"Det tragiska med vanligt
sunt förnuft är att det
inte är så vanligt."
 (Albert Einstein)

"Halv kristendom tolereras
men föraktas.
Hel kristendom respekteras
men förföljs."
 (Okänd)

"Den som gifter sig med
tidsandan blir snabbt änka."
 (Goethe)

"För att komma till flodens
källa måste man simma
mot strömmen."
(Stanislaw Jerzy Lec)

Senast ändrad: 2007 07 06 14:56

THE FOREIGN VOCABULARY OF THE QUR'AN
(excerpt from)

 

By

ARTHUR JEFFERY, Ph.D.
Professor of Semitic Languages
School of Oriental Studies
Cairo

 

1938
Oriental Institute Baroda

 

Iblis. - the Devil par excellence.

The tendency among the Muslim authorities is to derive the name from to despair, he being so called because God caused him to despair of all good - so Raghib, Mufradat, 59) arid Tab. on ii, 32. The more acute philologers, however, recognized the impossibility of this (an-Nawswi, 138), and Zam. on xix, 57) says - . Al-Jawaliqi, Mu'arrab, 17, also justly argues against an Arabic derivation.

That the word is a corruption of tile Gk. has been recognized by the majority of Western scholars.5 In the LXX represents the Heb. in Zech. iii, but in the N.T. is

1 In the Behistun inscription, see Speigel, Die altpersischen Keilinschriften, p. 205.

2 West, Glossary, 136; Bartholomae, AIW, 1749; and see Horn Grundiss, 141; Sayast, Glossary, p. 164; Shikand, Glossary, 265.

3 Lexicon Heptaglotton, p. 23. See Vullers, op. cit.; Lagarde, GA, 7; Horn, Grudiss, 141; but note Vollers,ZDMG, 1, 627.

4 Siddiqi, 69. On the ground of this change from a to i, Grimme, ZA, xxvi, 164, looks for S. Arabian influence, but there is nothing in favor of this.

5 Geiger, 100; von Kremer, Ideen, 226n; Fraenkel, Vocab, 24; Sprenger, Leben ii, 242; Wensinck, EI, ii, 351; Rudolph, Abhängigkeit, 35; Vollers, ZDMG, 1, 620; Sacco, Credenze, 61. However, Pautz, Offenbarung, 69, n. 3, and Eickman, Angelologie, 26, holds to an Arabic origin, though Sprenger, Leben, ii, 242 , n. 1, had pointed out that words of this form are as a rule foreign.

© Krister Renard