Qirat Al Ammah And Use Of Hamzah In Hijazi Script
Also what do you mean they accepted it as there own tongue? How do we know
Sir I don’t think his question was understood correctly. Van Putten is an acclaimed linguist and in one of his renowned works on Quranic Arabic he reconstructed its language tracing it back from its classical to Hijazi Origins. In fact his conclusions undermined many other baseless theories from some academics about the Quran having non-Hijazi origins and having a northern-Arabic descent. So what he stated in his works was that the early grammarians attest that the Hijazi’s didn’t pronounce the hamza (and also the symbol for hamza didn’t exist at the time of the standard consonantal text that was compiled during Caliph Uthman’s time. He says that the glottal stop denoted by the Hamza was not pronounced by the hijazis and wasn’t present in the Uthmanic rasm. So, for instance, in the Uthmanic orthography, he states there were no hamzas in the structural text (not an issue as there were no irabs at all if I’m not wrong as they were added and developed in later times) and the earliest grammarians attest that they didn’t pronounce hamza but still it was added later when the text was vocalized and the recitations developed. He claims that in pre-Islamic poetry the glottal stop is denoted by an alif, and if the Hijazi’s did pronounce a glottal stop as in the word mu’min, then in the Uthmanic rasm it would’ve been written as meem alif meem nun and not as meem waw meem nun, which should be pronounced as muumin without the glottal stop as the Hijazi’s would (which according to him is attested by early grammarians). And he presents numerous examples in support for this in his published works. He claims that analyzing the Quran’s rhyme scheme and the use of Hamza in many places, dropping the glottal stop fits much better with the rhyme, one among other examples is Surah 55 verse 29-30 sha’n without the glottal stop as shaan rhymes much better with tukaziban, but in the recitations it is pronounced with the glottal stop. He also states that in almost all other recitations other than Hafs in Surah Ikhlas it is pronounced Kufu’an Ahad but in Hafs it is recited as Kufuan Ahad without the hamzah. How to reconcile this new information with the narrative of Qirat Amma? How to respond in light of the evidence he presents that the hamza pronounced and written in Hafs goes back to Hijazi origins and was rightly so pronounced by the Prophet (SAW) and his companions? Has there been scholarly response to this? Could some light be shed on this? @UmerQureshi @codename.AJK @faisalharoon @Irfan76
All their conclusions are based on manuscript or textual evidence and it is not right to say that such non-Muslim academics are doing completely neutral bias free work in my opinion. It is a common norm among them to reject traditional narratives. They seem to be having a hard time grasping the concept that scriptural preservation is second to the oral liturgical practice adopted by the common masses in reciting the Quran regularly and transmitting it primarily as a recitation. And its not their fault as this kind of arrangement for a scripture has no other precedence in known times. So they do bring in their own pre formed assumptions in their research. These same academics weren’t ready to accept the preservation claims of the Muslims until manuscripts dating back to the 7th Century were discovered.