beginning Islam attempted to establish Friday as the
weekly day of prayer and rest in order to distinguish itself from the Jews’
Sabbath and the Christians’ Sunday, and in order to underscore the growing
self-confidence of a national religion that was expanding along with the
political power of the newly-founded (Arabian) theocracy. Such a conjecture
could seem at first glance to illuminate the situation, but it is not entirely
satisfactory. A search for other reasons in the history of religions leads to the
subsequent question as to why such desires in early Islam did not lead to the
choice of Monday, as that day would have made more chronological sense, as
following on the Christians’ Sunday, which in its turn followed on the Jews’
Sabbath. In other words, why did they choose Friday, as this choice seems, so
to speak, to go anti-clockwise? We shall now attempt to explain this religio-
historical question, which hitherto was not even posed.
4.2 A Qur’ānic Hint

In the canonical edition of the Qur’ān, there is one single text in which Friday
is mentioned, but without any context that gives more specific information.
In Surah 62, which was later named the “Friday Surah” (‫)سورة الجمعة‬, verse 9
reads thus:
‫يايھا الذين امنوا اذا نودي للصلوة من يوم الجمعة‬
‫فاسعوا الى ذكر اللــه وذروا البيع ذلكم خير لكم ان كنتم تعلمون‬
Paret: O you who believe: when there is a call to prayer on Friday (lit.:
“community day”), then hurry to the prayer (lit.: think of God), and let your
business (lit.: “selling”) be, for the former (brings) you better things if you
only knew. [O ihr, die ihr glaubt, wenn am Freitag (wörtlich: Gemeindetag)
zum Gebet aufgerufen wird, so begebt euch zum Gottesgedenken und lasst
das Geschäft (wörtlich: das Verkaufen) sein, denn dies (bringt) euch
Besseres (ein), wenn ihr wüsstet.]
Pickthall: O ye who believe! When the call is heard for the prayer of the day of
congregation, haste unto remembrance of Allah and leave your trading. That
is better for you if ye did but know.
Scholars have not drawn consistent conclusions concerning this late Surah,
which is ascribed to the Medinan period. For his part, Ṭabarī (XXVIII:99ff.)
does not mention the institution of Friday as the weekly day of prayer at all;
of course, by his time (ninth/tenth century) Friday had long been the custo-
mary “congregation day” in Islam. One wishes that he had said something
about the actual liturgical practices on this day that is so important for Islam.
Lisān is much more illuminating, for there, under the entry ‫ الجمعة‬/ al-
ǧum‘a (VIII:58b f.) (lit.: “[day of] assembly, congregation day” = “Friday”),44
we learn that al-jum‘a (Friday) has only been called al-ǧum‘a since the advent
of Islam, and that earlier this day went by the name of ‫ يوم العروبة‬/ yawm al-
‘arūba (< Syro-Aramaic ‫ ܡ ܘ‬/ yawm ‘ruḇtā = “day of the sunset”).
Under the word ‫ عروبة‬/ ‘arūba, Lisān (I:593) gives a similar explanation: ‫عروبة‬
/ ‘arūba and ‫ العروبة‬/ al-‘arūba both mean ‫ الجمعة‬/ al-ǧum‘a (Friday). After
giving a ḥadīṯ (a statement of the Prophet) concerning Friday, it states:
‫ يوم‬: ‫ يقال‬. ‫ وكأنه ليس بعربي‬، ‫ ھو اسم قديم لھا‬، َ‫كانت )الجمعة( تسمى عَروبة‬
‫ واألفسح أن ال يدخلھا األلف والالم‬، ‫ ويوم العروبة‬، ‫عروبة‬
“Earlier Friday was called ‘arūba, a name which does not appear to be Arabic.
This expression was current as yawm ‘arūba or yawm al-‘arūba, but the form
‘arūba, without the prefixed article al-, is more literary (i.e., more classical).”
The form yawm ‘arūba (i.e., without the Arabic article al-) corresponds exact-
ly to the Syro-Aramaic form ‫ ܡ ܘ‬/ yawm ‘ruḇtā, which means “day of
the sunset,” or “Saturday Eve.”45 This word originally meant the evening be-
fore the Sabbath, which Syrian Christians used as a name for Friday after
taking it over from the Jewish tradition and re-interpreting it in the light of
Christianity. According to this re-interpretation, the setting of the sun on
Good Friday, that is, the darkening of the sun that occurred after Jesus’ cruci-
fixion (Mt. 27:45; Mk. 15:33; Lk. 23:44-45), symbolizes the end of the Old
Covenant and the beginning of the New.46 As a result, among Syrian Chris-
tians Friday is called ‫ ܘ‬/ ‘ruḇtā (“setting of the sun” = “Friday”).
There still remains open the interesting question of whether the pre-
Islamic Arabs learned this Syro-Aramaic name for Friday (‘arūba) from Jews
or Christians. The fact that Jewish-Aramaic tradition gives the name ‫ערובתה‬
/ ‘roḇtā (status emphaticus) or ‫ ערובה‬/ ‘rōḇā (status absolutus) not only to the
evening before the Sabbath but also to the evening before other high holidays
speaks in favor of a Christian origin.47 In Christian Syrian tradition, though,
Friday alone is called ‫ ܘ‬/ ‘ruḇtā, while the evening before other holidays
is called ‫ ܪ‬/ ramšā (“evening[time]” = “vespers”). Incidentally, Heinrich
Lewy long ago showed the etymology of the name “Europe” as deriving from
the Aramaic ‫ ערובה‬/ ‘rōḇā (“setting of the sun” = “Occident” = “West”).48
There is an apparently legendary report in Lisān (I:593a f.), according to
which Ka‘b b. Lu’ayy / ‫( لؤي‬actually ‫ = لوي‬lwy = Levi), who was the purported
grandfather of the Prophet, was the first one to re-name the (Aramaic name)
‫ يوم العروبة‬/ yawm al-‘arūba (“day of the sunset”) as ‫ الجمعة‬/ al-ǧum‘a
(“assembly-, congregation-day”). If one were to believe this story as true, then
it would be ensured that Friday was called al-ǧum‘ā only after the advent of
Islam; on the other hand, we could then not exclude a Jewish-Aramaic origin
for the name.49
However, it is in a testimony transmitted in the Arabic tradition that we
find the explanation that truly settles the question in terms of the history of
religions, specifically in the Qur’ānic “readings literature.” This particular
text concerns the famous work ‫ كتاب المصاحف‬/ Kitāb al-maṣāḥif (“The Book of
the Qur’ānic Codices”), written by the Qur’ānic scholar as-Siǧistanī (d. 316
AH / 941 CE) and edited by Arthur Jeffery (1892–1959).50 The readings trans-
mitted in this work supposedly trace back to written witnesses that are older
than the canonical Qur’ānic edition of ‘Uṯmān (Osman) that is known to us.
Jeffery makes the following statement in the section entitled “The Old
Codices”:
The Kitāb al-maṣāḥif of ibn abī Dāwūd together with a collection of the
variant readings from the codices of ibn Mas‘ūd, Ubai, ‘Alī, ibn ‘Abbās, Anas,
abū Mūsā and other early Qur’ānic authorities which present a type of text
anterior to that of the canonical text of ‘Uthmān.
Jeffery seems to overlook an extremely important reading on Surah 62:9 from

the codex of Ubai b. Ka‘b; alternatively, he may simply not have grasped its
wide-ranging importance for the history of religions. In the Qur’ānic text in
question, where the Cairo edition has ‫ يوم الجمعة‬/ yawm al-ǧum‘a (“assembly-,
congregation-day”) for “Friday,” the Ubai codex (p. 170, Q 62:9) has the
variant ‫ يوم العروبة الكبرى‬/ yawm al-‘arūba l-kubrā. This corresponds to the
Syro-Aramaic expression ‫ܪ‬ ‫ ܡ ܘ‬/ yawm ‘ruḇtā rabbṯā (“day of
the great setting of the sun” = “day of the great Friday”).51 This in turn
corresponds to the expression in contemporary Christian Arabic ‫يوم الجمعة‬
‫ العظيمة‬/ yawm al-ǧum‘a l-‘aẓīma (“day of the great Friday” = “Good Friday”).
This authentic testimony provides us clear proof that the Syro-Aramaic
Good Friday was the direct predecessor to the Islamic Friday. If one is aware
that the Syriac liturgical office for every Friday commemorates Good Friday,
then one will be able to understand why this day’s soteriological meaning
causes it to receive more honor than the day of the Resurrection in some
Christian congregations (and especially in the piety of the common people).
This perspective casts an entirely new light on the emergence of Islam and on
the pre-Islamic Arabo-Christian community whose trace seems to have
become entirely blurred due to an understanding of history distorted by the
lens of Islam. The meaning of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, as a testi-
mony to this pre-Islamic, Syro-Arabian Christianity, henceforward achieves a
new liturgical confirmation of its importance as the grave of Christ (Arabic ‫قبة‬
‫ الصخرة‬/ qubbat aṣ-ṣaḫra = “stone grave”) and as a pilgrimage site of the
Christian Arabs under the caliph ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwān (685-705).52 We
should here remember the only Qur’ānic text that concerns the crucifixion of
Christ (Q 4:157), a text that has been completely misunderstood and mis-
interpreted by the Qur’ānic commentators; this text must be interpreted anew
in concert with the other Qur’ānic texts that speak of the death and
resurrection of Christ (Surahs 3:55; 5:117; 19:33; 72:19).53
Now that we have shown the Christian Syrian origin of the basic terms of
the Qur’ān as an originally Christian Syrian lectionary, this unexpected hint
of a pre-Islamic, Christian Syrian liturgy leads us logically to the original
topic of this essay: the mysterious letters in the Qur’ān. In what follows I will
demonstrate how these “mysterious” abbreviations are connected to a
Christian Syrian liturgy.
5. Concerning the Meaning of the Abbreviations in the Syriac

