The Contribution of Arthur Jeffery to the

Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’an

Mohamed Thaha, Research scholar, Dept. Of Quran and related Sciences,

Darul Huda Islamic University, mdthaha213@gmail.com

Abstract
The Qur'an has its uniqueness of language and the richness of its eloquence. The study on
foreign vocabulary in the Quran was undertaken by the Muslim scholars long before the
orientalist. This study stems from the verses of the Qur'an itself where Allah says that it is a
book written in pure Arabic (‫)عربي مبين‬. In al-Itqan fi Uloom al- Qur'an imam Al-Suyuti had
summarized the monograph to this subject called al- Muhadhab fi ma Waq'a fi al-Quran min
al-Mu'arrab as a chapter. More orientalists, like Aloys Sprenger, S. Fraenkel, had penned
articles on the foreign vocabulary of the Qur'an. The most elaborate study on the foreign
vocabulary of the Qur'an was carried by Professor Arthur Jeffery.

The major interested field in his life was the textual criticism of the Qur'an. From his major
contribution, was the book, The Qur'an as a scripture; the textual history of the Qur'an and the
foreign vocabulary of the Qur'an. Jeffery builds up his argument by those facts mentioned by
imam Al-Suyuti on the different opinions of the Muslim scholars regarding foreign
vocabulary in the Qur'an. Atlast he traced out the origins of the words and he had made them
into three distinct kinds.

This paper will explore the depth of the research carried by Arthur Jeffery in understanding
the foreign vocabulary of the Qur'an and its significance in the Uloom al-Qur'an. This paper
describes the foreign words in the holy Qur'an which is important to constitute the historical
trace of the ancient contacts between the Arab and the neighbour.

Keywords: Foreign vocabulary, Arthur Jeffery, al-Itqan fi Uloom al-Qur’an,Aloys

Sprenger, S. Fraenkel.

Introduction
Qur’an is the holy book reveled by Allah to the Prophet Muhamad () through Gibriel (). This
book contains of various knowledges, stories, messages, and lessons of the previous Ummah,
Fiqh Jurisprudence, and human civilization and so on that the Allah is well known about it.
It’s obligatory to every Muslim to understand what the Quran says, but also understand
various disciplines related to the Quran which are compulsory to research it and explored.
Thus the Science of Qur’an () is one of an essential field which deals with every knowledge
regarded to the History, recitation, understanding of Qur’an. This knowledge contains every
part related to Qur’an for example: It deals with the Tajweed, Qirath, Quranic Scripts and it
also deals with the causes of revelation, the grammatical analysis of the Quran and the
Knowledge of the foreign words used in the Quran. These are the different aspects which are
connected to Uloomul Qur’an. Thus we can say that this is the name of that branch of
knowledge which is used to understand the message of Qur’an, by understanding its setting
and circumstance. As Imam Suyuti () had concerned some topics in his book, Tibyan fi
U’lum Al-Quran, namely: Quran revelation, its collection, ordering, what revealed in Mecca
and Madinah and he also covered the topic/studies related to Quran. And it’s well known that
the language of Quran is Arabic, as Quran indicated about this in (12:2) “we have sent it
down as Arabic, in order that ye may learn wisdom” and in (16:103) “this (tongue) is Arabic,
pure and clear. The question may araise that the Quran contains only Arabic language or it
also contains the foreign words in it, not only the orientalist had studied on this but more
Islamic scholars like Imam Suyuti, Badruddin Ai’ni, and Imam Shafi etc. also had their
studies on the foreign words in the Quran. The contemporary issue on the language of the
Qur'an is an ancient one where exegete like Muhammad bin Ahmed Al-Qurtubī (d.671) had
explained this controversy in his Tafsir. He had stated the two groups of scholars regarding
the foreign vocabulary in the Qur'an, the scholars who agree that there are no non- Arabic
sentences in the Qur'an and the others who agree that there are foreign words in the Qur'an
such as Jibrīl, Nūh. Although most orientalists had talked on this controversy topic the
Muslim scholars had their contributions centuries before. The modern work on Foreign
Vocabulary in the Quran was written by Arthur Jeffery.

