Beth Qaṭraye: A Lexical and Toponymical Survey 9781463241407

Citation preview

Beth Qaṭraye

Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies

58 Series Editors George Anton Kiraz István Perczel Lorenzo Perrone Samuel Rubenson

Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies brings to the scholarly world the underrepresented field of Eastern Christianity. This series consists of monographs, edited collections, texts and translations of the documents of Eastern Christianity, as well as studies of topics relevant to the world of historic Orthodoxy and early Christianity.

Beth Qaṭraye

A Lexical and Toponymical Survey

By

Mario Kozah George Anton Kiraz Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn Haya Al Thani Saif Shaheen Al-Murikhi

gp 2021

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2021 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. ‫ܐ‬

1

2021

ISBN 978-1-4632-4139-1

ISSN 1539-1507

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available at the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ............................................................................................... xi Preface ............................................................................................................... xiii The Editors

The Editors ....................................................................................................... xvii

Abbreviations .................................................................................................... xix

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Mario Kozah (Qatar University)

The Beth Qaṭraye Region ............................................................................. 2 Syriac Authors from Beth Qaṭraye ............................................................... 3

The Islands of Beth Qaṭraye in the Syriac Sources....................................... 4 Qaṭrāyīth: the Language of Beth Qaṭraye ..................................................... 9 The Diyarbakır Commentary and the Anonymous Commentary ................... 10 Origins of the Anonymous DC author and Unnamed Editor of the AC...... 12 Conclusion: A School of Beth Qaṭraye?...................................................... 18 Bibliography ............................................................................................... 19 Primary Sources ......................................................................................... 19 Secondary Sources ...................................................................................... 19 A Lexical Survey of Qaṭrāyīth ............................................................................. 23 Mario Kozah (Qatar University)

Bibliography ............................................................................................. 105

Manuscripts .............................................................................................. 105 Primary Sources ....................................................................................... 105 Secondary Sources .................................................................................... 105

v

vi

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

A Toponymical Survey of Beth Qaṭraye ............................................................ 107

Dr. Haya Al Thani (National Museum of Qatar/Qatar University), Prof. Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn (American University of Beirut), Prof. Saif alMurikhi

(Qatar

University),

Prof.

Abdul

Rahman

Chamseddine

(Georgetown University in Qatar), Tobias Scheunchen (University of

Chicago), Prof. David A. Michelson (Vanderbilt University), William L. Potter (Vanderbilt University), and Dr. Mario Kozah (Qatar University)

Introduction .............................................................................................. 107 Toponymical Survey ................................................................................. 111

‫ن‬ ُ ��ْ �‫ أ‬............................................................................................... 111 ʿAdaulā - ‫ �َدَوْ�ى‬......................................................................................... 112 al-Āra - ‫ ا��رة‬............................................................................................. 112 Arḍ Nūḥ - ‫ أرض نوح‬.................................................................................. 113 Arday - ‫ ܐܪܕܝ‬- ‫ اردي‬................................................................................... 113 Arday and Toduru – ‫ܓܙ̈ܪܬܐ ܕܐܪܕܝ ܘܕܬܘܕܘܪܘ‬- ‫ اردي و��ورو‬....................... 114 al-ʿArja - ‫ العر�ة‬......................................................................................... 114 al-ʿAyn - ‫ الع�ن‬............................................................................................ 115 al-Badī - ‫ البدي‬........................................................................................... 115 al-Baḥra - ‫ البحرة‬........................................................................................ 116 al-Baḥrayn - ‫البحر�ن‬................................................................................... 116 al-Baḥrayn - ‫البحر�ن‬................................................................................... 117 al-Baḥrayn - ‫البحر�ن‬................................................................................... 117 Beth Qaṭraye - ‫ ܒܝܬ ܩܛ̈ܪܝܐ‬- ‫ قطر‬................................................................. 121 Daray – ‫ ܕ̈ܪܝ‬- ‫ داري‬..................................................................................... 122 Daray – ‫ ܕ̈ܪܝ‬- ‫ داري‬..................................................................................... 123 Dārīn - ‫ دارِ �ن‬............................................................................................. 123 Dayrin - ‫ ܕܝܪܝܢ‬- ‫ دار�ن‬.................................................................................. 124 Dayrīn - ‫ ܕܝܪܝܢ‬- ‫ دار�ن‬.................................................................................. 125 al-Dharāʾib - ‫ ا��رائب‬................................................................................. 126 Dhū ’l-Nār - ‫ ذو النار‬................................................................................... 126 Faylaka - ‫ رمث‬........................................................................................... 127 al-Farūq - ‫ الفروق‬....................................................................................... 127 al-Furḍa - ُ ‫ الفُرْضَة‬....................................................................................... 127 Abrīn -

TABLE OF CONTENTS Gazrātha– ‫ ܓܙ̈ܪܬܐ‬-

vii

‫ ا��زر‬.......................................................................... 128

al-Ghāba - ‫ الغابة‬......................................................................................... 129

Hagar - ‫ ܗܓܪ‬- ‫ �َ� َر‬..................................................................................... 129 Hagar - ‫ ܗܓܪ‬- ‫ ��ر‬..................................................................................... 130 Hagar and Pīṭ Ardashīr - ‫ ܗܓܪ ܘܦܝܛܐܪܕܫܝܪ‬- ‫�ط‬ ّ �‫وا‬

‫ �َ� َر‬............................. 132

‫ا��ط‬............................................................................................... 133 Ḥaṭṭa - ‫ ܚܛܐ‬- ‫ ا��ط‬.................................................................................... 134 al-Ḥawjar - ��‫ا��و‬...................................................................................... 135 al-Ḥāzim - ‫ ا��ازم‬....................................................................................... 136 Hidn - ‫ن‬ ٌ ‫ ه ِ ْد‬................................................................................................ 136 al-Ḥūs - ‫ا��وس‬........................................................................................... 137 Ḥuwār - ‫ حوار‬............................................................................................ 137 Juwāthāʾ - ‫ جواثاء‬....................................................................................... 138 Juwāthāʾ - ‫جواثا‬......................................................................................... 139 Kanabaūt - ُ‫كَنَب َو ُت‬..................................................................................... 139 al-Kathīb al-Akbar - ��‫ ال�كثيب ا��ك‬............................................................ 140 al-Kathīb al-Aṣghar - ‫ ال�كثيب ا��صغر‬......................................................... 140 Kharg - ‫�ارك‬............................................................................................. 141 al-Khaṭṭ - ‫ا��ط‬........................................................................................... 142 al-Khurṣān - ‫ ا��رصان‬................................................................................. 142 Kīsh - ‫ كيش‬............................................................................................... 143 al-Māliḥa - ‫ ا��ا��ة‬....................................................................................... 144 al-Marzā - ‫ ا��رزى‬....................................................................................... 144 Mashmahig - ‫ ܡܫܡܗܝܓ‬- ‫ �َماهيج‬................................................................ 145 Masqaṭ - ‫ مسقط‬.......................................................................................... 146 al-Maṭlaʿ - ‫ ا��طلع‬........................................................................................ 147 Mazun - ‫ ܡܙܘܢ‬- ‫مازون‬................................................................................ 147 al-Munsalakh - ‫ ا��نسلخ‬............................................................................... 148 al-Muraydāʾ - ‫ ا��ُر َ� ْ�اء‬................................................................................. 149 al-Mushaqqar - ‫ ا��شقر‬................................................................................ 149 al-Muzayraʿa - ‫ ا��ُز َ� ْ� َ� َة‬................................................................................ 150 The Gulf - ��‫ ا��ليج الفار‬............................................................................ 150 Ḥaṭṭa -

viii

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY al-Qarḥāʾ - ‫ القر�اء‬..................................................................................... 151

‫ قَطَر‬................................................................................................ 152 al-Qaṭīf - ‫ القطيف‬....................................................................................... 152 Qish - ‫ ܩܝܫ‬- ‫ قيش‬........................................................................................ 154 al-Rajrāja - ‫ا����ا�ة‬................................................................................... 154 Rūḥa - ‫ ܪܘܚܐ‬- ‫ رو�ا‬.................................................................................... 155 al-Rumayla - ��‫ا��مي‬.................................................................................... 155 al-Sabakha - ‫السب�ة‬.................................................................................... 156 al-Sābūr - ‫ السابور‬........................................................................................ 156 Sābūr - ‫سابور‬.............................................................................................. 157 َ ............................................................................................ 157 al-Ṣafā - ‫الصّ ف َا‬ َ ............................................................................................ 158 al-Ṣafā - ‫الصّ ف َا‬ َ ............................................................................................ 158 al-Ṣafā - ‫الصّ ف َا‬ Qatar -

����‫ال‬.......................................................................................... 159 Samaheej - ‫ �َمَاهيج‬..................................................................................... 159 Samaheej - ‫ ܡܫܡܗܝܓ‬- ‫ �َماهيج‬................................................................... 160 al-Shabā - ‫شبا‬ ّ َ ‫ ال‬.......................................................................................... 160 al-Shabʿān - ‫ الشبعان‬................................................................................... 161 al-Shanūn - ‫ الشنون‬..................................................................................... 161 Sharāf - ‫ �َ� َاف‬........................................................................................... 162 al-Shaṭṭ - ‫الشط‬........................................................................................... 163 Shuqār - ‫ شُقار‬............................................................................................ 163 al-Sitār - ‫ الستار‬........................................................................................... 164 Ṭāb - ُ‫ طاب‬................................................................................................. 164 Talūn - ‫ ܬܐܠܘܢ‬- ‫تَ��ن‬................................................................................. 165 Thaʾj - ‫ج‬ ُ ‫ � َأ‬................................................................................................. 165 al-Ṭirbāl - ‫ الطربال‬...................................................................................... 166 Toduru - ‫ ܬܕܘܪܘ‬- ‫ ��ورو‬............................................................................... 166 al-ʿUqayd - ‫ العقيد‬....................................................................................... 167 al-ʿUqayr - �ْ �َ‫ العُق‬........................................................................................ 167 al-ʿUqayra - ‫ العُقَ� ْ�ة‬..................................................................................... 168 Uwāl - ‫ ُأوال‬................................................................................................ 169 al-Sahla -

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ix

al-Wajīr - ���‫ الو‬......................................................................................... 169

‫ن‬ ُ �ِ �ْ�َ‫ ي‬............................................................................................. 170 al-Yamāma - ‫ ا���امة‬..................................................................................... 171 al-Yamāma - ‫ ا���امة‬..................................................................................... 171 al-Zāra - ‫ا��ارة‬............................................................................................ 172 al-Zarāda - ‫ ا��رادة‬...................................................................................... 173 Yabrīn -