Daily Office
The breviary for the liturgical year in the West Syrian (Antiochene) church’s
liturgical tradition exists in seven volumes; one of these volumes, the one
concerning the Advent and Christmas seasons, serves as the foundation for
this presentation of the Syriac daily office.54 The abbreviations in the Syriac
breviary belong to the rubrics that contain specific information for each
portion of the office. There is a technical term for these abbreviations that
consist of one, two, or three letters, with a line above them: the word is either
/ yaḏ‘ā (lit., “recognized”) or / yaddī‘ā (lit., “making known”),
55
essentially meaning “clue” or “hint.”
These ܵ / yad‘ē (“hint-signs”), which generally occur at the beginning
of a liturgical text or section, serve to indicate the first words of a hymn that is
to follow, as W. Wright surmised: “the word (yaḏ‘ā) seems to denote the
first words, or catch-words of well-known hymns.”56 In fact, depending on
the abbreviation, they can indicate much more:
a) Because the liturgy typically begins with a psalm, indicated by the
abbreviation ‫ ܡ‬/ mzm (= ‫ܪ‬ / mazmōrā), up to three letters
can indicate the number of the psalm in question in the Psalter;
these letters run from ‫ ܐ‬/ a (= Ps. 1) to / qn (= Ps. 150).
b) The letter ‫ ܩ‬/ q stands for / qālā (“musical key, melody, tune”)
and indicates the tone of the following chant (from the eight tones in
Syrian hymnody); then follow the introductory words of the exem-
plary hymn (e.g., “to the tune of ‘Praise the Lord’”).
c) The letters / pt mean / peṯgāmā (“responsorial”) and are
followed by the corresponding responsorial lyrics.
d) The abbreviations / pu (= / punnāyā) and / ‘u (= /
‘unnāyā) both mean “antiphon” and are followed by the correspon-
ding lyric.
e) Occasionally one finds before a Gospel reading a chapter with the
letters / qf (= ‫ܘܢ‬ < κεφαλαῖον)
f) The letters ‫ ܘ‬/ wšr (= ‫ ܘ‬/ w-šarkā) mean “etc.”
g) Between the individual hymns one regularly finds the letters / šu
(= / šuḇḥā), representing the doxology “Gloria Patri” (“Glory
be to the Father…”), sung by the priest; after this, one finds the word
/ men (“from [now and unto ages of ages]”), which the choir or
congregation answers as the beginning of the stanza that follows.
One sometimes sees a ‫ ܗ‬/ h, which stands for hallelujah; in the
dictionaries and other texts, one sees for the ‫ ܗ‬/ h the meaning ‫ ܗ‬/
hānaw (“that is, i.e.”). There are also a number of other abbrevia-
tions in the Syriac literature.
The following selections from the Syriac breviary cited above are intended to
serve as visual illustrations of a few of the abbreviations I have mentioned.
These examples include a few pointers to individual psalms. On the scans
they can easily be found as the only letters with a horizontal stroke above.
5.2 Individual Examples

Example 1
(p. 52) After the division marker in the middle of the line, we see d-mezaltā
YW naṭarayn(i). The first word means “(Advent Sunday) of the Visitation,”
referring to Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth. “YW” is a number marker,
referring to Psalm 16. The following word naṭarayn(i) provides the beginning
of the corresponding Psalm: “Protect me (Lord)!”
Example 2
(p. 52) d-mawlāḏeh d-Yoḥannān = “(Advent Sunday) of the Birth of John”

KZ = Psalm 27
Māryā = the beginning of the Psalm: “The Lord (is my light)”
Example 3
(p. 52) d-Yawsep̵ = “(Advent Sunday) of Joseph’s Dream(-Vision)”

KW = Psalm 26
dunaynʸ = the beginning of the Psalm: “Vindicate me (Lord)”
Example 4
(p. 52) da-qḏām yaldā = “(Advent Sunday) before the Nativity”

LG = Psalm 33
šabbaḥʷ = the beginning of the Psalm: “Praise (the Lord, O you righteous
ones)”
Example 5
(p. 52) d-ḇāṯar yaldā = “(Sunday) after the Nativity”

LṬ = Psalm 39
Example 6
(p. 52) After the division marker: kurrāḵā = “response”

BQ = b-qālā, meaning “according to the tune;” qām Māran are the first words
of the tune: “Our Lord is risen”
Example 7
1st line: (p. 53) After the upper division marker: MZM = mazmōrā = “Psalm”
ba-rḇī‘āyā = in the fourth tone
2nd line: d-subbāreh da-Zḵaryā = “(Sunday) of the Annunciation to
Zechariah” – G = Psalm 3; Māryā mā sḡīw = the beginning of the Psalm:
“Lord, how numerous are (my foes)”
3rd line: After the lower division marker: d-subbārāh d-Maryam = “(Sunday)
of the Annunciation to Mary” – Ṭ = Psalm 9 – awdē = the beginning of the
Psalm: “I will praise (the Lord with all my heart)”
Example 8
(Q 61) Before the division marker: ŠW = šuḇḥā lāḵ = “Praise be to you”

After the division marker: šuḇḥā leh l-ḥaḏ ba-ṯlāṯā = “Praise be to the One in
Three (the Trinity)”
Example 9
The division marker in this Syriac edition consists of four points arranged in
the form of a cross; it serves to divide stanzas, textual sections, and primary
sentences. The marker by itself looks like this:
Compare the division marker for verses that one finds in a Qur’ānic
manuscript:
(detail:)
5.3 Summary
This analysis of the normal abbreviations found in the Syriac daily office
edition has demonstrated their use to indicate the following categories:
doxologies; psalms; responsorial texts, antiphons, and responses; tunes,
melodies, and modes; and biblical readings. These results are certainly con-
nected with the etymological analysis of the three Qur’ānic expressions of
literary scope, of whose Syro-Aramaic origin there is now no doubt. But the
results are also confirmed liturgically through the explanation of the Chris-
tian Syriac Good Friday as the precursor to the Islamic Friday, as I have
shown above. The reconstruction of these facts, relevant as they are to the his-
tory of religions, allow us to consider it well-founded to attempt to place the
so-called “mysterious letters in the Qur’ān” in their religio-historical setting
and thus to interpret them anew in connection with the liturgical traditions of
Syrian Christianity.
6. The “Mysterious Letters” in the Qur’ān
6.1 Introductory Remarks

In order to forestall overly optimistic expectations, I must initially note that
the Qur’ān—despite the Syro-Aramaic origin of its name—should only be
considered as partially connected with a Christian Syrian liturgy, in that this
liturgy originally formed the foundation of the Qur’ān. We must leave it to
future studies to show that this liturgy is to be found in the oldest portions of
the so-called “Meccan” Surahs; such work will also show that there is far
more Christian Syrian liturgy to be found in these earliest sections of the
Qur’ān than scholars have thus far seen. However, this liturgy is not the same
as those Eastern and Western Syrian liturgies with which scholars are familiar
and whose roots stretch back into early Christianity. It is certain that the
Qur’ānic liturgy is older in some parts than Islam; indeed, as we already
know, it goes back to a pre-Nicene Christianity and is similar to an early
Christian Syrian liturgy. However, its predecessors seem to have vanished in
the mists of history; we have no written evidence for it whatsoever before the
Qur’ān. If one adds to this recognition the confused circumstances under
which laypeople apparently collected, edited, and sometimes misunderstood
the Qur’ānic materials at a later date, one can begin to understand the scho-
larly discomfort with the efforts to disentangle and historically reconstruct
this text.
Theodor Nöldeke’s Geschichte des Qorans ([History of the Qurʾān]1909–
38; ed. Schwally, Bergsträßer, Pretzl) provided western Qur’ānic scholarship
with a crucial recognition, namely, that the Islamic exegetes’ rough division
of the Qur’ānic text into earlier Meccan and later Medinan Surahs must be
chronologically sub-divided into a greater number of time periods. Analysis
of the sigla (or “mysterious letters”) has led us to the further understanding
that these letters are exclusively associated with the beginnings of Meccan
Surahs (with the exception of Surahs 2 and 3, although their beginnings
should in fact be assigned to the Meccan period). On the basis of this know-
ledge, and in interpreting the sigla, we will need to distinguish between the
first and second Meccan periods. Naturally, the liturgical portions of the
Qur’ān belong to the first period; there we will find sigla that have a
relationship to the liturgy. We can assign the beginning of a sermon (cf. Q
75:17–19) to the second period; in that group are preserved portions whose
beginning invokes the revealed “written text” (kitāb), of which the Qur’ān
understands itself to be a part. Some scholars have already noted that some
sigla stand at the beginning of such Surahs, a recognition that will make the
meaning of a whole set of sigla comprehensible. Because these latter sigla are,
generally speaking, not identical with those of the Syrian liturgy, and because
the pre-Qur’ānic liturgical tradition was apparently irreparably lost by this