The muslim scholars support that the prophet will be sent in the language of his community.
Such the Prophet () was sent in to Arab so the Quran was reveled in Arabic language though
the community lives there could understand it as Allah described: “la’allakum ta’qilun”, and
how the Arab could understand the other language if the Quran was would contain foreign
vocabulary. Almost every scholar claims that the Quran doesn’t contain any type of foreign
vocabulary. From them Imam Shafi and Imam Tabri were the one who are against them who
proclaim that Quran contains foreign vocabulary. And Abu Ubaida, Ibn Faris, Qazi Abubakar
and most of the linguistic scholars support this opinion. They support their opinion by the
Quran itself Surah Yousf, verse: 02, where Allah proclaimed that “we had revealed the Quran
in Arabic though you could understand”. And in Chap.: 16, Verse: 103 Allah says: And
indeed we know that they (polytheists and pagans) say: "It is only a human being who
teaches him.'' The tongue of the man they refer to is foreign, while this (the Qur'an) is (in) a
clear Arabic tongue. And in Surah Fussilat, Verse: 44 Allah again says: "Now had we made it
a foreign Qur'an they would have said - Why are its signs not made plain? Is it foreign and
Arabic?" The Qur'an thus lays stress on the fact that this revelation has been sent down in a
form which the Arabs will easily understand -

These scholars also proclaim that if Quran had been revealed in Non Arabic language then
what Quran had challenged the Arab would be useless because the Arab can reply that they
ask, could the Arabs have been expected to understand it, were it sent down in a non-Arabic
tongue? And we can notice what the other scholars had said on supporting this, Al-Jawaliqi,
however, can quote Abu 'Ubaida 8 as reported by al-Hasan on the other hand: "I heard Abu
'Ubaida say that whoever pretends that the Qur'an contains anything other than Arabic has
committed a grave transgression against God, and he cited the verse 'Verily we have made it
an Arabic Qur'an.’ And these scholars answer the questions raised against them, on the
proper noun in the Quran as Ibrahim; they say that these words are also found in the Arabic
as well as in other language like habisinan language, and they too answer that although there
are foreign words in the Quran, they should be regarded as Arabic because they were already
a part of Arabic long before the Quran was revealed. Even though ibn 'Abbas and his heirs
were correct to claim that some terms were Abyssinian, Persian, or Nabataean, they were
hesitant to acknowledge that Arabic was therefore unapologetically flawed. We are not
surprised to find others adopting a more plausible stance and asserting that in situations
where the two languages agree, it is the Abyssinian, Nabataean, Syriac, or Persian that has
borrowed from Arabic. This line of reasoning was not likely to appeal too many of the more
learned Muslim savants. They contended that rather than the Arabs stealing terms from the
surrounding peoples, it is far more likely that the latter would have stolen vocabulary from
the former as Arabic is the most ideal and rich of all languages. And the reference of
“Arabiyyun Mubeen” is to the whole Quran and it does not indicate the individual words in
it.

On the other hand, some advanced an alternative theory, arguing that the inclusion of foreign
terms in the Qur'an would indicate that Arabic is not a suitable language for conveying divine
revelation. Theologians claimed that the Qur'an is the last and best of divine revelations, and
that Allah naturally chose the best language in which to reveal the final revelation. Therefore,
they argued, it is absurd to pretend that Arabic lacked the necessary religious vocabulary and
that Allah had to use words from Nabataean, Persian, or Syriac to accomplish His goals. The
authority of the great philologists was very powerful, and many were willing to concede that
Ibn 'Abbas and his successors had probably been correct when they claimed that some words
were Abyssinian, Persian, or Nabataean, but they were very reluctant to acknowledge that
Arabic was therefore unapologetically flawed. According to the Qur'an itself, when a Prophet
was sent to a particular people, he preached in their language in order to be understood by
them. Thus, in Chap.: 14, Verse: 04, Allah says "and we have sent no Prophet save in the
tongue of his own people that (his message) might be plain to them ". Since the Qur'an
summarizes and concludes all earlier revelations, it follows that technical terms of Hebrew,
Syriac, or other origin that were used in earlier revelations should also be included in this
final revelation. It is therefore evident that the Qur'an, being sent to the Arab people, must be
in Arabic. Furthermore, as the Qur'an is meant for all peoples, you shouldn't be shocked to
see material from all languages in it. Of course, not every language was included, just the
most endearing, agreeable, and appropriate.

