Christoph Heger’s Prob­lem­at­ic ​“Recon­struc­tion” Of The Qur’an­ic Sura 96

In an arti­cle of his, Christoph Heger has ven­tured to uncov­er what he insin­u­at­ed as the pre-Islam­ic ground lay­er of an orig­i­nal­ly Chris­t­ian text in the Qur’an­ic Sura 96.

Let us first present a beau­ti­ful Eng­lish ren­der­ing of the por­tion of this Sura under con­sid­er­a­tion here :

Recite in the name of thy Lord who created
[cre­at­ed] man from blood coagulated.
Recite ! Thy Lord is won­drous kind
Who, by the pen, has taught mankind
things they knew not (being blind).Alfred Guil­laume, Islam, G. Britain, 1969, pp. 28 – 29

Cen­tral to his ​“recon­struc­tion” of this Qur’an­ic Sura was his claim that accord­ing to a cita­tion of his work ​“Majaz al Qur’an” by Al-Far­ra’, Abu ​‘Ubai­da held that the verb ​“qara’a” in surah 96:1 (which is tra­di­tion­al­ly inter­pret­ed as ​“read” ​“recite”) has the same mean­ing as the verb dhakara, name­ly ​“invoke”, ​“laud”, ​“praise”.

To plead for an ancient Chris­t­ian hymnod­i­cal text in Qur’an­ic Sura 96, this claim is of piv­otal impor­tance for it sug­gests, con­trary to the tra­di­tion­al Islam­ic under­stand­ing of these vers­es, some­thing like a Chris­t­ian priest at the head of a con­gre­ga­tion, ask­ing them to ​“invoke” the name of their Lord.

On the oth­er hand, if it can be proved that this claim, upon which the hub of Christoph Heger’s ​“recon­struc­tion” of S?ra 96 rests, is both inac­cu­rate and deemed unre­li­able by the very same author­i­ty from whom it is cit­ed, then it will remove the ground from beneath his entire S?ra ​“recon­struc­tion.” It is pre­cise­ly this that we will demon­strate briefly in the following.

(a) To assert that the verb ​“qara’a” in sura 96:1 (= ​“recite”) has the same mean­ing as the verb ​“dhakara” (= invoke,” ​“laud,” ​“praise”), Christoph Heger pro­vides the fol­low­ing sources :

(i) Nold­eke, ​“Geschichte des Qorans,” I, 81, which, accord­ing to Christoph Heger, fur­ther cites :
(ii) Al-Far­ra’, who, again accord­ing to Christoph Heger, repro­duces a cita­tion [in his work] of Abu ​‘Ubaida’s ​“Majaz al Qur’an.”
(iii) Thus the ulti­mate source of the claim, — that ​“qara’a” in sura 96:1 (= ​“recite”) has the same mean­ing as ​“dhakara” (=invoke,” ​“laud,” ​“praise”), — is Abu ​‘Ubaida’s ​“Majaz al Qur’an.”

My Com­ments

(i) Now, please bear in mind that Nold­eke, in his cit­ed work, does not even hint at the work of the cel­e­brat­ed ancient Kufan gram­mar­i­an Al-Far­ra’ (d. 207 AH/​822 CE).

What Nold­eke actu­al­ly refers to is (the Ger­man equiv­a­lent of) ​“F. ad locum”.

Now this ​“F.,” accord­ing to the arbi­trary abbre­vi­a­tion sys­tem adopt­ed by Nold­eke-Schwal­ly, actu­al­ly refers to Fakharaddin ar- Raz­i’s work, not to Al-Far­ra’s work !

There­fore, involv­ing Al-Far­ra’ in this mat­ter, obvi­ous­ly in an attempt to gain prof­it — vis-a-vis Heger’s above-cit­ed claim — from his gram­mat­i­cal pres­tige, when the sec­ondary source actu­al­ly con­sult­ed nev­er even men­tions him in the first place, is the unde­ni­able proof of Christoph Heger’s blunder.

(ii) In the actu­al treat­ment of Al-Far­ra’ of the begin­ning of Sura 96 from his pri­ma­ry Qur’an­ic work Ma‘ani l‑Qur’an, nowhere does Al-Far­ra’ say him­self, or cite Abu ​‘Ubai­da, to the effect that ​“qara’a” in sura 96:1 has the same mean­ing as ​“dhakara.”

(iii) On the oth­er hand, Fakharaddin ar-Razi of the begin­ning of Sura 96 from his pri­ma­ry Qur’an­ic work Tafsir-i-Kabir (the real Mr. ​“F.” of Nold­eke-Schwal­ly) does pro­vide an utter­ance of Abu ​‘Ubai­da, accord­ing to which he believed that the prepo­si­tion ​“Bi” (i.e., ​“in”) in the phrase : ​“Recite in the name of thy Lord”, was a ​“sur­plus addi­tion”, and the verb ​“qara’a” (= ​“recite”) here was much like the verb ​“dhakara” (= invoke,” ​“laud,” ​“praise”).

But it is very impor­tant to note that Fakharaddin ar-Razi quotes this as a for­lorn opin­ion among the many oth­ers quot­ed, and which he rejects as being ​“weak” on three grounds.

(iv) Fur­ther­more, I have also checked the orig­i­nal work of Abu ​‘Ubai­da, Majaz al Qur’anEd., F. Sez­gin, Makt., al-Khan­gi, Cairo, 1962 and it too does not con­tain this alleged opin­ion ascribed to him (that ​“qara’a” in 96:1 has the same mean­ing as ​“dhakara”).

The fact, that this alleged opin­ion attrib­uted to Abu ​‘Ubai­da is not con­tained in the crit­i­cal edi­tion of his work pre­pared by Fuat Sez­gin, also fur­ther strength­ens our con­tention, based upon Fakharaddin ar-Raz­i’s rejec­tion of the same, that this opin­ion had a dubi­ous chain of trans­mis­sion as well as was fair­ly sus­pi­cious even on gram­mat­i­cal grounds.

In light of this inves­ti­ga­tion, we have seen that the opin­ion, that ​“qara’a” in 96:1 has the same mean­ing as ​“dhakara,” was wrong­ly claimed by Christoph Heger to have repro­duced by Al-Far­ra’, when it was actu­al­ly cit­ed by Fakharaddin ar-Razi, who had, — after cit­ing it — reject­ed it in the same sen­tence owing to its gram­mat­i­cal unten­abil­i­ty and sin­gu­lar, sus­pi­cious chain, and has giv­en three rea­sons of his own for its rejection.

Con­se­quent­ly, Christoph Heger’s ​“recon­struc­tion” of Sura 96, which was pri­mar­i­ly based on this opin­ion, falls.