The Political, Economic, and Social Situation of the Islands in the Gulf Region during the Third and Fourth / Ninth and Tenth centuries ...................... 175

Prof. Saif Shaheen Al-Murikhi

Introduction .............................................................................................. 175 Tarout Island ............................................................................................ 178 The Island of Bahrain (Uwāl) ................................................................... 179 Island of Banī Kāwān................................................................................ 184 Kharg Island ............................................................................................. 185

Island of Jāshk .......................................................................................... 187 Kīsh Island ................................................................................................ 188 Failaka Island ........................................................................................... 190 Conclusions .............................................................................................. 191 Bibliography ............................................................................................. 192

Primary Sources ....................................................................................... 192 Secondary Sources .................................................................................... 194 A Reconstruction of the Lexicon of Ḥenanishoʿ bar Saroshway ...................... 195 George Kiraz

Bibliography of Works Cited ............................................................................ 423

Ancient Authors and Translations ............................................................ 423 Modern Works .......................................................................................... 425

Indices .............................................................................................................. 431

Ancient Sources ....................................................................................... 431

Biblical References .................................................................................. 432 People ...................................................................................................... 433

Places ....................................................................................................... 435 Subjects ................................................................................................... 439

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book was made possible by NPRP grant NPRP 9–002–6–001 from the Qatar

National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.

xi

PREFACE THE EDITORS Beth Qaṭraye, Syriac for “region of the Qataris,” is a term found in Syriac literature referring to the region of eastern Arabia (today’s east coast of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,

UAE and Qatar) from the fourth to the ninth centuries CE. It was an important region

of the Late Antique world, at the nexus of the Sasanian Persian world, the Arabian

Peninsula, and trade routes with India. Its place and development remain poorly understood and little studied because it is often erroneously regarded as peripheral

to scholarly concerns. Beth Qaṭraye was also an important region for Christianity in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period, when it produced one of the most widely

translated Christian authors (Isaac of Nineveh, also known as Isaac Qaṭraya or “the

Qatari”) and was involved in a dispute regarding the authority of the Catholicos of

the Church of the East (the “Nestorian” church of the Sasanian Persian Empire).

Other important Syriac authors came from Beth Qaṭraye in this period, and scholarship has mostly focused on these authors rather than other aspects of the region.

However, historical geography and archaeology are also important for clarify-

ing the development of Beth Qaṭraye itself and its links to other regions, and at the same time toponyms provide clues as to the social and linguistic structure of Beth

Qaṭraye in Late Antiquity. The first objective of this research project was to collect

and analyze information on the pre-Islamic and early Islamic historical geography

and toponyms of the Beth Qaṭraye region from the most important available sources as well as later toponymical studies. The second objective of this project was to de-

termine the set of lexemes that are designated as belonging to the language of Beth

Qaṭraye known as Qaṭrāyīth in the tenth century Syriac/Arabic lexicon of Bar Bahlul

and in other Syriac texts such as the ninth century East-Syriac Anonymous Commentary and the older eighth century Diyarbakır Commentary. This will shed important

light on the languages and dialects that were in use in the Arabian Peninsula not xiii

xiv

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

only in the pre-Islamic period, but also what has survived there in the Islamic period since Bar Bahlul, for example, belongs to the tenth century.

Perhaps the most fruitful source for the historical geography of pre-Islamic and

early Islamic Beth Qaṭraye is the collection of records of ecclesiastical synods of the Church of the East which was edited by J.-B. Chabot in Paris in 1902 under the title Synodicon Orientale ou Recueil de synodes nestoriens. Bishops of important episcopal

sees within Beth Qaṭraye frequently participated in these synods and signed their

names as having been present, while one synod actually took place in Beth Qaṭraye

in 676 CE. Therefore, the lists of signatories to the different synods contain place names from Beth Qaṭraye. The Synod of 676 CE resolved a conflict within the Church

of the East during the mid-seventh century, and several letters by the seventh century

Catholicos Ishoʿyahb III were addressed to the people and bishops of Beth Qaṭraye.

These letters were edited and fully translated into English for the first time by Mario

Kozah in 2015 under the title “Ishoʿyahb III of Adiabene’s Letters to the Qataris,” and provides additional geographical information about Beth Qaṭraye.

Another important source for the language that was spoken in Beth Qaṭraye

known as Qaṭrāyīth is the ninth century East-Syriac Anonymous Commentary which

in its most extended form covers both the Old and New Testaments. Most manu-

scripts, however, contain only the Old Testament Part, or even only the Pentateuch section. So far only a facsimile edition with English translation of the Anonymous

Commentary on Genesis 1:1–28:6 (a very small section of the whole) has been published by Abraham Levene (London 1951). This facsimile is from MS Mingana 553

held in the library of the University of Birmingham. A more complete and older source of the Anonymous Commentary which contains both the Old and New Testa-

ments is MS (olim) Diyarbakır 22 which contains 530 folios and was written before

1605, possibly in the fourteenth century. Both these manuscripts and others were used for the research undertaken in this project.

Interestingly, in addition to citations from Aḥūb Qaṭraya, a seventh century Syr-

iac author who hails from Beth Qaṭraye, and quotations from another biblical com-

mentator, relied upon as an authority for both the Old and the New Testaments, also from Beth Qaṭraye, who is at times referred to as Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya ( ‫ܪܒܢ ܓܒܪܝܠ‬

‫ )ܩܛܪܝܐ‬and at others as Mar Abba Gabriel Qaṭraya (‫ )ܡܪܝ ܐܒܐ ܘܓܒܪܝܐܝܠ ܩܛܪܝܐ‬or

simply as Gabriel or Rabban, the Anonymous Commentary also includes glosses containing words in Qaṭrāyīth: the language of Qatar or “in Qatari” (‫ )ܩܛܪܐܝܬ‬spoken by

Qataris (‫)ܩܛ̈ܪܝܐ‬. The full study of this commentary undertaken by this project has

not only yielded many more references to words in Qatari but also more citations

PREFACE

xv

from Aḥūb as well as revealing some anonymous references to authors from Beth

Qaṭraye. Thus, the full analysis of this commentary has indeed revealed more lex-

emes in Qaṭrāyīth, and general historical information about the region.

A fourth essential source is the tenth century lexicon of Ḥasan Ibn Bahlul or Bar

Bahlul which was first published by Rubens Duval in three volumes in 1888–1901 under the title Lexicon Syriacum auctore Hassano bar Bahlule. It was reprinted in two

volumes in 1970. This project has now published an illustrated facsimile edition with

Duval’s Latin introductory material translated into English by Samuel Barry. While

this lexicon was used as a source for the major Syriac lexica, such as Smith’s Thesaurus Syriacus (1868–1901), most scholars today do not use it because it is not available in a searchable form. More importantly to this project, its contents with regards to

the language of Beth Qaṭraye has been almost forgotten. To resolve these two issues

this project has also produced an XML tagged version of the Bar Bahlul corpus ac-

cessible through a search engine on its website (see web address below).

Using these important primary sources the project has developed a lexical in-

ventory that aims to collect from understudied Syriac texts words and lexemes that

are marked as belonging to the language of Beth Qaṭraye. Aramaic, in its various forms, was the lingua franca of the Middle East at the advent of Islam. In the Arabian

Peninsula, Arabic—also in various dialects—was most probably the common language of the nomadic tribes and indeed also the inhabitants of Beth Qaṭraye. In the

cultural centers of Beth Qaṭraye, Aramaic and Arabic must have interacted to a great extent. Although oral forms of these two families are now lost to history, the lexicon

of Ḥasan Ibn Bahlul (‫����ل‬

‫حسن �ن‬, 10th century) contains quite a number of words

that may indeed originate from the region. Finally, a number of Arabic geographical

and historical sources also represent a mine of information that were used to collate and investigate toponyms in Beth Qaṭraye / province of al-Baḥrayn as well as histor-

ical information about it. The findings of this research are presented in the Beth Qaṭraye Gazetteer which is the project’s second website (see web address below). Project websites: 1. Qaṭraīth webpage: lexical search tools: http://bethmardutho.org/qaṭraīth https://sedra.bethmardutho.org/qatraith/get 2. The Beth Qaṭraye Gazetteer: https://bqgazetteer.bethmardutho.org/index.html

THE EDITORS Mario Kozah is Assistant Professor of Islamic history and civilization at Qatar University. George Kiraz is Director of the Syriac Institute/Beth Mardutho and Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton University. Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Arts and Humanites at the American University of Beirut. Haya Al Thani is Director of Curatorial Affairs at the National Museum of Qatar and Lead Principal Investigator of QNRF project “A Preliminary Syriac, Aramaic, and Arabic Lexical and Toponymical Survey of Beth Qatraye,” NPRP 9–002–6–001. Saif al-Murikhi is Emeritus Professor of Islamic History at Qatar University.

xvii

ABBREVIATIONS AC BL BSOAS CSCO DC fol. MS Or. r

Syr. v

Vat.

The East-Syriac Anonymous Commentary British Library Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium The Diyarbakır Commentary folio Manuscript Oriental recto Syriac verso Vatican

xix

INTRODUCTION MARIO KOZAH

QATAR UNIVERSITY A number of East-Syriac commentaries on the Peshitta Old Testament

dating from the 8th and 9th centuries refer to an east-Arabian language

called Qaṭrāyīth (“in Qatari”) used in Beth Qaṭraye (“region of the Qataris” in north-eastern Arabia). They also cite seventh century Syriac au-

thors originating from this region, such as Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya and

Aḥūb Qaṭraya who gloss Biblical terms using Qaṭrāyīth. This volume will

present evidence of newly discovered Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary from two

commentaries—the East-Syriac Anonymous Commentary (9th c.) and the older Diyarbakır Commentary (8th c.)—to argue that Qaṭrāyīth is in fact

a local Arabic dialect transliterated using Syriac letters. Based on this new data, it will be demonstrated that the Arabic vernacular of Qaṭrāyīth

consists mostly of Arabic vocabulary (as well as a few Syriac and Pahlavi loanwords), and maintains mainly Arabic with some Syriac grammatical

structures and lexical influence. As such, it constitutes some of the oldest

documented Arabic from the seventh-century Arabian Peninsula revealing a language in rapid transformation. Furthermore, Qaṭrāyīth vocabu-

lary transliterated using Syriac letters in these commentaries represent the earliest attestations of proto-Garshunographic development from the

early Islamic period, dating back to the 8th century.1 It will also be argued,

based on internal and extra-textual evidence that the anonymous author

1

For the early date and term “Garshunography” see Kiraz, A Functional Approach to Garshu-

nography 264.

