Israel

Feb. 2nd, 2011 10:57 pm
necturus: 2016-12-30 (Default)
[personal profile] necturus
Surat al-Baqarah speaks rather a lot of Banu Isra'il, sons of Israel. Since in Hebrew it is supposed to mean "he wrestles with God", the corresponding Arabic name ought to be based on sara`a, to throw down, or its derived form saara`a, to wrestle: "yasra`il", perhaps, or "yusari`il" instead of the meaningless "Isra'il". ` is `ayn, in Arabic a voiced pharyngeal fricative, whereas ' is a glottal stop; moreover, the s in Isra'il is sin, but the s in sara`a is sad.

There's no way this name got into the Qur'an from Hebrew.

The Sirat Rasul Allah and other biographical sources say there were three Jewish Arab tribes living in Medina in Muhammad's time: Banu Qaynuqa, Banu Qurayza, and Banu Nadir. Surely must have known how to pronounce "Israel".

Perhaps they weren't really Jews at all, or maybe they never existed.

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