‘Alaqah as ‘leech’ Quran 96- 2- “He created man from Alaq(leech or clot or something that suspends) Scholars, linguists and dictionaries have all mentioned one of the meanings of ‘alaqah as a leech20. (This section is an edited version of Kareem, E., Embryology in the Qur’an: The Alaqah Stage, islampapers) The fourteenth century dictionary Lisan al-‘Arab states that “ ‘alaqah refers to a worm living in the water that sucks blood, the plural of which is ‘alaq”(Ibn Man#ur, in Lisan al-‘Arab, Dar $adir, Beirut, n.d., vol. 10, pp 261-268; as cited in Zindani et al. [1994,p. 68]. and in the dictionary of al-Qamus al-Muhit)that ‘alaq is “a small creature of water that sucks blood [a leech].” the generic name for any blood-sucking worm or leech. And in Aramaic and Syriac there are words with apparently similar meanings. In Ad-Damiris Arabic zoological lexicon, Hayat al-Hayawan [The Life of the Animals, 1372 C.E.], there is an article on the leech [‘alaq] Kitab _ayat al-_ayawan [The Book of the Lives of the Animals] finished in 1372 C.E. as mentioned in De Somogyi [1950, p. 42] and in Ibn Wahshiya’s Kitab al-Sumum [The Book on Poisons, c. 950 C.E.] there is the treatment for the one who has swallowed a leech [‘alaq]. (Ibn Wahshiya’s Book on Poisons c.950 C.E. Known under various titles: Kitab al-Shanaq fi al-Sumum wa’altiryaq, Kitab al-Sumum wa’al-tiryaqat, and al-Sumum wadaf‘ madarrha. Levey [1966, p. 84]). A popular ninth century Christian polemic against Islam claims that Muslims believe that “God created man from a leech” based on the work of Nicetas of Byzantium. Nicetas, who wrote between 842 and 867 C.E., had a copy of the Qur’an in Greek translation which he made use of to identify the tenets of Islam. His Greek translation renders both ‘alaq and ‘alaqah as bdella [`abccd], meaning “leech”. (“Nicetas accuses the Qur’an of teaching that man comes from a leech [Confutatio1, lines 90–92]: [he says that man is created from a leech]. The phrase is then picked up by Zigabenos, who finds it absurd...” Simelidis [2011, pp. 900-902] The Byzantine Understanding of the Quranic Term al-_amad and the Greek Translation of the Qur’an. Speculum, 86(04), 887-913. ) The classic Qur’an commentator, Ibn Kathir [b. 1302 C.E.], mentions the meaning of “elongated like the shape of a leech Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Al-Quran Al-Azim, p. 242 (1st ed. Vol. 3). 1980. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Al-Fikr. Finally, The Qur’an: an Encyclopedia has an entry for ‘alaq that also mentions the same meanings: “The linguistic definition of _alaq [singular _alaqa] is ‘leech’, ‘medicinal leech’, ‘[coagulated] blood’, ‘blood clot’, or ‘the early stage of the embryo’. Sahin, H. “Alaq” p. 27. In O. Leaman [Ed.] [2006], The Qur’an: An Encyclopedia: Routledge
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 06:22:36 +0000
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