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Christoph Luxenberg
''The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran'' is an English-language edition (2007) of ''Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache'' (2000) by the pseudonymous author Christoph Luxenberg. The book received considerable attention from the popular press in North America and Europe at its release, perhaps in large part to its argument that the Quranic term '' Houri'' refers not to beautiful virgins in paradise (Jannah), but to grapes there. Reynolds, "Quranic studies and its controversies", 2008: p.16 The thesis of the book is that the text of the Quran was substantially derived from Syriac Christian liturgy, arguing that many "obscure" portions become clear when they are back-translated and interpreted as Syriacisms. While there is a scholarly consensus Classical Arabic was influenced by Syro-Aramaic, since the latter used to be the lingua franca of the Ancient Near East, Lu ...
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Etymology
Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. Most directly tied to historical linguistics, philology, and semiotics, it additionally draws upon comparative semantics, morphology, pragmatics, and phonetics in order to attempt a comprehensive and chronological catalogue of all meanings and changes that a word (and its related parts) carries throughout its history. The origin of any particular word is also known as its ''etymology''. For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts, particularly texts about the language itself, to gather knowledge about how words were used during earlier periods, how they developed in meaning and form, or when and how they entered the language. Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct in ...
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Lexicography
Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoretical lexicography is the scholarly study of semantic, orthography, orthographic, syntagma (linguistics), syntagmatic and paradigmatic features of lexemes of the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language, developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries, the needs for information by users in specific types of situations, and how users may best access the data incorporated in printed and Electronic dictionary, electronic dictionaries. This is sometimes referred to as "metalexicography". There is some disagreement on the definition of lexicology, as distinct from lexicography. Some use "lexicology" as a synonym for theoretical lexicography; others use it to mean a branch of linguistics pertaining to the inventor ...
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Al-Khalil Bin Ahmad
Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī (; 718 – 786 CE), known as al-Farāhīdī, or al-Khalīl, was an Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra in Iraq. He made the first dictionary of the Arabic language – and the oldest extant dictionary – ''Kitab al-'Ayn'' ( "The Source")Introduction to ''Early Medieval Arabic: Studies on Al-Khalīl Ibn Ahmad'', pg. 3. Ed. Karin C. Ryding. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1998. – introduced the now standard harakat (vowel marks in Arabic script) system, and was instrumental in the early development of ʿArūḍ (study of prosody),al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad
at the

Ibn Hisham
Abu Muhammad Abd al-Malik ibn Hisham ibn Ayyub al-Himyari (; died 7 May 833), known simply as Ibn Hisham, was a 9th-century Abbasid historian and scholar. He grew up in Basra, in modern-day Iraq and later moved to Egypt. Life Ibn Hisham has been said to have grown up in Basra and moved afterwards to Egypt.Mustafa al-Suqa, Ibrahim al-Abyari and Abdul-Hafidh Shalabi, ''Tahqiq Sirah an-Nabawiyyah li Ibn Hisham'', ed.: Dar Ihya al-Turath, pp. 23-4. His family was native to Basra but he himself was born in Old Cairo. He gained a name as a grammarian and student of language and history in Egypt. His family was of Himyarite origin and belonged to Banu Ma‘afir tribe of Yemen. Biography of Muḥammad ''As-Sīrah an-Nabawiyyah'' (), 'The Life of the Prophet'; is an edited recension of Ibn Isḥāq's classic ''Sīratu Rasūli l-Lāh'' () 'The Life of God's Messenger'. Ibn Isḥāq's now lost work survives only in Ibn Hishām's and al-Tabari's recensions, although fragments of seve ...
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Lectionary
A lectionary () is a book or listing that contains a collection of scripture readings appointed for Christianity, Christian or Judaism, Jewish worship on a given day or occasion. There are sub-types such as a "gospel lectionary" or evangeliary, and an :wikt:epistolary, epistolary with the readings from the New Testament Epistles. History By the Medieval era the Jewish community had a Weekly Torah portion, standardized schedule of scripture readings from both the Torah and the prophets to be read in the synagogue. A sequential selection was read from the Torah, followed by the "haftarah" – a selection from the prophetic books or historical narratives (e.g. "Judges", "Kings", etc.) closely linked to the selection from the Torah. Jesus may have read a providentially "random" reading when he read from Isaiah 61:1–Isaiah 61:2, 2, as recorded in Luke 4:16–21, when he inaugurated his public ministry. The early Christians adopted the Jewish custom of reading extracts from the Old T ...
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Edessa
Edessa (; ) was an ancient city (''polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, in what is now Urfa or Şanlıurfa, Turkey. It was founded during the Hellenistic period by Macedonian general and self proclaimed king Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Seleucid Empire. He named it after an ancient Macedonian capital. The Greek name (''Édessa'') means "tower in the water". It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene, and continued as capital of the Roman province of Osroene. In Late Antiquity, it became a prominent center of Christian learning and seat of the Catechetical School of Edessa. During the Crusades, it was the capital of the County of Edessa. The city was situated on the banks of the Daysan River (; ; ), a tributary of the Khabur, and was defended by Şanlıurfa Castle, the high central citadel. Ancient Edessa is the predecessor of modern Urfa (; ; ; ), in Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Modern names of the city are likely derived from Urhay or Orhay (), the site's S ...
