Surat al-Rahman: Variant Traditions, Multiple Authors, White Virgins and Grapes?

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jul 4, 2022 at 07:48

Dr. Pipes,

I will try to keep this post as much as I can PG 14 so the reader should be aware that this verse is about sexual acts in the Qur'an and some of it will be very explicit. So the reader has been forewarned.

In the previous post we examined the literary phenomenon of al-Kalam al-Mukarrar, or Allah is in the habit of repeating himself and at times in different literary forms. al-Mufaereen have no answers

This time let us read Q55:56

فِيهِنَّ قَاصِرَاتُ الطَّرْفِ لَمْ يَطْمِثْهُنَّ إِنسٌ قَبْلَهُمْ وَلَا جَانٌّ

This can be rendered as:

And in them (dual and "them" here are two gardens) those (virgins) with modest gaze and they (virgins) were not DELOWERED by a human being before and not (deflowered) by a Jinn (either)

Notice that al-Tabari defines the word طمث in يطمثهن as: الطمث هو النكاح بالتدمية، ويقول : الطمث هو الدم، ويقول: طمثها إذا دماها بالنكاح.
وإنما عنى في هذا الموضع أنه لم يجامعهنّ إنس قبلهم ولا جانّ.

Or: al-Tamth is F**King with blood. And he says: al-Tamth is blood. And he says: Her Tomth is her blood. Or in this case they (the virgins) never had sexual intercourse before them not even with a Jinn.

So the author is talking about: Deflowering or rupturing the hymen through sexual intercourse and bleeding and the author seems to be unaware that virgin women have hymens that rupture after first sexual intercourse..

Here is a link to al-Tabari

http://quran.ksu.edu.sa/tafseer/tabary/sura55-aya56.html

Now, let us read verse 72: حُورٌ مَّقْصُورَاتٌ فِي الْخِيَامِ

Or: Hur (this is a loan word from Syriac/Aramaic and it means White) Imprisoned/restrained in the tents

The word White in Arabic is not Hur. It is Abyad or ابيض. The word in the verse is the Syriac/Aramaic ܚܘܳܪܳܐ or Hawra and here is the link

http://www.assyrianlanguages.org/sureth/dosearch.php?searchkey=4234&language=id

Now Verse 55:74 is the rest of this tradition: لَمْ يَطْمِثْهُنَّ إِنسٌ قَبْلَهُمْ وَلَا جَانٌّ

Or: They (virgins) were not DEFLOWERED by a human before or by a Jinn (singular)

Compare 55:56 with 55:72 and 74 and we have more Kalam Mukarrar!

John Wansbrough called this literary phenomenon: Variant Traditions or to make it simple: The Qur'an has multiple authors

More? Christoph Luxenberg believes that the word Hur here must be white grapes which was a delicacy in the late antique world

Last, the term حور عين or Hut 'Ayn is very strange Arabic. The Arabs today Arabize it by calling them حور العين by adding the missing definite article before the word 'Ayn

In Aramaic "eye" is: ܥܝܢܐ or עינא or 'Ayna

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%90#Aramaic

Also check

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%DC%A5%DC%9D%DC%A2%DC%90

Now back to the two traditions: It seems that we are dealing with two different authors here! May be?

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