ORIENTALIA LOVANIENSIA

ANALECTA
215

SOURCES AND APPROACHES ACROSS

DISCIPLINES IN NEAR EASTERN
STUDIES
Proceedings of the 24th Congress,
Union Europenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Leipzig 2008

edited by

VERENA KLEMM and NUHA AL-SHA{AR

with
L. BEHZADI, S. BRINKMANN, S. GNTHER and M. JAGONAK
in cooperation with
B. BACKE, H.-G. EBERT, L.M. FRANKE, M. KOERTNER and D. DE SMET

UITGEVERIJ PEETERS en DEPARTEMENT OOSTERSE STUDIES

LEUVEN PARIS WALPOLE, MA
2013

CONTENTS

FOREWORD .

IX

ABBOUD Hosn Beirut

Surat Maryam and the Pre-Islamic Panegyrical Ode: A Study
of the Tripartite Structure . . . . . . . . . . . .

AL-SHAAR Nuha London

Between Love and Social Aspiration: The Influence of ufi
and Greek Concepts of Love on the Socio-Political Thought of
the Ikhwan al-afa, Miskawayh, and al-Tawidi . . . .

25

BOTTINI Laura Catane

Entre informations bibliographiques et biographiques: les Rijal
de Najashi
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41

CALDERINI Simonetta London

Classical Sources on the Permissibility of Female Imams: An
Analysis of Some adiths about Umm Waraqa . . . . .

53

ARCAS CAMPOY Mara La Laguna (Tenerife)

propos de la terminologie (mualaat) du droit de succession
(al-farai): le Coran et le Muwaa . . . . . . . .

71

FROLOV Dmitry Moscow

The Role of Prayers in the Composition of the Quran .

83

MELCHERT Christopher Oxford

Quantitative Approaches to Early Islamic Piety .

91

QUR}AN, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY AND MYSTICS

PLATTI Emilio Leuven

Entre thologie et philosophie: des Arabes chrtiens dans luvre
de Shlomo Pines (19081990) . . . . . . . . . . 101
SCATTOLIN Giuseppe Rome
Abd al-Malik al-Kharkushi (d. 407/1016). His Sufi Treatise
Tahdhib al-asrar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

VI

CONTENTS

STRAFACE Antonella Naples

Abalisa and Shayain: A Qarmaian-Ismaili Interpretation. The
Case of the Kitab shajarat al-yaqin . . . . . . . . . 127
VAN LEEUWEN Richard Amsterdam
Reformist Islam and Popular Beliefs: Rashid Rias Attack
against the Cult of Shrines . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
VAN REETH Jan Antwerpen
Le mirag du Prophte ou les mirages dune recherche
effrne? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
WAARDENBURG Jacques Geneve
Studying Islam as a Living Religion: Reflections

. 173

STATE AND SOCIETY IN HISTORY AND THE PRESENT

ARAT Mari Kristin Strasbourg

Les interdictions du foulard en France, en Allemagne et en
Turquie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
BADRY Roswitha Freiburg
Norms, Gender, and Political Representation: Recent Experiences of the Womens Movement in Jordan (c. 19952007) . 207
CARBALLEIRA DEBASA Ana Mara Granada
Poverty and Charity in al-Andalus: The Case of Pious and
Family Endowments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
HMEEN-ANTTILA Jaakko Helsinki
Khalid ibn afwan Between History and Literature .

. 233

PELLITTERI Antonino Palermo

Les articles sur la Palestine (19471948) du Say Muammad
al-Bashir al-Ibrahimi: lautre face du texte entre discours politique et histoire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
REINFANDT Lucian Vienna
The Political Papyrologist: Adolf Grohmann (18871977)

. 251

SHATZMILLER Maya London (Ontario, Canada)

The Role of Money in the Economic Growth of the Early Islamic
Period (6501000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

VII

CONTENTS

LITERATURE AND RHETORIC

ATTAR Samar Sydney

The Futility of Friendship with Egoistic Westerners in Modern
Arabic Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
BAFFIONI Carmela Naples
Nair-i Khosrow, Translator of the Ikhwan al-afa?

