The example of those who were entrusted with the Torah, then failed to uphold it, is that of a donkey carrying volumes. Miserable indeed is the example of people who reject GOD’s revelations. GOD does not guide the transgressing people.
The puzzle. The Quran’s normal word for “books” is kutub (singular kitāb), used all over the Quran. Here it says asfār, and this is the only time asfār appears in the Quran in the sense of “books.”
The explanation. The verse is addressed to the Jews, specifically to those who fail to observe the Torah. The Hebrew word for “book” is sēfer (סֵפֶר), plural sĕfārîm (סְפָרִים). The Arabic asfār matches the Hebrew plural, so a learned Jewish audience would immediately hear the echo.
The Quran’s normal word for sea is baḥr, but it also uses yamm, which can mean sea or river. It appears eight times, and all eight concern the story of Moses.
We inspired Moses’ mother: “Nurse him, and when you fear for him, put him in the river. Do not fear, and do not grieve. We will return him to you, and will make him one of the messengers.”
The eight uses cover God drowning Pharaoh and his army, God inspiring Moses’ mother to place him in the yamm, the promise that the yamm will cast him onto the bank, and Moses’ announcement that he will burn the golden calf and scatter it in the yamm. By contrast, baḥr is used generally, including in the story of Moses, but also for the signs of creation, the sea on the Day of Judgment, the lawfulness of seafood, and more. The Quran’s usual word for “river” ( nahr) is likewise used generally.
Exodus 15:4 (RSV)
Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea; and his picked officers were sunk in the Red Sea.
The parallel. The Hebrew word for “sea” is yām (יָם), and the cognate Syriac is yammā. Classical commentary on 7:136 states that yamm is Hebrew for baḥr. A modern commentator says its origin is Hebrew and that the Quran chose it when speaking of the Hebrews’ story. Gabriel Reynolds likewise notes that yamm is not the typical Arabic term but is closely related to the common word for sea in Syriac and other Semitic languages. The Quran’s use of yamm only for accounts of Moses shows awareness of the Hebrew and Syriac word.
We divided them into twelve tribes, as separate communities. And we inspired Moses, when his people asked him for water: “Strike the rock with your staff.” Twelve springs gushed out therefrom, and every group of them knew their own source. We shaded them with clouds, and sent down to them manna and quail: “Eat from the good things we have provided for you.” It was not us that they wronged; it was their own souls that they wronged.
The word asbāṭ appears five times in the Quran, and every time it refers to the twelve tribes of Israel.
Genesis 49:28 (RSV)
All these are the twelve tribes of Israel; and this is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him.
The parallel. The Hebrew for “tribes” is shĕvāṭîm (שְׁבָטִים; singular shevet). Nicolai Sinai notes that asbāṭ is probably derived from Hebrew shevet or its Aramaic cognate and clearly designates the twelve tribes of Israel; he even suggests the word may come from the language of Arabic-speaking Jews. Whether or not he is right about the route, the Quran uses asbāṭ exclusively for the Israelite tribes.
The contrast. When the Quran speaks to humanity in general, it uses entirely different words for tribes and peoples:
O people, we created you from a male and a female, and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes, that you may recognize one another. The best among you in the sight of GOD is the most righteous. GOD is Omniscient, Cognizant.
Here the words are shuʿūb and qabāʾil. So the Quran reserves asbāṭ for Israel, recalling the Hebrew word that rabbis would have associated with tribes. As the co-presenter noted, even granting Sinai’s suggestion that the word was borrowed into Arabic, it still shows knowledge of the origin of the word, given its use only for the Jews.
“I am your Lord. Take off your shoes; you are in the sacred valley of Tuwa.”
The parallel. The Hebrew word for “holy” is qōdesh (קֹדֶשׁ), and the Quran uses its Arabic cognate muqaddas (“sanctified”) for the same ground. Nicolai Sinai says the Quran’s characterization of the burning-bush site as holy may reflect Exodus 3:5, and Uri Rubin observes that the description of the valley as muqaddas bears an obvious resemblance to the word qōdesh, which the Hebrew Bible uses for the ground on which Moses stood.
The co-presenter added that the Quran uses the same root elsewhere in Jewish and Christian contexts, such as the Holy Spirit ( rūḥ al-qudus), the Holy Land ( al-arḍ al-muqaddasah), and the Arabic name for the Jerusalem temple ( bayt al-maqdis).
