Arabic Qur'an? Or is it a Syriac Qeryana? and how can we decide that a Quranic word is loan from Syriac

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jul 14, 2012 at 09:28

Muslims including Sheikh al-Azhar tell us that there are no foreign words in the Qur'an and even if we find foreign words then they are now Arabic words because Allah says so in Q12:2 or that the Arabic language has same roots as Hebrew and Syriac so we should not be surprised if we find non Arabic words in the Qur'an and for those of you that can read Arabic this is what Sheikh al-Azhar tells us about this real Quranic disaster http://elazhar.com/qadaiaux/4.asp

For the readers the way I can tell that a Quranic word is really not an Arabic word but a Syriac word is as follows

1. I read what al-Tabari says about the word

2. I check Ibn Manzur Lisan al-Arab dictionary and for those of you that have no access to it elmaany dictionary on line is great as it provides also the source of the word and if it is Quranic or middle Arabic or modern Arabic

3. Then I check a great Syriac dictionary on line at lexilogos but you have to be careful and take the next step

4. Then I check to see if the word is in the Peshitta (Syriac Bible) which pre-dates the Qur'an

5. And if we are told by al-Tabari that the word is indeed a Syriac word and if I check Ibn Manzur and the on line Syriac dictionary and if I find the word in the Peshitta then it must be a Syriac word

6. Then I look for the word in the Qur'an in its Arabic form

And here is an example

If you check Surat al-Tur الطور which Q52 the word Tur is read as the Mountain

Now if we check an Arabic dictionary and the Qur'an the word mountain is really جبل or jabal and not al-Tur http://www.almaany.com/home.php?language=arabic&lang_name=%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A&word=%D8%AC%D8%A8%D9%84 and indeed the word mountain means jabal and not tur

Next if we check al-Tabari he wrote: والطور قال الجبل نالسريانية or : "and al-tur he said it is the mountain in Syriac."

So he is really saying that this is a Syriac word but this is not enough as the knowledge of the masorites al-Tabri included about foreign languages was mediocre at best

Now if we turn to the Syriac dicitonary here is what we get and this is the word in Syriac ܛܘܪܐ ot Tura and here is the meaning of the word http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/cuneiform.languages/syriac/dosearch.php?searchkey=5051&language=id and indeed it means mountain

Now if we check for the word Tura in the Peshitta we will find it and here we go http://studybible.info/Peshitta/Matthew%2021:1 so we find it in Matthew 21:1 and here is the Arabic translation http://studybible.info/Arabic/Matthew%2021:1 where we have the term jabal al-zaytoon or the Mountain of olives and notice that in the Arabic translation the word tur is not used as it is not really an Arabic word inspite of the fact that we can find it in the Qur'an

Now this is what we are told about the word al-tur by elmaany http://www.almaany.com/home.php?language=arabic&lang_name=%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A&word=%D8%B7%D9%88%D8%B1 that this is indeed a Quranic word for mountain but the etymology for obvious reasons (that the claim that the Qur'an has its share of foreign words is too embarrassing to Muslims) is not mentioned

So it is clear that the word al-Tur is a loan word from Syriac in a book that claims to be a book written in Arabic

I hope I made it clear

As for the claim that we can find Syriac words only in suras revealed in Mecca can be proven to be untrue as per Gabriel Sawma's examination of the Syriac layer in Surat al-Baqara which is a Medina sura and he wrote about 55 pages about Syriac words in it

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