. 319

CASSARINO Mirella Catane

La conception du temps dans le Kitab al-imta wal-muanasa:
potique de lobscurit et texture du conte . . . . . . 333
CORRAO Francesca M. Naples
Street Performers in the Shadow Plays of Ibn Daniyal alMawili . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
DZIEKAN Marek M. Lodz
Imad ad-Din alil und seine islamische Literaturtheorie und
-kritik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
MICHALAK-PIKULSKA Barbara Cracow
The Beginnings of Short Story Writing in Qatar .

. 361

OSSIPOVA Christina Moscow

The System of Colouration in Medieval Arabic Wine Poetry . 371
SCHIPPERS Arie Amsterdam
Flower Poems in Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew Andalusian
Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

PHILOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS

BELHAJ Abdessamad Budapest

Rhtorique arabe et thologie: quelques lieux communs .

. 397

GHERSETTI Antonella Venice

tablir les sources ou de la faon dcrire correctement: les
Kitab al-a dIbn al-Sarrag et dal-Zaggagi . . . . . 405
SERRANO-NIZA Dolores La Laguna (Tenerife)
Le labyrinthe des mots: cruaut et violence dans les
ouvrages de luga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

VIII

CONTENTS

TORLAKOVA Ludmila Bergen

}Afalu min kadha: Comparative Idioms in Medieval Arabic
Dictionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

MATHEMATICS AND ASTRONOMY

AGUIAR AGUILAR Maravillas La Laguna (Tenerife)

A Contribution on the Textual History of Islamic Astronomical
Instruments. The Production of Arabic Texts on the Sine Quadrant Devoted to Teaching from the Thirteenth to Sixteenth
Centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
MARTOS Juan Madrid
Les premiers mathmaticiens dans al-Andalus

. 465

NASH Harriet, AGIUS Dionisius A. Exeter

Star Charts from Oman . . . . . .

. 479

THOMANN Johannes Zurich

A Mathematicians Manifesto on Scientific Reasoning against
Religious Convictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

ART AND EPIGRAPHY

GRASSI Vincenza Naples

Abbreviations and Mock Inscriptions in Arabic Epigraphy

. 505

SOUTO Juan A. Madrid

Graffiti in the mirab of the Great Mosque of Cordova

. 525

THE ROLE OF PRAYERS IN THE COMPOSITION OF

THE QURAN
Dmitry FROLOV
Moscow

1. This paper addresses the topic of prayer as dua, i.e. a prayer in the
sense of a supplication or invocation of God in demand of something as
opposed to the ritual prayer, alat, which is often mentioned in the Quran.
Formula such as tasbi, tamid and the like, which frequently constitute
the opening lines of a sura, are not given specific attention in this paper.
2. A close reading reveals that the Quran begins and ends with prayers
as frame elements. In the beginning there is the Fatia which is the main
Muslim prayer comparable as such with the Pater Noster and the Shma
Israel. In reciting these verses, the believer asks for guidance (huda)
to the straight path (ira mustaqim). The Quran itself provides the
response to this prayer as it states in the beginning of the subsequent
surat al-Baqara:
Alif-lam-mim. That is the Book, wherein is no doubt, a guidance (huda) to
the godfearing 1

The existence of this link between the Fatia and the beginning of the
Baqara is mentioned by many Muslim commentators. Some go as far as
to state that the existing link actually makes them a unit containing two
suras rather than two independently existing ones.
The two final suras constitute prayers which are incantations against
the evil al-Falaq or The Daybreak (no. 113) and an-Nas or Men
(no. 114). Reciting the last sura of the Quran, the believer seeks protection from the main enemy of man the Satan or Shayan whose main
goal is to mislead people and divert them from the straight path and make
them to abandon guidance which they asked for. Like the first two suras,
Muslim tradition considered these two a twofold semantic and compositional unit, which is attested through their occasions of revelation

See A. J. ARBERRY, The Koran Interpreted, N.Y., 1955, p. 2.