point in time, it is possible that we have only interpretive proposals to make
based on comparisons with liturgical texts; our hope, though, is that these will
best allow for the unique ways in which the Qur’ānic text was edited.
With all of this said, we can now proceed to the explanation of the
individual sigla.
6.2 Concerning the Meaning of the Individual Sigla
Given that the Qur’ān is a liturgical book (qəryānā [“lectionary”]), and corre-
sponding to the tradition of the Syrian daily office, some Surahs begin with a
Psalm verse. This is the case with Surahs 57, 59, 61, 62, and 64 (and possibly
also Surahs 67 and 87). So, for example, in Surah 62:1, we read: yusabbiḥ l(i)-
Allāh mā fī s-samāwāt wa mā fī-l-’arḍ (“Let all that is in heaven and on earth
praise God”). The Hebrew reads: ‫ָאָרץ יַמִּים ְוכָל־רֹמֵשׂ בָּם‬ ָ ‫ י ְ ַהלְלוּהוּ‬yəhaləlū-
ֶ ‫שׁ ַמי ִם ו‬
hū šāmayim wā-ʾāräṣ yammīm wə-kāl [=kɔl] romēś (Ps. 69:34: “Let heaven
and earth praise him!”).
Sigla 1–3: ‫ ص‬/ Ṣ, ‫ ق‬/ Q, ‫ ن‬/ N (Surahs 38:1; 50:1; 68:1)
We should view the fact that the Qur’ān mentions the Psalms on nine occa-
sions as a pointer to the Psalter, which was a part of the pre-Qur’ānic liturgy
just as it was of the Syrian liturgy. Consequently, as in the Syrian daily office,
individual letters in the Qur’ān can serve as numbers, pointing to particular
Psalms in the Psalter. Of course, the use of these Psalms disappeared in the
later Islamic tradition. As a result, the following three letters in the Qur’ān
can possibly indicate three Psalms: 1) ‫ ص‬/ Ṣ (Q 38:1) would refer to Psalm 90;
2) ‫ ق‬/ Q (Q 50:1) would refer to Psalm 100; and 3) ‫ ن‬/ N (Q 68:1) would refer
to Psalm 50.57 One could also interpret the ‫ ص‬/ Ṣ as ‫ ܨ ܘܬ‬/ ṣḇaōṯ or ‫ صبأوت‬/
ṣaba’ūt (“Lord of Hosts” = “the Powerful, the Almighty”), the ‫ ق‬/ Q as ‫ ܩܕ‬/
qaddīš or ‫ قدوس‬/ quddūs (“holy [is/be he]”). In fact, both expressions appear
in the “Trisagion”: “Holy (are you, God), (holy are you,) Strong….”
Siglum 4: ‫ يس‬/ YS = ‫ بس‬/ BS
At the beginning of Q 36, there are letters that are traditionally read as ‫ يس‬/ ys,
from which the Islamic tradition has developed a personal name (Yāsīn).
However, reading the letters as ‫ بس‬/ bs (because the diacritical points
originally did not exist) appears to make more sense, as an abbreviation for
the basmala, as a normal formula at the beginning of that liturgy. The Syro-
Aramaic would have read / b-šem, which would correspond to the Arabic
‫ بسم‬/ b-ism = ‫ بسم اللــه الرحمن الرحيم‬/ b-ismi llāh ar-raḥmān ar-raḥīm (“in the
name of the gracious and merciful God”). This siglum, then, would
correspond to the Syriac abbreviation / šu (= / šuḇḥā) as the doxo-

logy “Gloria Patri.”
A further group of sigla that can refer to individual Psalm verses and
have as their content the praise of God are the following:
Siglum 5: ‫ طــه‬/ ṬH (Q 20:1)
This abbreviation has also been made in the later Islamic tradition into a
personal name: Ṭāḥā. However, it seems to make much more sense to read in
it the Syro-Aramaic ‫ܗܘ‬ܼ / ṭāḇ hū, which would correspond to the Arabic
‫ طيب ھو‬/ ṭayyib(un) huwa (“he [the Lord] is good”). This also fits well with
the following two sigla.
Siglum 6: ‫ طسم‬/ ṬSM (Surahs 26:1; 28:1)
This abbreviation represents the Syro-Aramaic / ṬŠM = /

ṭāḇ šem Māryā, which would correspond to the Arabic ‫ طيب ھو اسم الرب‬/
ṭayyib(un) huwa (i)sm(u) r-Rabb (“the name of the Lord is good”).
Siglum 7: ‫ طس‬/ ṬS (Q 27:1)
This abbreviation represents the Syro-Aramaic / ṬŠ = / ṭāḇ šmeh,

which would correspond to the Arabic ‫ طيب ھو اسمه‬/ ṭayyib(un) huwa
(i)sm(u)-(hu) (“[his] name is good”).
Siglum 8: ‫ حم‬/ ḤM (Surahs 40:1; 41:1; 42:1; 43:1; 44:1; 45:1; 46:1)
The seven Surahs that start with the abbreviation ‫ حم‬/ ḥm also all begin with a
text of revelation. As such, this abbreviation has as its content a well-known
formula that should be understood as both a praise of God and also an in-
tensifying oath-formula (functioning to emphasize the following text’s cha-
racter as revelatory). Here we should see a correspondence with the fifth pro-
posal of some commentators that Ṭabarī mentioned, according to which
some scholars thought that some of these abbreviations did indeed concern
oath-formulas that belong to the name of God without stating it explicitly.58
This conjecture, which has been ignored by Western Qur’ānic scholars, will
now be confirmed and concretized with the following analysis.
The Qur’ānic abbreviation ‫ حم‬/ ḥm corresponds to the Syro-Aramaic /
ḥm, which is short for ܼ / ḥayy(h)ū Māryā, which in turn corresponds
to the Arabic ‫ حي ھر الرب‬/ ḥayy(un) huwa r-Rabb (“The Lord is alive!” or “As
the Lord lives!”).59 Mannā (235b) reproduces this formula in Arabic, but as
following the Syro-Aramaic written form, as follows: ‫ حي ھو الرب‬/ ḥayy(un)
huwa r-Rabb (“The Lord is alive!”), ‫ وﷲ‬/ wa-llāh (“in God[‘s name]!”). The
Qur’ānic abbreviation ‫ حم‬/ ḥm, then, is a formulaic intensification of the
divine origin of the text that follows it.
Siglum 9: ‫ عسق‬/ ‘SQ = / ‘ŠQ
In Q 42:2, the siglum ‫ عسق‬/ ‘šq follows logically upon the abbreviation ‫ حم‬/
ḥm. If we transcribe it into Syro-Aramaic, we have the abbreviation / ‘šq,
which stands for / ‘lā šme-h qaddīšā. This phrase, brought
over into Arabic, is ‫ عال اسمه القدوس‬/ ‘alā (i)smu-hu l-quddūs (“High [= praised]
be his holy name!”). In this case we can combine this abbreviation with the
previous one into a coherent sentence, reading as follows in Syro-Aramaic
and Arabic:
ܼ / ḥayy(h)ū Māryā ‘lā šme-h qaddīšā

