Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ eC7 (‘idolatry’) Q 2:256, 257; 4:51, 60, 76; 5:60; 16:36; 39:17. – 1 ([generic for] false deity/deities) Q 2:256 fa-man yakfur bi’l-ṭāġūti wa-yuʔmin bi’l-lāhi fa-qad-i ’stamsaka bi’l-ʕurwaẗi ’l-wuṯqà ‘so whoever rejects false gods and believes in God has taken grasp of the firmest link’; 2 ([generic for] evil powers; variously named by the interpreters as: the Devil, diviners, enchanters, any head or leader in error, the idol al-Lāt or Kaʕb b. al-ʔAšraf, a Jewish man who directed hostilities against the new religion) Q 4:60 yurīdūna ʔan yataḥākamū ʔilà ’l-ṭāġūti wa-qad ʔumirū ʔan yakfurū bi-hī ‘they desire to seek the arbitration of false idols (or, leaders of disbelievers) when they have been ordered to reject them?’

▪ Jeffery1938: »This curious word is used by Muḥammad to indicate an alternative to the worship of Allah, as Rāġib, Mufradāt, 307, recognizes. Men are warned to ‘serve Allah and avoid ṭāġūt’ (16:36, 39:17); those who disbelieve are said to fight in the way of ṭāġūt and have ṭāġūt as their patron (4:76; 2:257); some seek oracles from ṭāġūt (4:60), and the People of the Book are reproached because some of them, though they have a Revelation, yet believe in ṭāġūt (4:51, 5:60). / It is thus clearly a technical religious term, but the Commentators know nothing certain about it. From Ṭab. and Bagh. on ii, 257, we learn that some thought it meant al-šayṭān, others al-sāḥir or al-kāhin, others ʔawṯān or ʔaṣnām, and some thought it a name for al-Lāt and al-ʕUzzà. The general opinion, however, is that it is a genuine Ar word, a form FaʕLūt from ṭaġà ‘to go beyond the limit’ (LA, xix, 232; TA , x, 225, and Rāġib, op. cit.). This is plausible, but hardly satisfactory, and we learn from al-Suyūṭī, Itq, 322; Mutaw, 37, that some of the early authorities recognized it as a loan-word from Abyssinian. / Geiger, 56, sought its origin in the Rabbinic ṭāʕûṯ ‘error’ which is sometimes used for idols, as in the Jerusalem Talmud, Sanh, x, 28d , ʔwy l-km w-l-ṭʕwt-km ‘woe to you and to your idols’, and whose cognate ṭʕwtā is frequently used in the Targums for ‘idolatry’¹ a meaning easily developed from the primary verbal meaning of ṭʕā ‘to go astray’ (cf. Hbr ṭāʕāʰ, Syr ṭᵊʕā, Ar ṭaġà). / Geiger has had many followers in this theory of a Jewish origin for ṭāġūt,² but others have thought a Christian origin more probable. / Schwally, Idioticon, 38, points out that whereas in Edessene Syr the common form is ṭaʕyūtā meaning ‘error’, yet in the ChrPal dialect we find the form ṭᵊʕūtā,³ which gives quite as close an equivalent as the Targumic ṭāʕūṯā. The closest parallel, however, is the Eth [Gz] ṭāʕot from an unused verbal root ṭʕw (the equivalent of [Hbr] ṭāʕāʰ, Ar ṭaġà), which primitively means ‘defection from the true religion’, and then is used to name any superstitious beliefs, and also is a common word for ‘idols’, translating the [Grk] eídōla of both the LXX and N.T. It is probable, as Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge, 35, notes, that this word itself is ultimately derived from Aram, but we can be reasonably certain that al-Suyūṭī’s authorities were right in giving the Ar word an Abyssinian [Gz] origin.⁴ «
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1. Geiger, 203, and see examples in Levy, TW, i, 312. 2. Von Kremer, Ideen, 226, n.; Fraenkel, Vocab, 23; Pautz, Offenbarung, 175; Eickmann, Angelologie, 48; Margoliouth, ERE, vi, 249; Hirschfeld, Jüdische Elemente, 65. 3. Schulthess, Lex, 76; Mingana, Syriac Influence, 85, also holds to a Syr origin for the word. 4. Nöldeke, op. cit., 48. It should be noted, however, that in the incantation texts ṭāʕūṯā means ‘false deity’, which is very close to the Qurʔānic usage. Cf. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts, p. 290.

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ṬFː (ṬFF) طفّ/طفف

ID – • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 6Apr2023

√ ṬFː (ṬFF)

“root”

▪ ṬFː (ṬFF)_1 ‘...’ ↗...
▪ ṬFː (ṬFF)_2 ‘...’ ↗...
▪ ṬFː (ṬFF)_3 ‘...’ ↗...

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘a small measure, trivial matter; to be deficient; to be miserly; to become near, become due’

▪ …

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ṬFʔ طفأ

√ṬFʔ

“root”

▪ ṬFʔ_1 ‘...’ ↗...
▪ ṬFʔ_2 ‘...’ ↗...
▪ ṬFʔ_3 ‘...’ ↗...

