▪ Jeffery1938: »In both passages [Q 6:7, 91] the reference is to the material on which the Divine revelations were written down. The Muslim authorities make little effort to explain the word. Some recognized it as a foreign word,
1
a fact which indeed is apparent from the uncertainty that existed as to its spelling.
2
It was evidently an early borrowing, for it occurs in the old poetry, and probably came to the Arabs from their more cultured Northern neighbours. Von Kremer suggested that it was from the Grk
χártē,
3
but Sachau
4
and Fraenkel
5
are nearer the mark in thinking that
χártēs is the form behind
qirṭās, especially as this form is found also in the Arm
k‘artēs6
and the Aram
qarṭīsā.
7
/ It is not likely that the word came directly from the Grk, and Fraenkel,
Fremdw, 245, thought that it came through the Aram
8
meaning a paper or document, as in Levit. Rabba, 34. / Mingana,
Syriac Influence, 89, prefers to derive it through the Syr
qarṭīsā which occurs beside
karṭīsā, the source of the Eth [Gz]
kərtās. It is really impossible to decide, though the fact that Ṭarafaẗ, in his
Muʕallaqaẗ, 1.31, seems to look on
qirṭās as something peculiarly Syrian, may count in favour of Mingana’s claim.«