Stockholm university
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Research project The Quran and Ibn Hisham’s Sira: A Contrastive Lexical-Semantic Analysis

The Quran emerged in a given context, socio-political but also linguistic. It emerged in its immediate Arabian and Arabic context, but also in a wider geographical, social, political and linguistic context.

Influences from the surrounding regions are well documented in religion, language and society. In addition to the Arabian religion, Christianity and Judaism are well documented in Arabia. The question is then: to what extent and what is the nature of influences from the surroundings on the Lexicon of Arabic in general and the Quran in particular? By contrasting the aim is to distinguish lexical elemenst that have entered into Arabic through the Quran.

Project description

The Quran emerged in a given context, socio-political but also linguistic. It emerged in its immediate Arabian and Arabic context, but also in a wider geographical, social, political and linguistic context. Politically, in the 7th century, Arabia was surrounded by the Byzantine Empire to the north, The Persian Sasanian empire to the East, The Ethiopian Aksumite Empire to the West and the South Arabian Kingdoms to the south. Linguistically, the Quran emerged in a region and era where Greek–the lingua franca of the Christian ‘(Eastern) West’–, Aramaic–the lingua franca of the Christian ‘East’–and Persian were the dominant languages, with Ethiopic and South Arabian also exerting strong linguistic influence. By far the dominant religion in the region in the 7th century was Christianity, yet not to the exclusion of other religions. Arabia and Arabic have not been isolated from their surroundings. Influences from the surrounding regions are well documented in religion, language and society. In addition to the Arabian religion, Christianity and Judaism are well documented in Arabia. The discussion is then not on wether Arabic and the Quran were influenced by their surroundings, but rather about the extent and nature of such an influence, not least on the Quran.

The present project has four immediate aims:

  • Contrastive lexical-semantic analysis of the Quran and the Sīrat Rasūl Allāh,
  • Create an inventory of lexical items that are exclusive to the Quran or have semantic ranges that are exclusive to the Quran, as compared to the Sira,
  • Etymological and semantic study of these items,
  • Determine the nature of the relationship between these lexical items and the surrounding languages.

The aim is not a grammatical, as much as a lexical-semantic study with a sociolinguistic approach. Phonology, morphology and syntax will only be taken into consideration when they are relevant to semantics.

This is a three way comparative study:

  • The lexicon of the Quran,
  • compared to the lexicon the most prominent of the early biographies of the Muhammad, Sirat Rasūl Allāh edited by Ibn Hisham (d. ca. 828) based on the text of Ibn Ishaq (d. ca. 767)
  • and the results compared to the surrounding languages.

Research subjects: Arabic, Diachronic Lexicography, Sira, Ibn Ishaq, Contact Linguistics, Quran

Publications

More about this project