The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the
Decoding of the Language of the Koran , by Christoph Luxenberg
Throughout its history the Koran has presented problems of
interpretation. Some scholars estimate that at least a quarter of the text is
obscure in meaning, not only for Western translators but even native Arabic
speakers, who struggle with the archaic vocabulary that is no longer used in
modern Arabic.
In this in-depth study of the language of the Koran, scholar
Christoph Luxenberg dispels much of the mystery surrounding numerous hitherto
unclear passages. The key, as Luxenberg shows exhaustively, is to understand
that Aramaic--the language of most Middle Eastern Jews and Christians of the
pre-Islamic era--had a pervasive influence on the development of the Arabic
text of the Koran. For a thousand years preceding the advent of Islam, Aramaic
(or Syriac as it was sometimes called) was the lingua franca of many parts of
the Near East. It was the native language of the first Christian evangelists
and the main liturgical language of the early Christian churches from Syria to
Iran.
Based on this historical context and a profound knowledge of
Semitic languages, Luxenberg clarifies many thorny textual puzzles. Perhaps his
most interesting argument is that the passage often translated as referring to
the "virgins" that are believed to greet the departed faithful in
paradise was long ago misunderstood. In fact, knowledge of ancient Christian
hymns in Aramaic suggests that the word in question refers to
"grapes" that the departed will enjoy in a paradisiacal garden.
Luxenberg discusses many other similar fascinating instances where Aramaic
vocabulary and concepts influenced the text of the Koran
This highly erudite work makes a significant contribution to
the study of the Koran and the history of Islamic origins.
Christoph Luxenberg is a German scholar and professor of
ancient Semitic and Arabic languages.
It is important for the reader to know German, French,
Arabic and Aramaic in order to benefit from it, since these languages are
abundantly present. Some Latin and Hebrew are also quite useful.
« Le coran est un
écrit apocryphe chrétien »
« The Coran is an apocryphal Christian writing »
Guillaume Dye
Professor in Islamic Studies, Université libre de Bruxelles
(ULB)
BREPOLS 2018 - Jewish Christianity and the Origins of Islam
by Francisco del Rio Sanchez, Robert Hoyland, Guillaume Dye
et Carlos Segovia
Among all the different theories that currently explore the
religious milieu of Late Antiquity to elucidate the origins of the Islamic
religion, there is a group of scholars supporting that Jewish Christianity must
have played a role in its formation, reviving the question of a potential link
between Early Islam and the beliefs and practices of those followers of Jesus
that maintained or adopted certain Jewish beliefs and practices, either Jews
that believed in the messianism and/or the prophecy of Jesus, groups whose
existence and nature is still a matter of debate. In any case, the question is
still subject of passionate debate among specialists. This volume collects the
papers of a two-day colloquium held in Washington DC in October 2015 about the question
of Jewish Christianity and Early Islam and highlights the vitality of this
field of studies. The contributions included here cover a broad range of
topics, and they offer new ideas, interpretations and understandings of the
question.
