Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Jeffery1938: »This curious word occurs only in an early Meccan Sūra, though v, 7, is possibly Madinan (cf. Nöldeke-Schwally, i, 93), and the Commentators could make nothing of it. The usual theory is that it is a form fāʕūl from maʕana, though some derived it from ʕāna. / Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge, 28, shows that it cannot be explained from Ar material,¹ and that we must look for its origin to some foreign source. Geiger, 58,² would derive it from Hbr māʕôn ‘a refuge’, which is possible but not without its difficulties. Rhodokanakis, WZKM, xxv, p. 67, agrees that it is from Hbr but coming under the influence of maʕūnaẗ (cf. Aram mʔnʔ, Syr mʔnā), developed the meaning of ‘benefit, help’.³ «

1. Fleischer, Kleine Schriften, ii, 128 ff., would have it a genuine Ar word, but as Nöldeke says : ‘aus dem Arabischen lässt sie sich nicht erklären, wie denn schon die Form auf ein Fremdwort deutet.’ 2. So von Kremer, Ideen, 226. The word is used by al-ʔAʕšà, and Horovitz, JPN, 221 ff., thinks Muḥammad may have learned the word from this poet. 3. So Torrey, Foundation, 51.

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