Thread by @shahanSean

This leaf from a 14th cent. copy of al-Āṯār al-bāqiyah, composed in 1000 CE by the Muslim polymath Abū l-Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī, contains one of my favorite depictions of a biblical passage. It illustrates 3 prophets: Isaiah, Jesus, + Muḥammad. But what’s going one here? A thread …

[for more on this work, see iranicaonline.org/articles/atar-…
the entire manuscript is online here: images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/d… ]

The biblical passage in question is Isaiah 21:6-7. Early on, Muslims interpreted the passage as a foretelling of the coming of Jesus (on an ass) and of Muḥammad (on a camel). Isaiah is depicted as the sentry on the watchtower mentioned in the verse.

The passage was among the first that Muslims translated into Arabic – at least as early as the mid-8th century – and usually appears in collections of biblical prooftexts for the prophethood of Muḥammad. This is the version from Ibn Qutaybah’s (d. 889) Dalāʾil al-nubuwwah.

The Arabic reads: “A voice said to me: ‘Set up a sentry and look and declare what you see!’ I said, “I see two riders approaching, one of them on an ass and the other on a camel …’” (cue all ‘Along the Watchtower’)

Notice the conspicuous difference between the texts though? The Hebrew has a plural (riders = רֶ֣כֶב|rekhev) but the Arabic is singular (rider = راكب|rākib). So should we assume that text is being distorted here by the Arabic-speaking translators? Not so fast ...

Many early witnesses--such as the famous Isaiah Scroll from Qumran, support the Arabic translation--reading rōkhev (רוֹכֵב, ‘rider’ rather than rekhev). The LXX, the early Greek translation, also reads: “I saw two mounted horsemen, and a rider on an ass, and a rider on a camel.”

The Arabic versions w/ the sing. 'rider' aren't so inaccurate after all. AFAIK this was first noted by John Reeves:
books.google.com/books?id=TO6q6…
To view the Isaiah scroll online:
dss.collections.imj.org.il/isaiah#21:7
See also @scsincyberspace on Ibn Qutaybah's Dalāʾil:
albert.ias.edu/handle/20.500.…