1

2

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY of the Diyarbakır Commentary and the unnamed editor of the Anony-

mous Commentary both originate from Beth Qaṭraye, suggesting that there may have been a Syriac school of exegesis originating from that

region in this period, the School of Beth Qaṭraye, dating back to the seventh century, with high standards of learning, comparable in sophistication to the School of Nisibis. THE BETH QAṬRAYE REGION The region known in the Syriac sources as Beth Qaṭraye includes not only the peninsula of Qatar, but also incorporates its hinterland of Yamāma and the entire coast

of north-east Arabia as far as the peninsula of Musandam in present-day Oman, along

with all the adjacent islands.2 Christianity must have reached Beth Qaṭraye no later

than the fourth century. Evidence for this is that a certain Eliya, bishop of Mashmahīg (possibly today’s Samāhīj on Muḥarraq island), was present at the first East-Syriac

Synod in Seleucia-Ctesiphon (410), while another bishop of Mashmahīg was deposed and excommunicated at the same synod. From the sixth century onwards, in addition

to Mashmahīg, there were bishops in Dayrīn (possibly Tārūt island), Mazūn (Oman region), Hagar (Hajr), and Ḥaṭṭa (al-Khaṭṭ). Initially they were under the control of

the metropolitan of Rev Ardashir, in Fars, until Beth Qaṭraye obtained its own metropolitan, whose existence is attested only in 676.

However, most of our information on Beth Qaṭraye pertains to the early Islamic

period. An important example is the correspondence of Catholicos Ishoʿyahb III (Pa-

triarch of the Church of the East, 649–59), which includes five letters that deal with

troubles in Beth Qaṭraye.3 The background is the rebellion of metropolitan Shemʿon of Rev Ardashir against the Catholicos; this triggered an uprising among the bishops

of Beth Qaṭraye, who likewise turned their back on the Catholicos. Among Ishoʿyahb

III’s preserved letters to Beth Qaṭraye one is addressed to the bishops, two to the Christians in general, and two to the monks. Although the details are not known, the rebellion had come to an end in 676, as is evidenced in Thomas of Marga’s ninth century The Book of Governors,4 when Catholicos Giwargis I went to Beth Qaṭraye for

2 3 4

Van Rompay, Beth Qaṭraye.

For a full edition and translation see Kozah, Ishoʿyahb III. Budge, The Book of Governors i, 86.

INTRODUCTION

3

a local synod, recorded in the Synodicon Orientale, an eighth century East-Syriac rec-

ord of the Synods of the Church of the East.5 Very little is known of the subsequent

history of Beth Qaṭraye; Christianity may have disappeared from the region after the ninth century.6

S YRIAC AUTHORS FROM BETH QAṬRAYE In the early Islamic period from the middle of the seventh century, Beth Qaṭraye

produced a number of important Syriac authors.7 Most well-known among them is

the ascetic and mystical author Isaac of Nineveh or Isḥaq Qaṭraya, who was born

and lived for some time in Beth Qaṭraye, before Catholicos Giwargis took him to Beth Aramaye (Syriac for the southern Iraqi region). After a short-lived episcopate in Nineveh, he withdrew to an eremitic life in Beth Huzaye (al-Ahwaz province,

Iran).8 Another very important monastic author from this region is Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya.9 Among the various authors designated as Gabriel Qaṭraya in the sources,

there is a biblical interpreter, who was a teacher in Seleucia-Ctesiphon in the mid-

seventh century, and a commentator on the liturgy, who lived in the first half of the seventh century.10 His work on the liturgy probably was the main source for the short

commentary attributed to Abraham Qaṭraya bar Lipeh.11 Another biblical interpreter

frequently quoted in later sources is Aḥub Qaṭraya.12 Christians from Beth Qaṭraye

also served as translators. For example, the Persian translator for the (undoubtedly Arabic speaking) Lakhmid king al-Nuʿmān III (579–601) is said to have been a Chris-

tian from Beth Qaṭraye. Finally, an unnamed monk from Beth Qaṭraye is also credited with a preface and translation from Persian into Syriac of the Law Book by Shemʿon of Rev Ardashir.13

5 6 7 8 9

Chabot, Synodicon 216.

Van Rompay, Beth Qaṭraye. Brock, Syriac Writers.

For further biographical details see Kozah, The Fourth Part.

For a number of studies on Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya see Kozah, The Syriac Writers of Qatar, 195–

249. For a selection of his writings see Kozah, An Anthology, 155–253, and Kozah, Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya’s Compendious Commentary.

10 11 12 13

See Brock, Gabriel of Beth Qaṭraye 155–169.

For a full edition and translation see Kozah, Abraham Qaṭraya. See Romeny, Syriac Biblical Interpretation.

For an edition and translation of the preface see Kozah, Preface.

4

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

THE ISLANDS OF BETH QAṬRAYE IN THE S YRIAC SOURCES Although the preface of Catholicos Giwargis I’s synod only mentions the island of

Dayrīn and the two inland towns of Hagar and Ḥaṭṭa in Beth Qaṭraye, it does state

that his voyage involved a patriarchal visit of a number of inhabited islands as part of his maritime tour: “After visiting the islands (

‫ ) ܳܓܙ�ܬܐ‬and other locations.”

14

It is

intriguing to imagine this influential and extremely erudite Patriarch of the Church

of the East and his entourage sailing off the east-Arabian and Persian coastlines and perhaps reaching as far as the episcopal see of Qīsh, off the southern coast of modern-

day Iran, where the eponymous island of Kīsh is found today in Hormozgān province. “The islands,” as they are called in a number of Syriac sources including the Synod-

icon Orientale and the patriarchal letters of Giwargis I’s predecessor Ishoʿyahb III, are a reference to those inhabited islands in the Gulf that specifically form part of the

Beth Qaṭraye province. Notable in the Murūj al-dhahab by the Muslim historian Abū

l-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Masʿūdī (d. 956) is his reference to “the islands of Qatar,”15 using it as a comprehensive term for all the Gulf islands, and which is perhaps an echo of the

earlier Syriac sources that refer to the islands of Beth Qaṭraye. A number of these

islands were also dioceses in their own right, as in the documented cases of Dayrīn,

Mashmahīg,16 Qīsh, Arday, Tūdūrū, and Daray, where the names of their bishops are also given,17 while others such as Rūḥā and Tālūn apparently were not.

The exact location of at least six of these eight listed islands remains a puzzle

although the Synodicon Orientale does give us some clues regarding the relative prox-

imity of three of these islands to each other, thus forming a cluster. It states that the

islands of Tālūn and Rūḥā are in the vicinity of the island of Daray.18 Furthermore,

14 15 16 17

Chabot, Synodicon 216.

al-Masʿūdī, Murūj i, 128.

Chabot, Synodicon 34, 36, 128.

For example, Bishop Yaʿqūb of Daray, who addressed twenty questions to Catholicos

Ishoʿyahb I in the sixth century (528–592), specifically concerning the duties of the episcopal

office and the administration of the mysteries of the church. See Chabot, Synodicon 165. 18

Chabot, Synodicon 165. Interestingly, for the possible location of Daray, Rūḥā, and Tālūn, a

cluster of three islands (among the Ḥawār islands) are to be found off the Qatari peninsula adjacent to the ancient historical and archaeological site of Zekrit.

INTRODUCTION

5

given that Arday and Tūdūrū form a single diocese under one appointed metropolitan bishop would logically suggest that they are also in close geographical proximity to each other.19

The Synodicon Orientale records that after an assembly of a number of bishops

under Catholicos Aba I held in the middle of the sixth century (544) in the coastal city of Rev Ardashir in Fars, Bishop David of Qīsh took leave of the assembly to

return to “his country,” while the rest headed back north to Beth Huzaye/Khuzistan.20 This would suggest that Bishop David’s “country” lay in the opposite direction, perhaps to the south of Fars, lending support to the possibility that

Qīsh is indeed Kīsh island in Hormozgān province off the southern coast of Iran in

the Persian Gulf. It is unlikely that the Transoxanian city of Kesh/Kish (Shahr-e Sabz) is meant21 given that no East-Syriac Christian presence is attested there at all

during this period and Bishop David would then have more likely accompanied the

Catholicos back to Beth Huzaye/Khuzistan, and thence followed the trade route into Central Asia. Furthermore, the Arabic sources refer to Kīsh island as Qays (‫)قيس‬ which is closer to the Syriac Qīsh than the Persian form of the name, since the trans-

position of the alveolar fricative /s/ sīn and the fricative consonant /sh/ shīn is very common in Syriac and Hebrew loanwords in Arabic, and particularly between Syriac/Arabic and Classical Arabic/vernaculars, where velar or palatal sounds are commonly substituted with alveolar sounds and vice versa.

Further corroboration of three of these eight island names as being part of Beth

Qaṭraye is found in the seventh century patriarchal letters of Ishoʿyahb III to the inhabitants of Beth Qaṭraye where Dayrīn and Tālūn islands are specifically men-

tioned as well as another reference to “the islands.”22 In addition, as in the case of

Dayrīn, we find confirmation here that Mashmahīg is both the name of a metropolitan town (and therefore a diocese) and the island it is located on in Beth Qaṭraye.23

Other Syriac sources provide us with the names of two more islands in Beth

Qaṭraye (in addition to one that is unnamed), bringing the total number of named

19

Chabot, Synodicon 34. Interestingly, for the possible location of Arday and Tūdūrū, twin

islands are to be found in the vicinity of the cluster of three islands (among the Ḥawār islands)

off the Qatari peninsula adjacent to the ancient historical and archaeological site of Zekrit. 20 21 22 23

Chabot, Synodicon 71–72. Pace Potts, Kish Island.

Kozah, Ishoʿyahb III 75.

Kozah, Ishoʿyahb III 75, 78, 79.

6

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

islands to ten. The first source is the tenth century East-Syriac Chronicle of Seert,24 a

universal history written in Arabic by an anonymous author and discovered in the

early twentieth century. The Chronicle’s surviving material covers the period c. 251–

423 and c. 483–650, with a gap of approximately sixty years in the fifth century.

