A Reflection on Two Qurnic Words (Ibls and Jd), with Attention to the Theories of A.

Mingana
Author(s): Gabriel Said Reynolds
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 124, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 2004), pp. 675689
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A Reflection on Two Qur'anic Words (Iblis and Jiidi),

with Attention to the Theories of A. Mingana
GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS
NOTREDAME UNIVERSITY

The extent to which scholars of Qur'anic studies today are divided is evident from recent
publicationsin the field. One work, Understandingthe Qur'an(1999), by MuhammadAbdel
Haleem of the School of Orientaland African Studies, London, casts off the criticaltradition
of Western scholarship with hardly a footnote; whereas another work, Christoph Luxenberg's Die Syro-AramiiischeLesart des Koran (2000), casts doubt on the reliability of the
entire traditionof Islamic scholarship on the Qur'ln. Both publications show that the divisions within Qur'anic studies are markedby presuppositions,methods and conclusions.
It is both a comfort and a warning,then, to realize that this state of affairsis nothing new.
At the turn of the twentieth century scholars were likewise divided over the Qur'an.J. von
Hammerarguedthat the Qur'anis "as truly Muhammad'sword as the Muhammadanshold
it to be the word of God." T. Nbldeke expressed this sentiment in a different manner, declaring:"derKoranenthilt nurechte Stiicke"1(althoughelsewhere he is more skeptical).2A
second group of scholars found no reason for such confidence in the historical authenticity
of the Qur'anictext, among them the English scholars H. Hirschfeld and D. S. Margoliouth
and the Belgian scholar H. Lammens. In this latter group as well was Alphonse Mingana,
a scholar from the region aroundMawsil in Iraq,who made a name for himself in Birmingham, England.
Mingana, one of the most colorful and controversial figures in the history of Islamic
studies, had a peculiar approachto the Qurldn,maintainingthat it could not be fully understood without appreciatingthe role that Syriac played in its composition. His theories about
the Qur'an,however, have been largely forgotten, at least until the appearanceof the above
mentioned work of Luxenberg. In the present paper, Mingana's theories are once more introduced and put to the test in two separatecase studies.
1. MINGANA'S ARGUMENT FOR SYRIAC INFLUENCE ON THE QUR'AN

Mingana never clearly articulated his position on the historical development of the
Qurlanictext. The view often attributedto him is thatthe collection of the Qur'andates to the
time of al-Hajjajibn Yiisuf (d. 96/714).3 He takes this position in a two-part article, "The

1. N61deke,Orientalische Skizzen(Berlin: Paetel, 1892), 56.

2. In the Geschichtedes Qorans Nildeke writes: "Ich stimme abermit Fischer darintiberein,dass die Mtiglichkeit von Interpolationenin Qordnunbedingtzugegeben werden muss."T. Nildeke and E Schwally, Geschichte des
Qorans, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Dieter, 1909), 1: 99. On the referencesto Hammer,Nildeke et al., see A. Mingana, "The
Transmissionof the Koran,"The Moslem World7 (July 1917), 3, 223-24.
3. Mingana bases this argument,in part, on the account of the anonymous Christianpolemicist known as alKindi (Risilat al-Hashimi ild 'l-Kindiwa-risilat al-Kindi ild 'l-Hashimi),who describes various ways in which the
Qur'anwas changedin the firstdecades of Islam. Accordingto al-Kindi,the final codificationof the text was due not
"Thenfollowed the business of al-Hajjij ibn Yisuf, who gathered
to the caliph'Uthmhn (644-56), but to al-HIajjaj:
together every single copy he could lay hold of, and caused to be omitted from the text a great many passages ..

Journal of the American Oriental Society 124.4 (2004)

675

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Journal of the American OrientalSociety 124.4 (2004)

Transmissionof the Kur'~n,"4and defends it with reference to Syriac and Arabic Christian
accounts.5 This assertion has recently been addressedand refuted.6Yet in two other works
(one written before the aforementionedand one after) Mingana seems to accept the historicity of the cUthmaniccodex, for on both occasions he claims to have discovered remnants
of pre-'UthmanicQur'ans.7In any case, Mingana's actual position on this question is not
of central concern to this paper, which is concerned instead with his claim that the Qur'dn,
being the first Arabic book, was in large part shaped by the influence of Syriac.8
Mingana's claim does not depend on a late date for the codification of the Qur'an,but
ratheron his assertion that the language of the Qurlanreflects an early stage in the developmentof writtenArabic, a stage thatonly anticipatesclassical 'arabiyya.The consequences
of his argument,if correct,would be far-reaching.Scholarswould have an entirely new language and literature(Syriac) in which to seek answers for Qur'anicriddles of vocabulary
and grammar.The theory would also have far-reachingconsequences for the history of religion, demandinga new understandingof the firstIslamic century,a centuryfrom which we
have (other than the Qur'an)few Islamic sources. Why is it, then, that such a provocative
theory has been largely ignored?
For one thing, Mingana's scholarshiphas been considered suspect, owing to accusations
that he tamperedwith two differentSyriac manuscripts.9This skepticism is understandable;

After that he called in and destroyedall the precedingcopies, even as cUthmanhad done before him" (The Apology
of al Kindy,trans. W. Muir, London: Society for Promoting ChristianKnowledge, 1887, 77). Al-Kindi's account,
Minganaargues,gains credencein light of the referencesamong Muslim historianssuch as Ibn Duqmiq (d. ca. 800/
1398) and al-Maqrizi(d. 845/1442) who credit al-Hajjajwith establishing the scriptio plena of the Qur'ln and destroying variants to his version (A. Mingana, "The Transmissionof the Koran,"The Moslem World7 (1917), 4,
413-14.
4. Mingana, "Transmission,"3, 223-32, 402-14.
5. In discussing the witness of Syriac Christian works to early Islamic history (which antedate the earliest
Muslim works), Mingana concludes: "From these quotations and from many passages of some contemporary
writers,it is evident that the Christianhistoriansof the whole of the seventh centuryhad no idea that the 'Hagarian'
conquerorshad any sacred Book; similar is the case among historians and theologians of the beginning of the
eighth century.It is only towards the end of the first quarterof this century that the Kur'anbecame the theme of
conversation in Nestorian, Jacobite and Melchite ecclesiastical circles." Mingana, "Transmission,"4 406.
6. See H. Motzki, who takes an optimistic view towards the authenticityof Islamic accounts: "The Collection
of the Qur'an:A Reconsiderationof WesternViews in Light of Recent MethodologicalDevelopments,"Der Islam
78 (2001): 1-35. E. Whelan does the same, arguingthat epigraphicalevidence from the Dome of the Rock supports
an early date for the Qur'dn'scodification; see "ForgottenWitness: Evidence for the Early Codification of the
Qur'fn,"JAOS 118 (1998): 1-14.
7. A. Minganaand A. S. Lewis, Leavesfrom ThreeAncient Qur'ans,possibly pre-Othminic (Cambridge:Cambridge Univ. Press, 1914); A. Mingana, "AnAncient Syriac Translationof the Kur'fn Exhibiting New Verses and
Variants,"Bulletin of the John RylandsLibrary9 (1925): 188-235.
8. A. Mingana, "SyriacInfluence on the Style of the Kur'fn,"Bulletin of the John RylandsLibrary 11 (1928):
77-98.
9. Mingana, it seems clear, was somehow associated with the addition of text to a manuscriptof the Syriac
Chronicle of Bar Hadbeshabba,a fact that was pointed out by the SyriacistJ.-B. Chabot.More troublingis the case
of the Syriac Chronicle ofArbela, the authenticityof which was doubtedby P. Peeters and ultimatelydisprovenby
the historianof the EasternChurchJ.-M. Fiey. Minganawas also known to sign his paperswith "Dr.,"althoughhe
had never been granteda Ph.D. Thus he was never fully trustedby the Westernacademic establishment,a fact reflected in the controversysurroundinghis publicationof the polemical treatiseof cAllal-Tabari,Kitabal-Din wa-'ldawla. Both Peetersand M. Bouyges doubtedthe authenticityof this work, and Bouyges implicitly accusedMingana
of being its author.Ultimately Bouyges would, despite himself, help vindicate Mingana on this point by finding
another work of Tabari (the Radd 'ala 'l-nasdrai)that quotes the K. al-Din wa-'l-dawla. On this latter controversy, see A. Mingana, "The Book of Religion and Empire,"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1920): 481-88;

