Bucaille, Haman and the experts
Channel: Koran ClaimsReality
Date: 2017-08-02

Islamic dawah sites propagate the lies around Haman in Egypt because the Koran makes this claim.

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Contrad/External/haman.html
http://www.islaminstitut.de/Artikelanzeige.41+M5fff2d8c174.0.html
J. Osing, die Nominalbildung des Ägyptischen
C. Peust, Egyptian phonology: an introduction to the phonology of a dead language, P 54ff.
http://diglit.ub.uniheidelberg.de/diglit/peust1999/0099?sid=8780ba563e6a623fb4a5b9b9ab31dc30

Dear Sirs,

The name on the two Egyptian jambs or door-posts are decipherable easy enough. They both appear at the end of the text columns as h mn-h (both h marked as emphatic h), as indicated by Wreszinski and Ranke.

Whether or not a longer form of the name exists is of secondary importance for me, when comparing the name with the name Haman mentioned in the Koran. What we have on the doorpost is the name h mn-h - and these are the sounds to be considered.

This h mn-h consists of the name of the god h mn and an element which cannot be determined with any certainty, a biliteral sign hw, which was frequently used in the New Kingdom era in connection with the "Papyrus scroll" as a phonetic complement for the consonant h. If Ranke transliterates the name as h mn-h it is self-righteous to explain the question mark "As if suggesting „h“ was not actually part of the name" as Islamic-Awareness.org is doing (as of July 2009) and to completely eliminate it. The interpretation of the adjunct h might be questionable, but not the existence as part of the name, which in addition is then followed by "with true voice, just" for the dead body.

In comparison with the name of the Arabic Haman we have two discrepancies:
1. The Arabic version lacks the h at the end of the name.
2. The type of sound, the phonetics, of the first h is different. It is correct that in the Egyptian language a merging of sounds from the emphatic to a normal h has been observed during the 19.-21. Dynasty when used in conjunction of an m (see my book „Nominalbildung des Ägyptischen“, Mainz 1976, S. 367 f.) However, during the New Kingdom period, which is where the door-posts where dated, this merging were extremely rare. I have only found one single example of this during the time period in question. The merging is considered as secondary vocalisation. I find it highly questionable to assign this secondary vocalisation to a source which is assumed to be of a godly authority. The discrepancy of the different sounding h's is secondary in my opinion, as there are a number of additional factors which exclude the affiliation.

According to the Koran, Haman is commissioned to construct a tall building using burnt bricks. It is remarkable that an Egyptian King somehow does not assign the construction of such a huge building endeavour to his "Foreman of Construction for the King", but to an unimportant "Foreman of quarry workers". The latter usually had only some local influence and was hardly qualified to produce these bricks (presumably in huge numbers).

As for the usage of burnt or fired bricks we need to consider the huge amount of buildings originating from the Pharaoh era, which are conserved until today, both colossal and smaller, all made from dried bricks. In addition we see that only a tiny part of the buildings erected during the 19. Dynasty, which sees the emergence and increasing usage of burnt bricks in the Eastern Nile Delta, especially when considering colossal or monumental buildings, use burnt bricks. (A. J. Spencer, Brick Architecture in Ancient Egypt. Warminster 1979, passim)

On semantics I want to stress once again that the name Haman itself is etymologically isolated in the Arabic and Hebrew language and would be in all Semitic languages, as there is no root *hmn or any known type of morphology. As an Egyptian name, Haman would be highly unusual and completely unknown to date.

The origin of the name would point more in another direction (e.g. Persian Humajun „the Great“, see Köhler-Baumgartner). 

It is not only due to these facts that the name Haman initially reminded me of the Persian Haman, who, in the book of Esther was known as Seal Keeper and Prime Minister of Xerxes and the declared enemy of the Jews, is said to have found a highly inglorious death. In the Hebrew texts the name is assigned the same phonetics as in the Arabic texts - both relating to vowels and consonants (see Köhler-Baumgartner).

The mentioning of such a character is limited to the scripture of the Jews (and Christianity) and Islam. The amount of congruence between the two people named Haman in my opinion suggests a direct link.

The vision of a tall building rising into heavens and the hubristic confrontation of the god of the Israelites could have been reminiscent of the Tower of Babel. In Mesopotamia these brick towers were quite common. According to Genesis 11:3 the Tower of Babel was constructed using smoothened and burnt or fired bricks.

Best Regards