Separated letters

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As separated letters ( Arabic حروف مقطعة, DMG ḥurūf muqaṭṭaʿa ) or "isolated letters" are single letters that appear at the beginning of 29 suras of the Koran after the Basmala . It is one or a group of letters that are not connected to each other but read as individual letters of the alphabet . They are also called “the openings of the suras” ( fawātiḥ as-suwar ) or “the first of the suras” ( awāʾil as-suwar ). Western Islamic scholars also call them the "mysterious letters" ( Hans Bauer ), "the Koranic sigla" (Eduard Goosens ") or the" enigmatic letters "(Dieter Ferchl).

From the point of view of Islamic studies , there is much to suggest that these letters belong to the original text of the Koran and were recited as individual letters from the beginning. For over 14 centuries these letters have "amazed and fascinated Muslim scholars", so that there are many different interpretations of these letters in traditional Islam and Islamic studies. The list here of the approaches from traditional Islam and Islamic studies is essentially based on the articles Mysterious Letters in the Encyclopedia of Qur'án and al-Kur'ān in Encyclopedia of Islam , which together fully reflect the state of research in Islamic studies. The positions listed there can be found in all common commentaries of aṭ-Ṭabarī , as-Suyūtī , as-Samarqandī and the Baha'i religion.

Examples of separated letters

Examples of separated letters at the beginning of suras are:

  1. Alif Lām Mīm (الم) Suras al-Baqara , Āl ʿImrān , al-ʿAnkabūt , ar-Rum , Luqman , as-Sadschda etc.
  2. Alif Lām Rāʾ (الر) Suras Yunus , Hud etc.
  3. Alif Lām Mīm Rāʾ (المر) Surat ar-Ra'd
  4. Kāf Hāʾ Yāʾ ʿAin Ṣād (كهيعص) Surat Maryam
  5. Yāʾ Sīn (يس) Surat Ya-Sin
  6. Ḥāʾ Mīm (حم) Sure Fussilat etc.

In the German translation, the mysterious letters are represented by the name, e.g. B. the beginning of the second sura reads: “1. Alif, Lām, Mīm; 2. This the book on him is no doubt possible… ”. When reciting the Koran, these are read out as individual letters.

14 of the 28 Arabic letters appear as mysterious letters, individually or in combination with two, three or four other letters. These areأ ح ر س ص ط ع ق ك ل م ن ه ي( alif , ḥa , rāʾ , sīn , ṣād , ṭāʾ , ʿain , qāf , kāf , lām , mīm , nūn , hāʾ , yāʾ ). Typical combinations are for example alif lām mīm at the beginning of suras 2, 3, 29, 30, 31 and 32, or alif lām rāʾ at the beginning of suras 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15. The number of all letters, including the suras, which start with a letter as a heading is 78.

The use of mysterious letters as first names is not uncommon in the Arabic and Turkish language areas. Examples are Yasin (Surah 36) or Taha (Surah 20).