84

D. FROLOV

(or asbab an-nuzul )2 as well as through their unifying name alMu{awwidhatan or the two protecting ones.3
2.1. There are several common features among these initial and closing
prayers. First, all three suras were absent from the early collection of
the Quran, which is most archaic in its structure and was compiled by
Ibn Masud, a personal servant of Muammad who boasted that he had
heard 70 suras from the Prophet immediately after their revelation.4 At
the same time, there is evidence that the compiler knew these missing
suras but considered them prayers of the Prophet, and not part of the
Revelation.
And in another early collection made by Ubayy ibn Kab, a katib of
Muammad, there were two other short prayers added in the final section
of the text although their place in the collection differs in different sources.
Until today, Muslims have known these texts as Prophetic prayers, not as
suras of the Quran. In other words, they belong to the same group of texts
into which Ibn Masud placed the three abovementioned suras. Hence,
the two suras added by Ubayy ibn Kab come as close as possible to the
notion of apocrypha.
The first sura (or prayer) is called al-Khal, which can be translated as
Repudiation or Renouncement. It runs as follows:



O God, we pray for succour to Thee, and beg for mercy from Thee,
We praise Thee, and we are not ungrateful to Thee.
We renounce and leave those, who sin against Thee!

The second is called al-afd, which can be translated as something like

Quickness in Service:

2
I refer to the well-known story about Muammad being bewitched with the help of
a rope with eleven knots. He was cured, as the story goes, by reading these two suras
revealed to him as an antidote. As he read them one knot untied with each verse (the total
number of verses in the two suras is exactly eleven) and at the end Muammad was
completely cured.
3
See e.g. the Tafsir al-Jalalayn or any other commentaries or books on asbab an-nuzul.
4
See A. JEFFERY, Materials for the History of the Text of the Quran: The Old Codices,
Leiden, 1937, pp. 2024; see also JALAL AD-DIN AS-SUYUI, al-Itqan fi ulum al-Quran,
Cairo, 1978, vol. 1, pp. 8586.

THE ROLE OF PRAYERS IN THE COMPOSITION OF THE QURAN

85

( )

O God, Thee only we serve,
We pray to Thee and prostrate before Thee,
We are quick in working for Thee and in serving Thee,
We ask for Thy mercy and fear Thy punishment (or revenge).5
Thy punishment will reach the unbelievers!6

We can only guess about the reasons why these texts did not find place
in the Quranic Vulgata but this is not of our concern here.
Second, the dating of these texts is very vague, to say the least. The
Fatia is placed by some authorities among the Meccan suras and by
others among the Medinan suras. We also find statements which attempt
to bridge these views: Some said that it was revealed twice, once in
Mecca, and then a second time in Medina. Others said that the first half
was delivered in Mecca, and the second half in Medina. Hence, the discrepancies with regards to the dating of the Fatia cannot be resolved.7
As for the Mu{awwidhatan-suras, there is a discrepancy between the
accompanying story and the dating, although both are accepted by the
majority of Muslim scholars. The story, which allegedly provides the
occasion for the revelation of these suras (the daughters of the Jew Labid
are said to possess witchcraft), is definitely Medinan. However, most
scholars agree that the suras themselves are Meccan.
Third, all three suras are sometimes categorized as addition to the Scripture proper as framework for it. In respect to the Fatia it is sometimes
said that the Scripture proper begins in fact with the first words of the
Baqara: dhalika-l-kitabu That is the Book or Here is the Book
which are understood as the response to the request for the huda. Furthermore, there are in the writings of the Muslim scholars statements (or slips
of the tongue) that the Quran begins with the group of Seven Long suras
(as-sab a-iwal), which opens, as is well known, with the Baqara.8
5

The first reading goes back to a-abarani, and the second to Bayhaqi.
The translations of the above two texts were made by the author of the article.
7
The detailed account of the discussions about the time when Fatia was revealed, see
i.e. in AS-SUYUI, al-Itqan, vol. 1, pp. 1516.
8
Sometimes they appear in the commentary on a well-known tradition in which the
Prophet says: I was given the seven long suras instead of the Torah, the suras of hundred
6

86

D. FROLOV

As for the two Mu{awwidhatan, Ibn az-Zubayr al-Gharnai (d. 1308)

wrote in his treatise al-Burhan fi tartib as-suwar, concerning the place
of these two suras in the Quranic text:
When the goal (maqud) of the Scripture has been completed (kamala),
and the greatness of the mercy of Allah has been uncovered for those, who
contemplated about this and accepted the Word, the thought of the reader
concentrates on seeking protection (istiadha) by Allah from the envy of
the envious and evil deeds of the enemies. That is why Allah concluded the
Quran by the Mu{awwidhatan.9

Ibn az-Zubayrs words need no comment.