‫ حي ھو الرب عال اسمه القدوس‬/ ḥayy(un) huwa r-Rabb ‘alā (i)smu-hu l-quddūs
“As the Lord lives—praised be his holy name!”
Just as this formula emphasizes the divine origin of the revelatory text it
precedes, so do the Surahs ascribed to the second Meccan period use the
following four sigla for the same purpose: ‫ الم‬/ ALM; ‫ الر‬/ ALR; ‫ المر‬/ ALMR;
‫ المص‬/ ALMṢ.
Siglum 10: ‫ الم‬/ ALM (Surahs 2:1; 3:1; 29:1; 30:1; 31:1; 32:1)
Abū Mūsā al-Ḥarīrī, in his 1979 study in Arabic entitled ‫ قس ونبي‬/ Qass wa-
nabī (“A Priest and a Prophet”), conjectured that this abbreviation, which
appears six times in the Qur’ān, represents the Syro-Aramaic letters ‫ ܐ‬/
ALM, standing for the Syro-Aramaic sentence ‫ ܐ‬/ emar lī Māryā (=
Arabic ‫ قال لي الرب‬/ qāla lī ar-Rabb [“The Lord spoke to me”]).60 This
stereotypical sentence appears often in the Old Testament with regard to the
prophets. This reading and explanation will be confirmed by the analysis of
the next abbreviation.
Siglum 11: ‫ الــر‬/ ALR (Surahs 10:1; 11:1; 12:1; 14:1; 15:1)
As the afore-mentioned author rightly surmised, these letters, which appear

five times in the Qur’ān, correspond to the Syro-Aramaic letters ‫ ܐ‬/ ALR.
Consequently, we should read these letters as an acronym for the following
Syro-Aramaic words: ‫ܪ‬ ‫ ܐ‬/ emar lī Rabbā, which would correspond
(as above) to the Arabic ‫ قال لي الرب‬/ qāla lī ar-Rabb (“The Great One [the
Lord] spoke to me”).61 This interpretation has recently been assigned in
Internet forums to the writers who go under the pseudonyms Haï Bar-Zeev
and Hanna Zakarias (alias Gabriel Théry).62 The interpretation I have cited
from Abū Mūsā al-Ḥarīrī has in its favor the plausibility of the Qur’ānic
context.
The wavy horizontal line that appears over the abbreviation ‫ الم‬/ ALM (as
above the other sigla) means (as is the case in the Syriac scribal tradition, see
the Syriac scans above) that the letters are an abbreviation. We can see this in
the following selection (in the second line, on the right side), along with the
detail:
This wavy line has been interpreted in the Islamic tradition as a madda [i.e., a
sign for a long ā in the Arabic alphabet], but in the case of Koranic recitation
it is considered as a sign of prolongation of each individual letter while
reciting (as follows: aliiif…laaam…miiim…).
Siglum 12: ‫ المر‬/ ALMR (Q 13:1)
This siglum appears but one time and is a combination of the two previously
mentioned. Thus, it should be read as follows: Syro-Aramaic ‫ܪ‬ ‫ܐ‬
/ emar lī Māryā rabbā, corresponding to the Arabic ‫ قال لي الرب العظيم‬/ qāla lī
ar-Rabb al-‘aẓīm, meaning “The great (almighty) Lord spoke to me.”
Siglum 13: ‫ المص‬/ ALMṢ (Q 7:1)
This siglum also appears once and should be read as follows: Syro-Aramaic
‫ܨ ܘܬ = ܐ‬ ‫ ܐ‬/ emar lī Māryā ṣḇaōṯ, corresponding to the
Arabic ‫ قال لي الرب الصبأوت‬/ qāla lī ar-Rabb aṣ-ṣaba’ūt, meaning “The strong
(almighty) Lord spoke to me.”
Siglum 14: ‫ كھيعص‬/ KHY‘Ṣ (Surah 19:1)
We should first note that, unlike the other previously mentioned Surahs,
whose sigla indicate a revealed text, the Surah Maryam begins with a liturgical
text that one can ascribe to the Advent season of the Christian Syrian liturgy.
The first Sunday of Advent in the Syrian daily office has as its theme, just as
we find in the Qur’ān, the announcement to Zechariah of the birth of John
the Baptist. This theme corresponds to the Gospel pericope Luke 1:5–23; the
Qur’ān summarizes this story in verses 2–11 in a free and succinct form.63 In
the Syrian liturgical tradition, the second Sunday of Advent is devoted to the
annunciation to Mary (Luke 1:27–38). The Qur’ān reproduces this report
also, in verses 16–21, with a version that summarizes the story (albeit from a
Qur’ānic perspective). The report of the birth of Christ found in verses 22–33,
however, diverges quite a bit from Luke 2:1–20 and suggests a non-canonical
Qur’ānic Vorlage [model or original].
What is important for our purposes, however, is that the two “annuncia-
tion sequences” that precede the Christmas story in the Qur’ān agree exactly
with the corresponding Advent Sundays in the Syrian liturgical year. This is
relevant for historical studies of liturgy because in this way the Qur’ān follows
a West Syrian tradition that can be traced back at least as far as the early sixth
century, while the Eastern Syrians had four Advent Sundays (or “Sundays of
Annunciation”) long before the middle of the seventh century.64 By means of
its structure, in concert as it is with the Gospel of Luke, the Surah Maryam
testifies to a pre-Islamic, Christian Syrian tradition with two Advent Sundays
before the Christmas celebration, for which Surah 97, as a “Christmas Surah,”
has preserved a historical memory.65
Because we can now say that Surah 19 belongs to the liturgical texts in the
Qur’ān, the siglum that introduces it must naturally have as its content the
praise of God, in a way corresponding to the Syrian liturgy. This is also an
indicator that the Surah Maryam does not belong to the second Meccan
period, which distinguishes itself by texts that present a sermon supported by
revelation; rather, it is a liturgical text (at least up to verse 33) that belongs to
that earlier portion of the Qur’ān that serves as its foundation as originally a
lectionary, that is, as a liturgical book.
This longest siglum in the Qur’ān can therefore be decoded according to
the Syrian liturgy and in the following way: ‫ كھيعص‬/ KHY‘Ṣ represents the
Syro-Aramaic letters . These latter stand for the words
“ ‫ܨ ܘܬ‬ ‫ܗܘ‬ / kabbīr hū Yah ‘ellāyā ṣḇaōṯ, which corresponds to
the Arabic ‫ كبير ھو الرب العـلي الصبأوت‬/ kabīr(un) huwa r-Rabb al-‘alī aṣ-
ṣaba’ūt, meaning “Great is [= Praise be] the Lord (Yah), the Exalted, the
Sabaoth (= ‘the Powerful’).”66
7. Summary and Prospects

At first glance the most important result of this essay may appear to be the
solution to the question of the so-called “mysterious letters.” This question,
which has functioned as the “Gordian knot” of the Qur’ān for approximately
1300 years, serves merely to indicate the deficiencies in eastern and western
Qur’ānic scholarship, having failed to place the Qur’ān in its cultural and his-
torical contexts. All attempts up to this point to solve this problem could not
have succeeded because they proceeded from a faulty starting point. The
preceding analysis, therefore, has attempted to explain methodologically the
origins of some basic expressions of the Qur’ān from the perspectives of the
histories of linguistics and cultures. It was only by means of these small,
logical steps, which actually employ nothing other than the historico-critical
method, that we could hope to come closer to an objective solution of this
problem.
To the critical observer, the problem will by no means appear to be
solved, in that the concrete proofs for the suggestions I have made here could
not be provided. Unfortunately, given the state of affairs concerning the
Qur’ānic documentary materials, we can at the moment hardly meet this
justified desire, which ultimately results in the demand to produce the “Ur-
Qur’ān.” Nonetheless, even if one were to discover the sought-after Ur-
Qur’ān by means of an unexpected happenstance, we would still have this
same problem of the “mysterious letters,” because the creators of the Qur’ānic
sigla were well-schooled in the tradition and have once and for all exited this
world. This, of course, explains the perplexity of the Qur’ānic exegetes and
most clearly illustrates the absence of the “unbroken” oral transmission of the
text that has been claimed by Islamic tradition. Therefore, it would be un-
necessary to speculate as to whether one or another of the letters in question
could be interpreted in another way. Unfortunately, we cannot expect final
certainty, given the conditions I have indicated. Therefore, the most impor-
tant contribution of this analysis must remain a closer definition of the
function that these sigla had in their Qur’ānic contexts.
Concerning the Christian Syrian tradition, however, we are in a quite
fortunate position, in that this tradition has continued unbroken into our
own day, with the result that we can learn what these sigla mean individually.
It might appear that adducing this tradition only serves as a makeshift aid
when we attempt to solve the problem of the Qur’ānic sigla; however, this
attempt has never yet been made. After all, as we have shown, all the Qur’ānic
sigla were to be read originally as Aramaic. We must continue to wait to see if
this approach and its results (including the expressions which constitute the
framework of the Qur’ān, which all point, from the beginning, to a written
Syro-Aramaic cultural tradition) will prove convincing.
A further problem that this study has made quite clear is the absolute
necessity of the knowledge of Aramaic (alongside Arabic, of course), not only
for understanding the language of the Qur’ān, but especially for the historico-
linguistic reconstruction of a text that has been mis-read and mis-interpreted
in innumerable places (despite the legend of an oral transmission). Without
this prerequisite of understanding Aramaic, all efforts to overcome the mani-
fold problems of the Qur’ānic text will fall flat. The realization of ambitious
and desirable projects, such as the Corpus coranicum, will not help to solve
these problems alone.
8. Bibliography
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neuve and Larose, 2001); The Priest and the Prophet (Los Angeles: Pen
Publishers, 2005).
Abū Mūsā al-Ḥarīrī (alias), Qass wa-nabī, baḥṯ fī naš’at al-islām, 13th ed.,
(Lubnān (Lebanon): Diyār ‘aql (metaphorical place-name), 1991).
Baumstark, Anton, Festbrevier und Kirchenjahr der syrischen Jakobiten: Eine
liturgiegeschichtliche Vorarbeit (Paderborn: F. Schöningh, 1910).
Breviarium iuxta ritum Ecclesiae Antiochenae Syrorum: Pars autumnalis:
Volumen secundum (Mausili: Typis Fratrum Praedicatorum, 1886).
Bell, Richard, The Qur’ān: Translated, with a critical re-arrangement of the
Surahs, 2 vols., (Edinburgh: Clark, 1937–39).
Biblia Hebraica, Edited by Rudolf Kittel. 11th ed., (Stuttgart: Privileg. Württ.
Bibelanstalt, 1937).
Blachère, Régis, Le Coran, traduit de l’arabe (Paris: Librairie orientale et
américaine, 1957).
Brockelmann, Carl, Lexicon syriacum, 2nd ed. (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1928).
Id., Syrische Grammatik, 8th ed. (Leipzig: Verlag Enzyklopädie, 1960).
Burgmer, Christoph, ed., Streit um den Koran: Die Luxenberg-Debatte: Stand-
punkte und Hintergründe, 3rd rev. ed. (Berlin: Hans Schiler, 2007).
Gesenius, Wilhelm, Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 17th ed.
(Berlin, Göttingen, and Heidelberg: Springer, 1959).
Ibn Warraq, ed., What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commen-
tary (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002).
Jeffery, Arthur, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān (Baroda: Oriental
Institute, 1938).
Id., ed., Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’ān (Leiden: Brill,
1937); Arabic portion: ‫ للحافظ أبي بكر عبد ﷲ بن أبي داود سليمان بن‬، ‫كتاب المصاحف‬
‫ األشعث السجستاني‬/ Kitāb al-maṣāḥif li-l-ḥāfiẓ abī Bakr ‘Abdallāh b. abī Dāwūd
Sulaymān b. al-Aš‘aṯ as-Siǧistanī (Cairo, 1936).
Luxenberg, Christoph, Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur
Entschlüsselung der Koransprache (Berlin: Das arabische Buch, 2001 [1st
ed.]; Hans Schiler, 2004 [2nd ed.], 2007 [3rd ed.]).
Id., The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding
of the Language of the Koran (Berlin: Hans Schiler, 2007).
Macuch, R., and E. S. Drower, A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1963).
b. Manẓūr, Abū l-Faḍl Jamāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad b. Mukarram al-Ifrīqī al-
Miṣrī, Lisān al-‘arab (“Tongue of the Arabs”), 15 vols. (Beirut: 1955–56).
Mannā, Jacques Eugène, Vocabulaire Chaldéen-Arabe (Mossoul: Impr. des

