Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ The original meaning of the term širk, which is an important religious concept in the Qur’ān, is that of a vn. of ↗šarika, viz., ‘giving a partner, a companion.’ As a religious term, this ‘giving a partner’ developed the specific meaning of ‘venerating other gods alongside with (the one) God’, i.e., ‘polytheism, idolatry’.
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hist

▪ eC7 Q Used very frequently in the Q, cf. xxxv, 38; xxxi, 12 – Jeffery1938
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cogn

▪ ↗šarika
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disc

▪ Jeffery1938: »In the Qurʔān the word has a technical sense with reference to what is opposed to Muḥammad’s conception of monotheism. Thus we find ʔašraka ‘to give partners to God’, i.e., to be a polytheist, mušrik ‘one who gives God a partner’, i.e. a polytheist, šurakāʔ ‘those to whom the polytheists render honour as partners with God’, terms which, we may note, are not found in the earliest Sūras. / The root √ŠRK is ‘to have the shoe strings broken’, so širāk means ‘sandal straps’, and ʔašraka is ‘to put leather thongs in sandals’, with which we may compare Hbr śārak ‘to lay cross wise, interweave’, Syr srak ‘to braid’. From this the words [Ar] šarak ‘net’ and šarikaẗ ‘partnership’, i.e. the interweaving of interests, are easily derived. In the technical sense of ‘associating partners with God’, however, the word seems to be a borrowing from SArabia. In an inscription published by Mordtmann and Müller in WZKM, x, 287, there occurs the line w-bn šrk l-mrʔm mbʔsm w-mrḍym ‘and avoid giving a partner to a Lord who both bringeth disaster, and is the author of well being’. Here šrk is used in the technical Qurʔānic sense of širk,¹ and there can be little doubt that the word came to Muḥammad, whether directly or indirectly, from some SAr source.«
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1. The editors of the inscription recognize this, and Margoliouth, Schweich Lectures, p. 68, says : ‘the Qurʔānic technicality širk ‘association of other beings with Allah’, whose source had previously eluded us, is here traced to its home.’ Horovitz, KU, 60, 61, however, is not so certain and suggests Jewish influence connected with the Rabbinic use of [Hbr] šîṯēp.

west

▪ Tu şirk: [ʿĀşıḳ Paşa, Ġarīb-nāme, 1330] seçdi dīnden küfr ü şirk ü şekleri – Nişanyan_21Apr2015. – müşrik: [ʿĀşıḳ Paşa, Ġarīb-nāme, 1330] seçdi dīnden küfr ü şirk ü şekkleri / virdi destūr kırmağa müşrikleri – Nişanyan_3Jul2021. – şerik: [ʿĀşıḳ Paşa, Ġarīb-nāme, 1330] nī şerīk ü nī vezīr ü nī nedīm – Nişanyan_27Apr2015

deriv

►ʔahl al-širk, the polytheists, the idolators

►ʔašraka, vb. IV, 1a to make (‑h s.o.) a partner, participant, associate (fī in), give a share, have (‑h s.o.) share (fī in); b to tie s.th. closely (bi‑ to s.th.), associate (‑h s.th. bi‑ with s.th.): *Š-stem, caus. | ʔašraka-hū bi-’llāh, to make s.o. the associate or partner of God (in His creation and rule); ʔašraka-hū bi-’llāh, to set up or attribute associates to God, i.e., to be a polytheist, an idolator

►mušrik, n., pl. -ūn, polytheist: PA IV

For other values attached to the root, cf. ↗šarika, ↗širkaẗ~šarikaẗ, ↗ĭštirākī, ↗ĭštirākiyyaẗ, ↗šarak, ↗šuruk, ↗širāk, (EgAr) ↗šurayk.

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