REYNOLDS:A Reflectionon Two Qur'dnic Words(Iblis and Jidi)

677

yet there may be another reason for it. Mingana's argumentregarding Syriac influence is
problematic for both Muslim and Western scholars, in light of the Qur)an's own claim to
be "clear"or "plain"(mubin) (according to the standardunderstanding)(cf. sfiras 12:1, 16:
103), 10and Nildeke's scholarly confirmationof the same.11Nildeke's monumentalphilological work, however, has at its foundation his trust in the canonical accounts of the
Qur'an's proclamationand composition.12It is this foundation that Mingana was testing.
Mingana's argument, and its fate, resembles that of Muslim scholars who held that the
Qur'ancontains words of non-Arabicorigin (mu'arrab).The earliest Qur'ancommentators
(according to the statements attributedto them), including Ibn CAbbds(d. 68/687) and Ibn
Islhaq(d. 150/767), openly speculated on the foreign origin of Qur~anicterms. The Basran
grammarianSibawayh (d. 177/793) devoted two chaptersto the question of mu'arrabterms
from Persianin his al-Kitab.13Yet the exigencies of religious apology encouragedthe idea
that the Qur'an was not affected by anything foreign. Meanwhile, the Muctazilitedoctrine
of the un-creatednessof the Qur'andiscouraged scholars from finding temporalor secular
qualitiestherein.While the Qurlanmight have spokento the Prophet'simmediatemilieu, that
milieu did not ultimately affect its nature.Thus, as al-Suyiiti (d. 911/1505) states, the majority of scholars rejected the presence of non-Arabic words in the Qurdan:

M. Bouyges, "Le kitab addin wad-daulatr6cemment6dit6 et traduitpar Mingana est-il authentique?"M9langes de

l'Universitd de St. Joseph (1924): 16; idem, "Le kitab addin wad-daulatn'est pas authentique,"Milanges de l'Universitdde St. Joseph (1925): 17-20; A. Mingana,Bulletin of the John RylandsLibrary9 (1925): 236-40 (response
to Bouyges). On the life of Mingana, see the entertainingbooklet of S. K. Samir, Alphonse Mingana 1878-1937
(Selly Oaks, Birmingham:Selly Oaks, 1990); see also Lucy-Anne Hunt, The Mingana and Related Collections: A
Surveyof IllustratedArabic, Greek,Eastern Christian,Persian and TurkishManuscriptsin the Selly Oak Colleges,
Birmingham(Birmingham:CadburyTrust, 1997), 2-9.
10. Note also siara41:44, "Hadwe made it [the Qur'an]in a foreign tongue, they would have said, 'Wouldthat
its verses were divided into non-Arabicand Arabic.'" Cf. also the comments of R. Blachere, Introductionau Coran
(Paris:Besson & Chantemerle,1959), 156-63.
11. Nldeke, in maintaining that the Qurl'n preserves pure 'arabiyya, writes, "Es bleibt also dabei, daB der
Koranin der cArabijaverfaBtworden ist, einer Sprache,deren Gebiet sich weit ausdehnteund die natiirlichmanche
mundartlicheVerschiedenheitenaufwies," "ZurSprache des Korans,"Beitrdge und neue Beitrdge zur semitischen
Sprachwissenschaft, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: APA-Philo, 1982), 2: 5. Elsewhere he argues that 'arabiyya was the
spoken language of the Quraysh:"Mirist es dagegen sehr unwahrscheinlich,daBMuhammedin Koraneine ganz
andereForm der Sprache angewandthhtte als die in Mekka tibliche, daBer namentlichauf sorgfiltigste die Kasusund Modusendungen[i'rab] angebrachthitte, wenn sie seine Landsleutenicht gebrauchten,""Das klassische Arabisch und die arabischenDialekte,"Beitrdge und neue Beitrdge, 1: 2. In both cases Nildeke is reacting to the thesis
of K. Vollers (Volksspracheund Schriftspracheim alten Arabien [StraBburg:Triibner,1906], esp. ch. 5), that the
Qur'anwas initially composed in the vulgar Arabic of the Hijaz, lacking the case endings and other featuresof the
classic/poetic 'arabiyya.It is also importantto note that Ndldeke does not reject the presence of foreign vocabulary
in the Qur'an (see his section on "Willkiirlichund mil3verstandlichgebrauchteFremdwarterim
in "Zur
Koran,"
Sprachedes Korans,"23ff.). The key differencebetween him and Minganais that whereas Ni1ldekearguesthat the
Qur'anis the organic productof a literaryculturethat had alreadyincorporatedforeign words into its lexicon, Mingana maintainsthat there is a total disjunctionbetween the language of the Qur'anand that of the seventh-century
The Qur'fn was the first Arabic book, and its author(s)integratedSyriac into the text in the proArabs of the
.Iijaz.
cess of composition.
12. Comparethe statementby the authorof early Churchhistory,J. T. Lienhard,"The theoryof the Alexandrian
canon is not the only instance in which Germanscholarshiphas erected a magnificent structurewithout anyone's
noticing that the building lacked a ground floor."He cites no furtherinstances, but Lienhardmight feel his bold
statementjustified by the case of Nildeke. J. T Lienhard,TheBible, the Churchand Authority(Collegeville, Minn.:
LiturgicalPress, 1995), 71.
13. Sibawayh, Kitdb Sibawayhi (Bilaq: 1898-90), 2: 342ff.

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Journal of the American OrientalSociety 124.4 (2004)

Theimamsdifferregarding
theoccurrence
of non-Arabic
wordsin theQur'an.Themajority,inQadiAbilBakrandIbnFaris,holdthatthey
cludingImim al-Shdfi'i,IbnJarir,Abi CUbayda,
do notoccurtherein,dueto His statement,
"Ifwe madeit a foreignQur'an,theywouldhavesaid,
are
verses
not
divided
between
those
its
'why
foreignandthoseArabic?[Q41:44]'"14
Al-Suyiiti is one of those scholars who, along with al-Subki (d. 771/1370) and Ibn Hajaral'Asqalani(d. 852/1449), held the minorityposition thatthere areforeign words in the Qur'an,
and that the presence thereof is an argumentfor, not against, its divine provenance. AlSuy-tti, who in his Mutawakkilidescribes 118 foreign words in the Qur'an,argues that nonArabic vocabulary is a sign of the Qur'an'suniversality.To this effect he reports a hadith,
on the authorityof Wahbb. Munabbih(d. 110/728, considered an expert on Jewish, Christian, and South Arabiannarratives),that at least one word from every language on earthcan
be found in the Qur7an.15
Al-Suy-iti's approachis a response to the same problemthat faced Mingana.Much of the
Qur'anis unexplainableby recourseto 'arabiyya.This fact leads even the mufassirpar excellence Abl Ja'faral-Tabari(d. 310/923) to admitrepeatedlythat the origin of Qur'anicterms
and phrases is unclear.16 It leads al-Suyiiti, meanwhile, to speculate on the foreign origin of
otherwise incomprehensiblevocabulary.Yet al-Suyiiti's approachto the Qur'anwas in large
partforgotten, as the pure Arabic language of the Qurlanremaineda sine qua non for Muslim scholars.
The problem that both al-Suyiti and Mingana were addressing, and which still exists
today, is the gap that exists between the composition of the Qur')n and that of the earliest
tafsirs. Many basic elements of the Qur'an,such as the meaning of the "mysterious"letters
at the opening of twenty-ninesiiras and the identity of the
(see Q:2:62, 5:69, 22:17),
The grammatical,
and lexical irregularare indeed mysteriousfor the
S.bi'in
syntactical,
mufassirmin.
ities (irregularwhen seen from the perspective of 'arabiyya) of the Qur'an,meanwhile, led
to a genre of works, often entitledMutashibih al-Qur'tn, that wrestles with these problems.
The authorsof these works attemptto overcome the "hermeneuticalgap"with recourseto
'arabiyya and to pre-IslamicArabic poetry, a corpus that has been scoured by both Muslim
and Westernscholars for explanationsof Qur'anicvocabulary.Thus one can understandthe
interest that Muslim scholars had in defending the authenticityof this supposedly pagan literature,which led to a bitterpolemic against TahdIHusaynupon the publicationof his work
on pre-Islamic poetry, Fi'l-shi'r al-jahill. Western scholars have also had an interest in defending the authenticityof this poetry, now that over a century of scholarshiphas relied on
its testimony.
Mingana, however, regardsMuslim views on 'arabiyya with great skepticism:
the SouthArabianandotherinscriptions-Ibelievethatwe havenot
Settingasideas irrelevant
andI hold
a singlepageon whichwe canlay ourhandswithsafetyandsaythatit is pre-Islamic,
withMargoliouth
thatall the edificeof pre-Islamicpoetryis shakyandunstable,andthatthe
Kurlanis the firstgenuineArabicthatwe possess.17
If Mingana is right about this, and the Qur'anstands as the first Arabic book, then the language of the Qur'anstands as proto-'arabiyya.The author(and editors or redactors)of the
14. Al-Suytiti, al-Itqtn fi 'ulim al-Qurh'n (Cairo:Matbacatal-Maymaniyya,1317/1899), 136.