Although the Chronicle is written in Arabic, much of its information derives from

material that was originally in Syriac sources cited by the anonymous author. These sources are ecclesiastical histories from the seventh century which would have in-

cluded even earlier ones dating back to the fifth century.25 One such is the Life of

ʿAbdā, the fourth century founder of many monasteries during the reign of Catholicos Tomarsa (363–71). In this Life, as transmitted in the Chronicle of Seert, ʿAbdīshoʿ of

Arphelouna in Maishan, a student of ʿAbdā who studied at his famous school, “bap-

tized the people” on an “island in the al-Yamāma and al-Baḥrayn” region – geograph-

ically matching Beth Qaṭraye – and also “built a monastery” there.26 This island we are then informed “is called Ramath in our days,”27 presumably referring to the tenth

century period of the anonymous author, and located “18 parsangs from Ubulla,”28 a

city on the Persian Gulf between Baṣra and Muḥammara.29 In his Arabian Gulf in

Antiquity Daniel Potts places the island of Ramath in the vicinity of Abū ʿAlī island,

348 km from Basra and north of al-Jubayl on the Saudi Arabian coast.30 Interestingly, an ancient East-Syriac church was discovered at al-Jubayl31 in the 1990s which might

support the suggested positioning of Ramath island somewhere nearby. It is more likely, however, given that 18 parsangs is approximately 108 km, that Ramath is in fact today’s Gulf island of Failaka (110 km from Muḥammara), particularly given that excavations there have recently brought to light a large monastic complex.32

The second source is the eighth century History of Mar Yawnan,33 recently trans-

lated by Sebastian Brock,34 which consists of a hagiographical narrative telling the 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Scher, Chronicle of Seert.

Wood, The Chronicle of Seert 3, 77. Scher, Chronicle of Seert 5.2, 311. Scher, Chronicle of Seert 5.2, 312. Scher, Chronicle of Seert 5.2, 312.

Mingana, The Early Spread 62–63.

Potts, The Arabian Gulf ii, 245 n. 275. Langfeldt, Christian Monuments.

See Bonnéric, Al‑Quṣūr; Bernard and Salles, Discovery of a Christian Church. Bedjan, Acta Martyrum i, 466–525. Brock, Mar Yawnan.

INTRODUCTION

7

story of Yawnan, traditionally considered to be the founder of a famous monastery named after him near the large Sasanian city of al-Anbār, close to today’s Fallūja. The story is set in the fourth century and its interest lies in the fact that the events it

recounts take place in the Gulf, in and around Beth Qaṭraye. It provides valuable information about eighth century East-Syriac monastic life in this region, given that

the alleged author of the narrative, we are told, is Zadoy, abbot of the “Monastery

of Mar/Rabban Thomas … on the slopes of the Black Island,”35 which is in “the region

of Beth Qaṭraye.”36 In the course of the narrative a journey takes place from the Black Island to another unnamed island nearby to visit the anchorite Rabban Philon in his cave.37

There has been much speculation regarding the identification of the Black Island

beginning with Alphonse Mingana who argued that the Monastery of Rabban Thomas was the same one referred to by Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, suggesting that it was

either on Ibn Kāwān or Lāfit islands.38 Geoffrey King, however, tentatively identifies the Black Island with Ṣīr Banī Yās39 whose monastic complex is reminiscent in size

of the Monastery of Rabban Thomas, which, we are informed in the History of Mar

Yawnan, had “two hundred brethren.”40 Furthermore, King argues that as Ṣīr Banī Yās “with its black and red mountains … rises in clear light at dawn or sunset it is

certainly dark enough to be called a ‘black island’.”41 Richard Payne also concurs that: “The Monastery of Mar Thomas resembled in every respect the excavated site

of Sīr [sic.] Banī Yās: a black, mountainous island along the coast of Mazun, with a coenobitic institution accompanied by individual cells separate from the coenobium.”42

Another possible identification proposed here for the first time is that the Black

Island is in fact the Gulf island of Kharg where archaeological excavations undertaken in recent decades have revealed a large monastic complex from the seventh or

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Bedjan, Acta Martyrum i, 466, 486; Brock, Mar Yawnan 3, 17.

Bedjan, Acta Martyrum i, 466, 510, 519; Brock, Mar Yawnan 3, 32, 38. Bedjan, Acta Martyrum i, 504; Brock, Mar Yawnan 28. Mingana, The Early Spread 20–21.

King, A Nestorian Monastic Settlement 234. Brock, Mar Yawnan 17.

King, A Nestorian Monastic Settlement 234. Payne, Monks Dinars and Date Palms 100.

8

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

eighth century.43 The monastery on Kharg is encircled by approximately twenty little

single house structures arranged in two concentric arcs reaching all the way down to the sea, which could have functioned either as homes for married clergy or anchorite cells. The monastery itself is situated above a cliff on a slope that continues

down to the sea, and which would have been irrigated for agricultural purposes

(date-palm orchards and perhaps even vineyards) by natural and man-made water

channels or qanāts running down the slope from a pool near the monastery to a water tank about 20 meters in diameter.

The topography of the location is certainly reminiscent of the Monastery of Rab-

ban Thomas, described twice in the History of Mar Yawnan as being “on the slopes of the Black Island.”44 The colour black may in fact be an allusion to the famous black

Khargi pearl from its renowned pearl fisheries described in later Muslim sources,45 rather than the colour of the terrain as has been the focus of earlier speculation.46 Furthermore, the History of Mar Yawnan recounts a maritime journey by a certain

Nuʿaym “the true believer”47 from the town of Marūn (Mazūn/Oman) to the Black Island in order to have Mar Yawnan heal his sick son: “Having travelled by sea for

five days and were close to reaching the monastery, for the town of Maron was a six

days journey from us, the boy’s illness grew serious and he died.”48 A six day journey by ship from Sohar, for example, where excavations have suggested that it was prob-

ably involved in long distance maritime trade by the end of the Sasanian period,49 would cover the distance to Kharg rather than to Ṣīr Banī Yās which would only have taken one or two days sailing to reach.

Another possible clue is that the pearl merchant from Beth Qaṭraye in the His-

tory of Mar Yawnan, states that his encampment is close to the Monastery of Rabban

Thomas, suggesting that they are both on the same island.50 Given that Kharg island

was an important center for pearl fishing and famous for its Khargi black pearls,51 it

43

See Ghirshman, L’île de Kharg; Ghirshman, The Island of Kharg; Steve, L’île de Kharg; Bow-

man, The Christian Monastery. 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

My italics. Bedjan, Acta Martyrum i, 466, 486; Brock, Mar Yawnan 3, 17. Cf. Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat al-arḍ 52.

King, A Nestorian Monastic Settlement 234. Brock, Mar Yawnan 20.

Bedjan, Acta Martyrum i, 492; Brock, Mar Yawnan 21. See Kevran and Hiebert, Sohar pré-islamique 342–43. Brock, Mar Yawnan 32.

See al-Masʿūdī, Murūj i, 129; Ibn Saʿīd, Kitāb al-Jughrāfiyā 132.

INTRODUCTION

9

is easy to imagine that its monastery, which indeed overlooks the sea shore with

direct access to the sea as its main gateway, was near this pearl merchant’s encampment or fishery.

Q AṬRĀYĪTH: THE LANGUAGE OF BETH QAṬRAYE While Christians in Beth Qaṭraye used Syriac as their literary and liturgical language, Persian and Arabic were also in use in the region, as eighth to tenth century Syriac

sources reveal. This linguistic complexity is given an additional dimension in numerous Syriac glosses that explicitly refer to a local language identified as being “in the

Qatari language”52 (in many cases the adverb Qaṭrāyīth, “in Qatari,” is used), all pre-

served in biblical commentaries as well as in the tenth century Lexicon of Bar

Bahlul.53 A few of these glosses are specifically attributed to the biblical interpreters Gabriel and Aḥub Qaṭraya, but the majority do not have such an attribution and

appear to have been introduced by the ninth century unnamed editor of the East-

Syriac Anonymous Commentary,54 and the earlier eighth century anonymous author

of the Diyarbakır Commentary,55 both only partially published.

While some Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary can be identified as being Syriac or Pahlavi in

origin, most of the newly discovered lexemes derive from Arabic. In fact, of the total

of 50 Qaṭrāyīth lexemes (38 of which are newly discovered and published for the first time in this volume), 40 have an origin in Arabic, 6 derive from Syriac (attested in Syriac dictionaries), 3 from Pahlavi, and only one from Aramaic (attested in Syriac

dictionaries as being “Aramaic”). The topics covered by this vocabulary include ma-

terial culture (17 lexemes); physiology/biology (3); ailments (5); zoology (7); plants/botany (7); etymology (1); measurement/scale (2); astronomy (1); and hydrology (1).56

Users of this language must have been among the local readers and writers of

Syriac texts in Beth Qaṭraye, however, the heavy saturation of Arabic vocabulary found in their language, as reflected in 40 of the 50 Qaṭrāyīth lexemes found in these

two eighth and ninth century East-Syriac commentaries, is indicative of the growing 52

Diyarbakır 22 f. 22r l. 42; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 39v l. 17–18. For a study of just 12 Qaṭrāyīth

lexemes see Contini, La lingua del Bēt Qaṭrāyē. 53 54 55 56

Bar Bahlul, Lexicon syriacum. See Van Rompay, Bar Bahlul, Ḥasan 54. Henceforth AC. Henceforth DC.

For a full description and analysis of all 50 Qaṭrāyīth lexemes see the following chapter in

this volume.

10

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

influence of Arabic and Arabization in the region and on its Qaṭraye inhabitants dur-

ing the early Islamic period. This view might suggest that an Aramaic/Arabic bilin-

gualism may have possibly developed in the region at a slightly earlier time and that

this was reflected in earlier Qaṭrāyīth, into which gradually more Arabic vocabulary

and grammatical elements began to settle, given that the latter language was now the socio-linguistically dominant one, to the point where by the eighth century

Qaṭrāyīth had been completely transformed from an Aramaic into an Arabic vernac-

ular with only some lexical influence from Syriac and Pahlavi. No evidence or data

exists, however, of pre-Islamic Qaṭrāyīth in order to corroborate such a theory. Whether this earlier process of Arabization occurred or not, it is very likely, given the balance of the new data, that the term Qaṭrāyīth in the present context refers to the Arabic that was spoken by the Syriac Christian Arabic-speaking community of

Beth Qaṭraye, and perhaps also by its other Arab tribes, in the seventh and eighth

centuries. This would imply that the few Syriac and Pahlavi lexemes found in the

Qaṭrāyīth list presented in this volume are in fact loanwords. Simply put, the weight

of the present data suggests that Qaṭrāyīth is Arabic.