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Al-Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf
Abu Muhammad al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi Aqil al-Thaqafi (; ), known simply as al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (), was the most notable governor who served the Umayyad Caliphate. He began his service under Caliph Abd al-Malik (), who successively promoted him as the head of the Caliph's (select troops), the governor of the Hejaz (western Arabia) in 692–694, and the practical viceroy of a unified Iraqi province and the eastern parts of the Caliphate in 694. Al-Hajjaj retained the last post under Abd al-Malik's son and successor al-Walid I (), whose decision-making was heavily influenced by al-Hajjaj, until his death in 714. As governor of Iraq and the east, al-Hajjaj instituted key reforms. Among these were the minting of silver dirhams with strictly Muslim religious formulas instead of the coins' traditional, pre-Islamic Sasanian design; changing the language of the (tax registers) of Iraq from Persian to Arabic; and the introduction of a uniform version of the Quran. To r ...
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Arabic Diacritics
The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include consonant pointing known as (, ), and supplementary diacritics known as (, ). The latter include the vowel marks termed (, ; , ', ). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where all letters are consonants, leaving it up to the reader to fill in the vowel sounds. Short consonants and long vowels are represented by letters, but short vowels and consonant length are not generally indicated in writing. ' is optional to represent missing vowels and consonant length. Modern Arabic is always written with the ''i‘jām''—consonant pointing—but only religious texts, children's books and works for learners are written with the full ''tashkīl''—vowel guides and consonant length. It is, however, not uncommon for authors to add diacritics to a word or letter when the grammatical case or the meaning is deemed otherwise ambiguous. In addition, classical works and historical documents rendered to the general public are often ...
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Yodh
Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''yōd'' 𐤉, Hebrew ''yod'' , Aramaic ''yod'' 𐡉, Syriac ''yōḏ'' ܝ, and Arabic ''yāʾ'' . It is also related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪚‎‎‎, South Arabian , and Ge'ez . Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many languages, it also serves as a long vowel, representing . The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Iota (Ι), Latin I and J, Cyrillic І, Coptic (Ⲓ) and Gothic eis . The term yod is often used to refer to the speech sound , a palatal approximant, even in discussions of languages not written in Semitic abjads, as in phonological phenomena such as English "yod-dropping". Origins Yod originated from a hieroglyphic "hand", or *yad. D36 Before the late nineteenth century, the letter yāʼ was written without its two dots, especially those in the Levant. Arabic yāʼ The letter is named ' (). It is wri ...
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Nun (letter)
Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''nūn'' 𐤍, Hebrew ''nūn'' , Aramaic ''nūn'' 𐡍‎, Syriac ''nūn'' ܢ, and Arabic ''nūn'' (in abjadi order). Its numerical value is 50. It is the third letter in Thaana (), pronounced as "noonu". In all languages, it represents the alveolar nasal /n/. It is related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪌‎‎, South Arabian , and Ge'ez . The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek nu (Ν), Etruscan , Latin N, and Cyrillic Н. Origins Nun is believed to descend from an Egyptian hieroglyph of a snake (the Hebrew word for snake, ''nachash'' begins with Nun) or eel. Some have hypothesized a hieroglyph of fish in water as its origin (In Aramaic and Akkadian ''nun'' means fish, and in Arabic, ' means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was also named "fish", but this name has been suggested to descend from a hypothetical Proto-Canaanite word "snake", based on the letter name in Eth ...
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Bet (letter)
Bet, Beth, Beh, or Vet is the second Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Phoenician ''bēt'' 𐤁 , Hebrew language, Hebrew ''bēt'' , Aramaic language, Aramaic ''bēṯ'' 𐡁, Syriac alphabet, Syriac ''bēṯ'' ܒ and Arabic Alphabet, Arabic ''bāʾ'' . It is also related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪈‎, Ancient South Arabian script, South Arabian , and Ge'ez . Its sound value is the voiced bilabial stop ⟨b⟩ or the voiced labiodental fricative ⟨v⟩. The letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Arabic '':wikt:بيت#Arabic, bayt'', Akkadian '':wikt:𒂍#Akkadian, bītu, bētu'', Hebrew: '':wikt:בית#Hebrew, bayīṯ'', Phoenician '':wikt:𐤁𐤉𐤕#Phoenician, bēt'' etc.; ultimately all from Proto-Semitic '':wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Semitic/bayt-, *bayt-''), and appears to derive from an Egyptian hieroglyph of a house by acrophony. O1 The Phoenician letter gave rise to, among others, the Greek al ...
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