Approaches to Interpretation in the Islamic Tradition

  1. According to as-Samarqandī, the letters as abbreviations summarize the attributes of God. So alif lām mīm is always an abbreviation forأنا / anā  / 'I',الله / Allāh  / 'God',أعلم / aʾlam  / is viewed as 'the more knower or the most knowledgeable', so that alif lām mīm equates with 'I am Allah, the (all-) knowing'
  2. Directly as an abbreviation for the attributes of God, for example alif lām rāʾ for ar-raḥmān , the Merciful
  3. According to Rumi , the letters can be interpreted mystically, and the power of God's revelation can be seen concentrated in them, which brings forth spiritual truths in the hearts of believers. Rumi compares the letters with the staff of Moses and the invigorating breath of Jesus or God
  4. aṭ-Ṭabarī, and with him also as-Samarqandī and as-Suyūtī, quote hadiths which suggest that these mysterious letters point to the duration of the mission of Islam up to the Last Judgment. You cite a hadith in which the Prophet Mohammed is asked by his contemporaries about the lifespan of his community. A dialogue develops in the course of which contemporaries first ask the prophet whether the numerical values ​​of the mysterious letters at the beginning of the second sura alif lām mīm mean the life of the Islamic community. The Prophet smiles and quotes the letters at the beginning of the third sura. This continues until the prophet has named the first seven suras, which begin with mysterious letters, and then remains silent.
  5. Some leading commentators don't really pinpoint themselves. For example, B. as-Suyūṭī in his well-known comment that God himself knows best what he is intending to do with this. Elsewhere, as-Suyūṭī brings together further interpretations and identifies them as the views of other scholars, e.g. B. that Allah wanted to address the Prophet and his audience and draw their attention
  6. In the 1990s, Rashad Khalifa , who in his work emphasizes a certain mathematical order of the Koran based on the numbers 9 and 19, caused a sensation. The contexts in which he sees evidence of the inimitability of the Koran are viewed as "constructed" in scientific literature. He says that 29 suras of the Koran begin with mysterious letters, that there are 14 of these letters in these suras, and that there are fourteen different combinations of these letters. 29 + 14 + 14 results in 57, which is divisible by 19.

Interpretation approaches in Islamic studies

Some orientalists like Welch see symbols for the Arabic alphabet in the letters. With this one can tie in with the statement that the Koran was revealed in “clear Arabic language”, but it cannot explain why these letters are at the beginning of the suras. Other orientalists see in them abbreviations for certain Arabic words or contractions of the names of the suras. Again, others believe that these letters played a role in the editing and compilation of the text of the Quran. Nöldeke and Hirschfeld took the letters for the names of the owners of the various Koran manuscripts from the Prophet's environment, kāf for Abū Bakr , ʿain for Aischa . In his dissertation, Massey put forward the theory that there is an order in the letters: mīm never follows sīn , lām never comes before alif , etc. Using statistical studies, he came to the conclusion that the random arrangement is statistically improbability ("statistical improbality") was and added, however, that statistics only calculate probabilities and not facts (“Statistics can only calculate probabilities, not realities”). Although Massey admits that the arrangement of the separated letters in front of sura 42 contradicts his theory, after considering 2 scenarios, he sees evidence for the theory of Nöldeke and Hirschfeld,

Using his adaptation of the standard scientific procedure of the historical-critical method , the Syro-Aramaic reading of the Koran he developed, the Koran researcher Christoph Luxenberg came to the conclusion that these sigla were originally written in Syro-Aramaic script and analogous to the old Syrian, Christian Lectionaries give individual psalms or scriptures.

Interpretation approaches in the Baha'i religion

The literature of Bahaitums interpreted the separated letters as a reference to the year in which this religion arose. To do this, she takes up the above-mentioned hadith (see Interpretation approaches in the Islamic tradition, point 4) and adds the numerical value of the mysterious letters at the beginning of the seven suras that begin with these separated letters. The total is 1267. You have to subtract seven years from 1267, because Mohammed began to proclaim his alleged mission in Mecca seven years before the beginning of the Islamic calendar (before the Hijra ) , so that the year 1260 (according to the Islamic calendar) results , the year the Babi-Baha'i religion arose.

Baha'ullah gives another interpretation in his table of the verse of light: A black tear dripped from the time-honored pen onto the white, well-kept table, so that the point ( nuqta ) was created from it. From the point came the alif (has the shape of a line:ا) from which the other mysterious letters emerged. These letters were again designed, separated and put back together to give the "names and attributes" of creation. Bahá'u'lláh gives different interpretations of the letters alif , lām and mīm referring to God (Allah), guardianship ( wilāya ) and prophethood ( nubuwwa ) of Muhammad. He emphasizes the central role of the alif in all of God's worlds.