THE DIYARBAKIR COMMENTARY AND THE ANONYMOUS COMMENTARY Although none of his works survive in complete form Aḥūb Qaṭraya is in fact cited

in a number of East-Syriac biblical commentaries and in particular in the DC and the AC, which in its most extended form in the extant manuscripts covers both the Old

and New Testaments.57 The older DC is only found as a fragment in MS (olim) Diyar-

bakır 22,58 for the books of Genesis to Exodus 9:32, after which the AC is introduced, covering the rest of the Old and New Testaments to the end of the manuscript.59 The

57

Of these manuscripts the oldest and most comprehensive, covering both the Old and New

Testaments, is MS (olim) Diyarbakır 22. I am very grateful to Luk Van Rompay (through

George Kiraz’s kind introduction) for generously providing me with access to this manuscript

and sharing his unpublished draft edition of the Pentateuch section of the AC with me. It goes without saying that any shortcomings, weak arguments, or errors are entirely of my own making. The other manuscripts of the AC which only contain the Old Testament part or even only

the Pentateuch section are: MS Mosul 1; MS Kirkuk 8; MS St. Petersburg (olim Diettrich 2);

MS Vat. Syr. 502; MS Vat. Syr. 578; MS Birmingham, Mingana 553; MS Louvain, CSCO Syr. 13. Luk Van Rompay is currently producing a critical edition of the Pentateuch section of the AC based on the above manuscripts. 58 59

Van Rompay, Le commentaire sur Genèse–Exode.

See Van Rompay, A Hitherto Unknown Nestorian Commentary.

INTRODUCTION

11

latter commentary appears to be a revised version of the former, perhaps by another unnamed editor given that the DC fragment in MS (olim) Diyarbakır 22 is older than

the rest of the manuscript, although this is not necessarily conclusive evidence. There

is, nevertheless, the strong possibility, given the very close resemblance of the two

texts in content and style, that the AC may indeed have been a revised version of the

older DC by an unnamed editor towards the end of the 8th century, for example, adding more Qaṭrāyīth glosses. This is supported by the fact that the DC does not

have an extensive transmission history, whereas copies of the AC proliferate, sug-

gesting that they were treated as being the same commentary. Even the DC fragment

in MS (olim) Diyarbakır 22 may have only been used as a substitute for the missing

first part of the AC in the manuscript, due to damage or loss. Most manuscripts of

the AC contain only the Old Testament part, or even just the Pentateuch section. To

date, only a facsimile edition with English translation of the AC on Genesis 1:1–28:6

has been published by Abraham Levene.60 This facsimile is from MS Mingana 553,

currently held in Birmingham University library.61 A much older source of the AC which covers both the Old and New Testaments (except the books of Genesis to Ex-

odus 9:32) is in fact MS (olim) Diyarbakır 22, discussed above, which contains 530

folios and was copied before 1605, possibly in the 13th or even 12th century. Accord-

ing to the prefatory note, it draws on various sources and chiefly from the writings

of the great East-Syriac commentator Theodore of Mopsuestia, as well as from the commentary traditions of Ephrem the Syrian, and John and Abraham of Beth Rabban. It also cites other commentators, including Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya, Mar Aba

(Church of the East patriarch 536–552), Basil, Michael, Babai the Persian, and Aḥūb Qaṭraya, who are mentioned in various places.

The DC and AC contain quotations from another seventh century biblical com-

mentator from Beth Qaṭraye, relied upon as an authority for both the Old and the New Testaments, who is only once referred to in the AC by his full name as Rabban

60 61

Levene, The Early Syriac Fathers. Relied on by Contini, La lingua del Bēt Qaṭrāyē.

Mingana 553 comprises 123 folios measuring 355 x 237 mm, with 28 lines to the page and

is a copy made in 1930 of a MS preserved in the Monastery of Notre Dames de Semences in Alqosh, Northern Iraq, (No. 22 in A. Scher’s Catalogue), which is itself a transcript (made in

1887) from the MS No. 21 (dated 1605) of the collection of Seert destroyed during the First World War.

12

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

Gabriel Qaṭraya,62 while mostly as Gabriel Qaṭraya, or simply as Gabriel or Rabban.63 Rabban without further description is the most common reference to him, mentioned

numerous times in the course of the AC. Whenever mentioned, there is no direct indication as to who this Rabban is except that, to the editor of the Commentary and probably to the contemporary learned readers, he appears to have been sufficiently

well-known by the simple designation of Rabban, a title borne by the principal of a school and generally given to an interpreter or exegete (mpashqānā) who usually filled the position of head. One instance of “our Rabban” occurs64 suggesting that the

editor of the AC belongs to a school or monastery which was headed by him, perhaps

explaining the references on a number of occasions to an unidentified “School” he appears to belong to.65 Based on internal evidence both L. Van Rompay and C. Van

Den Eynde before him have concluded that the “Rabban” mentioned throughout the DC and AC is indeed Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya.66 Furthermore, numerous references to “the School” have been assumed to refer to the School of Nisibis, however, it is

just as possible that it may be another headed by Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya in the Beth Aramaye region, with many students attending from Beth Qaṭraye, since, when the School of Nisibis is meant it is explicitly referred to as such and not simply as “the

School.”67 However, further research is required of the entire AC to fully confirm or

refute this preliminary hypothesis.

ORIGINS OF THE ANONYMOUS DC AUTHOR AND UNNAMED EDITOR OF THE AC Newly discovered Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary in the DC, AC, and a third, possibly ninth

century, unpublished East-Syriac Commentary on the Psalms ascribed to Denḥa or

62 63

MS Mingana 553, fol. 7ʳ l. 20.

Not to be confused with the liturgical commentator Gabriel Qaṭraya bar Lipeh (also 6th/7th

cent.). See Brock, Gabriel Qaṭraya 171.

64 65 66

MS Mingana 553, fol. 23ʳ l. 26.

Eg. MS Mingana 553, fol. 13ʳ l. 18.

Van Rompay, A Hitherto Unknown Nestorian Commentary 75: “The fact that these remarks

apply equally to the various quotations ascribed to ‘Rabban’, ‘Our Rabban’, ‘Rabban Gabriel’

or ‘Our Rabban Gabriel’, leads to the conclusion that in all these cases the same person is

meant.” Van den Eynde, Commentaire d’Išo‘dad de Merv x: “Par conséquent, dès avant Gen., vi, 14, le commentaire a informé clairement le lecteur que Rabban n’est autre que Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya.” 67

Eg. Mingana 553 f. 39v l. 6.

INTRODUCTION

13

Gregory, provide compelling evidence that the unnamed editor of the AC was prob-

ably a Syriac Christian who, like Aḥūb Qaṭraya, Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya, Isaac of

Nineveh, and others, originated from Beth Qaṭraye and was a native speaker of

Qaṭrāyīth. Throughout the AC the first person plural ḥnān (we) is used and has led to

much speculation as to the identity of this person or group of people. The new evidence presented below reveals that the use of “we” in the AC is applied by the editor as a reference to the Qaṭraye, the inhabitants of Beth Qaṭraye, whence he too hails. Thus: “We [the Qaṭraye, including the editor] say such-and-such,” is what is meant.

Intra-textual evidence in support of this reading is found in the AC through the

newly discovered Qaṭrāyīth plural noun agzāʾ, meaning “lots,” which appears twice in two separate glosses. On the first occasion the Syriac term for lots or portions,

peṣē, which occurs in Peshitta Leviticus 16:8, is being glossed in both the AC and MS Diyarbakır 22, explaining that “Scripture calls lots (peṣē) here those writings written on a piece of skin (parchment) or on something (else), being the two names of God

and Azazel.” The commentary continues by describing the process: “First, they set them (writings) before God and then they bring them out and give them to a man to

put on the two kids [young goats] so that they might know which is for the Lord and which for Azazel, the very same as the lots (peṣē).” The Commentary then states that

“They say that lots (peṣē) is the same as pesē. It is unlikely, however, that pesē is the

same as what Scripture calls lots (mnowathā),68 as though one of us were counting

and acquired a lot (pesā), etc. Scripture also calls pesā those where one uses fingers

to cast lots. That which the Qataris call agzāʾ (or agdā = MS Diyarbekir 22).”69

The commentary is clearly differentiating between two types of lot casting. The

first type appears in Leviticus 16:8, spelt peṣā, and involves writing names on pieces

of parchment then casting. The second type, spelt pesā, involves a process of counting

using one’s fingers, and appears to resemble a type of lot casting in the unnamed

editor’s own times and region of Beth Qaṭraye, called agzāʾ in Qaṭrāyīth. Notable is the fact that Ḥenanishoʿ bar Seroshway (ca. 900), cited in the Lexicon of Bar Bahlul under the two entries of peṣā and pesā, and well known for his reliance on both the

AC and MS Diyarbakır 22, reconfirms this distinction made in the AC between the

68

The Syriac mnowathā, meaning lots, is given by the Commentator and does not in fact appear

in the Peshitta verse.

69

Diyarbakır 22 f. 44r l. 7–8; Vat. Sir. 578 f. 37r l. 3–4; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 109r l. 8–9; Mingana

553 f. 68v l. 6–7.

14

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

two types of lot casting.70 Furthermore, peṣē is also glossed in Arabic in the Lexicon

of Bar Bahlul as lot casting using pieces of paper on which lots are written (al-ruqāʿ

allatī yuktab ʿalayhā al-quraʿ),71 while pesē is glossed as lot casting by hand (qarʿ al-

yad) or using the palms (al-kufūf).72

Given that the AC generally only glosses in Pahlavi and Qaṭrāyīth for the Penta-

teuch section, and no Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found resembling the Qaṭrāyīth noun, this leaves open the strong possibility that

the Qaṭrāyīth term agzāʾ is the Arabic plural noun ajzāʾ, meaning shares, lots, parts,

or portions. If, therefore, the Qaṭrāyīth term is Arabic transliterated using Syriac let-

ters, then the plural noun agzāʾ might be the local Arabic form of the Classical Arabic ajzāʾ, where the velar plosive /g/ in the Qaṭrāyīth suggests a degree of Syriac influ-

ence on the pronunciation, or an Arabic where the /g/ pronunciation features. Al-

ternatively, the letter gomal may simply be indicating the Classical Arabic letter jīm

/j/, as it generally does in later Garshūnī, in which case this Qaṭrāyīth lexeme would

be pronounced exactly the same as the Classical Arabic ajzāʾ. Regarding the final

hamza /ʾ/, it is notable that the glottal stop is pronounced but hardly ever separately

indicated in later Garshūnī. It is possible, then, that the glottal stop would be com-

prised in the final olaf /ā/ of agzāʾ. In the event of the less likely reading of agdā in

MS Diyarbekir 22, then this may be an Arabization of Syriac gadhā meaning fortune or lot, with an initial olaf added, which it is argued, is either the vernacular form of

the Arabic definite article or a shortened Arabic definite article al-, a common feature

in the Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary listed. The Qaṭrāyīth noun would then be more accurately

pronounced as agadhā, where the dolath /d/ would be indicating the Arabic dhāl /dh/, as it generally can do also in later Garshūnī. If the first reading is correct then

Qaṭrāyīth agzāʾ/ajzāʾ is Arabic ajzāʾ, whereas the second reading of agdā/agadhā may

provide further evidence that the unnamed editor’s own dialect from eastern Arabia and that of his readers is Arabic and, therefore, also contains some Arabized vocabulary derived from Syriac nouns.

