User:CPO675/Sandbox 1: Difference between revisions

</ref> describing the physical manifestation of God on Earth.<ref name=":1">Durie, Mark. ''The Qur'an and Its Biblical Reflexes: Investigations into the Genesis of a Religion. pp.177-178.'' Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018</ref>      

This Hebrew/Aramaic term appears as a Qur'anic noun six times. Most Qur’anic references to ''sakīnah'' describe God giving believers tranquility and reassurance in times of opposition.<ref name=":1" /> One exception is Q2:247–48, where the ark is called a “sakīnah from your Lord,” echoing Jewish or Christian ideas of God’s ''shekīnah'' presence linked to the Ark of the Covenant, however, the Qur’an itself does not associate ''sakīnah'' with divine presence.<ref name=":1" /> Instead, the term, which resembles the Hebrew/Aramiac word phonologically, was absorbed into Arabic and generally means “tranquility” or “reassurance”, so not semantically. In this sense, ''sakīnah'' in Q2:248 may be a linguistic fossil—borrowed from earlier traditions but reinterpreted with a new, purely Arabic meaning,<ref name=":1" /> i.e.       

however it undergoes a process of matching phonologically, but not semantic matching as the Arabic root used in the term has a different meaning s-k-n (“rest, repose, stillness”), (Dure cite) denoting a divinely granted calm or fortification, often in situations of fear or external threat.<ref name=":1" />          

Sinai (2023) sums up:{{Quote|<i>sakīnah {{!}} composure, tranquillity</i> Sinai, Nicolai. Key Terms of the Qur'an: A Critical Dictionary (pp. 391). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.|..Etymologically, the word is descended from rabbinic Hebrew shәkinah or its Aramaic equivalent (WMJA 53–55; NB 24–25; JPND 208–209; CQ 21; FVQ 174; Stewart 2021, 42–54), which in targumic and rabbinic texts designate God’s “dwelling” or “presence” in the world and can on occasion appear as a downright hypostasis of the deity (see DTTM 1573 and DJBA 1145 as well as the overview in Unterman et al. 2007). The Qur’anic use of sakīnah, a word that was presumably adopted from the language of the Medinan Jews, is an evident case in which the semantics of a loanword underwent far-reaching adjustment in accordance with the meaning of its Arabic root s-k-n, conveying rest and calmness. As a result, the Qur’anic sakīnah, though explicitly identified as being God’s, has a distinctly psychological slant and does not convey the presence of God at a particular place, as does the rabbinic concept (Durie 2018, 178–179). One may surmise that the Jews of Medina employed the word sakīnah to describe God’s presence in the ark of the covenant (Q 2:248). This would be in line with God’s statement in Exod 25:8 that he will “dwell” in the Israelites’ sanctuary, which the Targum Onqelos renders, “And I shall cause my presence (shkinti) to dwell among them.” The Qur’an, by contrast, integrates the term into the theme of God’s reassuring impact on the believers’ hearts, into which the sakīnah is sent down according to Q 48:4 (see AHW 67 and under → qalb). Thus, while the concept’s original doctrinal context was a theology of God’s presence at particular places and times (see Durie 2018, 179), in its Qur’anic reception it is absorbed into what one might call the Islamic scripture’s theology of divine fortification: the prime arena in which God can be experienced as present, above and beyond his universal role as the world’s creator and sustainer (→ khalaqa), is the human heart.}}