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘(of fire) to become extinguished’

▪ …

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ṬFQ طفق

√ṬFQ

“root”

▪ ṬFQ_1 ‘...’ ↗...
▪ ṬFQ_2 ‘...’ ↗...
▪ ṬFQ_3 ‘...’ ↗...

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘to imitate; to commence, continue doing s.th.; to seize’

▪ …

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ṬFL طفل

√ṬFL

“root”

▪ ṬFL_1 ‘infant, baby, child’ ↗ṭifl
▪ ṬFL_2 ‘tender, soft’ ↗ṭafl
▪ ṬFL_3 ‘clay, argil, loam’ ↗ṭufāl
▪ ṬFL_4 ‘uninvited guest, intruder, sponger, hanger-on, parasite’ ↗ṭufaylī

Other values, now obsolete, include:

ṬFL_5 ‘time before sunset’: ^†ṭafal ; cf. also vb. I ^†ṭafala u (ṭufūl), IV ^†ʔaṭfala ‘to be about to rise or set (sun)’ (Hava1899)

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘1 infant, baby, child, the young of animals in general; 2 to be of a tender age, be tender, soft; 3 to be with child; 4 (of the sun) to be about to rise or set’

▪ Out of the four main values listed in DRS for √ṬPL in Sem, three are represented in Ar where all of them have survived into MSA.
▪ As for relations inside the root, DRS mentions only that the Akk ṭapālu ‘to scorn, treat scornfully, with disrespect’ (DRS #ṬPL-1) may have to be seen together with DRS #ṬPL-2 (≙ ṬFL_3) where the basic notion seems to be that of ‘dirt, soil, mud, dust’. All other values are kept apart in DRS although they are (with the exception of ṬFL_4 ≙ DRS ṬPL#4?) perhaps related etymologically as well. The basic meaning of the root could be that of ‘softness, tenderness, smoothness’ (ṬFL_2 ) which is a quality of both ‘clay, argil, loam’ (ṬFL_3) and ‘infant, baby, child’ (ṬFL_1). However, it is also possible, and perh. even more likely (given the wider Sem evidence), that ‘soil, mud, dust’ is the basic value, whence (fig. use) the Akk ‘to treat scornfully’ (*like dirt), but also (more specifically) ‘clay, argil, loam’ (Ar ṬFL_3). From the latter may have developed the idea of ‘softness, tenderness, smoothness’ and, hence, also ‘infant, baby, child’.

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▪ DRS 10 (2012)#ṬPL-1 Akk ṭapālu ‘insulter, mépriser, traiter sans respect, insulter’. ? -2 Hbr ṭāpal ‘enduire de’, JP ṭᵉpal ‘frotter de’, Syr ṭᵉfal ‘salir’, Ar ṭafila ‘être endommagé par la poussière (plante)’, ṭufāl ‘argile, boue’, Soq meṭfel ‘cavité’. -3 Syr ṭeflā ‘enfants’, Ar ṭifl, Mhr Ḥrs ṭāfəl, Jib ṭäfəl, Soq ṭafel ‘enfants en bas âge’, Te ʔaṭfal (pl.) ‘enfants’. -4 Ar taṭaffala ‘être pique-assiette’, ṭufaylī ‘pique-assiette‘.

▪ ṬFL_1 ṭifl ‘infant, baby, child’ : lit., *‘the tiny, soft, tender one’.
▪ ṬFL_2 ṭafl ‘tender, soft’ : represents perh. either the primary value from which most others are derived, or is in itself the result of a transfer of meaning from ṬFL_3 ṭufāl ‘clay, argil, loam’ (* > ‘the soft thing’ > ‘soft’).
▪ ṬFL_3 ṭufāl ‘clay, argil, loam’: cf. also ^†ṭafāl ~ ṭufāl ‘dry mud’, vb. I ^†ṭafila a (ṭafal) ‘to be(come) soiled by dust (herbage, plant)’, ^†ṭafīl ‘turbid water remaining in a watering-trough, in the bottom of a tank’ (Lane, Hava1899). – The value can is perh. a specialisation from a more general *‘soil, mud, dust’ (see above). There may be some overlapping with ↗TFL and/or ↗ṮFL (MSA tufl, tufāl ‘spit, spittle, saliva’, tafil ‘ill-smelling, malodorous’, EgAr tifl ‘fibrous vegetable sediment, dregs’ ≙ MSA ṯufl ‘dregs, lees, sediment’).
▪ ṬFL_4 ṭufaylī ‘uninvited guest, parasite’: accord. to ClassAr lexicographers an eponymous nisba formation from the n.prop. Ṭufayl, a person who used to show up invited at weddings. – Should we, however, also compare ṬFL_5 ?
▪ ṬFL_5 ^†ṭafal ‘time before sunset or sunrise’: any relation to ṬFL_2 ‘tender, soft’ (*‘period of the soft light’?) or to ṬFL_4 (sharing the notion of *‘intrusion’)? In the ClassAr vb. II ^†ṭaffala both values overlap: ‘1 to intrude at a feast; 2 to come on (night); to be near setting (sun)’ (Hava1899).

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