Motke: Syriac ܦ became Arabic ف and now it becomes Arabic ب ! How did this happen?

Submitted by dhimmi no more, Feb 5, 2019 at 06:24

Hi Motke,

Case in point is the word Purqana (Qur'an chapter 25) and it is Arabized as al-Furqan or الفرقان. And the word puzzled al-Mufasereen because it has no meaning in Arabic

This is the word in Syriac ܦܘܪܩܢܐ

The Syriac letter ܦ or P is Arabized as ف Notice that it has the same morphology as the Syriac P with a dot is added

However, to an Arab ear the Syriac letter P will become Arabic ب or Ba so the word in the Qur'an (if the editor of the Qur'an was an Arab and not the Persian al-Tabari) would have been بورقنا or Burqana

And remember that the Semitic root ܦ- ܪ- ܩ or P-R-Q means salvation (also in Hebrew Purqaan) and would have been understood by Muhammad as: Salvation (not unlike the Quranic word Sakina سكينة which has no meaning in Arabic but both Syriac and Hebrew speakers know the meaning very well)

The Qur'anic Arabic provides a glimpse to what the Arabic language was like prior to the 3rd century of Islam However, the Persians that edited and explained not just the Qur'an but the Arabic grammar and alphabet changed the Arabic language for ever.

Here is a link to Syriac Purqana and Hebrew Purqan

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%DC%A6%DC%98%DC%AA%DC%A9%DC%A2%DC%90

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