Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Jeffery1938: »The root QRʔ in the sense of ‘proclaim, call, recite’ does not occur in Akk nor in SSem as represented by the SAr and Eth [Gz], which leads one to suspect that qaraʔa is a borrowing from the Can-Aram area.¹ The root is found in Hbr and Phoen but it is most widely used in the Aram dialects, being found both in the oAram and the EgAram, and in the Nab and Palm inscriptions, as well as in JudAram and Syr.
The verb qaraʔa is used fairly often in the Qurʔān, and with four exceptions, always in reference to Muḥammad’s own revelation. Of these exceptions in two cases (x, 94; xvii, 95), it is used of other Scriptures, and in two cases (xvii, 73; lxix, 19), of the Books of Fate men will have given them on the Day of Judgment. Thus it is clear that the word is used technically in connection with Heavenly Books.²
The sense of qaraʔa also is ‘recite’ or ‘proclaim’, that of read only came later.³
The usual theory is that qurʔān is a verbal noun from this qaraʔa. It is not found earlier than the Qurʔān, so the earlier group of Western scholars was inclined to think that Muḥammad himself formed the word from the borrowed root.⁴ There is some difficulty about this, however. In the first place the form is curious, and some of the early philologers, such as Qatāda and Abū ʕUbayda derived it from qarana ‘to bring together’, basing their argument on lxxv, 17.⁵ Others, al-Suyūṭī tells us, were unsatisfied with both these derivations, and said it had no root, being a special name for the Arab’s Holy Book, like Taurah for the Jews or Injīl for the Christians.⁶ It thus looks as though the word is not native, but an importation into the language.
Marracci, 53, looked for a Jewish origin, suggesting that it was formed under the influence of the Hbr miqrāʔ in its late sense of ʼreadingʼ, as in Neh. viii, 8, and frequently in the Rabbinic writings. Geiger, 59, supports this view, and Nöldeke in 1860, though inclining to the view that it was a formation from qaraʔa, yet thought that it was influenced by the use of miqrāʔ.⁷ The tendency of more recent scholarship, however, has been to derive it from the Syr qeryānā which means ‘the Reading’ in the special sense of ‘Scripture lesson.’ In Syr writings it is used in the titles for the Church lessons, and the Lectionary itself is called kᵊtāḇā d-qeryānā. This is precisely the sense we need to illustrate the Qurʔānic usage of the word for portions of Scripture, so there can be little doubt that the word came to Muḥammad from Christian sources.⁸ «
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1. Nöldeke-Schwally, i, 33; Wellhausen, ZDMG, lxvii, 634; Fischer, Glossar, 104 b. 2. Nöldeke-Schwally, i, 82: ‘Vielmehr wird qaraʔa im Qorane überall vom murmelnden oder leiernden Hersagen heiliger Texte gebraucht.’ 3. Vide Hurgronje, RHR, xxx, 62, 155; Dyroff, in MVAG, xxii, 178 ff.; Nöldeke-Schwally, i, 81; and Pedersen, Der Islam, v, 113. 4. Von Kremer, Ideen, 224, 225. 5. Ǧawharī, sub voc.; al-Suyūṭī, Itq, 118, 119. 6. al-Suyūṭī, Itq, 118, and LA, i, 124. Note also that Ibn Kaṯīr read qurān not qurʔān. 7. Torrey, Foundation, 48, suggests a Jewish qurʔān, but such a form is hypothetical. 8. Horovitz, Der Islam, xiii, 66 ff., and KU, 74; Buhl, EI, ii, 1063; Weilhausen, ZDMG, lxvii, 634; Nöldeke-Schwally, i, 33, 34; Mingana, Syr Influence, 88; Massignon, Lexique, 52; Ahrens, Muhammed, 133.

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▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl Koran, from Ar (al‑)qurʔān ‘(the) reading; Koran’, from qaraʔa ‘to read, recite’.

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