The story. In Surah Al-Baqarah 2:67–73, a man is murdered, and the Children of Israel are told to slaughter a cow. Part of the slaughtered cow is used to strike the dead man, who is revived. It is widely acknowledged that this story relates to two biblical laws, Numbers 19 (the red heifer) and Deuteronomy 21 (the heifer and the unsolved murder). In 2:71, after the Israelites have asked Moses for one specification after another, he gives the final one:
He said, “He says it is a cow that has not been humiliated by plowing the land, or irrigating the crop; healthy, without blemish.” They said, “Now you have come with the truth.” They sacrificed it, albeit reluctantly.
The puzzle. The Israelites say jiʾta bil-ḥaqq (“you have brought the truth”). But saying this to Moses seems to imply that what he said before was not true, which would be a kind of apostasy. Some commentators therefore took ḥaqq here to mean not “truth” but “the decreed” or “a binding command.” Al-Alusi reports this opinion, and Ibn Ashur argued that ḥaqq here means not the opposite of falsehood but the firmly established command that admits of no ambiguity.
The Hebrew background.
Numbers 19:2 (RSV)
This is the statute (Torah) of the law which the LORD has commanded: Tell the people of Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which is no blemish, and upon which a yoke has never come.
The red-heifer ritual is called a ḥuqqah (חֻקָּה), “statute” or “ordinance,” three times (Numbers 19:2, 19:10, and 19:21), and the rabbis likewise refer to it as a ḥuqqah.
The parallel. The Arabic ḥaqq is phonetically close to the Hebrew ḥuqqah and to its plural ḥuqqîm, and the meaning “decreed statute” that the commentators proposed fits the Hebrew meaning. As the presenter notes, Ibn Ashur obviously did not know about the Hebrew word in Numbers, so his reading is an independent verification derived purely from the context. A contemporary writer on Quranic intertextuality also argues that the Quranic term should not necessarily be understood as “truth,” but as a cognate of the Hebrew plural ḥuqqîm, understood here as a statute, and notes that Numbers 19 calls the red cow ritual a statute three times.
The Quran. The Quran sometimes calls the people of Lot, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, al-mu’tafikāt, “the overturned cities” (9:70, 53:53, and 69:9).
“I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me,” says the LORD.
the whole land brimstone and salt, and a burnt-out waste, unsown, and growing nothing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger and wrath—
(In the Hebrew text this is Deuteronomy 29:22.) The standard Hebrew lexicon (Brown–Driver–Briggs) says the word always refers to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, with Isaiah 1:7 the only apparent exception. Even there, verses 9–10 compare the city to Sodom and Gomorrah, so the connection holds.
The underlying verb hāfakh (to overturn) appears in the story itself:
Genesis 19:25 (RSV)
and he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
The parallel. The Hebrew Bible uses mahpēkhāh specifically for the people of Lot, and the Quran uses mu’tafikāt specifically for the same people. Gabriel Reynolds says the Arabic term is likely related to the use of the root hāfakh in both the Hebrew and the Aramaic versions of Genesis 19:25. He also notes that Quran 11:82 relates that God overturned Lot’s city, and links mu’tafikāt explicitly to the Hebrew Bible’s use of mahpēkhāh for Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were not at the side of the mountain when we called, but it is a mercy from your Lord, that you may warn a people to whom no warner has come before you, that they may take heed.
The fig, and the olive. And Mount Sinai. And this safe land.
The pattern. Ṭūr means “mountain” and appears ten times in the Quran, and each time it refers to Mount Sinai. The ordinary Arabic word for mountain, jabal, is used generally. (It refers to Mount Sinai only three times, all in Surah 7, and is also used in many other contexts.)
The explanation. The Aramaic Targums translate the Hebrew Bible’s references to Mount Sinai as Ṭūr Sīnay (טוּר סִינַי), and Syriac-speaking Christians likewise used Ṭūr Sīnā. So the Quran’s use of Ṭūr instead of jabal shows knowledge of how Jews and Christians referred to the mountain in Aramaic and Syriac.
Angelika Neuwirth comments that ṭūr in the Quran is an Arabization of Aramaic ṭūr, as in the Targum. Gabriel Reynolds says Aramaic ṭūr was used for Mount Sinai by both Jews and Christians. An article in the Harvard Theological Review notes that the mount of revelation is named not in Arabic but in Aramaic, the language of many Jews and Christians.
An objection. Why Aramaic or Syriac and not Hebrew? The answer has several parts. First, there are other indications elsewhere that the Quran knows Hebrew. Second, many Jews of the time knew Aramaic, and Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic. Third, Hebrew was largely a liturgical and scholarly language by the seventh century, while Jews and Christians spoke Aramaic and Syriac in daily life. Fourth, it is hardly an argument against the Quran that it engages people in the language they actually used. Muslims today say “Jesus” rather than “Yeshua” when speaking to Christians, because that is the name Christians use, even though it is neither the Greek nor the Hebrew form.