ed. andtrans.W.Bell (Cairo:Nile MissionPress,1924),17.

15. Al-Suyfiti,TheMutawakkili,
unklarist,wo
forexample,seeksto applyhismethodin theplaces"woderKontextoffensichtlich
16. Luxenberg,
I
die arabischen
Korankommentatoren
quasiamEndeihresArabischsind,wo es bei TabariimmerwiederIL~1

P LJCi. . ." C. Luxenberg,Die Syro-AramiiischeLesart des Koran (Berlin:Das arabischeBuch, 2000), 10.
j~Ab
,U 17.
77.
Mingana,"SyriacInfluence,"

REYNOLDS: A Reflectionon

TwoQur'inic Words(Iblis and Jildi)

679

Qurlan therefore would have had a tremendous task: to adapt new religious ideas to a
language with no written tradition.The author's solution, Mingana maintains, was to take
recourse to "a language akin to his [Muhammad's]that had become an ecclesiastical and
religious language centuries before his birth and the adherentsof which were surrounding
him in all directions in highly organised communities, bishoprics and monasteries."18This
language was Syriac.
In classifying the foreign vocabularyof the Qur'anMinganaestimatedthat thirtypercent
comes from Ethiopic, Hebrew, Persian, and Graeco-Romanlanguages, but seventy percent
from Syriac/Aramaicalone. Yet Mingana's theory is as much historical as it is linguistic.
He envisions a special relationshipbetween the language and content of the Qur'dnand the
Syriac Christiancontext in which it was formed. In line with this belief, Mingana argues
that the Arabic scriptdeveloped from the Syriac script, a theory which has recently received
new attentionfrom French scholars.19
It is this linguistic and historical vision that informs Mingana's understanding of the
Qur'an. He argues that it "suffers from the disabilities that always characterise a first
attemptin a new literarylanguage which is under the influence of an older and more fixed
literature.This older and more fixed literatureis, in ourjudgment, undoubtedlySyriac more
than any other."20Thus Mingana maintains that the secret to unraveling many knotty passages in the Qur'an,passages that have confounded both Muslim mufassiriin and Western
philologists, is a prudentapplicationof Syriac. He applied this methodology to a numberof
Qur'anic words in a short article,21but never published an exhaustive study of Syriac vocabulary in the Qur'dn.
Mingana's assertions were in part supportedby the conclusions of A. Jeffery in 1938.22
Jeffery followed Nildeke in referring to Muhammadas the author of the Qur'an, and regarded the Islamic accounts of the composition of the Qur'an and the CUthmaniccodex as
more or less trustworthy.Yet he had his doubts regardingpre-Islamic poetry, and inclined
towards Mingana's view that the Qur'in is the first Arabic book.23 More importantly,perhaps, Jeffery found that the Qur'andoes not reflect a pagan Arabianenvironment:
Oneof thefew distinctimpressionsgleanedfromthe firstperusalof thebewilderingconfusion
of the Qur'dn,is thatof the amountof materialthereinwhichis borrowedfromthegreatreligionsthatwereactivein Arabiaat thetimewhentheQur'anwas in processof formation.From
the factthatMuhammad
was an Arab,broughtup in the midstof Arabianpaganismandpractisingits riteshimselfuntilwell on into manhood,one wouldnaturallyhaveexpectedto find
thatIslamhadits rootsdeepdownin thisold Arabianpaganism.It comestherefore,as no little
18. Ibid.,78.
19. Theprevailingscholarlyview,oftenassociatedwithGermanscholars,is thattheArabicscriptdeveloped
fromNabatean.
This"German
school"pointsto thewell-knowninscription
of thekingImru'l-Qaysin Namara(in
the southernSyriandesert),datedto A.D.328,to supportthisview.See, e.g., B. Gruendler,
TheDevelopment
of the
ArabicScripts(Atlanta:ScholarsPress,1993).Yeta numberof scholarswritingin Frenchhavearguedthattheinfluenceof Syriacis moresignificant.See J. Starcky,"Petraet la Nabatdne,"
au Dictionnairede la Bible
Supplement
Leslanguesdansle mondean(Paris:Letouzeet And,1966),7: 932-34;D. Cohen,"Langues
chamito-sdmitiques,"
cient et moderne,ed. J. Perrot(Paris:CNRS,1988),32-33; G. Troupeau,
"Rdflexions
sur I'originesyriaquede
l'dcriturearabe,"SemiticStudiesin Honorof WolfLeslau(Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz,
1991),1562-70;andA.-L.
de Prdmare,
LesFondationsde l 'Islam(Paris:Seuil,2002),231-45. Fora recentreviewof thisquestion,see J. E
Journalof SemiticStudies45 (Spring2000):1, 62ff.
Healey,"TheEarlyHistoryof the SyriacScript,"
20. Mingana,"SyriacInfluence,"
78.
21. Mingana, "Syriac Influence on the Style of the Kur'hn."
22. Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabularyof the Qur'dn (Baroda:OrientalInstitute, 1938).
23. Ibid., 2.

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Journal of the American OrientalSociety 124.4 (2004)

surprise,to findhowlittleof thereligiouslife of thisArabianpaganismis reflectedin thepages

of the Qur'fn.... 24It maybe true,as W.Rudolphinsists,thatin manypassagesof theQur'an
the Islamicvarnishonly thinlycoversa heathensubstratum,
buteven a cursoryreadingof the
book makesit plainthatMuhammad
drewhis inspirationnot fromthe religiouslife andexperiencesof his own landandhis own people,butfromthegreatmonotheistic
religionswhich
werepressingdownintoArabiain his day.25
Mingana's methodology has recently seen new life in the above-mentionedwork of Luxenberg (Die Syro-AramiiischeLesart des Koran), who proposes a wide range of new readings of Qur'anicpassages based on Syriac. My goals in this article are much more modest.
I shall analyze the backgroundof two Qurlanicterms-iblis andjiidi-in the light of Mingana's methodology. I will argue that he is right in identifying a Syriac connection with
each term,but that in neithercase did he explain thatconnection well. Thus while Mingana's
writings should not serve as a textbook for Qur'anic studies, his conceptual model might
serve as a guide for future research.
2. IBLIS

