Thread by @PhDniX

Early Islamic pious inscriptions frequently use the formula aḷḷāhumma ṣallī ʿalā fulān "O God, bless so-and-so."
As in the example here:
aḷḷāhumma ṣallī (صلي!) ʿalā l-qāsimi bni muḥammadin
By Classical Arabic standards this is a mistake, but we see it frequently. Thread 🧵

Inscriptional formulae tend to start with a vocative aḷḷāhumma "O God" or rabb-i "O my Lord" followed by an imperative, as seen in the frequent اللهم اغفر لفلان Aḷḷāhumma ġfir li-fulānin "O God, forgive so-and-so".

ġafara li- is by far the most common, and not remarkable.

But the ṣallī form that we opened with in the first post present a problem. Imperatives in final weak verbs should shorten the long vowel we see in the imperfect. So it is ṣallā "he blessed", yuṣallī "he blesses", ṣalli "bless!" But this should be spelled صل, not صلي!

The Quran consistently applies this rule correctly, as any Muslim who has memorized the Fātiḥah will know. It is اهدنا ihdi-nā NOT اهدينا ihdī-nā.

Likewise Q2:61 is فادع fa-dʿu not فادعوا fa-dʿū
Q2:104 رعنا rāʿi-nā not رعينا rāʿī-nā
Q2:144 فول fa-walli not فولي fa-wallī

So did our scribe of the inscription we cited just commit a grammatical error? By modern day standards, sure. But an in-depth study of the early Islamic inscriptions makes it clear that this was not an error, but the standard. Time and time again you find this spelling.

In fact, I've looked at many inscriptions, and not a single time have I found an exception to this rule. The imperative of ṣallā is *always* spelled صلي and never صل.

This tells us that in early Islamic times this was the correct, normative, standard spelling.

But this brings us at an interesting conundrum, one that still lacks a satisfying explanation. Why is it that the orthographic/grammatical norms of the hundreds of pious inscriptions are *consistently* different from the orthographic/grammatical norms of the Quran?

What eventually becomes Classical Arabic norms, absolutely agrees with the Quranic nor. But inscriptions... no. And we can't explain the inscriptions as the result of ignorance. Making inscriptions is hard work and the CONSISTENT use of the "wrong" spelling is significant here.

I don't have a satisfying ending to this thread. It's clear that the linguistic standard used in inscriptions is different from that of the Quran and Classical Arabic. This is surprising, and needs to be addressed.

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

Addendum: I should've probably mentioned explicitly that ṣalli is actually attested in the Quran, and spelled as expected without the final yāʾ!

https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1461715754802454536