Pères Dominicains, 1900). Reprint edition, with a new appendix by Raphael
J. Bidawid: Beirut: Babel Center Publications, 1975.
Mingana, Alfons, “Syriac Influence on the Style of the Koran,” Bulletin of the
John Rylands Library 11 (1927): 77–98; also in Ibn Warraq, What the Koran
Really Says (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002), pp. 171–220.
Nöldeke, Theodor, Geschichte des Qorâns (Göttingen: Verlag der Dieterich-
schen Buchhandlung, 1860).
Id., Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (Strassburg: K.J. Trübner,
1904).
Id., and Friedrich Schwally, Geschichte des Qorāns, vol. 1, Über den Ursprung
des Qorāns, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: T. Weicher, 1909), vol. 2, Die Sammlung des
Qorāns, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1919), vol. 3 (ed. Bergsträßer-Pretzl),
Die Geschichte des Qorāntextes, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1938); reprint
edition: Hildesheim: Olms, 1961.
Ohlig, Karl-Heinz, and Gerd-R. Puin, eds., Die dunklen Anfänge: Neue For-
schungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte des Islam, 3rd ed. (Berlin:
Hans Schiler, 2007).
Paret, Rudi, Der Koran: Kommentar und Konkordanz (Stuttgart: W. Kohl-
hammer, 1971).
Id., ed. Der Koran. Wege der Forschung, no. 326 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaft-
liche Buchgesellschaft, 1975.
Id., Der Koran: Übersetzung, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, and Mainz:
W. Kohlhammer, 1982).
Praetorius, Franz, “Über einige Pluralformen des Semitischen,” Zeitschrift der
deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 56 (1902): 685–696.
Qur’ān karīm (Cairo, 1972).
Sokoloff, Michael, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzan-
tine Period, 2nd printing (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1992).
Smith, R. Payne, ed., Thesaurus syriacus, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1879, 1901).
Syriac Bible (63DC), London: United Bible Societies, 1979.
aṭ-Ṭabarī, Abū Ja‘far Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Jāmi‘ al bayān ‘an ta’wīl āy al-
Qur’ān, 30 parts in 12 vols. 3rd ed. (Cairo: Shirkat Maktaba, 1968).
Wehr, Hans, Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart, 5th
ed. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1985).
Zakarias, Hanna (alias Gabriel Théry), De Moïse à Mohammed, 2 vols.
(Cahors: privately published, 1955–56).
Internet source: http://www.unbound.biola.edu (biblical text in Hebrew, with
numerous translations)
Notes
1 aṭ-Ṭabarī, Abū Ǧa‘far Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Jāmi‘ al bayān ‘an ta’wīl āy al-Qur’ān
(Qur’ānic commentary), 30 parts in 12 vols., 3rd ed. (Cairo: Shirkat Maktaba,
1968), I:86–96.
2 For better readability, the “ʾ” will be replaced by the letter “a” for “a(lif)” in the
following.
3 Rudi Paret, ed., Der Koran, Wege der Forschung, no. 326 (Darmstadt: Wissen-
schaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975), xiii.
4 NB: Bellamy has also produced a more recent article: “Some Proposed Emenda-
tions to the Text of the Koran,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113
(1993), 562–573; cf. especially section 12, which bears the title “Again the
Mysterious Letters.” This article has been reproduced in Ibn Warraq, ed. (with
translations), What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002), pp. 508–510.
5 Paret, Koran, xxi f.
6 Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 75 (1921), pp. 1–20;
discussed in Paret, Koran, pp. 330–335.
7 Surahs will be indicated by the letter Q (for Qurʾān).
8 Paret, Koran, 335.
9 Paret, Koran, 333.
10 Der Islam: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients 13 (1923),
pp. 191–226; discussed in Paret, Koran, pp. 336–373.
11 Paret, Koran, p. 336.
12 Theodor Nöldeke, Geschichte des Korans, 2nd ed., vol. 2, edited by F. Schwally
(Berlin, 1919), 68f.
13 Akten des 24. internationalen Orientalisten-Kongresses (München, 28. August— 4.
September 1957), ed. Herbert Franke (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag in
Komm., 1959), pp. 276–279; discussed in Paret, Koran, pp. 374–378.
14 Studia Islamica 16 (1962), 5–11; discussed in Paret, Koran, pp. 379–385.
15 Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., s.v. “Koran.”
16 Cf. on this topic Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān (Baroda:
Oriental Institute, 1938), p. 233f.
17 Christoph Luxenberg, Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur
Entschlüsselung der Koransprache (Berlin): 1st ed. (Das Arabische Buch, 2001), pp.
54ff.; 2nd ed. (Hans Schiler, 2004), pp. 81ff.; 3rd ed. (Hans Schiler, 2007), pp. 83ff.
18 Paret, Koran, p. 358.
19 Jeffery, Foreign Vocabulary, p. 182.
20 Cf. the English form “trace” as well as the German forms Trasse (roadway, trail)
and Trassee, all of which come from the French word tracer (“to draw a line”),
apparently from a vulgar Latin form, which itself derived from the classical Latin
tractum. The aural similarity between the French tracer and the Syriac traṣ (with
the same semantic contents) must be as much a coincidence as that between the
Syro-Aramaic metathesis ‫ـ‬ / srāṭā (“line”) > the Qurānic ‫ صراط‬/ ṣirāt and
‫ سراط‬/ sirāṭ and the Latin form strata. Cf. here the new etymological interpretation
by the author in his English edition The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A
Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran (Berlin: Hans Schiler,
2007), pp. 226ff. Cf. also Jeffery, Foreign Vocabulary, pp. 195f.
21 Mannā, 633b; Thesaurus Syriacus (Thes.), II:3386, penult., Spec. ‫( ܨܘܪܬ ܒ‬ṣūraṯ
kṯāḇ) textus, ‫( ܘܪܬ ܒ‬b-ṣūraṯ kṯāḇ), Eus. Hist. Eccl. iii.37(38); (3387) ‫ܿ ܨܘܪܬ‬
‫ܘܕ ܬ‬ ‫ܒ ܕ‬ (kullāh ṣūraṯ kṯāḇ d-‘attiqtā w-ḏaḥḏattā), totus textus
Veteris et Novi Test. (“the whole text of the Old and the New Testament”), Chr.
Eccl. § ii.215; ib. 481…; unde ‫( ܨܘܪܬ‬ṣūrtā) etiam sine ‫( ܒ‬kṯāḇ) valet textus
Scripturarum, B.O. iii. i. 87, 97, 153, 166, 174, 261; ‫( ܨܘܪܬ‬ṣūrtā) “Vetus et
Novum Testamentum,” Ass. C.B.V. iii. 280 ult.; ܵ ‫( ܨܘܪܬ ܕܐܘ‬ṣūrtā ḏ-
ewangelisṭē) textus evangeliorum [the text of the Evangelists], Syn. ii. Eph. 149. 2.
22 Cf. on this form The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran, pp. 295f., especially n.
353.
23 Three different famous Arab philologists are known by this name; the earliest died
in 793, the second in 830, and the most recent in 920.
24 The form ‫ فعيل‬/ fa‘īl, attested by many Arabic adjectives and substantives, arose at
an earlier period in a region in which Aramaic was spoken. We know this because
the form belongs to the Aramaic verbal paradigm rather than the Arabic one. As
is well-known, Arabic builds its passive participles on the first stem with an m-
prefix according to the form ‫ مفعول‬/ ma-f‘ūl. Nonetheless, the Arab philologists
occasionally recognized the corresponding meaning of the form ‫ فعيل‬/ fa‘īl, but this
recognition depended upon context. So, for example, Lisān often explains this
form with ‫“( فعيل بمعنى مفعول‬fa‘īl in the sense of ma-f‘ūl”).
25 Cf. Carl Brockelmann, Syrische Grammatik, 8th ed. (Leipzig: Verlag Enzyklopädie,
1960), 142, for the paradigms of the verbs with medial w / y, especially their
passive participles.
26 If al-Farrā’ wanted to think that such a form must be restricted to nouns, he may
have had in mind an Arabic substantive like ‫ ميزة‬/ mīza (“distinction, quality”). If
this was the case, he did not recognize that this word as well is a substantivized
passive participle according to the Syro-Aramaic verbal paradigms and that,
consequently, it is not morphologically different from the Qur’ānic participial
adjective ‫ صيرى‬/ ṣīrā.
27 This understanding is proven by the following verse 23, which seems to be a
commentary on vv. 19–22. The text there should be understood thus: “These are
nothing but names that you and your fathers named, and concerning which God
has sent down no authority at all (by means of a revealed writing). (In this) They
(the people addressed) follow exclusively (their) speculation (‫ الظن‬/ aẓ-ẓann) and
whatever their souls (i.e., each one according to his own perception or sense)
devise. In this they have preserved from their Lord the correct guidance (the
correct teaching)” (literally: “In this the correct guidance has come to them”). The
expression ‫ ما تھوى االنفس‬/ mā tahwā l-anfus comes from Aramaic and traces back
to the Syro-Aramaic terms ‫ ܐܗܘܝ‬/ ahwī (“to create, to invent”) and / nap̄šā
(“soul”), with the meaning “that which one desires” = “desire, wish” (cf. Mannā,
460a, under / nap̄šā, (5): ‫ رغبة‬.‫ شھوة‬/ šahwa, raġba). Following this meaning,
the anonymous commentator (in verse 23) read and understood correctly the
Syro-Aramaic word (ṣīrā) that was present in Q 53:22 at that time (in place of the
later word ‫ ضيزى‬/ ḍīzā, as it was mis-read in the canonical edition of the Qur’ān),
but Ṭabarī and the other “authorities” to which he appealed overlooked this fact.
28 E. S. Drower and R. Macuch, eds., A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1963), 323b.
29 A. Jeffery, Foreign Vocabulary, 73, n. 1, cites a biblical text (Daniel 3:33) for the use
of the biblical Aramaic word ‫ אָת‬/ āṯ in the sense of “a sign wrought by God,” but
he is wrong. The double expression āṯōhī w-ṯimhōhī (Peshitta: āṯwāṯeh w-
ṯeḏmrāṯeh [“his signs and his wonders”]) makes clear that, in the biblical context,
the meaning of ‫ אָת‬/ āṯ is in the sense of “wondrous signs”)
30 For more on this topic, cf. The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran, pp. 106ff.
31 Foreign Vocabulary, pp. 72f.
32 A more recent diminutive form of ‫ ܐܬ‬/ āṯa appears to be ‫ ܐܬܘܬ‬/ āṯūṯā (“letter,
symbol”); cf. here Nöldeke’s Kurzgefasste syrische Grammatik, 78, Diminutiva,
§134: “Cf. also §112, as well as the diminutives at §122 formed by the repetition of
the third radical.” ‫ ܐܬܘܬ‬/ āṯūṯā would be an appropriate addition to the
examples that Nöldeke offers; however, we should not exclude the possibility that
this word is rather a more recent secondary form of the plural form ‫ܐܬܘܬ‬ ܵ /
āṯwāṯā.
33 The references, respectively, are to Mandäische Grammatik, 110; Lexicon Syria-
cum, 53b; Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 19b; and Thesaurus
Syriacus, I:412.
34 Foreign Vocabulary, 72: “The struggles of the early Muslim philologers to explain
the word are interestingly set forth in LA, xviii, 66ff. The word has no root in
Arabic, and is obviously, as von Kremer noted [n. 6: Ideen, 226 n.; see also
Sprenger, Leben, ii, 419 n.; Cheikho, Naṣrānīya, 181; and Margoliouth, ERE, x,
539], a borrowing from Syr(iac) or Aram(aic).”
35 Ibid., 73: “The word occurs in the old poetry, e.g., in Imrū’ul-Qais, lxv, 1 (Ahl-
wardt, Divans, 160), and so was in use before the time of Muḥammad.”
36 Franz Praetorius, Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 56
(1902), 688f., has already given attention to plural forms like these in the Aramaic
dialects, which arise from the contraction of “rising” diphthongs, as we see them
in Arabic. This correct observation received negative criticism at the time from
Nöldeke, who expressed the following opinion in his Beiträge zur semitischen
Sprachwissenschaft (Strassburg: K. J. Trübner, 1904), 55 (under “II”): “Praetorius
will find little agreement concerning his identification of the (classical Arabic) ‫رعاة‬
(ru‘āt), ‫’( أساة‬usāt), ‫( سقاة‬suqāt) with the (Syro-Aramaic) ‫( ܪ ܵ ܬ‬rā‘awwāṯā),
‫( ܐ ܵ ܬ‬āsawwāṯā), ‫ܵ ܬ‬ (šāqawwāṯā) (‘shepherd,’ ‘healer/physician,’ ‘giving,’
respectively)….” With this critique Nöldeke demonstrates that he did not recog-
nize this sound-shift through contraction, as the argumentation which follows also
shows. However, he is correct to surmise a middle-stage between classical Syriac
and the Arabic form, a stage that must have been the direct predecessor to the
Arabic form. If one begins from the classical Syriac form, one can well imagine
the three-stage sound-shift as follows (using the example of ‫[ رعاة‬ru‘āt]: a) Syriac
*rā‘awwāṯā > b) vernacular Aramaic rā‘wāṯā > Arabic ru‘āt. The change from the
Syro-Aramaic ‫ܐܬܘܬ‬ ܵ / āṯwāṯā (“symbols, letters”) to the Qur’ānic-Arabic form
(in pause) ‫ اثاث‬/ āṯāṯ (therefore: āṯwāṯ > āṯāṯ) also corresponds quite regularly to
this last schema.
37 The verbal root ‫ أثث‬/ aṯaṯa, which sounds odd in Arabic, apparently traces back to
the Syro-Aramaic variant ‫ ܬ‬/ yatteṯ (Mannā, 319a: ‫ ابدع‬.‫ اوجد‬.‫ كوّن‬/ kawwana,
awğada, abda‘a [“to build, to make, to produce”]). This term in turn seems to be a
secondary denominative construction from the “expression of being” ‫ ܐ‬/ īṯ or