The Qur'anhas two names for the devil: iblis (Q2:34, 7:11, 15:31-32, 17:61, 18:50, 20:
116, etc.) and al-shayttan(2:36, 20:120, etc.). Each of these names correspondsclearly to
one role that the devil plays. When he is the rebel, the one who refuses God's command to
bow to Adam (e.g., 2:34, 20:116), he is iblis. When he is the tempter,who leads Adam to sin
Yet while the etymology of the latterterm is generally
(e.g., 2:36, 20:120), he is
Hebrew
clear (it is related to the al-shayta.n.
which also tends to occur with the definite
ha-idt.in,26
is
not.
Most
Islamic
that
of
iblis
sources
article),
explain this name with reference to a
verbal root b.l.s., which they define (with reference to iblis), "to be cut off" (quti'a), "to
become silent" (sakata), "to be despondent"(ya'isa), or "to regret"(nadima).27Yet even if
b.l.s. is considered a genuine root (and not invented simply to explain iblis), this etymology
is problematic, since iblis (if'il) is a nominal form with few parallels, particularlyamong
personal names. Most philologists attemptto derive it from the af'al form.28Others are not
24. W. C. Smith chose this passage as the prototypicalexample of historical-criticalscholarshipthat is offensive
to Muslims. See his The Meaning and End of Religion (Minneapolis:Fortress, 1991), 107. Smith writes here as a
theologian seeking to lower the boundariesthat separatedifferentreligious traditions(see his comments on p. 319,
n. 4).
25. Jeffery, Foreign Vocabulary, 1. Regarding Rudolph, see W. Rudolph, Die Abhdngigkeitdes Qorans von
Judenthumund Christentum(Stuttgart:Kohlhammer,1922), 26, n. 9.
26. The diphthong "ay" in the Arabic version of the name is most likely accountablefor by the fact that, in
early Qurfinic manuscripts(particularlyin the hijdzi script), the consonantalshape for "yd"is also used as a mater
lectionis for "d."Eventually,this practice was continued only for the final consonantalposition (the so-called alif
maqs#ira)and medial matres lectionis were read as though they were in fact "yd"consonants.On this see A. Rippin,
The Qur'en and its InterpretiveTradition(Aldershot:Ashgate, 2001), xv; see also the forthcomingcontributionof
M. Kroppon the place of Ethiopic in the etymology of shaytiin, in Oriens Christianus89 (2005).
27. See Ibn Manztir,Lisin al-'arab (Beirut Dir IThy~)al-Turth al-'Arabi, 1418/1997), 1: 482. Ibn Manztiradds
(on the authorityof Ibn Ishliq)that before being called iblis (a title that he earnedfor his rebellion), he was called
'Izrh'il. Al-Tabarireports(also on the authorityof Ibn Ishfq) that he was previously named CAzazil.See al-Tabari,
Jimi' al-baydn (Cairo:Mustafa al-Bibi al-Halabi, 1954-68), 1: 224. Al-Tabariadds that "he was one of the most
industrious angels and the greatest of them in knowledge which is what led him to arrogance."In general the
sources are confused as to whetherIblis was an angel (since he was orderedto bow down to Adam along with the
other angels) or one of thejinn (among whom Q18:50 includes him). Al-Tabarisolves this problemby quoting traditions to the effect that he was from a tribe (qabila) of angels called "Jinn."
28. See E. Lane, An Arabic-EnglishLexicon (London:Williams and Norgate, 1863-93), 1: 248.

REYNOLDS: A Reflectionon

Two Qur'dnic Words(Iblis and Jildi)

681

convinced. Ibn Ishaq (d. 150/767), according to Ibn Manz4r (d. 711/1311), holds iblis to be
a foreign (a'jami) term. Al-Zamakhsharimaintains the same.29
Most Western scholars likewise recognize iblis to be a'jami. One of the first to do so
was A. Geiger, who in 1833 proposed that iblis is related to the Greek 8td3poxog,30
the term
used for the devil in the New Testament and to translatethe Hebrew ha-raittain
in the Septuagint.31With reference to the phonological similarity of iblis and 68tIpokog,a numberof
scholarsfollowed Geiger's etymology,32among then Mingana.Yet Minganaarguesthat this
term did not enter directly from Greek into Arabic, but ratherpassed throughSyriac d.b.l.s.
(as dibliis or diydbilliis).33This extra step, Mingana argues, would account for the missing
"d"in the Arabicversion of the word. He arguesthat an early qdri' mistook the initial Arabic
dal for an alif
Jeffery recognizes the merits of this argument,yet he inclines towards anothertheory of
how this transmission took place, that of J. Horovitz.34According to Horovitz, when the
Syriac d.b.l.s. was taken into Arabic as proper name, the dalath was assumed not to be a
proper part of the name, but rather the genitive particle that so often precedes nouns in
Syriac. It was consequently removed. An alif was put in its place to carry the orphaned
vowel and the word iblis appeared.This argumentis strengthened,Jeffery points out, by
parallels with other Arabic words which in the original Greek began with "d,"an attribute
that they seem to have lost when they passed through Syriac. One such case is the Greek
o6ucevrpia (English "dysentery"),which in Arabic became LL,La;Uj.35
Horovitz, by the way, wrote on this subject before Mingana, yet the latter makes no
mention of his theory. (Mingana rarely dignified other scholars with a footnote, let alone a
quotation).Yet Horovitz's explanationof this etymology is certainlyless arbitrary.It should
be added, however, that the final form of the Qur'anicterm iblis most likely took shape due
to the Qurdan'spractice of assimilating propernames to one another(ibrahim/isma'il, Cisa/
misa). In this case iblis and idris are assimilated.36
Jeffery also points out a weakness in the argumentfor a Syriac origin of iblis, one which,
to my knowledge, has never been properly addressed.In the Peshitta the term sdtaind(see,
e.g., Mark 1:13) appears for the Hebrew ?idtanand Greek oudiv. The Greek 8tdipoog is
translatedas dkelqdrse (e.g., Matt 4:11), a compound idiom derived ultimately from Akka-

29. A1-Zamakhshari,al-Kashshif, ed. Mustafi Husayn Ahmad, 4 vols. (Beirut: Ddr al-Kitab al-'Arabi, 1966),
3: 23 (Q 19:57).
30. See W. Bauer, A Greek-EnglishLexicon of the New Testamentand Other Early Christian Literature,ed.
and trans. W. Arndt and E W. Gingrich (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1979), 182.
31. A. Geiger, Washat Mohammedaus dem Judenthumeaufgenommen?(Bonn: Baaden, 1833), 5.
32. See, e.g., A. Sprenger,Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad,3 vols. (Berlin: Nicolai, 1869), 2: 242;
S. Fraenkel, De vocabulis in antiquis Arabum carminibus et in Corano peregrinis (Leiden: Brill, 1880), 24;
Rudolph, Abhiingigkeit,35.
33. Mingana, "Syriac Influence,"89-90. See also ThesaurusSyriacus, ed. Payne Smith, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), vol. 2 (1901), 1: 864, 867.
34. Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen(Berlin: De Gruyter,1926), 87. Cf. H. Speyer, Die biblische Erziihlungen im Qoran (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1988), 55, n. 3.
35. A second case is 7,
"balance,measure"from utKanc-lg,
"judge."See Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,48.
36. The etymology of idris is complicated in its own right. Although the Qur'fnic characteridrts is often identified by Islamic traditionas Enoch, the name more likely goes back to the prophetEzra (from Gk. Lbpac; this is the
theory of Torrey)or to Andrew (from Gk. av6piaS), either the Apostle (Nildeke) or the cook and servantof Alexander the Great who received immortality(Hartmann).On this see Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,51-52; G. Vajda,
"Idris,"The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1954-2005), 3:1030 (henceforthEl2).

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Journal of the AmericanOriental Society 124.4 (2004)

dian, meaning "accuser, slanderer."37Akelqdrsj, therefore, has a meaning quite close to

that of Hebrew iatian(n.b. Job 1:9-11), and is semantically equivalent to Syriac sadtand.In
Syriac literature,meanwhile, other terms appearfor the devil, most frequentlybishi, meaning "the evil one" (used to translatethe Greeknovqp6g;cf., e.g., Mark 13:19, John 17:15).38
The term shidd is often used for a possessing demon.39The term d.b.l.s., by comparison,
appearsinfrequentlyin Syriac literature.The only reference that the ThesaurusSyriacus of
Payne-Smithprovides for d.b.l.s. is to the work of the East Syrian (Nestorian)lexicographer
Bar Bahluil(d. 963).
Yet elsewhere Jeffery might have unwittingly provided the explanation as to why the
Syriac d.b.l.s. appears in the Qur'an, when he adds that in patristic writings "t&dp3oog"
came to refer primarilyto the "chief of the hosts of evil."40This is a very differentrole than
that of "accuser,slanderer"(dkelqdrsj or sdtadnd),
the primarybiblical role of the devil. It is
noteworthy,then, thatthe Qur'anat one point (26:59) speaks of thejuniid iblis, the "soldiers"
or "hosts"of iblis. Elsewhere the Qur'~nrefers to the devil as iblis when he is the disobedient angel, but not when he is the tempter of humans. Thus Q20:116 (cf. 2:34): "For we
said to the angels 'Bow down before Adam!' and they all bowed down except for iblis. He
refused."41When the devil appearsas dkelqdrsj/sditand,the Qur~anhas al-shaytadn.42
Thus
several verses later (20:120, cf. 2:36) both the role and the name of the devil have changed:
"But al-shaytainwhispered to him, saying 'O Adam, shall I lead you to the tree of eternity,
to an inexhaustible possession?' "
It seems reasonable,then, that Syriacd.b.l.s. enteredthe Qur'an(as iblis) with referenceto
only one aspect of the devil's character,that of the rebellious angel (the 6t~ioogo of patristic
Christianwritings).43The aspect representedby the Syriac akelqdrs- or sdtadnd,on the other
This explanationhas the addedbenefit of clarifying
hand, enteredthe Qur'anas al-shaytadn.44
the
terms
iblis
and
are
in such different ways in the Qur'an.
used
al-shaytatn
why

