Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Philologists who derive the Qur’anic word siǧǧīn from this root suggest ‘containment’ as the semantic link between the two, but it has also been suggested that it could be a borrowing from Lat insignia, the Roman emperor’s stamp which used to be affixed to important records. Also it has been suggested that this root was borrowed from Pers or Gz – BAH2008.

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siǧn سِجْن

√SǦN

… – WehrCowan1979.

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siǧǧīn سِجِّين

√SǦN

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▪ eC7 Q IxxxSi, 7, 8 – Jeffery1938.

▪ Jeffery1938: »The early authorities differed widely as to what the Siǧǧīn of this eschatological passage might be. It was generally agreed that it was a place, but some said it meant ‘the lowest earth,’ al-ʔarḍ al-sābiʕaẗ, or a name for hell, or a rock under which the records of men’s deeds are kept, or a prison.¹ The Qurʔān itself seems to indicate that it means a document, kitāb marqūm, so al-Suyūṭī, Mutaw, 46,² tells us that some thought it was a Pers word meaning ‘clay’ (tablet). Grimme, ZA, xxvi, 163, thinks that it refers to the material on which the records are written, and compares with the Eth [Gz] ṣəngʷən or ṣəngūn meaning ‘clay writing tablets’. It is very probable, however, as Nöldeke, Sketches, 38, suggested long ago, that the word is simply an invention of Muḥammad himself. If this is so, then kitāb marqūm is probably an explanatory gloss that has crept into the text.«

1. See Vacca, EI, sub voc., who suggests that it was this idea that the word was connected with saǧǧana that gave rise to the theory that it was a place in the nethermost earth where the books were kept, rather than the books themselves. 2. See also Itq, 321.

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