Fun fact:
The word "Qur'ān" was commonly used in medieval Jewish Arabic to refer to established liturgical reading traditions of the Hebrew Bible.
The word "Qur'ān" was commonly used in medieval Jewish Arabic to refer to established liturgical reading traditions of the Hebrew Bible.
Abū l-Faraj's Hidāyat al-Qāri, a treatise on how to pronounce Tiberian Hebrew, says:
"And the consensus among those (diaspora Jewish communities) just mentioned is that the pronunciation of the Land of Israel is the original and it is what we know as 'The Tiberian Reading'"
"And the consensus among those (diaspora Jewish communities) just mentioned is that the pronunciation of the Land of Israel is the original and it is what we know as 'The Tiberian Reading'"
The original Judeo-Arabic text:
ובאגמאע מן דכר אן טריקה ארץ ישראל הי אלאצל והי אלדי יסמונהא אלקראן אלטבראני
Transcribed into Arabic graphemes, the effect is almost jarring:
وبإجماع من ذُكر أنّ طريقة ارص يسرائيل هي الأصل وهي الذي يسمونها القرآن الطبراني.
ובאגמאע מן דכר אן טריקה ארץ ישראל הי אלאצל והי אלדי יסמונהא אלקראן אלטבראני
Transcribed into Arabic graphemes, the effect is almost jarring:
وبإجماع من ذُكر أنّ طريقة ارص يسرائيل هي الأصل وهي الذي يسمونها القرآن الطبراني.
Yes that's right. The Tiberian "Qur'ān". Of all the Arabic words that you could pick meaning "Recitation, way of reading", the word used for Hebrew scriptural reading in this context is commonly קראן /qur'ān/.
The sense of "Recitation" or "Reading" is technically part of the word's semantic range in Muslim Arabic of course, in that classical medieval Arabic lexica record such a meaning. Therefore قرآن can be taken as a مصدر of قرأ.
But how often is قرآن used in Islamic-era texts to refer to something other than Muslim scripture in medieval Arabic (other than in an ironic or very figurative way) outside of Jewish writing?
That's not an entirely rhetorical question. If I'm missing something I'd love to know.
That's not an entirely rhetorical question. If I'm missing something I'd love to know.
In medieval Jewish Arabic, this is common. A Karaite commentary on Genesis refers to the Tiberian reading as אלקראן אלפאכר אלחסן/القرآن الفاخر الحسن "The Superbly Beautiful Reading (='Qur'an')"
Mishaʾel ben ʿUzziʾel writes that Ben Asher:
דכר פי מאסרתה וקאל אן פי אלקראן ארבעה
בלשון מרובה דגשין
"Made a note in his Masorah to the effect that there are four cases of intense dagesh in the Bible (=קראן)"
דכר פי מאסרתה וקאל אן פי אלקראן ארבעה
בלשון מרובה דגשין
"Made a note in his Masorah to the effect that there are four cases of intense dagesh in the Bible (=קראן)"
There is no doubt an interesting story behind how the word Qur'ān acquired the sense of "transmitted Biblical reading tradition" in Jewish usage. To me it seems such an obvious question to ask that I assume somebody has written something about this already. Must look into it.