literature

  • Hans Bauer: "About the arrangement of the suras and about the mysterious letters in the Qoran" in magazines of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft 75 (1921) 1-20. Digitized
  • Dieter Ferchl: The interpretation of the “enigmatic letters” of the Koran . Steyerberg 2003.
  • Dieter Ferchl: "The" enigmatic letters "at the beginning of some suras - comments on their decoding, observations on their probable function" in Tilman Nagel (ed.): The Koran and its religious and cultural environment . Oldenbourg, Munich, 2010. pp. 197-216. Digitized
  • Eduard Goossens: "Origin and Meaning of the Koranic Sigles" in Der Islam 13 (1923) 191–226.
  • Adel Theodor Khoury : The Koran Arabic - German , translation and scientific commentary, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2004. Volume 1, pp. 85–89. ISBN 3-579-05408-2
  • Christoph Luxenberg : The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A contribution to deciphering the Koran language. Das Arabische Buch, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86093-274-8 ; 5th edition: Schiler, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-89930-035-2 .
  • Christoph Luxenberg : The Syrian liturgy and the "mysterious" letters in the Koran - a comparative liturgy study. In: Markus Groß , Karl-Heinz Ohlig (Hrsg.): Schlaglichter: The first two Islamic centuries. Schiler, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89930-224-0 .
  • Keith Massey: A New Investigation into the "Mystery Letters" of the Quran. In: Arabica. Volume 43, 1996, pp. 497-501.
  • Keith Massey: Keyword The Mysterious Letters. In: Encyclopedia of Qur'ān.
  • Martin Nguyen: Exegesis of the ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭa'a: Polyvalency in Sunnī Traditions of Qur'anic Interpretation. In: Journal of Qur'anic Studies. Volume 14, No. 2, 2012, pp. 1-28.
  • Alfred Welch: Keyword al-Kurān , Section 4d, in: The Mysterious Letters in Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd Edition.
  • Annemarie Schimmel: Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-424-00866-4 .
  • Wolfdietrich Fischer: Arabic personal names. In: Ernst Eichler, Gerold Hilty , Heinrich Löffler, Hugo Steger, Ladislav Zgusta (eds.): An international handbook on onomastics. Berlin / New York 1995, ISBN 978-3-11-011426-3 , pp. 873-875.
  • Al-i-Muhammad: at-Tibyán wa'l-Burhán. Beirut 1962.
  • Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani : Kitabu'l-Fara'id. Hofheim 2001.
  • Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani : Faslu'l- Kh itāb. Dundas, Ontario