37. See The Assyrian Dictionary K (Chicago: OrientalInstitute, 1971), 222, underkarsu (a). The transformation of Akkadian "k" to "q" in Aramaic/Syriacled to a traditional(but false) definition of this term as "eaterof
flesh" or "bread."I am grateful to Profs. Gary Anderson and Eugene Ulrich of Notre Dame University for this
reference.
38. Thesaurus Syriacus, 1: 441. When bisha appears in the Old Testament,it often correspondsto Hebrew
ebydn, a term that the Arabic rajim (al-shaytainal-rajim) translates.
39. See, e.g., the Syriac text TransitusMariae, Studia Sinaitica 11, ed. and trans.Agnes Smith Lewis, in Apocrypha Syriaca (London:Clay, 1902), 57-58 (of Syriac text).
40. Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,48. On the development of eastern churchdoctrineon the devil, see E. Mangenot, "Ddmond'apres les peres,"art. "Demon,"Dictionnaire de thdologie catholique, ed. Vacant and Mangenot,
25 parts in 15 vols. (Paris:Letouzey, 1908-50), 4: 377-78.
41. Cf. the early (perhaps fourth century A.D. but the date is much disputed) Syriac Christiantext, Cave of
Treasures.In the account of the angelic prostrationto Adam therein,which is closely connected to the Qur'dn,the
devil is describedas the "leaderof the lesser order,"La caverne de trdsors,CSCO207, ed. and trans.S.-M. Ri (Leuven: Peeters, 1987), 21 (ch. 3, v. 1, Westernrecension).
42. As with ha-?iitainin the Hebrew Bible, al-shaytin of the Qur'anusually appearswith the definite article;
there are six exceptions. See A. Rippin, "Shaytan,"El2, 9: 408.
43. Incidentally,the word that came to be used for the anti-Christin later Islamic texts, al-dajjal, is likewise of
Syriac provenance.The term al-dajjal, which does not appearin the Qur'fin,comes from Syriac daggild, the name
given to the anti-Christby Ephraemand Pseudo-Methodius,among others (see A. Abel, "al-Dajjfl,"EI2,2: 75-77).
Daggald, meanwhile, comes from the verb daggel, "to lie, deceive." In Arabic Islamic writings the phraseal-masih
al-dajjal is also used for the anti-Christ,a direct translationof the common Syriac phrase mshiha daggalda,"the
deceiving Christ."
44. "Iblis, then, is the one who is proud and disobedient, while al-Shaytfinis the tempter and it is in that role
thatthe emphasis falls within the Kur'anin speakingof him in othercontexts as well." A. Rippin, "Shayt~in,"
9: 407.

A Reflectionon Two Qur'dnic Words(Iblis and Jildi)

REYNOLDS:

683

3. JUDI

I turn then to a second Qur'anicterm which, according to Mingana, was borrowedfrom

Syriac. Here the term in question is not the name of a person, but ratherof a mountain,the
mountainupon which the ark of Noah landed (apobaterion). It appearsin Qur'in 11:44a:
and
It wassaid,"Oearth,swallowyourwaters!"and"Osky,be gone."So thewaterdisappeared
the matterwas concluded.The [ark]settledon al-jitdi.45
The philological mystery surroundingal-judi comes from the absence of any related term
in Jewish or Christian literatureon Noah. The Hebrew Bible refers to the "mountainsof
ardrat" (Genesis 8:4)46 in this context. In the Syriac Peshitta and Aramaic targums, however, the term qarda appearsin the place of ardrat. Later texts, accordingly, whether Hebrew, Aramaic, or Syriac, name Noah's apobaterion qardti (cf. Armenian Kordukh).47
Qardi is almost universally identified as a peak near the headwatersof the Tigris river, in
what is today extreme southeasternTurkey,in a mountainchain generally referredto by the
Greek name Gordyene (cognate of qardii). Unlike the imposing solitary peak to the north
that was later given the name Mt. Ararat(it is more properly called Masik, or Masis, both
Armenianterms), qardii is a mountainof less impressive height (2089 meters), one peak in
a mass of similar mountains.
The association of qardi with the great flood is an ancient one, going back at least to
Babylonian tradition,48whence it made its way into biblical and later Judaeo-Christian
tradition.49The qardii in Gen. 8:4 of the Peshitta and the Aramaic targums is a gloss on
Cf. Speyer, Biblische Erziihlungen,60, who argues that in Christianitythe devil plays the role of tempter,while in
Judaismhe plays the role of opponent to God. Cf. also M. Grtinbaum,Neue Beitriige zur semitischen Sagenkunde
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1893), 60. There are two other noteworthytheories regardingthe etymology of iblis. The first,
proposed by H. Grimme (Zeitschriftfiir Assyriologie 26 [1912], 164), is that the word came ultimately from
Ethiopic, having passed through South Arabian. I am unable to evaluate this theory, being unfamiliar with these
languages, but Jeffery (Foreign Vocabulary,48) questions its validity. The second theory is that of D. Kiinstlinger
("Die Herkunftdes Wortes Iblis im Kur~'n,"Rocznik Orjentalistyczny6 [1928]: 76-83), who proposes that iblis
ultimately stems from the Hebrew beliya'al, which he defines (p. 76) as "einerder niedrige Gedankenhat, Nichtsmutzigkeit,daherauch Unterwelt,Verderben."While Ktinstlinger(pp. 78-79) is able to show that beliya'al appears
as the name of the devil in apocryphal Jewish works (and in its Greek form in apocryphal Christianworks), his
theory of how the term changed into iblis requiresa fanciful imagination. He relies (p. 80) on the fact that at some
point the vocalizationof the termwas intentionallychanged, as Italianssay "diascolo"for "diabolo."A similarshift,
he suggests (p. 82), occurredwith beliya'al among the Jews of Arabia.
45. 11:44b begins the narrativeof God condemningNoah's son. It seems to be included with this verse for the
purpose of rhyme.
46. Cf. Tobit 1:21, wherein it is said that two sons of the Assyrian king Sennacherib,after assassinatingtheir
father,escaped into the mountainsof Ararat.The location of Ninevah would suggest, althoughcertainly not necessitate, thatthe mountainsof Araratin this case are the Gordyenemountainsof Mesopotamia,as would the reference
to mountainsin the plural (the modem day Mt. Araratconsists of two isolated peaks: Greaterand Lesser Ararat,extinct volcanic cones rising from a plain).
47. Most likely Qardpiis related to the term "Kurd."See below and Thesaurus Syriacus, 2: 3731; Th. Bois,
"Kurds,Kurdistan,"EP, 5: 448.
48. The Babylonian Berossus reportsthat his boat landed near the mountains of Kopuaviov.See Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,107, n. 1; M. Streck, "Djidi," E2, 2: 574. The Gilgamesh epic, however, identifies the apobaterion
as Nisir, a mountain most likely identical with the modern Pir 'Umar Gudriinin southern Kurdistan(along the
frontierof modern Iraq and Iran, about 600 km from QardtiJiidi).
49. See, e.g., the references to Noah and Mt. Qardi~i
in the aforementionedCave of Treasures,148, 206. Elsewhere (p. 154), the Cave refers to a village named tmainin,or "eighty,"where the eight survivorsof the GreatFlood
settled. This name is preserved by Islamic tradition, appearing in Arabic works as thaminin (likely due to the
influence of the Syriac name, as the nominative Arabic form of the word is thamtiniin).The Kurdishname for the
village, Hashtiam,likewise reflects this tradition.