/ yāṯ; an entry in Lisān (II:110b) speaks in favor of this possibility concerning
“luxuriant, thick” vegetation, as a verse from Imru’ al-Qays testifies (‫ أثيث‬/ aṯīṯ),
which would correspond exactly to the Syro-Aramaic adjective / yattīṯā or
yaṯīṯā (“luxuriant”) as cited in Mannā (319a). The further examples that Lisān
cites confirm the origin of this root as from Syro-Aramaic and testify once more
that the so-called “Old Arabic” stood much closer to Aramaic than some contem-
porary scholars of Arabic want to allow.
38 Lisān (XIV:61b f.) cites Abū Manṣūr, who says the following on the topic: “Regar-
ding the meaning and origin of ‫ إيا‬/ īyā, I have heard nothing.” Regarding an
attempted definition based on folk etymology, the same source says, “In reality
this word is cryptic (‫ مبھم‬/ mubham); it serves to indicate the accusative ( ‫يكنى به عن‬
‫)المنصوب‬.” This word corresponds to the Hebrew particle ‫ את‬/ eṯ, which seems to
be a contracted secondary form of the Aramaic ‫ אית‬/ īṯ (cf. W. Gesenius, Hebrä-
isches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 17th ed. [Berlin, Göttingen, and Heidel-
berg: Springer, 1959], 76a, “1. Zeichen des determinierten acc.” [sign of the
determinated accusative]).
39 Even Lisān (XIV:62a f.) recognizes the meaning of the mis-read ‫ آية‬/ āya – “signal,”
“example,” “model,” or “wondrous sign,” depending on the Qur’ānic context—
without explaining its origin. Here Lisān’s anonymous citation is interesting, in
that it claims that ‫ آية‬/ āya is named “āya” because it means a “sum of the letters
[or individual words] of the Qur’ān” (‫)ألنھا جماعة من حروف القرآن‬.
40 Thesaurus, I:413, meaning 4: constellatio, ܵ
ܵ ‫ܐܬܘܬ ܕ‬ (āṯwāṯā ḏa-šmayyā)
constellationes coeli, Jer. X.2, Did. Ap. 87.16. It. signa quibus sol, luna, et planetae
ab astronomis designantur, quae omnia descripta inveniantur ap. Laud. cxxiii. 245
v.[Signs, designated by astronomers as sun, moon, and planets, as described at
Laud . cxxiii.245 v.]
41 Concerning this meaning of the Syriac ‫ ܐܬ‬/ āṯā, cf. Thesaurus, I:413, under β:
indicium, argumentum, ‫ ܐܬ ܕ‬/ āṯā ḏa-qyāmā (“sign” = “proof of the resur-
rection”), Gen. ix. 12, 2 Cor. xii. 12. With this note, the Thesaurus gives us at one
time the proof for the correct understanding of the mis-readings at Surahs 44:36
and 45:25.
42 The Qur’ānic written form ‫ ايتوا‬here reproduces clearly the Syro-Aramaic Afel
form (‫ ܐ ܘ‬/ aytaw), unlike the written form ‫ فاتوا‬/ fa-’tū (first Arabic verbal stem)
in the parallel text at Q 44:36; as a result, the former should be read in Arabic as
aytū. However, the Cairo edition of the Qur’ān neutralizes the prefixed Alif of the
Afel form by means of a waṣla, places an inadmissible hamza over the following y-
carrier, and reads the verb as though it belongs in the first Arabic verbal stem:
(qālū)’tū. The Arabic grammarians call such a mis-assignment of written forms by
the name ‫ تصحيف‬/ taṣḥīf; there are many examples cited in Lisān, because this
phenomenon can also be found in post-Qur’ānic Arabic. So, for example, “to
bring” is represented in classical Arabic by ‫ اتى بـــ‬/ atā bi- (in the first verbal stem),
but in Syro-Aramaic one uses the Afel form (which corresponds to the fourth
Arabic verbal stem; cf. Mannā, 45b: ‫ ܐ ܝ‬/ aytī: ‫ اتى بـــ‬/ atā bi-). Apart from the
fact that the Arabic ‫ اتى‬/ atā is a loan from Syro-Aramaic, the imperative of the
fourth verbal stem in the second person plural would be ‫ اوتوا‬/ ūtū (or u’tū), which
is not the case here. The Qur’ānic written form therefore faithfully reproduces the
Syro-Aramaic Afel form. Such vacillations between the Arabic and Syro-Aramaic
verbal systems are by no means rare in the Qur’ān; a close investigation of
Qur’ānic orthography would bring more of them to light.
43 The Arabic ‫ بيّن‬/ bayyana, as a loan-word from the Syro-Aramaic / bayyen, has
similar semantic nuances, as Mannā (56a) indicates: “to explain, to make clear, to
make comprehensible, to teach.”
44 The Arabic expressions ‫ الجمعة‬/ al-ǧum‘a (“Friday”) and ‫ جامع‬/ ǧāmi‘ (“mosque”)
both appear to be loan-translations from the Syro-Aramaic / kenšā, /
knušyā (“assembly, gathering of the community”) or / bēṯ knušyā,
/ bēṯ knuštā (“house of assembly, community house”); cf. on this topic
Mannā, 345a, and the Arabic expressions it gives as correspondences.
45 The original German gives another equivalent name, the German “Sonnabend,”
which is one German name for “Saturday.” The suffix “-abend” means “evening,”
so that the word itself literally means “Sunday Eve” (to use the parallel English
structure from days like “Christmas Eve”), or “Saturday.”
46 Cf. Thesaurus, II:2984, 29: “ ‫ ܘ‬sic vocatur propterea quod propter Christum
in ea crucifixum ‫ܘܐ‬ (‘ruḇtā is called by this name because on
the day on which Christ was crucified, the sun set and darkness reigned).”
47 Cf. Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine
Period, 2nd printing (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1992), pp. 418b f.
48 See the note in Gesenius, Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 615b,
under IV: ‫ערב‬, l. 9: Heinrich Lewy, Die semitischen Fremdwörter im Griechischen
(Berlin: 1895; reprint: Hildesheim [Olms], 2004).
49 This legendary report goes on to say that the Qurayš gathered on this day (for
prayer), and that this particular Lu’ayy (= Levi) typically gave a sermon before
them, in which he announced to the Qurayš the coming prophetic mission of his
grandson and expressed the desire (in the cited verse) that he could enjoy this
experience just once.
50 Arthur Jeffery, Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’ān (Leiden: Brill,
1937) (362 pages); Arabic portion: Kitāb al-maṣāḥif li-l-ḥāfiẓ abī Bakr ‘Abdallāh b.
abī Dāwūd Sulaymān b. al-Aš‘aṯ as-Siǧistanī (Cairo, 1936) (223 pages).
51 Thesaurus, II:2984, under ‫ ܘ‬/ ‘ruḇtā, l. 23: ‫ܪ‬ ‫ ܘ‬/ ‘ruḇtā rabbṯā
(along with other expressions for “Good Friday”).
52 On this topic cf. the new interpretation contained in the present author’s
contribution to the volume edited by Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R. Puin, The
Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into Its Early History (Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, 2008), especially the section on the Christian symbolism of the
Dome of the Rock. In addition to the argument presented there, we should add
that there is actually a crypt under the stones themselves, a discovery that provides
archaeological support for the idea of the Dome of the Rock (= “stone grave”) as
the burial site of Christ. Further, there are two traditions that have survived from