Remarks

  1. So the translation in Schimmel: Star and Flower - The world of images of Persian poetry. Wiesbaden 1984, ISBN 3-447-02434-8 , p. 196.
  2. Welch: Keyword al-Kuran , Section 4d. In: The Mysterious Letters in Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd edition, referring to Nöldeke, Schwally, Bell, Loth and Jones.
  3. Welch: Keyword al-Kurān , Section 4d, The Mysterious Letters in Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd Edition.
  4. ^ A b Keith Massey: A New Investigation into the "Mystery Letters" of the Quran. In: Arabica. Volume 43, 1996, p. 473.
  5. Welch: Keyword al-Kurān , Section 4d, In: The Mysterious Letters in Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd Edition.
  6. see altafsir.com
  7. ^ Translation of Khoury
  8. see altafsir.com
  9. Rumi: Masnavi (ed. Nicholson), vol. V, verse 1316-1330, especially 1316 and 1319. 1319 Rumi speaks of in īn dam (این دم), which Nicholson translates as “ this breath ”. For a detailed discussion of other, less well-known interpretations of these letters in Islamic mysticism, cf. Schimmel: Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Appendix 1, Letter Symbolism in Sufi Literature.
  10. Welch: Keyword al-Kurān , Section 4d, The Mysterious Letters in Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd Edition. For at-Tabarī see altafsir.com under sura al-baqara, verse 1, dto. For as-Samarqandī.
  11. Literally "the life of your people":بقاء أمتك
  12. Numerical values ​​are assigned to individual letters of the Arabic alphabet. For example, the first letter of Arabic, the alif corresponds to 1, the second letter bāʾ to 2, etc. For the wordباب / bāb  / 'gate, chapter' results in the numerical value 5, see Abdschad (number system) or the Arabic alphabet
  13. The three letters result in the numerical value 71. If you add the numerical values ​​of the mysterious letters of the suras mentioned in this hadith, this results in 1267.
  14. Welch: Keyword al-Kurān , Section 4d, In: The Mysterious Letters in Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd edition, as-Suyūṭī: Tafsīr al-Jalālain , see e.g. B. Sura 2الله اعلم بمراده بذلک
  15. Itqān, Vol. 3, pp. 21-30.
  16. Khalifa, Rashad. Quran, the Final Testament
  17. Keith Massey: A New Investigation into the "Mystery Letters" of the Quran. In: Arabica. Volume 43, 1996, p. 473. Even the Baha'i, in whose belief the numbers 9 and 19 have a special meaning, did not receive Khalifa's work, although it is known in the Baha'i world.
  18. Welch: Article "al-Kur'an" in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 4d, The Mysterious Letters
  19. ^ Translation of Khoury. See Quran 16: 103 and 26: 195 where speaking ofلسان عربی مبین / Lisānin'arabīyyin Mubin is mentioned
  20. Hans Bauer: About the arrangement of the suras and about the mysterious letters in the Qoran [4] (1921), ZDMG, 1921
  21. ^ Welch: Keyword al-Kurān , Section 4d, in: The Mysterious Letters in Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd Edition. Keith Massey: A New Investigation into the "Mystery Letters" of the Quran. In: Arabica. Volume 43, 1996-
  22. Keith Massey: A New Investigation into the “Mystery Letters” of the Quran. P. 499 , accessed on July 31, 2019 (English).
  23. Keith Massey: A New Investigation into the “Mystery Letters” of the Quran. P. 499 , accessed on July 31, 2019 (English): "It seems that this (Surah 42) violates the order I have presented."
  24. Keith Massey: A New Investigation into the "Mystery Letters" of the Quran. In: Arabica. Volume 43, 1996, p. 475 f.
  25. The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to Deciphering the Koran Language. Das Arabische Buch, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86093-274-8 ; 5th edition: Schiler, Berlin 2015
  26. The Syrian liturgy and the “mysterious” letters in the Koran - a comparative liturgy study. In: Markus Groß, Karl-Heinz Ohlig (Hrsg.): Schlaglichter: The first two Islamic centuries. Schiler, Berlin 2008.
  27. Gulpaygani : Kitābu'l-Farā'id. P. 52, https://reference.bahai.org/fa/t/o/KF/kf-52.html . See also Al-i-Muḥammad: at-Tibyān wa'l-Burhān. Beirut 1962, p. 47 ff. Al-Muḥammad also cites at-Tabari as a Sunni source, and Sheikh Tabarsi , an influential commentator on the Shia, as a Shiite source . The Bab himself gives in his Dalā'il-i sab'ih ( Eng . Seven Evidence) an analogous hadith that comes from the seventh Imam of the Shia with Abū Labīd Ma kh zūmī as trader. For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that from the point of view of Baha'i and Islamic studies, the authenticity of hadiths is not always guaranteed. Gulpaygani therefore draws on verse 32: 5 from the Koran , which has been authentically transmitted from the Bahā'ī point of view , which heralds the appearance of Baha'ity for 1000 years after the end of Islamic revelation (death of the eleventh Imam in Hijra 260). This methodology, taking into account reliable hadiths, which also addresses the critical attitude of Ibn Kh aldūn and that of modern Islamic scholarship towards messianic hadiths and is compatible with modern hadith criticism as in Blichfeldt, can be found in Gulpaygani : Faṣlu'l-Khiṭāb. Dundas, Ontario 1995, p. 150.
  28. Lawḥ-i- Āyiy-i-Nūr, sometimes also called Tafsír-i-Ḥurūfāt-i-Muqatta'ih . The original can be found in Mā'idiyi-Āsmānī, Vol. 4, pages 49-86, at http://reference.bahai.org/fa/t/b/MAS4/mas4-49.html#pg49