Footnote: Q112:2: al-Samad, Ashab al-Ayka and Ashab Layka and reading ancient texts that lack context.

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Apr 14, 2021 at 07:44

Here is Q112:2:

الله الصمد

This can be rendered as: Allah al-Samad (notice that I left the word al-Samad untranslated because this word has no clear meaning) The grammar is perfect 3rd century of Islam Arabic grammar with مبتداء وخبر or "Subject and predicate"

If we check al-Tabari's Tafsir we find the following: واختلف اهل التأويل في معنى الصمد (and this sentence is frequently
used by al-Tabari if he is not sure of the meaning of a word or a sentence) and this can be rendered as: And al-Mufasereen disagreed about the meaning of al-Samad. This does not stop him from providing several possibilities to explain the word al-Samad and then he comes to the conclusion that the word means: Eternal. But does the word al-Samad really means eternal? We just do not know from reading his commentary (BTW the word al-Samad most likely is from Aramaic Samada or Bundle)

The real question should be: Why would Muslims the likes of al-Tabari have no idea what the Qur'an is saying in the late second and early 3rd century of Islam?

Michael Cook suggests that this could mean:

1. The Qur'an was "revealed" to Muhammad between 610 AD and 632 AD as we are told by the Islamic tradition. However, the Qur'an was not canonized yet. And by the 3rd century when al-Tabari wrote his masoretic exegesis the meaning of let us say al-Samad was lost

2. Or, the Quranic text pre-dates Muhammad and by 610 AD the meaning of the Quranic text was lost. Case in point is the so called Ashab al-Ayka or Ashab Layka tradition. Gerd Puin believes that al-Ayka is really Leuke Kome of the Petra area. And this city is mentioned in Greek literary sources several hundred years before the rise of Islam. However, by the 7th century the city acquired the Aramaic name Hawra (white in Aramaic and compare with Greek Leuke and Arabic al-Hawra). If any reader is interested to know more about the Ashab al-Ayka also Layka tradition, just let me know

Next? على الهامش (writing notes in the margins of a text)

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