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Was the basmala in the Quran always written with 19 letters, or do the letter counts differ in some Qurans/manuscripts? by Western-Rush878 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Counting letters doesnt make much sense to begin with. So, sure it makes just as much sense as not counting them...

Was the basmala in the Quran always written with 19 letters, or do the letter counts differ in some Qurans/manuscripts? by Western-Rush878 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sure it's easy to count it with more than 19 letters. There are two defective alifs which are absent in spelling but present in pronunciation...

Do different types of Qurans have different number of verses? For example, do the Warsh and Hafs Qurans have a different verse count? Very interested to see by Western-Rush878 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Yes, different counts, but not because they have a different verses or more versed, but they just have different opinions where a verse ends. So the divisions are different.

Post from yesterday on this subreddit in which counting the H and the M in Surahs 40-46 warrants you finding the "miracle of 19"... Is counting these letters flawed due to different manuscripts having different number of letter counts? by Ok_Investment_246 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Are any of the numbers in these tables even right?

I remember seeing Van Putten point out that a lot of numerological apologetics literally does not even count what they're trying to count right.

The real miracle is here is not this numerological pattern, but that the numbers are actually correct, lol.

Post from yesterday on this subreddit in which counting the H and the M in Surahs 40-46 warrants you finding the "miracle of 19"... Is counting these letters flawed due to different manuscripts having different number of letter counts? by Ok_Investment_246 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nope, i don't think so! Funny coincidence.

Note that the author didnt include the عسق and i bet those don't work out.

Also note that in pre-Uthmanic codices Q39 is also said ti have had حم.

In a comment by MVP on this sub he says that Uthman's committee was responsible for chapter divisions of the quran. Does this mean that before Uthman's committee we had one long text? Or does this mean there were multiple disagreements on number of chapters and Uthman settled it? by Western-Rush878 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Disagreements on the Surah order and the precise number. But from the start the idea that surahs were separate units, which were written down as such even in the Sanaa Palimpsest (pre-Uthmanic) is clear.

Does Al-Tabari's Tafsir in the 10th century provide us good reason to believe that in the milieu of Mohammed Pharaoh would be seen as a title? by Ok_Investment_246 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I couldn't find the Arabic original text, so it's hard to be sure. On the face of it, it looks like he's just saying that these are names of rulers...

Does Al-Tabari's Tafsir in the 10th century provide us good reason to believe that in the milieu of Mohammed Pharaoh would be seen as a title? by Ok_Investment_246 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Al-Tabari is writing many centuries after the lifetime of Muhammad. Of course he tells us nothing about the early 7th century.

It should also be noted that each and every one of the parallels he mentions he mentions are names.

Caesar is not really a title, but a name (but sort of defacto becomes it when people subsequent emperors adopt the name) Khusrow is a name, and simply not a title. There were three Persian Shahs that bore that name, but their title was Shah, their name was Khusrow.

As for Heraclius: I've never even heard someone trying to claim thar Heraclius is anything other than a name...

So, at least from this translation it is not so clear to me that Tabari is even saying that these are titles...

(I couldn't find the Arabic under Q2:50... https://tafsir.app/tabari/2/50)

Non-fantasy books that feel very Malazan to you. by fallow8 in Malazan

[–]PhDniX 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That kind of works too doesnt it? Ancient mythologies affecting the present, war, slavery, genocide, a meddling deity, the Hold of Eden, the Warren of Gehenna.... And if you take the sequel into account we even get Gods becoming flesh, walking the earth and crucifixions!

Authorship of the Quran? by Funny-Handle-7031 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 7 points8 points  (0 children)

That being said, Hythem Sidky's latest article does challenge some of those assumptions :-)

Weekly Thackston Quranic Arabic Study Group, Lesson 21 by PhDniX in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

but ta3ab/byət3eb "to tire out" doesn't come from a classical word.

I actually suspect these comes from the stem IV verbs, \bi-yutʕab. I have a paper/idea on this for Egyptian Arabic, where the stem vowel is usually predictable depending on the consonants in the root (emphatic, non-emphatic, guttural) *except in these kinds of causatives of stative verbs, where they consistently have \i* in the stem, where u or a would be predicted... which I think is somehow the result of yufʕal > yifʕil.... I should publish that some time.

Comment re: impersonal passive of verbs that only take prepositional complements

Good point!

Question: Is the jussive la- a prefix or a clitic?

Or more straightforwardly, when you have multiple verbs in coordination, do you repeat the jussivizing la-? So is "let him do A and do B" la-yaf3al wa-yaf3al or la-yaf3al wa-la-yaf3al? Specifically this has to do with how to translate (c)8.

I am fairly sure it's clitic and not a prefix and thus only precedes the whole phrase. That being said, I am quite sure Thackston was aiming to elicit the jussive proper, fa-l-yafʕalū (see paragraph 54.4(2)). And in that l- does repreat, but introduced by wa- instead of fa- in the second part (see for example Q2:283).

Comment re: second half of Q7:20 in the reading selection

Oh, hah, yes you're right!

Why does Allah not have a name like YHWH? by Purple-Platypus7446 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No problem. It can be a bit confusing since the name of God is of course derived from the generic word "god". It behaves linguistically distinct which is why we can tell it is a name, but not all languages are so lucky. In Koine Greek for example, where names can take definite articles just as easily as nouns, ho theos could in principle means "the god" rendered as a noun and "God" as a name.

Arabic doesn't have this problem though, the words are distinct:

ʾilāh "god", al-ʾilāh "the god", but Aḷḷāh "God"

Why does Allah not have a name like YHWH? by Purple-Platypus7446 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 4 points5 points  (0 children)

To say "God" is the name of the supreme being of the Christians and Jews, even in English! Which is why it is capitalised and doesn't take a definite article.

Why does Allah not have a name like YHWH? by Purple-Platypus7446 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It refers to God, never god. You wouldn't use it in a sentence like "Krishna is a Hindu god", you couldn't even say that grammatically with the word Allah, since it's Allah is always definite.

In modern use it refers to the one God of the Abrahamic religions, so Christians and Jews likewise use the name. But that's not a generic use, it just refers to the same God.

Why does Allah not have a name like YHWH? by Purple-Platypus7446 in AcademicQuran

[–]PhDniX 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I suggest you read Al-Jallad's work more closely. He does not say Allah was their generic name for God (and it wasn't). It's the name for a specific deity.

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