The Qaṭrāyīth plural noun agzāʾ, meaning “lots,” appears a second time, again

glossing the same Syriac noun denoting lots or portions, peṣē, as it appears in the Peshitta Numbers 26:55. It is glossed in both the AC and MS Diyarbakır 22. Peṣē has

70 71 72

Bar Bahlul, Lexicon syriacum 1583, 1595. Bar Bahlul, Lexicon syriacum 1595. Bar Bahlul, Lexicon syriacum 1583.

INTRODUCTION

15

already been defined and explained in the earlier gloss for Leviticus 16:8 as lot cast-

ing using lots written on pieces of parchment, and where it was differentiated from

another type of lot casting, pesē, glossed using the Qaṭrāyīth plural noun agzāʾ. The

difference which the unnamed editor of the AC wishes to emphasize between peṣē and pesē is reiterated in this present gloss where it is Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya who is

cited as stating that peṣē is not what “we call” agzāʾ, using the Qaṭrāyīth term but without explicitly identifying it as such: “Peṣē: according to Rabban is not that which

we call agzāʾ.”73 Given that agzāʾ has already been explicitly referred to as being a

Qaṭrāyīth term in the earlier gloss for Leviticus 16:8, there is good evidence here that

whenever Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya initiates a gloss using the phrase “we call” to

introduce an unidentified word, he intends to use his native Qaṭrāyīth. Furthermore, agdā found in the earlier gloss in Diyarbakır 22 f. 44r l. 8 now seems very likely a

scribal error in the light of the present gloss, since Diyarbakır 22 f. 56r l. 26 here

gives agzāʾ/ajzāʾ which appears to be the correct rendition of the same term in line

with the other MSS witnesses. Therefore, this Qaṭrāyīth gloss, explicitly identified as

such earlier in the AC (and possibly also DC), and used again here by Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya, clearly demonstrates that he often glosses using his native language from

eastern Arabia and that of the AC unnamed editor. This is further supported by the fact that agzāʾ/ajzāʾ seems to be derived from the Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary listed in the AC and MS Diyarbakır 22.

In a monumental article by Patricia Crone and Adam Silverstein entitled “The

Ancient Near East and Islam: the Case of Lot Casting,” the authors conclude their historical survey by stating:

Lotcasting as an official procedure provides us with a striking example of a connection between ancient Near Eastern and Islamic culture, with a typically uneven

distribution of documentation: well attested in the cuneiform record, its only attes-

tation in Aramaic seems to be in Jewish works. This is presumably due to the loss

of the pagan Aramaic tradition rather than the disappearance of the practice, though it would help if it turned up in Syriac too. As it is, however, we do have it in Greek, and as good luck would have it, the Greek evidence comes from Petra

and Nessana, which puts us in the rare situation of having conclusive evidence for pre-Islamic Arabia. Thereafter the evidence is plentiful, but only for the time of the

73

Diyarbakır 22 f. 56r l. 25–26; Vat. Sir. 578 f. 57r l. 14–15; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 151v l. 4–6;

Mingana 553 f. 94v l. 16–17.

16

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY Prophet, the Rashidun and the Umayyads: as the Arab conquest society wanes, so

do the attestations.74

Although Petra and Nessana are indeed located in the Roman province of Arabia

(Arabia Petraea), the discovery of the Qaṭrāyīth term for lot-casting provides us with

conclusive evidence for the first time of the practice in the Arabian Peninsula proper (Arabia Magna) during the early Islamic period, in an Arabic from eastern Arabia

that would have been spoken by the local population dating back to the pre-Islamic period. The passage in the AC and DC also gives the Syriac term for this same practice (mnowathā) which provides new evidence of the existence and survival of perhaps

an earlier pagan Aramaic tradition of lot-casting in the same region among the Qaṭraye or the Syriac Christian Arabic-speaking community of Beth Qaṭraye.

Internal evidence revealing that the use of “we” in the AC is applied by the

unnamed editor to refer to himself and his fellow Qaṭraye readers is found in a gloss

on the Syriac noun for cinnamon, qūnūmūn, a noun found in the Peshitta Genesis

30:23 and glossed in the AC and DC, where it is explained as referring to storax,

which is also called stacte, or the gum of storax. It is this stacte which is then glossed by citing Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya who clarifies it to his readers as that which “we

call” asīnat: “Cinnamon: storax which is also called stacte (the gum of storax) as

Rabban said. We call it asīnat.”75 It is also possible, given the different punctuation

in the DC, that it is the anonymous author who states that “We call it asīnat.” Since the AC generally only glosses in Pahlavi and Qaṭrāyīth for the Pentateuch section,

and no Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found re-

sembling the term, there is the strong likelihood that asīnat is from the unnamed

editor’s own Arabic from eastern Arabia and that of his readers, particularly given

the fact that he directly cites Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya who, as has been demonstrated above, also generally glosses using his native Qaṭrāyīth, whenever he initiates a gloss

using the phrase “we call.”

This internal evidence is confirmed by extra-textual evidence, since this same

noun asīnat (vowelled this time) is also found in the unpublished East-Syriac Com-

mentary on the Psalms attributed to Denḥa (9th cent?) and Rabban Grigor.76 The noun

appears in the left margin of folio 64r in MS BL Or. 9354 as part of a citation from 74 75

Crone and Silverstein, The Ancient Near East 449.

Diyarbakır 22 f. 36v l. 32–33; Vat. Sir. 578 f. 25r l. 15–16; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 85r l. 11–13;

Mingana 553 f. 52v l. 17–19. 76

Cf. Ryan, Denḥa 118.

INTRODUCTION

17

Aḥūb Qaṭraya, the seventh century Syriac commentator from Beth Qaṭraye, glossing Syriac

̈ ‫ܐ‬, “stacte,” using the noun asīnat to gloss it, and specifically referring ‫ܣܛܩܛܐ‬

to it as Qaṭrāyīth: “Aḥūb: … Stacte in Qaṭrāyīth is asīnat which is an aromatic bark

that is peeled-off rind.”77

Thus, having established that the noun asīnat is indeed Qaṭrāyīth we may return

with confidence to the AC reference where Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya states “we” call

it asīnat to conclude that “we” must therefore be a reference to the Qaṭraye or in-

habitants of Beth Qaṭraye, the region where Rabban originates from and whose lan-

guage he uses to gloss vocabulary from the Bible he wishes to elucidate. If, however, we assume that the dot in the DC punctuation is correctly placed after “Rabban” then

the “we” must be the anonymous author of the DC referring to himself and his readers as Qaṭraye, or inhabitants of Beth Qaṭraye, the region from where he originates

and whose Arabic language he uses to gloss vocabulary he wishes to elucidate in the

Bible. The advantage of this older reading lies in the fact that MS BL Or. 9354 reveals

that it is Aḥūb Qaṭraya who glosses “stacte” using the Qaṭrāyīth asīnat, and the DC refers to this gloss without directly attributing it to anyone but confirming that it is Qaṭrāyīth. On the other hand the reading based on the AC would result in both Rab-

ban Gabriel and Aḥūb glossing “stacte” using the Qaṭrāyīth asīnat, which is possible

but perhaps an unlikely coincidence.

Notable in this regard is the fact that Ḥenanishoʿ bar Seroshway, cited in the

Lexicon of Bar Bahlul, when defining “stacte” in turn appears to be citing Aḥūb Qaṭraya, (erroneously transcribed as Ḥūb), who states that stacte, or the gum of sto-

rax, is known in Qaṭrāyīth as asīnāyīth.78 The latter variant, perhaps a Syriacized adjectival term with its derivational morpheme suffix, is then glossed (by Bar Bahlul) using the Arabic phrase, mīʿat al-rummān, meaning pomegranate storax. If Qaṭrāyīth asīnāyīth is derived from asīnat, as is most evidently the case, then the latter must

also be a Qaṭrāyīth term meaning stacte, as glossed by Aḥūb Qaṭraya in MS BL Or. 9354. It appears to be derived from the Syriac asīnūtā, meaning an accumulation (of

gum), or, more likely, from the Arabic homonym asīna, with a similar sense of an

accumulation of a substance into bead shapes.79 If this Qaṭrāyīth noun is Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then the final consonant /t/ (taw) in asīnat may be

conveying the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa /t/ as is occasionally the case in later Garshūnī.

77 78 79

MS BL Or. 9354, f. 64r (in margin). Bar Bahlul, Lexicon syriacum 223.

Kazimirski, Dictionnaire arabe-français 34.

18

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

The Qaṭrāyīth feminine noun ending might in fact be pronounced in this particular Arabic, hence the addition of the /t/ rather than the more commonly added Syriac

/h/ to indicate the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa. What is certain is that there is enough of a

difference in the pronunciation between the Syriac asīnūtā and Qaṭrāyīth asīnat to

warrant concluding that the latter is most probably derived from the Arabic homo-

nym. If such a reading of the pronunciation is correct, then the argument that this

unidentified gloss derives from Rabban Gabriel and Aḥūb Qaṭraya’s own native language from eastern Arabia, and that of the AC editor and DC author, is further sup-

ported by the fact that asīnat seems to be Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary listed in the AC and DC as witnessed in MS Diyarbakır 22.

To conclude, based on the above reading of the DC we can surmise that the

anonymous author uses the term “we say” to introduce lexemes that are neither Syriac nor Persian in origin, suggesting that these should in fact be identified as

Qaṭrāyīth whenever “we say” is used. Additionally, the reading provides important

evidence for arguing that the author of the DC also originates from Beth Qaṭraye. CONCLUSION: A SCHOOL OF BETH QAṬRAYE?

