Toto

There is another more politically oriented thread on this here in ABR

Chocky

Thank you Toto, it's interesting and important stuff. I know textual issues surrounding the Qur'an and ahadith are very sensitive, but IMO that makes the topic even more in need of historical investigation without reference to current affairs, if at all possible. (Imagine a parallel universe where people censored themselves when talking about the origins of Christianity because potentially upsetting conservative Christians wasn't the done thing in society... ugh)

andrewcriddle

_N PR_CT_C_ Y__ C_N PR_B_BLY _ND_RST_ND TH_S M_SS_G_ _V_N W_TH__T TH_ V_W_LS

Andrew Criddle

Duvduv

Arabic like Hebrew has vowel points above and below the letters. However, unlike Hebrew, Arabic needs specific dots to determine whether a letter is a Z or an R, whether it is a T or a Y, or a B or an N. They are an integral part of the letter, and that's why I can't imagine why or how a text would have been produced without being able to distinguish the letters.

Duvduv

I was directed to an article written years ago by a Muslim scholar, Muhammad Mustafa Al-A'Zami, in The History of the Quranic Text, whose view is that the reason no letter dots were used in some cases was in order to prevent the Quran from being used without an oral tradition from a teacher, and that in fact dots were used in Arabic letters even before the time of the Quran. However, it seems that Arabic as we know it emerged only in the century or two before the time attributed to the life of Mohammed.

youngalexander

Robert Spencer's book Did Muhammad Exist? has been released.

jdl

It was quite a struggle on my first attempt. It's easier to read with the multiple spaces you've put between the words, but you may have noticed this forum strips excess white space from posts. It's also made much easier by the presence of underscores to mark missing vowels at the start or end of words.

Do you think I'd have as much luck if I weren't operating in my mother tongue but in something like Classical Arabic--which AFAIK nobody has ever spoken as a first language--and without such typographical clues as you provided? Even with those clues, my other half (whose English proficiency is Advanced-Low on the ACTFL guidelines) couldn't make sense of it.

Joseph

andrewcriddle

I'm not sure of the situation in Arabic, but in Hebrew Aramaic and Syriac words beginning without what we would call a consonant are words beginning with a smooth or rough breathing (Aleph or Ayin). Aleph and Ayin are written as part of the consonantal text so there is an indication of how the word begins.

Andrew Criddle