Forth, we find a structural, semantical and lexical similarity in the first
and the last suras of the Quran. Both consist of two parts: first, eulogy
and praise to God (dhikr); and second, request (alab), be it of right guidance or protection.
In the first part three names of God coincide (in one case nearly
coincide). They are God (Allah Ilah), King (malik malik), Lord (rabb).
In the second part requests are antinomically related to each other. In the
first sura a believer asks for the guidance to the right path, whereas the
purpose of the last sura is the protection from the one who leads people
astray from the right path. The existence of such a carefully crafted frame
for the Scripture consisting exclusively of prayers gave us an impulse to
look at other prayers in the Quran from this angle.
3. A close study of surat al-Baqara provides interesting results. This
sura contains two prayers which play a crucial role for its composition.
The closing prayer occupies most of the last verse of the sura:
Our Lord,
Take us not to task
If we forget, or make mistake
Our Lord,
Charge us not with a load such
As Thou didst lay upon those before us.
Our Lord,
Do Thou not burden us
Beyond what we have the strength to bear.
And pardon us,
verses (al-miun) instead of the Gospel, the Repeated Ones (al-mathani) instead of the
Psalms, and I was given the short suras as a special favour, see, e.g., ABU UBAYD, Faail
al-Quran, Beirut, 1991, p. 120.
9
See IBN AZ-ZUBAYR AL-GHARNAI, Al-Burhan fi tartib suwar al-Quran, Rabat, 1990,
p. 385386.

THE ROLE OF PRAYERS IN THE COMPOSITION OF THE QURAN

87

And forgive us,

And have mercy on us;
Thou art our Protector.
And help us against the people
Of the unbelievers.10

This prayer also correlates with the Fatia as the latter is an introduction
not only to the Quran as a whole, but also to surat al-Baqara. This sura
is of particular importance as it gives the law in its structural and thematic entirety and ascertains the independence of the new faith in respect
to other monotheistic religions.
The introductory prayer, as we said above, is a request for the right
path, while the closing prayer contains a request for forgiveness if men in
their weakness fail to uphold the commandments of the law, and expresses
the wish that the Islamic law would be easier to bear than the previous
systems of the law, particularly the Jewish law. Both prayers contain allusions to other religions and establish Islam as an independent faith.
These aspects should suffice to conclude that The Cow, like the
Quran as a whole, is framed by the prayers which are in conformity with
the general content of the sura and their place in its composition.
3.1. But the sura contains a third prayer which is central. This is the
prayer of Ibrahim (Abraham), through whom as is known Islam
establishes the direct link of succession leaving intermediate stages aside.
This particular fragment of this very sura constitutes the first incident of
this statement.11 It is here that the identity of Islam is defined as a pure
anifi monotheism which is neither Judaism, nor Christianity, and that the
Muslim community is declared as direct heirs of the faith of Abraham. It
is no coincidence that in this fragment the derivatives from the root s-l-m,
like muslim, muslimun, verb aslama, are applied to Abraham and his successors seven times. The translators to other language render these words
with equivalents, not connected with the notion of Islam, and are right in
doing so, being in conformity with the tafsir tradition, but for the readers
of the text in Arabic the connotation is evident. In this context a third
prayer occurs, which Abraham recited after he and his son Ismail had
built up the Kaba:
Our Lord,
Receive this (the Kaba) from us;
Thou art the All-hearing, the All-knowing;
10
11

2:286 (All the quotations from the Quran are based on Arberrys translation).
2:124141.

88

D. FROLOV

Our Lord,
Make us submissive (muslimin) to Thee,
And of our seed a nation submissive (muslima) to Thee;
And show us our holy rites, and turn towards us;
Surely Thou turnest, and art All-compassionate;
Our Lord, do Thou send among them a Messenger, one of them,
Who shall recite to them Thy signs,
And teach them the Book and the Wisdom,
And purify them;
Thou art the Almighty, the All-wise (2:127129).