An interesting question remains regarding the purpose underlying glossing so many

terms from the Bible using Qaṭrāyīth. Two possible theories emerge at this stage. The first is that the unnamed editor of the AC originated from Beth Qaṭraye and that the

“School” which he refers to throughout the text was one that was headed by Rabban

Gabriel Qaṭraya perhaps in the Beth Aramaye region. The second theory, related in

part to the first, is that many of the readers of the DC and AC were possibly students

from a school originating in Beth Qaṭraye80 who would therefore have benefitted from further elucidations and glosses in their own local Arabic known as Qaṭrāyīth, a language that is also used by Aḥūb Qaṭraya and Gabriel Qaṭraya—two of the greatest Syriac exegetes of the seventh century, who both hailed from Beth Qaṭraye as their demonym clearly indicates. What this present study certainly can reveal in this

respect is that the Syriac scholars and famous authors, dating as far back as the seventh century, and identified as originating from Beth Qaṭraye, appear to have been

bilingual, speaking their native Qaṭrāyīth Arabic and studying, teaching, and author-

ing works in Syriac. More research, however, in the relevant sources must be under-

taken in future studies before any conclusive evidence of either suggested theory can

80

See Brock, Gabriel of Beth Qaṭraye 165–166.

INTRODUCTION

19

be convincingly presented. The present volume is a pioneering first step in this di-

rection.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources Bar Bahlul, Lexicon syriacum auctore Hassano bar Bahlule: Voces syriacas græcasque cum glossis syriacis et arabicis complectens, ed. R. Duval, 3 vols. Paris 1901.

Bedjan, P. (ed.), Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum: Tomus Primus, Leipzig 1890. Budge, E.A.W., The Book of Governors, 2 vols. London 1893. Chabot, J.B., Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens, Paris 1902. Ibn Ḥawqal, Abū l-Qāsim, Ṣūrat al-arḍ, Beirut 1979. Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī, Kitāb al-Jughrāfiyā, Beirut 1970. Lee, S. (ed.), Vetus Testamentum Syriace: Eos tantum libros sistens qui in canone Hebraico habentur, ordine vero, quoad fieri potuit, apud Syros usitato dispositos. In usum Ecclesiae Syrorum Malabarensium jussu Societatis Biblicae, London 1823, repr. Ktabe qadiše : d-dyatiqe ʻatiqa w-ḥa(d)ta. London: United Bible Societies, 1996. al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, ed. Charles Pellat, 7 vols. Beirut 1966–79. Scher, A. (ed.), Chronicle of Seert, tr. A. Scher et al., in Patrologia Orientalis 4.3 (1907),

213–313, 5.2 (1908), 217‒344, 7.2 (1909), 95‒203, and 13.4 (1910), 435‒639.

Secondary Sources Audo, T., Treasure of the Syriac Language, Mosul 1897. Bernard, V. and J-F. Salles, Discovery of a Christian Church at al-Qusur, Failaka (Kuwait), in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 21 (1991), 7–21.

Bonnéric, J., Al‑Quṣūr, a Christian Monastery in Failaka Island (Kuwait). An Archaeological and Historical Guide Book, Kuwait 2016.

Bowman, J., The Christian Monastery on the Island of Kharg, in Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology 2‒3 (1974–75), 49‒64.

Brock, S.P., Gabriel of Beth Qaṭraye as a Witness to Syriac Intellectual life c. 600 CE, in M. Kozah et al. (eds.), The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century, Pis-

cataway 2014, 155–169.

20

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

Brock, S.P., Gabriel Qaṭraya, in S.P. Brock et al. (eds.), The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Piscataway 2011, 171.

Brock, S.P., Syriac Writers from Beth Qatraye, in ARAM 11.1 (1999), 85–96. Brock, S.P., The History of Mar Yawnan, in M. Kozah et al. (eds.), An Anthology of Syriac Writers from Qatar in the Seventh Century, Piscataway 2015, 1–42.

Contini, R., La lingua del Bēt Qaṭrāyē, in J. Lentin and A. Lonnet (eds.), Mélanges

David Cohen: Études sur le langage, les langues, les dialectes, les littératures, offertes par ses élèves, ses collègues, ses amis, présentées à l'occasion de son quatre-vingtième

anniversaire, Paris 2003, 173–181.

Costaz, L., Dictionnaire Syriaque-Francais / Syriac-English Dictionary, Beirut 1963. Crone P. and A. Silverstein, The Ancient Near East and Islam: the Case of Lot-casting, in Journal of Semitic Studies 55 (2010/12), 423–450.

Ghirshman, R., L’île de Kharg dans le golfe Persique, in Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (1958), 261–71.

Ghirshman, R., The Island of Kharg, Tehran 1960. Hava, J.G., Arabic-English Dictionary for the Use of Students, Beirut 1899. Jastrow, M., A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London 1903.

Junker, H.F.J and B. Alavi, Persisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch, Leipzig 1965. Kazimirski, A. de B., Dictionnaire arabe-français, 2 vols. Paris 1860. Kevran, M. and F. Hiebert, Sohar pré-islamique. Note de stratigraphie, in K. Schipp-

mann, A. Herling and J-F. Salles (eds.), Golf-Archäologie, Buch am Erlbach 1991,

337–43.

King, G.R.D., A Nestorian Monastic Settlement on the Island of Ṣīr Banī Yās, Abu Dhabi: A Preliminary Report, in BSOAS 60 (1997), 221‒235.

Kiraz, G., A Functional Approach to Garshunography, in Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 7 (2019), 264–277.

Kozah, M., Abraham Qaṭraya bar Lipah’s Commentary on the Liturgical Offices, in M. Kozah et al. (eds.), An Anthology of Syriac Writers from Qatar in the Seventh Century, Piscataway 2015, 97–147.

INTRODUCTION

21

Kozah, M. et al. (eds.), An Anthology of Syriac Writers from Qatar in the Seventh Century, Piscataway 2015.

Kozah, M. et al., Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya’s Compendious Commentary on the Paradise of the Egyptian Fathers in Garshuni, Piscataway 2016.

Kozah, M., Ishoʿyahb III of Adiabene’s Letters to the Qataris, in M. Kozah et al. (eds.), An Anthology of Syriac Writers from Qatar in the Seventh Century, Piscataway 2015, 43–88.

Kozah, M., Preface to Mar Shemʿūn’s Law Book by an Anonymous Monk from Beth Qaṭraye, in M. Kozah et al. (eds.), An Anthology of Syriac Writers from Qatar in the Seventh Century, Piscataway 2015, 147–155.

Kozah, M., The Fourth Part of Isaac of Nineveh’s Ascetical Homilies in Garshuni, in A. Abu-Husayn et al. (eds.), In the House of Understanding. Histories in Memory of

Kamal S. Salibi, Beirut 2017, 459–462.

Kozah, M. et al. (eds.), The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century, Piscataway 2014.

Lane, E.W. and S. Lane-Poole, An Arabic-English Lexicon, London 1863. Langfeldt, J.A., Recently Discovered Early Christian Monuments in Northeastern Arabia, in Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 5 (1994), 32‒60.

Levene, A., The Early Syriac Fathers on Genesis from a Syriac Ms. on the Pentateuch in the Mingana Collection, London 1951.

MacKenzie, D.N., A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary, London 1986. Manna, Y.A., Chaldean Arabic Dictionary, Beirut 1975. Mingana, A., The Early Spread of Christianity in India, Manchester 1926. Payne, R., Monks, Dinars and Date Palms: Hagiographical Production and the Ex-

pansion of Monastic Institutions in the Early Islamic Persian Gulf, in Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 22 (2011), 97‒111.

Payne Smith, J., A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, Oxford 1903. Potts, D.T., Kish Island, in Encyclopædia Iranica. Potts, D.T., The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, 2 vols. Oxford 1992.

22

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

Romeny, B., Syriac Biblical Interpretation from Qatar: Ahob of Qatar, in M. Kozah et al. (eds.), The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century, Piscataway 2014,

133–155.

Ryan, S.D., Denḥa, in S.P. Brock et al. (eds.), The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Piscataway 2011, 118.

Shahîd, I., The Martyrs of Najrân: New Documents, Subsidia hagiographica 49, Brussels 1971.

Sokoloff, M., A Syriac Lexicon, Winona Lake 2009. Steve, M.-J., L’île de Kharg: une page de l’histoire du Golfe Persique et du monachisme oriental, Neuchâtel 2003.

Van den Eynde, C., Commentaire d’Išo‘dad de Merv sur l’Ancient Testament, II: Exode– Deutéronome, in CSCO 176, 179, Syr. 80–81 Louvain 1958, x.

Van Rompay, L., A Hitherto Unknown Nestorian Commentary on Genesis and Exodus 1–9, 32 in the Syriac Ms (olim) Diarbekir 22, in Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 5

(1974), 53–78.

Van Rompay, L., Bar Bahlul, Ḥasan, in S.P. Brock et al. (eds.), The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Piscataway 2011, 54.

Van Rompay, L., Beth Qaṭraye, in S.P. Brock et al. (eds.), The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Piscataway 2011, 72–73.

Van Rompay, L., Le commentaire sur Genèse–Exode 9,32 du manuscrit (olim) Diyarbakir 22, in CSCO 483–484, Syr. 205–206 Louvain 1986.

Wood, P., The Chronicle of Seert: Christian Historical Imagination in Late Antique Iraq, Oxford 2013.

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH MARIO KOZAH

QATAR UNIVERSITY

‫ ܫܘܢ‬shūn waterskin (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 15

r

l. 15; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 26r l. 8.

‫ܘܓܡܪܘ ̈ܡܝܐ ܡܢ ܪܩܒܐ‬ ̈ ܳ ܰ ܳ ܰ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ ܪܩܒܐ‬raqbā leather bottle, ‫ ܪܩܒܐ ܕܡܝܐ‬skin of water

Genesis 21:15 =

(J. Payne Smith, 549); leather bottle (Costaz, 352); water skin (Sokoloff, 1488);

̄ ‫ ܒܪ‬.‫ܒܨ ̄ اداوة‬ ̈ ‫ܕܡܝܐ ̄ܗ ܓܘܕܐ‬ ̈ ‫ ܪܩܒܐ‬.‫ܣܪܘ شكوة ا��اء واقول ركوة ا��اء‬ .‫ܕܡܝܐ ܕܗܘ ܙܩܐ‬

(Bar Bahlul, 1915–1916). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 15r l. 14; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 26r l. 6. Ṭayyiʾ.

‫ ܡܫܟ‬mshk waterskin (Kozah); cf. ‫ ܶܡܫܟܐ‬meshkā a skin (Bar Bahlul,

1171); a skin (Sokoloff, 846–847). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 15r l. 15; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 26r l. 7.

⟦Ar. ‫ جونَة‬pl. ‫ جُو َن‬jūna pl. juwan small leather scent-bag, jar smeared with

tar (Hava, 101); receptacle for bottles or the like (E.W. Lane, 491).

