Bibliotheca Polyglotta

‎‎‎‎▪ Jeffery1938, 140-41: »I[n the Qurʔān, i]t occurs always as a title of God, almost as a personal ‎name for God.¹ – Certain early authorities recognized the ‎word as a borrowing from Hebrew. Mubarrad and Thaʕlab held this view, says as-Suyūṭī, Itq, ‎‎321; Mutaw, 58, and it is quoted from az-Zaǧǧāǧ in LA, xv, 122. – The root rḥm is common ‎Semitic [↗√RḤM ], and several Ar forms are used in the Qurʔān, e.g. raḥima; raḥmaẗ; riḥm; raḥīm; marḥamaẗ; but the form of raḥmān is itself against its being genuine ‎Ar. Fraenkel, Vocab, 23, pointed out that RḤMNā occurs in the Talmud as a name of God ‎‎(e.g. ʔMR RḤMNā ‘saith the all-merciful'), and as Hirschfeld, Beiträge, 38, notes, it is also so used ‎in the Targums and in the Palmyrene inscriptions (cf. NSI, p. 300; RES, ii, 477). In the ‎Christian-Palestinian dialect we find RḤMN, which is the equivalent of the Targumic MRḤMN and ‎in Lk. vi, 36, translates [Grk] oiktírmōn,² and in the SAr inscriptions RḤMNN occurs several ‎times³ as a divine ‎name.⁴ – ‎There can be little doubt that it was from S. Arabia that the word came into use in ‎Ar,⁵ but as Nöldeke-Schwally, i, 113, points out, it is hardly likely to have originated there ‎and we must look elsewhere for the origin.⁶ ‎Sprenger, Leben, ii, 198-210, in his discussion of the word, favours a Christian origin, ⁷ while Hirschfeld, Beiträge, 39, insists that it is of Jewish origin, and Rudolph, ‎‎Abhängigkeit, 28, professes to be unable to decide between them.⁸ The fact that the word occurs in the old poetry⁹ and is known to ‎have been in use in connection with the work of Muḥammad's rival Prophets, Musailama of ‎Yamāma¹⁰ and al-Aswad of Yemen, ‎‎¹¹ would seem to point to a Christian rather than a Jewish origin, ‎though the matter is uncertain.«

▪ For the root itself cf. √RḤM.

1. Sprenger, Leben, ii, 198. 2. Schwally, Idioticon, 88; Schulthess, Lex, 193, ‎and see Wellhausen, ZDMG, ixvii, 630. 3. Müller, ZDMG, xxx, 672; Osiander, ZDMG, x, 61; CIS, iv, No. 6; and particularly ‎Fell in ZDMG, liv, 252, who gives a list of texts where it occurs. 4. Halévy, JA, viiiᵉ sér, xx, 326, however, takes it as an adjective and not ‎as a divine name. (Note also Ahrens, Christliches, 35; Ryckmans, Nom propres, i, 31.) 5. Grimme, ZA, xxvi, 161; Bell, Origin, 52; Lidzbarski in SBAW, Berlin, 1916, p. ‎‎1218. 6. Halévy, REJ, xxiii, in discussing the inscription, ‎thinks that it is of purely pagan origin. See also Margoliouth, Schweich Lectures, 67 ff. 7. So ‎Pautz, Offenbarung, 171 n., and vide Fell, ZDMG, liv, 252. Mingana, Syriac Influence, 89. ‎‎ 8. So Massignon, Lexique, ‎‎52. Sacco, Credenze, 18, apparently agrees with the Jewish theory. See also Horovitz, JPN, 201-‎‎3. 9. Div. Hudh. (ed. Wellhausen), clxv, 6 ‎‎; Mufaḍḍaliyyāt (ed. Thorbecke), 34, 1. 60; al-Aʕshā, Dīvān, lxvi, 8. 10. al-Ṭabarī, Annales, i, 1933-7. Ibn Hishām, 200. 11. Beladhorī, 105, 1. 6.

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▪ Lokotsch1927#1687: Ar raḥmān > Tu rahman (or rather Hbr raḥᵃmānî ‘merciful, compassionate, pitiful’ [hapax in the Bible, Lam. 4:10])?) > Ru raḫmannyj, Pol rachmany (rare), more common rochmanny ‘tamed, mild, compassionate, tender’.

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