the prior, Christian period into contemporary Islam. First, the Dome of the Rock
is the pilgrimage site recommended for Muslims, and this pilgrimage only
“counts” as complete if one visits the crypt (parallel to the Christian visit to the
grave in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre). Second, there is a custom in
which it is mainly Muslim women who give themselves to prayer in the Dome of
the Rock; this may connect with the tradition attested in the Gospels, according to
which the visitors to the grave of Christ on the morning of the Sunday of the
Resurrection were women (Mt. 28:1; Mk. 16:1; Lk. 24:1; Jn. 20:1)—not, of course,
that we should thereby exclude other traditions.
53 Again, see the essay in Ohlig and Puin, The Hidden Origins of Islam.
54 The edition in use is Breviarium iuxta ritum Ecclesiae Antiochenae Syrorum. Pars
autumnalis. Volumen secundum (Mausili: Typis Fratrum Praedicatorum, 1886).
55 C. Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum, 2nd ed. (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1928), 296b,
(yaḏ‘ā): “1. indicium (“index, specification”), 2. signum (“label”), 3. custos
(in libro) (“mark”), 4. notitia (“notice”), 5. signum vocalis aut accentus (“vowel- or
accent-mark”).
56 Thesaurus (I:1559).
57 Following the Peshitta, the three Psalms begin as follows: “A Prayer of Moses:
‘Lord, you have been for us a refuge for all eternity’” (Ps. 90); “Praise the Lord, all
the earth; serve the Lord with joy!” (Ps. 100); “The Lord, the God of all gods, has
spoken and summoned the earth from the rising of the sun unto its setting” (Ps.
50).
58 Ṭabarī (XXIV:39) also cites another tradition concerning this abbreviation that is
closer to the truth and that supposedly traces back to Ibn ‘Abbās, as the second of
the four opinions he gives at the beginning of his commentary on Q 40.
59 Biblical testimonies to the phrase ܼ / ḥayy(h)ū Māryā: 1 Sam. 25:26 (“And
now, my Lord, as YHWH lives and your soul lives”) ( ‫ ;) ְועַתָּ ה ֲאדֹנִי חַי־י ְהוָה ְוחֵי־נ ְַפ ֹשְָך‬1
Sam. 26:16 (“This thing is not good that you have done, as Yahweh lives”); 1 Kings
18:10 (“As Yahweh, your God, lives”); Jer. 44:26 (“But hear the word of YHWH,
all you Jews that live in the land of Egypt: ‘See, I have sworn by my great name,’
says YHWH, ‘that no one from Judah living anywhere in Egypt will ever again
invoke my name, in saying “As surely as the Lord YHWH lives!”) ( ‫ָלכֵן שִׁ מְ עוּ‬
‫שׁמִ י ַהגָּדוֹל אָמַ ר י ְהוָה אִ ם־י ִהי ֶה עוֹד שְׁ מִ י‬ ְ ‫שׁ ַבּעְתִּ י ִבּ‬
ְ ִ‫דְ בַר־י ְהוָה כָּל־י ְהוּדָ ה היּ ֹשְ בִים ְבּא ֶֶרץ ִמצ ְָרי ִם ִהנְנִי נ‬
‫ָל־אֶרץ מִ צ ְָרי ִם‬
ֶ ‫ִקְרא ְבּפִי כָּל־אִ ישׁ י ְהוּדָ ה אֹמֵר חַי־אֲ דֹנָי י ְהוִה ְבּכ‬ ָ ‫)נ‬.
60 A French translation of this work appeared under the title Le Prêtre et le Prophète:
aux sources du Coran (Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, 2001) and the author’s real
name, Joseph Azzi. An English translation entitled The Priest and the Prophet
appeared in 2005 from The Pen Publishers in Los Angeles.
61 On this topic Abū Mūsā al-Ḥarīrī notes (p. 26, n. 75):
‫ " ﷲ أعام‬: ‫ يقول فيھا المفسرون‬... ‫ و " الم " وغيرھا من الحروف السرية الواردة في أوائل السور‬، "‫" الر‬
‫ " الر " ترد ھكذا خمس مرات و " الم " ست مرات وتبتدئ اآليات بعدھا بأمر الھي في أھمية‬. " ‫بمراده‬
‫ تنزيل‬. ‫ و " الم‬، " ‫ كتاب أحكمت آيته‬. ‫ و " الر‬، " ‫ تلك آيات الكتاب‬. ‫ " الر‬: ‫الكتاب ووحيه االلھي مثل‬
"‫ أمر لي مرھو‬: ‫ وفي االرامية‬، "‫ " قال لي الرب‬: ‫ وقد تعني ما كان يرد عادة على لسان األنبياء‬... " ‫الكتاب‬
.‫( وذلك للداللة على مصدر الكتاب االلھي‬. ‫ م‬. ‫ ل‬. ‫ ) أ‬: ( ‫( )= مريم‬sic)
“Concerning the (abbreviations) ‘ALR’ and ‘ALM,’ as well as the other mysterious
letters that stand at the beginning of Suras, the commentators have this to say:
‘What he means by them, God himself knows best.’ ‘ALR’ appears five times, and
‘ALM’ appears six times. After these abbreviations we find verses with a divine
statement regarding the meaning of the text and its divine revelation, e.g., ‘ALR;
these are the written signs of the book,’ and ‘ALR; a book whose written signs were
taught,’ and ‘ALM; the sending-down of the book’ … These could correspond to
the statement commonly on the prophets’ lips: ‘The Lord spoke to me,’ or in
Aramaic, ‘Emar lī Mōryō (= Māryā) (ALM), and thus serve as a pointer to the
divine origin of the book.”
62 Haï Bar-Zeev, Une lecture juive du Coran (Paris: Editeurs Berg International,
2005), but he refers here to our other author, Hanna Zakarias, De Moïse à
Mohammed, 2 vols (Cahors: privately published, 1955–56), who in turn points to
Kurt Hruby’s work.
63 One notices here the agreement of Q 3:41 and the Peshitta version of Luke 1:22;
the former uses the term ramzan (meaning “by sign” = “sign-language”), while the
latter reads w-hū mermaz rāmez (h)wā l-hōn (“but he made signs to them,” that is,
“he made his intentions known to them by sign language”).
64 Cf. Anton Baumstark, Festbrevier und Kirchenjahr der syrischen Jakobiten (Pader-
born: F. Schöningh, 1910), 169: “Between our Sunday for the dedication of churc-
hes and the Christmas feast, there developed completely what we might call the
‘Advent’ of the Jacobite liturgical year. We know that Antioch already had a
season of preparation before the feast of Christ’s birth at the time of Severus
[bishop from 512 to 518]…. Correspondingly, the liturgical year of the Jacobites
originally had two Sundays in preparation for Christmas, for both of which the
Gospel pericope was taken from λ [Luke]; more specifically, the first celebrated
the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist, and the second that to Mary.
The lectionary of the ninth century, in agreement with three of the earliest extant
choral books, restricts itself in its pre-Christmas services to this “double
annunciation” celebration….” Concerning the Nestorian liturgical year, cf. 170.
65 Cf. the new interpretation of Q 97 by the present author in the essay “Christmas in
the Qurʾān” in the present anthology, a translation of “Weihnachten im Koran,” in
Christoph Burgmer, ed., Streit um den Koran: Die Luxenberg-Debatte: Stand-
punkte und Hintergründe [Quarrel about the Koran: The Luxenberg Debate:
Points of View and Backgrounds], 3rd rev. ed. (Berlin: Hans Schiler, 2007), pp.
62–68.
66 Concerning “Yah,” cf. Ex. XV.2; Thes. I:1563, / Yah: nomen Dei; possibly a
Status absolutus from / yaṯ (“essence”); Thes. I:1840. Cf. also Mannā, 306a:
“(Yah): ‫“( الرب األزلي‬the eternal God”). Concerning the possible translation of “to
be greatly praised,” and the transitive usage of the Qur’ānic ‫ كبر‬/ kabbara in the
sense of the Latin meaning magnifico (“to praise greatly, to exalt”), cf. Surahs
2:185; 17:111; 22:37; 74:3.