684

Journal of the American OrientalSociety 124.4 (2004)

(and not a variant of) the Hebrew ardrat.50Arirat (Assyrian Urartu), as Streck explains,
is the name of a district and not a single mountain.51It was only later that Masik (Greater
Ararat) earned the title of Ararat. Streck concludes that since Masik is "the highest and
best known mountain"of the region of Arirat, it was assumed that "Noah must have been
strandedon it."52This assumptionhad alreadybeen made by the fifteenthcentury,since the
Spanish travelerClavijo reportsupon passing Masik in the year 1404 that it was considered
by locals to be the location upon which Noah's ark came to rest (althoughhe does not refer
to the mountain as Ardrat).53Yet the older traditionlooks instead to the smaller mountain
named qardti, which also lies in the district of Ararat.54
Muslim scholars identify the jiidi of Q11:44 with this same mountain.For this reason,
the peak is today known as jabal jiidi (Ar.) or jtidi dagh (Tur.).The references to jiidi as a
mountainin Mesopotamiacome quite early.The mufassirMuqatilb. Sulayman(d. 150/767)
placesjiidi nearMawsil.55Abi Ja'faral-Tabarireportsa numberof traditionson the subject,
all of which have jiidi in Mesopotamia, and one, on the authorityof al-Dahhak56in the region of Mawsil.57The historians al-Yacqibi (d. 292/897) and al-Masiidi (d. 345/956) both
place juidinear Mawsil.58Mas'iidi relates: "jiudiis a mountainin the country of ... Jazirat
Ibn 'Umar,in the territoryof Mawsil. Thereare eighty parasangsbetweenjitdi and the Tigris.
The site where the boat rested is on the peak of this mountain."59
The geographersare likewise in agreementthatjidi is a mountainin Mesopotamia. AlIstakhri(d. early 4th/10th century)places it near JaziratIbn cUmar,60 as does al-Muqaddasi
(d. 375/985).61 Ibn Hawqal (d. late 4th/10th century), who was born in Mesopotamia (Naas
sibin), namesjtidi as a mountainin this region.62Al-Qazwini (d. 682/1283) describes
j/idi
a mountainto the east of JaziratIbn 'Umar.He adds that the mosque that Noah himself
built
remainedthere to his day, and that people came on pilgrimage to visit it.63The geographer
Yqdit (d. 626/1229) provides a particularlyaccuratedescription:

50. See ThesaurusSyriacus, 2: 3731.

51. "AncientArmeniantraditioncertainlyknows nothingof a mountainon which the arkrested;and when one
is mentionedin later Armeniantradition,this is clearly due to the graduallyincreasinginfluence of the Bible, which
makes the ark rest on the mountains(or a mountain)of Ararat,"Streck, "Djidi," 574.
52. Ibid.
53. Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, Embassyto Tamerlane1403-1406, trans.G. Le Strange(1928; rpt.Frankfurt:Institutfiir Geschichte der arabisch-islamischenWissenschaft, 1994), 142-44. Although Clavijo himself never refers
to Masik as Ararat,Le Strangeadds the latterterm in bracketsto several passages.
54. The two terms may be even more closely related. According to one theory,qardii is etymologically related
to Assyrian urartu,and hence Hebrew ararat, Th. Bois, "Kurds,"448.
55. Muqdtilb. Sulaymin, Tafsir(1969; rpt. Beirut:Dir Ihya' al-Turithal-'Arabi,2002), 2: 283.
56. On al-Dahhlk b. Muzahimal-Khurdsdni(d. 105/723), see F Sezgin, Geschichtedes arabischenSchrifttums,
12 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1967-2000), 1: 29.
57. Al-Tabari,Jami' al-baydn, 12: 48.
58. See al-Ya'qtbi, Ta'rikh,ed. Houtsma,2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1883), 1: 12.
59. Al-Mas 1di, Murij al-dhahab, ed. Barbierd Meynard and Pavet de Courteille (rpt. Beirut: al-Jfmi'a alLubnfniyya, 1966), 1: 43-44. Cf. 1: 252; 2: 521, 5: 151.
60. Al-Istakhri,al-Masalik wa-l-mamalik(Cairo:Dar al-Qalam, 1381/1961), 55. See also G. Le Strange,Lands
of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1905), 94, cf. 182. He reports thatjabal jfldi is
visible to the East of JaziratIbn CUmar.
61. Al-Muqaddasi,Ahsan al-taqdsimfi ma'rifat al-aqdlim (Leiden: Brill, 1904), 139.
62. Ibn Hawqal, Kitab Si rat al-ard (Frankfurt:FrankfurtUniv., 1992), 203.
63. He also mentions that the wood of Noah's ark remainedon this mountainuntil the time of the 'Abbasids.
Al-Qazwini, 'Ajd'ibal-makhliiqat,ed. H. Wiistenfeld, 2 vols. (1848; rpt. Wiesbaden:FranzSteiner, 1967), 1: 156.

REYNOLDS: A Reflectionon Two Qur'dnic Words(Iblis and Jildi)

685

It is a highground,in theprovincesof Mosul,aboveJaziratIbn'Umarto theeastof theTigris,

[i.e.,jiidi]is a letter
uponwhichNoah'sboatsettledwhenthewaterdried.... Thispronunciation
(ta'rib)fromtheTorah.Themosqueof Noah(peaceby uponhim)is present
by letterarabization
to thisdayon Jidi.64
JaziratIbn CUmaris the present-dayCizre, a town in the southeast corner of Turkey,southwest of Lake Van and on the banks of the Tigris (being in fact an island formed by a canal
between two parts of the Tigris), close to the bordersof both Syria and Iraq. Ydqit's reference matches precisely the mountainreferredto in modern times by Muslims as jabal jiidi
or jiidi dagh and by Christians and Jews as qardu.
mention of a mosque of Noah
Ydqiqt's
is most likely the very sanctuarythat GertrudeBell describes in the early twentieth century
as the destination of Jewish, Christian,and Muslim pilgrims.65
Everything, then, seems to be in perfect harmony regarding the apobaterionof Noah.
The only riddle that remains is the fact that Islamic tradition,against the sum of Mesopotamian and Judaeo-Christiantradition,refers to this place not as qardii, but asjidi. Western
scholars have come up with two different answers to this riddle.
The first is that of Ndldeke, who discusses the qardiV/jidiproblem in an article entitled
"Karduand Kurden."66N$ldekerelies in large part on a reference from Yqilt to a second
peak namedjiidi in the territoryof the BangiTayyi' in the Arabianpeninsula. Yaqilt quotes
a verse in praise of this mountain by an early poet named AbuiSa'tara al-Bawlani.67The
verse comes from the Hamasa of Abil Tammdm(d. ca. 231/845),68 who quotes the reference
to jiidi in the course of his panegyric to the BandiTayyi', from whom he claimed descent
(despite the fact that he was the son of a Damascene Christian).On the weight of this evidence, Nildeke identified this Arabianmountain,in the region of Abil Tammam'sTayyi*,69
as the original referent of Qur'an 11:44.
It should be added, however, thatjldi is also mentioned in another text attributedto a
pre-Islamic poet, the famous hanif Umayya b. Abi 1-Salt.70However, Nildeke himself, in
an articlepublishedfourteenyears later, in 1912, arguesthatthis text is from the Islamic era,
since the mention of jidi therein is clearly taken from the Qur'an.7'Thus the only foundation for the Niildeke theory is the Abi Tammamreference.
Despite this, Jeffery agrees with Nildeke, articulatingthe theory as follows: "Itwould
seem that Muhammad imagined that the people of Noah like those of 'Ad and those of
Thamigdwere dwellers of Arabia."According to the theory, Muhammadchose an Arabian

64. Ydqit, Mu?jamal-buldan, ed. H. Wtistenfeld,6 vols. (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1866-73), 2: 144-45.
65. See Bell, Amurathto Amurath(London: Macmillan, 1924). Bell visited Qardil/Jfdi in 1909 and found the
ruinedremainsof an East Syrian monasteryand a Muslim shrine. She notes, "Christian,Moslem and Jew still visit
the mount upon a certain day in the summerand offer their oblations to the ProphetNoah" (p. 292).
66. T. Nildeke, "Karduund Kurden,"Festschriftfiir H. Kiepert:Beitriige zur alten Geschichte und Geographie
(Berlin: D. Reimer, 1898), 77.
67.YAiqut, Mujam al-bulddin,1: 145.
68. See Abi Tammam,Diwan al-hamlsa, ed. Ahmad Salih (Baghdad:Dar al-Rashid, 1980), 386 (=Hamasae
carmina cum Tebrisiischoliis, ed. G. Freytag [Bonn: in officina Baadeni, 1828], 564). The IHamasais a collection
of poetry attributedto lesser known poets from the pre-Islamicor early Islamic period;AbCTammamhimself refers
to his work as al-Ikhtiyarat min shi'r al-shu'ar7B.

