Quran 20:12 and the strange word Tuwa or طوى

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jan 9, 2022 at 17:09

Dr. Pipes,

I was reading the story of Moses in the Quran and I came across this very strange word طوى in Q20:12 and al-Mufasereen had no idea what this word really means. They tell us it is a name of a valley.

Here is the context: Allah is speaking to Moses in the very dry, parched and scorched Sinai and He says:

إنك بالوادِ المقدس طوى

This can be rendered as: You (Moses) are with (sic) the holy valley Tuwa

Very strange grammar! Notice that بالوادِ should be في الوادي or in the valley.

The word طوى is most likely from the Aramaic/Syriac ܛܘܐ or Tuwa which means: parched, scorched, dry

http://www.assyrianlanguages.org/sureth/dosearch.php?searchkey=38238&language=id

Notice that there is no Arabic definite article as in الطوى and notice that the last letter is a ى or Alif Maksura which is the Aramaic/Syriac Alif or ܐ and it is the definite article in Aramaic/Syriac

So the author of the verse is saying: You (Moses) are in the holy (and) parched valley.

Or : إنك في الوادي المحترق المقدس

Notice that al-Tabari says that this sentence means: بالوادي المبارك or with the blessed valley and he also provides several meanings and then he states that طُوى: اسم الوادي or this strange word Tuwa is the name of the valley. He does not seem to know. He corrects the word الوادِ and notice the kasra below the last letter dal. And he corrects it as الوادي which is the correct Classical Arabic

Here is a link to al-Tabari's tafsir

https://quran.ksu.edu.sa/tafseer/tabary/sura20-aya12.html

And more Aramaic/Syriac in the Qur'an

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