Translator’s Note
The Arabic text used is: Abū Ja‘far
Muhammad Ibn. Jarīr Tabarī (224-310/839-923), Jamī‘al-Bayān fī Tafsīr al-Qur’ān
(30 vols. In 12: Beiruit: Dāru’l-Ma‘rifah, 1406/1906; reprint of 1323 H. Bulaq
edition). The reference under the title of each selection is to the volume and
page number(s) of the Arabic text. The Qur’ānic material cited by Tabarī is
identified – if an exact quote – in the translation, in brackets, by chapter and
verse; otherwise in a footnote. The blessing customarily invoked upon the
Prophet Muhammad (sws) when his name is mentioned, salla llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam,
is not translated.
Having offered proof that God sends down
scripture to a nation only in the language of that nation, Tabarī in the
following passage tries to answer the question whether the Qur’ān contains
non-Arabic vocabulary, for it is sometimes pointed out that such-and-such
Qur’ānic words and expressions have such-and-such meanings in Ethiopic, Nabataean, or Persian implying that the Qur’ānic vocabulary includes non-Arabic
elements. Tabarī holds that the Qur’ān itself claims to be in Arabic, and that
this ought to be the belief of a Muslim. Acknowledging that certain Qur’ānic
words are also found in languages other than Arabic, Tabarī explains the
phenomenon by arguing that such words are found coincidentally in the languages
in question, and should, therefore, be regarded as belonging equally to all
those languages. Thus all Qur’ānic words said to belong to Persian, Ethiopic, or
Banataean are as much Arabic as they are Persian, Ethiopic, or Nabataean. But if
a person should contend that several early authorities have termed certain
Qur’ānic words Ethiopic, Persian, or Nabataean, then––
It will be said to him:
What they
have said does not fall outside the scope of our statement, for they have not
said: ‘These and similar words were not part of the Arabs’ speech and diction
before the revelation of the Qur’ān, or that the Arabs did not know them before
the advent of the Criterion,’ for in
that case it would have been a statement contrary to ours. All that some of them
have said is that such-and-such a word in the language of Ethiopia means so and
so, and that such-and-such a word in the language of Persia means so and so,
without denying the possibility of the existence of words with identical
meanings in the many different languages spoken by all the nations, not to speak
of the existence of such words in the languages of only two nations. Such
identity we have found to exist in many cases in the different languages we have
knowledge of, examples being words like dirham and dinār, and da‘wah, qalam, and
qirtās – and others, which it would be too tedious to count up and list
exhaustively, so that we are reluctant to draw our book out by citing them –
where Arabic and Persian have the same words with the same meanings. And this
may well be the case with all those other languages whose diction is not known
to us and whose speech in not familiar to us.
If, then, a person were to say, in
regard to those Persian and Arabic vocabulary items which we have listed and
whose identity of word and meaning we have pointed out, and in regard to similar
other words which we have left unmentioned: ‘All of them are Persian, not
Arabic,’ or: ‘All of them are Arabic, not Persian;’ or if he were to say: ‘Some
of them are Arabic and some Persian;’ or if he were to say: ‘Some of them
originated with the Persians, then passed over to the Arabs, who Arabicized
them,’ then such a person would be deemed ignorant. For the Arabs have no
greater right to assert that such words originated with them and then passed
over to the Persians, and neither do the Persians have any greater right to
maintain that they originated with them and then passed over to the Arabs, for
they are found to be in use, in identical form and meaning, in both languages.
And if, as we have said, they are found to exist among both nations, then
neither nation has a greater right to hold that the words originated with it,
and the person who claims that they originated with one of the two nations and
then passed over to the other, makes a claim whose validity cannot be
established except by means of a report that yields definitive knowledge and
dispels all doubt, and whose soundness cuts off all hedging.
To us, the truth in this matter rather is that such vocabulary be termed
Arabic-Persian or Ethiopic-Arabic … just as if there were an area of land
between a plain and a mountain that had the climate of the plains and the
climate of the mountains, or one between land and the sea that had the climate
of the land and the climate of the sea, no sane person would refuse to describe
it as campestral-mountainous or terrestrial-marine, for ascribing to it one of
the two qualities would not amount to denying it the other. And if someone were
to use for it only one of the two qualities, but without denying it the other,
he would be making a correct statement. The same is true of the words we have
already cited in the beginning of this section. And this understanding of the
issue that we have presented is precisely what is meant by those who say: ‘The
Qur’ān contains words from all languages,’ which, in our view, means – and God
knows best! -- that in the Qur’ān are to be found expressions spoken identically
by the Arabs and the speakers of other nations who use those words – just as we
stated earlier. This means that it is not right to suspect a person who is
possessed of a good nature, accepts as true the Book of God, and is one of those
who have read the Qur’ān and are cognisant of the prescriptions of God, of
holding that some of the Qur’ān is Persian, not Arabic, that some of it is
Nabatean, not Arabic, that some of it is Arabic, not Persian, and that some of
it is Ethiopic, not Arabic, once God Himself, His name is exalted, has informed
us that He has made it ‘an Arabic Reading’ (e.g., 2:12, 20:113, 41:3).
(Translated by Dr
Mustansir Mir)
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