Hence, the three prayers provide a structure for the text and make evident
the plan of its contents and message: The opening one (Fatia) is a
request of the guidance to the right path which is neither Christianity nor
Judaism; The central one (a prayer of Abraham) establishes a direct link
between this right path and Muammad as the Messenger and Abraham,
from whom this path originates; The closing one is a request for forgiveness and mercy towards men in their weakness.
4. It turns out that the third sura also has an opening and a closing prayer,
the only difference is that they are placed near and not exactly in the
beginning and the end of the text. The initial prayer is a request for steadfastness in following the right path and, thus, a continuation of the central
theme of the sequence of prayers outlined in the second sura:
Our Lord,
Make not our hearts to swerve after that Thou hast guided us;
And give us mercy from Thou;
Thou art the Giver.
Our Lord,
It is Thou that shall gather mankind for a day
Whereon is no doubt;
Verily God will not fail the tryst (3:89).

The closing prayer contains, as it should, a request for forgiveness and

salvation and also fit in the sequence:
Our Lord,
Thou hast not created this for vanity.
Glory be to Thee! Guard us against the chastisement of the Fire.
Our Lord,
Whomsoever Thou admittest into the Fire,
Thou will have abased;
And the evildoers shall have no helpers.
Our Lord,
We have heard a caller calling us to belief,

THE ROLE OF PRAYERS IN THE COMPOSITION OF THE QURAN

89

Saying, Believe you in your Lord!

And we believe.
Our Lord,
Forgive Thou us our sins
And acquit us of our evil deeds,
And take us to Thee with the pious.
Our Lord,
Give us what Thou hast promised us by Thy Messengers,
And abase us not on the day of Resurrection;
Thou wilt not fail the tryst.12

Both prayers are united through an interaction of the formulas placed at

the end of each of them:
Verily God will not fail the tryst.13
Thou wilt not fail the tryst.14
The sequence of four prayers, it should be noted, combines two suras
The Cow and The House of Imran into a meaningful unity
within the structure of the Quran. Muslim tradition saw them in this way,
which is attested by the fact that they share, like sura 113 and sura 114,
a common name az-Zahrawan The Two Shining ones.15
5. The initial block of suras includes four of them, or rather five if we take
the Fatia into consideration, and is a parallel consciously constructed
as such or so it seems to the initial parts of the Old Testament (the
Pentateuch) and the New Testament (the Four Gospels). This block contains another prayer, placed very significantly at the end of the fifth sura
The Table. It is the prayer of Jesus which also designates the end of his
story. This prayer contains the hope for salvation and thus semantically
rounds up the sequence of prayers which begins with the Fatia:
O God, our Lord,
Send down upon us a Table out of heaven,
That shall be for us a festival,
The first and the last of us,
And a sign from Thee.
And provide for us;
Thou art the best of providers (5:114).
12

3:191194.
3:9.
14
3:194.
15
Sura no. 3 contains one other prayer that of the mother of Maryam (3:35), but it
is confined to the context of the story of Jesus and have no relation with an overall compositional plan of the sura.
13

90

D. FROLOV

6. It is interesting to note that although the number of prayers in the rest

of the text is considerable, their role changes radically, and none of them
contributes to the composition of the Quran. Most of them are incorporated in the stories of previous prophets. So we will not touch upon them
in this paper.

CONCLUSION
The Quranic text is not a container of isolated verses, chaotically
arranged16 but it has an inner order, which manifests a meaningful and
rather elaborated composition having to do with the message which this
text conveys. And it is not the first time I venture to prove this observation.17
The Quranic prayers (adiya) constitute one of the devices used to
organize the text and render its inner structure visible to the readers or
listeners.
The distribution of the compositionally relevant prayers in the text
definitely shows that the initial block of the suras 15 is a compact
unity in the Quranic composition whose role and place in the Scripture of Islam is in certain aspects comparable to the Pentateuch in the
Old Testament (or the Jewish Bible, Tanach) and the Four Gospels in
the New Testament.

16

See The Quran as Text, ed. STEFAN WILD, Leiden, 1996, p. 98.
See D. FROLOV, Medieval Discussions about the Order of Suras and Their Relevance
to the Study of the Composition of the Quran, in: Book of Abstracts of the 36th ICANAS,
Montreal, 2000, p. 205; D. FROLOV, The Problem of the Seven Long Suras, in: Studies
in Arabic and Islam. Proceedings of the 19th Congress, UEAI, Halle 1998, Leuven, 2002,
pp. 193203.
17