Arthur Jeffery

Arthur Jeffery (18 October 1892 in Melbourne – 2 August 1959 in South Milford, Nova Scotia, Canada) was a Protestant Australian professor of Semitic languages first at the School of Oriental Studies in Cairo, and from 1938 until his death jointly at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He is the author of extensive historical studies of Middle Eastern manuscripts.

His important works include "Materials for the history of the text of the Qur'an: the old codices" and "The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an", which traces the origins of 318 foreign (non-Arabic) words found in the Qur'an. [ [http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/Vocabulary/index.htm THE FOREIGN VOCABULARY OF THE QUR'AN By ARTHUR JEFFERY, Ph.D. Introduction] 'One of the few distinct impressions gleaned from a first perusal of the bewildering confusion of the Qur'an, is that of the amount of material therein which is borrowed from the great religions that were active in Arabia at the time when the Qur'an was in process of formation. From the fact that Muhammad was an Arab, brought up in the midst of Arabian paganism and practising its rites himself until well on into manhood,1 one would naturally have expected to find that Islam had its roots deep down in this old Arabian paganism. It comes, therefore, as no little surprise, to find how little of the religious life of this Arabian paganism is reflected in the pages of the Qur'an. The names of a few old deities2; odd details of certain pagan ceremonies connected with rites of sacrifice and pilgrimage3; a few deep-rooted superstitions connected with Jinn, etc., and some fragments of old folk-tales,4 form practically all the traces one can discover therein of this ancient religion in the midst of whose devotees Muhammad was born and bred. It may be true, as Rudolph insists,5 that in many passages of the Qur'an the Islamic varnish only thinly covers a heathen substratum, but even a cursory reading of the book makes it plain that Muhammad drew his inspiration not from the religious life and experiences of his own land and his own people, but from the great monotheistic religions which were pressing down into Arabia in his day.6 Most of the personages who move through the pages of the Qur'an, viz. Ibrahim, Musa, Dawud, Sulaiman, Nuh, 'Isa, are well-known Biblical characters. So also the place-names - Babil, Rum, Madyan, Saba', and many of the commonest religious terms - Shaitan, Tawrah, Injil, Sakina, Firdaus, Janannam, are equally familiar to all who know the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. So one is not surprised ']

Some of Jeffery's studies are included in "", edited by Ibn Warraq.

References

Books

* [http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/thq.htm The Textual History of the Qur'an]
* [http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/mystic_letters.htm The Mystic Letters of the Koran ]
* [http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/fatiha.htm A Variant Text of the Fatiha]
* [http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/Samarqand/index.htm The Orthography of the Samarqand Codex]
* [http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/Materials/index.htm Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur'an]
* [http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/Vocabulary/index.htm The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an]