Thread by @PhDniX

While leafing through a collection of the writings of Rašīd al-Dīn Hamadānī, from 1310 (BnF Arabe 2324) I ran into this phrase, the reading is clear enough ما رآه المؤمنون حسنا فهو عند الله حسن "Whatever the believers consider good, is good according to God", but the details...🧵

The normal reading of the second word in textbook Classical Arabic is raʾā-hù "saw/considered it", however the reading is very clear here: it reads rāʾa-hù. This is clearly not some mistake but an intentional form.

In fact the form rāʾa for raʾā (and nāʾa for naʾā) is widely reported in Arabic lexicography. Al-Farrāʾ sees it as a Hijazi/Western form, although explicitly not a Qurashi form. While these forms are indeed known, it is quite surprising to see them used as late as the 14th c.!

In the Quran both raʾā and naʾā are spelled را and نا rather than the expected راى and ناى, which seems to suggest that the Arabic the rasm represents in fact had rāʾa and nāʾa. For nāʾa, both Ibn Ḏakwān ʿan Ibn ʿĀmir and ʾAbū Jaʿfar have that form.
nquran.com/ar/index.php?g…

But that's not in fact the end of the unusual features of this single quote. Also what would be expected to be fa-huwa "so he" is in fact spelled fa-hwa!

This form not infrequently occurs in poetry, where it is used as a poetic license for metrical purposes...

But here there is no metre, the scribe is consistent about it too!

Early grammarians indeed seemed to recognize the shortened forms as options, and see is as a typically Najdi feature to do so. In Quranic recitation such forms are fairly widespread.

nquran.com/ar/index.php?g…

So what do we take away from this? If one pays close attention to Classical Arabic manuscripts, rather than text editions one constantly runs into features not generally considered "standard", but which were clearly considered acceptable in very carefully produced manuscripts.

The rigid view of Classical Arabic which accepts only one form per lexical item seems to be a fairly late imposition onto the language, but due to the incessant editing towards the now perceived classical standard, such linguistic features invariably get lost.

As a result we have a remarkably poor understanding of the linguistic development of Classical Arabic and the negotiation of the standard throughout the centuries, as all texts get "corrected" towards the final stage of this negotiation. Hopefully more linguists will take notice.

For those who want to check out this absolutely incredibly produced manuscript, it is beautifully digitized on the Gallica Website here.

gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…

If you enjoyed this thread and want me to do more of it, please consider buying me a coffee.
ko-fi.com/phdnix.
If you want to support me in a more integral way, you can become a patron on Patreon!
patreon.com/PhDniX

@threadreaderapp unroll