Internal Rhymes as Evidence for Old Hijazi: Difference between revisions

“al-baʾsāʾi wal-ḍarrāʾi”. This example occurs three times: {{Quran|2|177|}},{{Quran|6|42|}}, {{Quran|7|94|}}. It also occurs once in the nominative {{Quran|2|214|}} “al-baʾsāʾu wal-ḍarrāʾu”. In all these 4 occurrences, the two words were in context, not in pausal form. In Old Hijazi, the two words in the four instances are pronounced as: ǝl-baʾsāʾ wal-ḍarrāʾ. Note that although Old Hijazi had lost the use of Hamzah/glottal stop, the Hamzah is still retained in a word-final position that is preceded by a long 'a' vowel.  

Old Hijazi pronunciation:          hum ǝl-kafarah ǝl-fajarh

Classical Arabic pronunciation: humu l-kafaratu l-fajarh

The Quran uses two words for “disbelievers”: kāfirūn/kāfirīn (used 126 times) and kuffār (used 19 times). This verse is the only time the Quran uses the word “kafarah” for “disbelievers”. The reason for this is for the word to internally rhyme with the next word: ǝl-fajarh (the wicked ones). Reading the verse in Classical Arabic ruins the rhyme between the two words and thus makes this unique choice for the word pointless:

humu l-kafaratu l-fajarh.  

The last word cannot be pronounced “l-fajartu” because it’s at the end of the verse and hence the ‘u’ marker for the nominative isn’t added. And since that nothing was added, the final feminine ‘h’ remains and doesn’t turn into a ‘t’.

The verse is spelled in the Qur'an as: hum al-kafarah al-fajarh. The classical Arabic pronunciation turns the feminine ending of the word “al-kafarah” into a ‘t’. So the word should be spelled with a ‘t’ الكفرت if it were spelled as it is pronounced. Yet the word in the Quran isn’t spelled with a ‘t’ in accordance with the claimed pausal spelling rule (and all other feminine nouns with this ending are likewise not spelled this way) which justifies the mismatch between the spelling of the Quran and the Classical Arabic pronunciation. Note how if the verse is read the same way it’s spelled then the two words rhyme with each other. This observation applies on all Old Hijazi internal rhymes except the ones where the classical Arabic pronunciation only adds final short vowels on words that don’t end with the feminine ‘ah’. In this special case there’s no mismatch between the classical Arabic pronunciation and the spelling as short vowels cannot be spelled in Arabic. An example of this is:

The two words are spelled in the Quran as: raghabā wa rahabā. The classical Arabic nunation of the word “raghab” isn’t written "raghaban رغبن" in accordance with the claimed pausal spelling rule. Note how if the two words are read the same way they are spelled then they rhyme with each other.

The word “ʕurub” wasn’t used anywhere else in the Quran.      

The word “fājir” wasn’t used anywhere else in the Quran.      

The word “humazah” wasn’t used anywhere else in the Quran.