▪ Jeffery1938: »A favourite Madina word, occuring only in late passages. The favourite phrase is
lā ǧunāḥᵃ ʕalà, and it is used as a technical term in Muḥammad’s religious legislation.
1
– The Lexicons give no satisfactory explanation of the word, though they apparently treat it as a genuine Ar formation. As Hübschmann showed in 1895 in his
Persische Studien, 162, 212, it is the Pers
gunāh,
2
through the Pazend
gunāh (Shikand,
Glossary, 247) from Phlv
vinās,
3
a ‘crime’ or ‘sin’ (as is obvious from the Arm
vnas = [Grk]
ʰamártēma in the old Bible translation),
4
and the fact that
venāh still occurs in one of the Pers dialects as a direct descendant from the Phlv
vinās,
5
which is related to Skr
vināša and is quite a good Indo-European word. In Phlv the word is used technically just as in the Qurʔān, and we find such combinations as
avinās ‘sinless’ (
PPGl, 77);
vināskārīh ‘sinfulness, iniquity’ (West,
Glossary, 248); and
vināskār ‘a criminal, sinner’ (
PPGl, 225).
6
– The word was borrowed in the pre-Islamic period and occurs in the old poetry, e.g., in the
Muʕallaqa of al-Ḥārith, 70, etc., and was doubtless adopted directly into Arabic from the spoken Persian of the period, for the word is not found in Syriac.«
▪ According to Nişanyan_1Jul2021, Tu
günah ‘crime, guilt’ too is based on Pers
gunāh ‘guilt’ < mPers
vināh or
vinās ‘id.’ < oPers
vi-nath ‘damage’ (with protIran prefix
vi ). Syr
gunāyā ‘guilt, crime’ < oPers; cf. Ar ↗
ǧināyaẗ (> Tu
cinayet). Arm
vnas ‘damage’ < mPers ‘damage’. mPers
vināskār > Arm
vnasagar = Pers gunahkār > Tu
günahkâr ‘guilty’
▪ ...