Bors, these are all valid areas of debate with the central "Luxenberg Theme"
but as I stated previously, irrelevent to the inquiry which was for Aramaic
(Syriac) readings of the Qur'an. Any treatment regarding the compositional
languages of any form of Holy Writ is going to stimulate both scholarly and
amateur criticism simply because sacred cows are raised by both scholars and
amateurs.

Regards,

JackKilmon


----- Original Message -----
From: "Bors Teodor" <borsteodor@...>
To: <aramaic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 9:31 AM
Subject: Re: [aramaic] Hebrew/Aramaic Translation of the Quran


> Only two examples (the most debated by the author):
> 1. The word huri, casually interpreted by generations of readers as
> white-eyed virgins (who will serve the faithful in Paradise; Qur'an 44:54,
> 52:20, 55:72, 56:22) actually means white grapes.
> Is this true? If it is we should translate the Surah Ad-Dukhan 54 as
> follows: "So, and We shall marry (or pair) them to WHITE GRAPES with wide,
> lovely eyes." (in Arabic: kadhaalika wa zawwajnaahum biHūrin `iinin) Who
> can be married/paired to WHITE GRAPES??? And nontheless there's no such
> word in syriac XWR that means "white grape" but a verbal radical that
> means ONLY "white, pale, bright".
> 2. The passage in Sura 33 that has usually been translated as "seal of the
> prophets" actually means "witness". By this reading, Muhammad is not the
> greatest of the prophets, but only a witness to those prophets who came
> before him.
> Again, is this true? The expression in the Arabic is khaatamu n-nabiiyiina
> "the seal of the Prophets" and "the seal" khātam has a cognate in Syiriac
> khaatmaa that means "seal" nothing else and no where the meaning of
> "witness".
> Last but no least the oppinions of some scholars about this childtales
> book:
> The Qur'an is "the translation of a Syriac text," is how Angelika
> Neuwirth, a German scholar of Islam, describes Luxenberg's thesis - "The
> general thesis underlying his entire book thus is that the Qur'an is a
> corpus of translations and paraphrases of original Syriac texts recited in
> church services as elements of a lectionary." He considers it as "an
> extremely pretentious hypothesis which is unfortunately relying on rather
> modest foundations." Neuwirth points out that Luxenberg doesn't consider
> the previous work in Qu'ran studies, but "limits himself to a very
> mechanistic, positivist linguistic method without caring for theoretical
> considerations developed in modem linguistics."
> Richard Kroes describes him as "unaware of much of the other literature on
> the subject" and that "quite a few of his theories are doubtful and
> motivated too much by a Christian apologetic agenda."Francois de Blois, in
> the Journal of Qur'anic Studies, points to grammatical mistakes in
> Luxenberg's book: "His grasp of Syriac is limited to knowledge of
> dictionaries and in his Arabic he makes mistakes that are typical for the
> Arabs of the Middle East." He descrbies his book as "not a work of
> scholarship but of dilettantism."
> Dr Walid Saleh describes Luxemberg's method as "so idiosyncratic, so
> inconsistent, that it is simply impossible to keep his line of argument
> straight."He adds that according to Luxenberg, for the last two hundred
> years, Western scholar "have totally misread the Qur'ān"; that no one can
> understand the Qur'an: "Only he can fret out for us the Syrian skeleton of
> this text."Summing up his assessment of Luxenberg's method, he states:
> The first fundamental premise of his approach, that the Qur'an is a Syriac
> text, is the easiest to refute on linguistic evidence. Nothing is the
> Qur'aan is Syriac, even the Syriac borrowed terms are Arabic, in so far as
> they now Arabized and used inside an Arabic linguistic medium. Luxenberg
> is pushing the etymological fallacy to its natural conclusion. The Qur'ān
> not only is borrowing words according to Luxenberg, it is speaking a
> gibberish language.
> Patricia Crone, professor of Islamic history at the Institute for Advanced
> Study, Princeton, refers to Luxenberg's work as "open to so many scholarly
> objections" and "notably amateurism".
> So, judge yourself!
>
> Regards,
> Teodor Bors
>
> --- On Sat, 3/28/09, Jack Kilmon <jkilmon@...> wrote:
>
> From: Jack Kilmon <jkilmon@...>
> Subject: Re: [aramaic] Hebrew/Aramaic Translation of the Quran
> To: aramaic@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Saturday, March 28, 2009, 7:40 PM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Yehochanan Ben-Yisrael" <yehochanan@yahoo. com>
> To: <aramaic@yahoogroups .com>
> Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 11:03 PM
> Subject: [aramaic] Hebrew/Aramaic Translation of the Quran
>
>>
>> Shalom Everyone,
>>
>> Is anyone aware of a translation of the Quran in Hebrew or Aramaic?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Yehochanan
>
> I would bet my mayonnaise farm that there are several editions of the
> Koran
> in Hebrew and available. Check out
> http://www.jews- for-allah. org/Hebrew/ Koran/
>
> By Aramaic I assume you mean Syriac. Since the Koran was written in mixed
> Syriac-Arabic rather than classical Arabic, I would recommend Christof
> Luxenberg's "Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran," Hans Schiller,
> publishers,
> 2007, 352 pages.
>
> Shlama
>
> Jack
>
>
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>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>


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