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Syriac Liturgy and the “Mysterious Letters” in the Qur’ān:

A Comparative Liturgical Study

Qur’ānic commentators that he describes, without committing himself to

However, he did not succeed in coming to a full explanation of this difficult

In these observations we see Paret’s correct understanding that the problem

c) Morris S. Seale, “The Mysterious Letters in the Qur’ān” (1957/59)13

d) Alan Jones, “The Mystical Letters of the Qur’ān” (1962)14

He also appropriates an early opinion of Nöldeke (one that Nöldeke himself

e) James A. Bellamy, “Again the Mysterious Letters” (see above, n. 3)

3. Terms Constituting the Framework of the Qur’ān

With such translations the most authoritative Western translators of the

Ṭabarī (XXVII:60f.) does so doggedly in his efforts to explain this incompre-

be an unavoidable prerequisite for explaining both its morphology and its

Mis-transcribed Arabic: ‫تلك اذا قسمة ضيزى‬

Corrected Syro-Arabic: ‫تلك اذا قسمة صيرى‬

If we were to bring this statement into contemporary Arabic, it would read

3.2.4 On the Qur’ānic Spelling ‫ سورة‬/ sūra

“possession” or “furnishing” (hence the meaning of “furniture” in modern

3.3.2 Correction of ‫ اية‬/ āya into ‫ اثة‬/ āṯa

It has been traditionally understood thus:

4. The Christian-Syriac Origin of Friday as Islam’s Weekly Day

4.1 Introductory Remarks

4.2 A Qur’ānic Hint

Jeffery seems to overlook an extremely important reading on Surah 62:9 from

5. Concerning the Meaning of the Abbreviations in the Syriac

5.2 Individual Examples

(p. 52) d-mawlāḏeh d-Yoḥannān = “(Advent Sunday) of the Birth of John”

(p. 52) d-Yawsep̵ = “(Advent Sunday) of Joseph’s Dream(-Vision)”

(p. 52) da-qḏām yaldā = “(Advent Sunday) before the Nativity”

(p. 52) d-ḇāṯar yaldā = “(Sunday) after the Nativity”

(p. 52) After the division marker: kurrāḵā = “response”

(Q 61) Before the division marker: ŠW = šuḇḥā lāḵ = “Praise be to you”

6. The “Mysterious Letters” in the Qur’ān

6.1 Introductory Remarks

the pre-Qur’ānic liturgical tradition was apparently irreparably lost by this

Sigla 1–3: ‫ ص‬/ Ṣ, ‫ ق‬/ Q, ‫ ن‬/ N (Surahs 38:1; 50:1; 68:1)

Siglum 4: ‫ يس‬/ YS = ‫ بس‬/ BS

correspond to the Syriac abbreviation / šu (= / šuḇḥā) as the doxo-

Siglum 5: ‫ طــه‬/ ṬH (Q 20:1)

Siglum 6: ‫ طسم‬/ ṬSM (Surahs 26:1; 28:1)

This abbreviation represents the Syro-Aramaic / ṬŠM = /

Siglum 7: ‫ طس‬/ ṬS (Q 27:1)

This abbreviation represents the Syro-Aramaic / ṬŠ = / ṭāḇ šmeh,

Siglum 9: ‫ عسق‬/ ‘SQ = / ‘ŠQ

ܼ / ḥayy(h)ū Māryā ‘lā šme-h qaddīšā

As the afore-mentioned author rightly surmised, these letters, which appear

Siglum 12: ‫ المر‬/ ALMR (Q 13:1)

Siglum 13: ‫ المص‬/ ALMṢ (Q 7:1)

Siglum 14: ‫ كھيعص‬/ KHY‘Ṣ (Surah 19:1)

7. Summary and Prospects

Mannā, Jacques Eugène, Vocabulaire Chaldéen-Arabe (Mossoul: Impr. des

28 E. S. Drower and R. Macuch, eds., A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon

secondary denominative construction from the “expression of being” ‫ ܐ‬/ īṯ or

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