69. The traditionalarea of the BanOTayyi' is in fact mountainous,consisting of two chains, aja' and salma,
which together form Jabald Tayyi'.See W. Caskel, "Adia'and Salma,"El2, 1: 203.
70. See E Schulthess, Umajja ibn Abi Salt: Die unter seinem Namen iiberliefertenGedichtfragmentegesams
melt und iibersetzt(Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1911), 57.
71. T. Niildeke, "Umaijab. AbisSalt,"Zeitschriftfiir Assyriologie und verwandteGebiete 27 (1912): 165.

686

Journal of the American OrientalSociety 124.4 (2004)

mountain namedjiidi as the apobaterionbecause it was "the highest peak in the neighborhood."72Lateron, Muslim scholarslearnedof the Mesopotamian-Jewish-Christian
tradition
of Mt. Qardi. Casting aside Muhammad's,or better,the Qur'an's,vision of the matter,they
switched the title of jidi to this latter mountain.Streck agrees with this theory, concluding
that Nildeke "is clearly right."73
Is the matterreally this clear?Would Islamic traditionhave been so quick to abandonthe
Qurfin's identificationin favor of the Jewish and Christianone? Furthermore,assumingthat
Abi Tammamhas accuratelyquoted AbuiSa'taraal-Bawlani, can this quotationbe accepted
as pre-Islamic? Perhapsit is, like the quotation attributedto Umayya b. Abi 1-Salt,more a
reflection of the Qur'an than an anticipation of it. Moreover, while Yaqilt recognizes the
existence of an Arabianjidi, he mentions it only in passing in his description of Jabala
Tayyi) and ignores it entirely in his discussion of Noah's jiidi. All signs point to the conclusion that the jidi of AbUiTammim's adopted Banti Tayyi' was named (perhapsby Abti
Tammamhimself) in homage to the jiidi of Mesopotamia, not vice versa.
Indeed, Muslim traditionfrom the earliest period held the jidi of Qur'an 11:44 to be a
mountainof Mesopotamia, a point that Streck himself accepts.74Thus we are left with the
fact that nowhere in Arabic literatureis there a single mention, the verse of the Hamdsa
notwithstanding,that the Arabianjiidi is in anyway connected with Noah and his boat. The
Nildeke theory is, ultimately, an argumentumex silentio. In fact, there is some reason to
believe that if N5ldeke had written his article "Karduand Kurden"in 1912, not 1898, he
would have taken a different approach.
We turn,therefore,to a second theory,that of Mingana, who shows no knowledge of (or
interest in?) the Nildeke theory or the HIamdsareference to an Arabianjiidi. Mingana concludes that the termjiidi is simply a corruptionof Syriac qardii, which is hardly an obvious
conclusion, since the two terms shareonly one consonant.MinganaderivesjiAdifrom qardi
in two steps, one phonological and one orthographical.First, he maintainsthat qardii came
to the Qur'~nthrough someone who spoke with a Bedouin dialect and pronouncedthe qaf
as gdf, which was recorded by a qdri' as a jim.75 Second, Mingana holds that the rd' became a waw when an arabicized form of qardli was misread, since the two Arabic letters
are similar in early Arabic scripts (i.e., hijdzi and kitfi). Mingana leaves a third problemthe finalyd' in jidi insteadof the wdw of Qardil-unmentioned. He is nonethelessconvinced
by his etymology, concluding: "No other explanation of the wordjiidi seems to me worth
mentioning."76
To my knowledge, no one other than Mingana sharedthis conviction. Yet, in light of the
weaknesses of the N55ldeketheory, the Mingana theory deserves to be taken seriously.
Moreover, the theory clearly benefits from Yaqilt's statementon jidi quoted above (a statement that Mingana shows no awarenessof), thatjudi is "a letter by letter Arabizationfrom
the Tawrat."Like Mingana, Yqilt argues thatjtidi is not an Arabic term, but rathera borrowing from the Tawrat.If the Tawratthat Yaqilt has in mind here is the Peshitta or the
AramaicTargum,thenjuidiwould be, exactly as Mingana argues, a corruptedtransliteration
of qardit.

72.
73.
74.
75.
76.

Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,107.
Streck, "Djfidi" 574.
Ibid.
Mingana, "SyriacInfluence,"97.
Ibid.

REYNOLDS: A Reflectionon

TwoQur'dnic Words(Iblis and Jiidi)

687

We might ask, however, if Mingana capturedthe most likely way in which the transliteration of qardii to jiidi could have taken place. The one piece of the puzzle that Mingana
leaves out, the appearanceof the "i" in jidi, is in fact the least problematic. The region
aroundjabal jidi, known in Syriac as bet qardii, is known in Arabic as qardd (ae), as is
reportedby Baladhuri (d. 279/892), Masliidi, Tabariand Yaquit,among others.77Thus the
Syriac ii had entered into Arabic as ;, a shape which can also be read as a yd'.
This can be explained in anotherfashion.78The Syriac adjective for qardii is qardwaya
("formaantiquior")or qiirdayd("utrecentior").79The Qur'lnic termjidi might be seen as a
substantive adjective with a nisba ending; that is, the mountainwas referredto by the local,
Syriac-speakingpopulationby its adjectivalform, as qardwaya(qirdayd) or tura qardwaya
(qiirddyd)and it was this form that was adoptedinto Qur'~nicArabic. The Arabicyi' came
from the Syriac yd'. This scenario is perhaps more plausible in light of anotherreason to
believe thatjiidi is actually a nisba, which I shall discuss below.
The next problematicletter injidi, then, is the Arabicwdw, which, accordingto Mingana,
came from a misreadingof an Arabic ra'. This is certainly possible. In both hijdzi and kilfi
script these two letters are quite similar and can easily be confused. It is also possible, although perhaps less likely, that the scriptural corruption came from a misreading of the
Syriac rish. The skeletal shape of the dalath or rish in the serta Syriac script is very close
to the Arabic wdw. While it has been traditionallyassumed that serta did not develop until
the eighth century,80J. E Healey has recently shown thatcertainelements of the serta script,
notably the skeletal form of the ddlath/rish, appearas early as the fifth century.81
The transformationof the first letter, from a qdf to ajim, would then seem to be the most
problematic.The link here is providedby G. R. Driverin an articleon the origins of the term
"Kurd."82Driver argues convincingly that the Syriac term qardii comes from the same root
as the term Kurd.83He also provides a table of the forms that this word took among Greek
and Latin writers to refer to the Kurds or Kurdistan.In many of these forms the first consonant appearsnot as "k" or "q"but ratheras "g" (Gordyene, Gordyaeus, Gordyaea,etc.).
Ptolemy, for example, gives adyop6auta6prl,"the Kurdishmountain,"a term equivalent to
gurdwdyd.84 Clearly, the first consonant of qardfi, and its adjective qardwayd
Syriac
.tird was often
or qurdwayd,
pronounced "g."85