Thus, as-Suyuti comes to the conclusion—along with Ibn al-Jauzi and al-Jawaliqi—that both
sides in the argument are correct. The famous philologists who pointed out that several words
in the Qur'an were foreign terms were correct; these words have Persian, Syrian, or
Abyssinian origins. However, Imam ash-Shiafi'i and his adherents are also correct in that
these terms are in fact Arabic because they have been assimilated into the Arabic language
and refined by Arab speakers. Regarding the languages from which these borrowed terms
originated, we see that as-Suyuti, whose classification is the most comprehensive that has
been transmitted to us, categorizes them into the following classes in the Mutwakkili: words
are borrowed from Ethiopic, Persian, Greek, Indian, Syriac, and Hebrew etc.

Arthur Jeffery’s contribution to the foreign vocabulary of the Quran

Aloys Sprenger was the first contemporary orientalist to publish on this topic. He was
exposed to numerous Arabic texts, including al-Itqan by Suyuti. He wrote an article based on
al-Suyuti's work of the foreign vocabulary of the Quran. The 1852 edition of the "Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal" included this item. In 1880, a different scholar named S.
Fraenkel made the same move. This study was more thorough and serious. The renowned
scholar Theodore Nöldeke produced an essay on this topic for the ninth edition of the
"Encyclopedia Britannica" in 1891, basing it on the writings of his forebears. Professor
Arthur Jeffery, an expert in Semitic and Islamic studies from the early 20th century,
conducted the most extensive study in this area. He completed his studies at the University of
Melbourne in Australia, where he earned degrees in theology (B.Th. 1926) and business (BA
1918, MA 1920). He graduated from Edinburgh University with a PhD in 1929 and a D.litt in
1938. Throughout his life, he pursued his primary passion of textual criticism of the Quran.
He has written numerous books on the topic. To mention a few: The Quran as a sacred text;
the Quran's textual history; the Samarqad codex's orthography; resources for the Quran's
textual history; and the foreign vocabulary of the Quran. In his book, he supports his case by
restating the information that al-Suyti provided regarding the divergent views of Muslim
scholars over the use of foreign words in the Quran. Next, he generates a list of all the foreign
languages listed by al-Suyuti that are contained in the Quran. He spends the remaining
portion of the introduction elaborating on these languages. He concludes that Western
scholars have discovered many more foreign words in the Quran than have Muslim scholars,
demonstrating the inadequacy of Muslim scholars' study of foreign words in the text due to
their lack of sufficient linguistic proficiency.

Conclusion
The Qur'ān's lexical borrowing was once the main focus of research done by orientalists
seeking to discover the origins of Islam and Muslim linguists who defended the Qur'ān's
Arabic character. Over the past century, fewer studies in that field have been produced, since
Jeffrey's work has become the only authoritative source on the subject. This work is
definitely a great place to start for anyone interested in studying lexical borrowings in the
Qur'ān, but as I shown, it has several issues with how it defines loanwords and examines their
source. It is necessary to finish and completely edit Jeffrey's list. Certain terminologies,
which the scholar and his predecessors believed to be loanwords, are actually Arabic words
that have evolved over time; other words are ordinary Semitic terminology. There are
probably still some loanwords to be found and some lists of borrowings that need to be
reviewed. A researcher studying lexical borrowings should be mindful that the material
provided is out of date; for example, Zimmern's references to Akkadian and Fraenkel's
references to Aramaic are exaggerated, and a biblical allusion in the Qur'ān does not always
indicate the origins of a borrowing. It is necessary to update Jeffrey's data in accordance with
contemporary linguistic standards and comparatist guidelines. Recent linguistic findings are
especially important for studying Ugaritic, North-Arabian, and South-Arabian epigraphy
since they help establish the origins of some Arabic phrases. These findings significantly
progress the field's research, as seen by the few instances provided in this article. It is also
necessary to revisit the controversy surrounding the Qur'ān's origins—whether they are
Jewish or Christian—among academics and students today. Even if a word's origin in
Hebrew or Syriac has been established, other terms still need to have their origins
determined. However, research is still ongoing today.

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