77. Al-Balddhuri, Kitab Futith al-buldan, ed. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1866), 176; Mas'uidi,Muriij, 1: 122;
al-Tabari,Ta'rikh,ed. de Goeje, 16 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1879-1901), 3: 610; Ydqit, Mu'jam al-buldan; 4: 56; cf.
"Karddand Bgzabdd,"EI2, 4: 639.
78. C. Luxenberghas communicatedthis lattertheory to me in private correspondence.
79. ThesaurusSyriacus, 2: 3731.
80. See, e.g., T Muraoka,Classical Syriac (Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz,1997), 2.
81. Healey, "EarlyHistory,"59. Note also the ms. that Healey reproduceson p. 57. See also the charton p. 62,
containing examples in which the dalath/rish is written without the diacriticalpoint.
82. Driver, "The Name Kurd and its Philological Connexions,"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1923):
393-403.
83. The first mention of the common root of Kurdand qardi is a reference in a Sumeriantablet from the third
millennium B.C.to the "landof Kar-da."See Driver, 393, 397.
84. On this see also Jeffery,Foreign Vocabulary,106.
85. The close relationshipof the Syriac gamal and qdf/ktifhas recently been pointed out by C. Luxenberg,who
notes that the verb zlag ("to shine") also appearscommonly as zlaq. See Luxenberg,Die Syro-AramiiischeLexart,
142; Thesaurus Syriacus, 1: 1131; I am grateful to Luxenberg for this reference. This phenomenon can also be
seen in the name of another mountain, karah khlshib in Kurdish, which in Syriac becomes gardid-khishib. See
A. Maclean, A Dictionary of the Dialects of VernacularSyriac (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1901), 55a.

688

Journal of the American OrientalSociety 124.4 (2004)

Most likely, then, the mountainin question was referredto as tturagurdwdya,which was
taken into Arabic as al-jabal al-gurdi, or "the Kurdishmountain."86This phrasewas abbreviated as al-gurdi, and the "g" was written with ajim, as is typical for Syro-Aramaicwords
in Arabic (cf. among place names, Arabicjubayl [diminutive form], "Byblos,"vs. Syriac
gbel; Arabic al-jalil, "Galilee,"vs. Syriac glild).87 The rd' was misread as a wdw and aljiidi appeared. Thus, while by no means simple, an etymology of jidi from qardii is not
anomalous. It deserves to be taken seriously, in light of the reference from Yaqilt and the
weaknesses of the Ndldeke theory.
4. CONCLUDING REMARKS

For both terms discussed in this paper,iblis andjiidi, Minganaproposes etymologies with
Syriac, supportingthem more with self-confidence than with philological evidence. In both
cases Mingana's explanationfor how the terms went from Syriac to Arabic is wanting. Yet
the principle behind his theories is not. Iblis andjidi are part of a greater trend of Syriac
terminology in the Qur'~n(includingthe very term" Qur'an,"from Syriac qerydan).Luxenberg explores this even further, arguing that the Qur'an is reliant on Syriac not only in
terms of vocabulary,but also in terms of grammarand syntax, an argumentthat is beyond
the scope of this paper.
While Mingana was not the most meticulous of scholars, he was certainly among the
most precocious, a quality that led him to speculate on possibilities that more responsible
scholars would not consider. Yet his conviction regardingthe relationshipof Syriac to the
Qur'an is more insightful than reckless. The Qur'an, of course, describes itself as clear
Arabic, at one point specifically denying the claims of some that a non-Arabic speakerwas
its source.88Yet why, on one hand, is the Qur'anso concerned to assert repeatedlythat it is
clear Arabic? On the other hand, what was "clearArabic"at the time of the Qur an's composition, a period for which we have few (if any) literary sources other than the Qur'anitself? J. Wansbroughcomments: "As much as any other, it was this process of converting
into Arabicthe traditionalcontentof Judaeo-Christianmonotheismthatmade of thatmedium
the lingua sacra of Islam."89Indeed, the development of the Qur'ancannot be fully discussed without considering the development of Arabic.
In supportof Mingana's conviction about Syriac is the historical fact that much of preIslamic Arabia and Syria was bilingual; the spoken language was Arabic, yet the ecclesiastical language was Syriac. That the scripturallanguage was Syriac is reflected in the
extraordinaryfact that although Christianity was widespread among the Arabs in the preIslamic era, there is no firmevidence for any Arabic translationof the Bible in this period.90

86. This form is similar to terms that appearin Akkadian(ca. 1400 B.C.E.),Qortie or Kortie, in Assyrian (ca.
1100 B.C.),Kortie, and the laterGreek and Latin form Cyrtii,but thereis no reasonto thinkthatthereis any specific
etymological relation. On this see M. R. Izady, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook (Washington,D.C.: Taylor and
Francis, 1992), 31; V. Minorsky,"Kurds,Kurdistan,"El2, 5: 448.
87. See L. Costaz, Dictionnaire Syriaque-Frangais(Beirut:ImprimerieCatholique, 1963), 406.
88. "We know that they say, 'It is only a person who is teaching him.' The language of the one to whom they
refer is foreign, but this language is clear Arabic,"Qur'hn,al-Nahl (16): 103.
89. J. Wansbrough,The Sectarian Milieu (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1978), 127.
90. On this see J. S. Trimingham, Christianity among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times (London: Longman,
1979), 188-202; pace I. Shahid and his remarksin a review of Trimingham'swork, Journal of Semitic Studies 26
(1981): 150-53. As describedby S. Griffith,Shahid's argumentsfor a pre-IslamicArabic Bible are based on "hints
and clues of it which remain in the works of the pre-Islamic Christian Arabic poets," S. Griffith,"The Gospel in

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689

Would we not expect, then, that Syriac would exert a great force when Arabic did develop
into a scripturallanguage?91These are probes into a matterthat deserves a critical and indepth study. Yet there is reason to believe, even from the two case studies of this paper,that
we have not yet fully appreciatedthe circumstancesin which the Qur'anbecame scripture,
and its language a lingua sacra.

Arabic: An Inquiryinto its Appearancein the First Abbasid Century,"Oriens Christianus69 (1985): 159. Griffith
himself concludes that "all one can say about the possibility of a pre-Islamic,Christianversion of the Gospel in
Arabic is that no sure sign of its actual existence has yet emerged" (166). An earlier version of this debate took
place between A. Baumstarkand G. Grif. Once again, the more convincing argument,that of Grif, is that there is
no reliable evidence of pre-IslamicArabic Bible translations.See Baumstark,"Die
sonntigliche Evangelienlesung
im vorbyzantinischenJerusalem,"ByzantinischeZeitschrift30 (1929-30): 350-59; "Das Problem eines vorislamischen christlich-kirchlichenSchrifttums in arabischenSprache,"Islamica 4 (1931): 562-75; "Eine altarabische
Evangelientibersetzungaus dem Christlich-Palistinensischen,"Zeitschriftfiir Semitistik8 (1932): 201-9; "Der alteste erhaltenegriechisch-arabischetext von Psalm 110,"Oriens Christianus9 (1934): 55-56.
Grif retorts:"Jedoch
besteht zu dieser Erklirung wenigstens kein zwingender Grund. Veilmehr sprechen fiir die zweite M6glichkeit,
namlich Uebernahmeder Perikopennotizenaus einem griechischen Exemplarund damit Entstehungder Uebersetzung auch noch nach 630 (aber vor 843) folgende Erwigungen," G. Grdif,Geschichte der christlichen arabischen
Literatur(Rome: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1947), 1: 144.
91. On this subject see T. Andrae, Les origines de l'islam et le christianisme, trans. J. Roche (Paris; Adrien
Maisonneuve, 1955); J. Bowman, "The Debt of Islam to MonophysiteSyriac Christianity,"Nederlands Theologisch
Tijdschrift19 (1964-65): 177-201 (rpt. in Essays in Honour of GriffithesWheelerThatcher[Sydney: Sydney Univ.
Press, 1967], 191-261); E. Grif, "Zuden christlichenEinfltissenim Koran,"al-Bahith, FestschriftJoseph Henniger
zum 70 Geburtstag(Bonn: Verlagdes Anthropos-Instituts,1976), 111-44; E Nau, Les arabes chretiensde Misopotamie et Syrie du Vile au VIIIesikcle (Paris:ImprimerieNationale, 1933).