Ar. ّ‫ شَن‬pl. ‫ شِنان‬shann pl. shinān a skin, a water-skin, a small water skin, any vessel made of skin (E.W. Lane, 1602).⟧ Transcription

̈ ‫ ܐܝܟ ܗܢܝܢ ܕܬܠܝܢ ܛ�ܝ̈ܐ‬.‫ܰܪܩܒܐ‬ ‫ ܘܩܛ�ܝܐ ܕܝܢ ܫܘܢ‬.‫ܕܛܝܝܐ ܕܩܪܝܢ ܠܗܝܢ ܡܫܟ‬

A “waterskin” like those which the boys of Ṭayyiʾ carry and which they call mshk,

and the Qataris call shūn. Analysis

The Syriac noun for leather bottle or water skin, raqbā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis 21:15 and in the AC, where it is explained as being similar 23

24

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY to what the boys of the tribe of Ṭayyiʾ carry, then glossed as mshk in their

language, followed by the Qaṭrāyīth lexical counterpart shūn. The Qaṭrāyīth

gloss is not found in the DC and must, therefore, have been added by the

unnamed editor of the AC. Notable is the fact that in the Lexicon of Bar Bahlul meshkā is defined as a skin and, therefore, appears to be the same

noun as mshk used by the boys of Ṭayyiʾ to refer to a water skin. The AC is early and geographically proximal enough for this reference to the language

of Ṭayyiʾ to possibly be the actual dialect of that specific tribe, located north-

west of Beth Qaṭraye, rather than simply a generic term for Arabs. In any

case, the Ṭayyiʾ noun mshk is most likely a loanword from the Syriac meshkā rather than the Arabic cognate shakwa (Bar Bahlul, 1915–1916; E.W. Lane,

1589), defined by Lane as a small skin for water or milk. Since no Pahlavi

gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found resembling

the Qaṭrāyīth noun shūn, this leaves open the strong possibility that the Arabic jūna pl. juwan, meaning a small leather receptacle for bottles or the like,

may very well be the source of shūn. If, therefore, the Qaṭrāyīth term is Arabic

transliterated using Syriac letters, then shūn would be reflecting the local Arabic from Eastern Arabia where the voiceless alveo-palatal fricative /sh/

replaces the jīm /j/ in the Classical Arabic jūna pl. juwan. This type of dissimilation is a known phonological process in Arabic, leading to the conclu-

sion that the Qaṭrāyīth noun shūn is a local form of the Classical Arabic jūna

pl. juwan and, therefore, has an Arabic derivation rather than a Syriac or Pahlavi one. It may also simply be an early orthographic device for rendering

the postalveolar affricate /dʒ/ using the Syriac script. More likely, however, is that the Qaṭrāyīth noun shūn is derived from the Arabic noun shann which

carries exactly the same definition of “waterskin.” Furthermore, this noun is

still used in modern Gulf dialects (shinn) to refer to the skin vessel used to produce date molasses. The gloss also provides an interesting clue about the

relationship between Qaṭrāyīth and the language of Ṭayyiʾ, in that the latter

does not appear to be a reference to the Classical Arabic language as would

be expected. Notable in this regard is the fact that the Ṭayyiʾ noun mshk most

likely derives from the Syriac, whereas the noun shūn in Qaṭrāyīth does ap-

pear to be the same as the Classical Arabic.

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

25

Images

Mingana 553 f. 15r l. 14–15.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 26r l. 6–8.

‫ ܐܬܠ\ܐܣܠ‬atal / asl tamarisk trees (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 15 Sir. 502 f. 26 l. 12; Diyarbakır 22 f. 18 l. 26. r

r

r

l. 18; Vat.

‫ܘܐܪܡܝܬܗ ܠܛܠܝܐ ܬܚܝܬ ܚܕ ܡܢ ܺܣ ̈ܝ ܶܚܐ‬ ܳ ‫ ܺܣ‬sīḥā a shrub (J. Payne Smith, 374); ArteLexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ܝܚܐ‬ ̄ ̄ ܺ misia (Sokoloff, 1000); ‫ܣܝܚܐ ܐܝܟ ܒܪ ܣܪܘ ܘܒܨ اثل اسل ليس �� ��رة ل�كن ّه حسن‬ ̄ ̈ ܺ ̈ ‫ ܺܣ‬.‫الطول والورق و يقال ܒܝܢܐ‬ ܰ ‫ܕܚܒܬܐ ܒܪܟܬܐ‬ ܰ ‫ܝܚܐ ܐܝܟ ܒܪ ܣܪܘ ܒܝܢܐ ܐܢܘܢ‬ �‫ܕܚܩ‬

Genesis 21:15 =

.‫شيح‬

(Bar Bahlul, 1340). MSS: Diyarbakır 22 f. 18r l. 24.

‫ ܺܒ ܳܝܢܐ‬bīnā tamarisk (Sokoloff, 141); ‫( ܐܝ�ܢܐ ܗܘ‬Audo, 73); ‫ܒܝ̈ܢܐ ܐܝܟ ܒܪ‬ ̄ ̈ .‫ ܒܝܢܐ ܒܡܡ�� ܕܝܠܢ ܒܢܝ ܛܪܝܗܢ ا��ثل‬.‫( ܣܪܘ الثيل زعم واقول ان ّه ا��ثل‬Bar

Syr.

Bahlul, 384). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 15r l. 18; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 26r l. 11; Diyar-

bakır 22 f. 18r l. 26.

َ or tamarisk (E.W. Lane, 21); ⟦Ar. ‫ أ� ث ْل‬athl a kind of tree, a species of the ‫ط ْرﻓَﺎء‬ tamarisk (Hava, 3); tamaris (Kazimirski, 11).⟧

Transcription

�‫ ܐ‬.‫ ܗܢܐ ܕܐܦܢ ܦܐ�ܐ � ܡܝܬܐ‬.‫ ܐܬܠ\ ܐܣܠ‬.‫ ܗ‬.‫ܪܒܢ ܕܝܢ ܺܒ ܳܝܢܐ ̇ܐܡܪ ܕܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬ .‫ܫܦܝܪ ܛܠܗ‬

However, Rabban states that it (sīḥā) is the tamarisk, that is to say: asl/atal, which provides good shade despite not bearing fruit.

26

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY Analysis The Syriac term for a shrub, sīḥā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis 21:15

and in the DC, where it is glossed citing Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya who states

that the shrub referred to in this verse is in fact the bīnā, or tamarisk, using

the unidentified noun asl/atal to clarify it to his readers. Given that the DC

generally only glosses in Pahlavi and Qaṭrāyīth for the Pentateuch section, and no Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be

found resembling the unidentified noun, there is the strong likelihood that

asl/atal is from the anonymous author’s local Arabic from Eastern Arabia and those of his readers, particularly given the fact that he directly cites Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya who also generally glosses using his native

Qaṭrāyīth. Notable is the fact that Ḥenanishoʿ bar Seroshway (ca. 900), cited

in the Lexicon of Bar Bahlul, and well known for his reliance on the DC,

clearly relies on Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya’s gloss here, but conflates the defi-

nitions of both bīnā and sīḥā as meaning tamarisk. Furthermore, bar Seroshway transliterates Rabban’s Qaṭrāyīth into Arabic as asl/athl (not atal as wit-

nessed in the AC), following the DC (MS Diyarbakır 22), thereby proposing

in athl an Arabic derivation of the vernacular term. If this is indeed a Qaṭrāyīth noun meaning tamarisk, then it appears to be derived, as bar Se-

roshway implies, from the Arabic athl used to signify the tamarisk. Further

extra-textual supporting evidence that this Qaṭrāyīth noun derives from the

Arabic of the Arabian Peninsula region is found in Letter 2 of the Syriac

Himyarite letters (L2 xxii.3, see Shahîd, The Martyrs of Najrân 90), where it

appears written in Syriac script as

‫ܐܬܐܠܗ‬, corresponding to Arabic athala, “a

tamarisk.” The final /a/ vowel of the Arabic noun has been transliterated not by the phonetic but by the graphical equivalent of the tāʾ marbūṭa /t/ ending which is characteristic of later Garshūnī (using Syriac /h/ to indicate the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa) and suggests that the dating of the Syriac Himyarite

letters may be no earlier than the eighth century (the period in which the DC was composed). If, furthermore, this Qaṭrāyīth gloss is Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then the noun asl/atal would be the local Arabic form of the Classical Arabic athl, where the dental stop /t/ in the Qaṭrāyīth

atal or the alveolar fricative /s/ in asl found in the DC (MS Diyarbakır 22),

both suggest a degree of Syriac influence on the pronunciation, or an Arabic where the /t/ or /s/ pronunciation rather than the inter-dental fricative /th/

features. Alternatively, the letter taw in atal may simply be indicating the

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

27

Classical Arabic inter-dental fricative /th/, as it can do in later Garshūnī, in which case the Qaṭrāyīth lexeme would be pronounced exactly the same as

the Classical Arabic athl, differing perhaps only in the possible addition of a

short /a/ vowel. The likelihood that this unidentified gloss is from the

Qaṭrāyīth of Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya and those of the DC readers is further

supported by the fact that asl / atal seems to be derived from the Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary. Images

Mingana 553 f. 15r l. 17–19.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 26r l. 11–12.

Diyarbakır 22 f. 18r l. 25–26.

̇ ‫ܕܐܝܛܗ‬ dāyṭah light veil (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 16 l. 4.

v

l. 13; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 28v

ܰ ‫ܘܢܣܒܬ ܐܪܕܝܕܐ‬ .‫ܘܐܬܟܣܝܬ‬ ̣ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ ܐܪܕܝܕܐ‬،‫ ܪܕܝܕܐ‬rdhīdhā, ardīdhā bridal veil, square

Genesis 24:65 =

veil of transparent stuff gathered at the top (J. Payne Smith, 530); light veil

̈ ‫ܚܛܡܬܐ ܐܝܟ ̇ܗܝ‬ ‫ܕܡܪܛܘܛܐ ܡܕܡ ܡܪܒܥܐ ܕܐܝܬ ܒܪܫܗ‬ ̄‫ ܪܕܝܕܝ ܐܝܟ ܒܪ ܣܪܘ‬.‫ܕܒܟܬܒܐ ܕܢܣܒܬ ܪܕܝܕܐ ܘܐܬܟܣܝܬ ا��داء وا���ار وا��عجر او ا��ار‬

(Sokoloff, 1438);

.‫( رداي‬Bar Bahlul, 1875). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 16v l. 12; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 28v

l. 2.

‫ ܪܐܢܙܓ‬rānzg light veil (Kozah); cf. rāzīg secret (D.N. MacKenzie, 71). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 16 l. 13; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 28 l. 3. [‫ = ܕܐܢܕܓ‬Diyarbakır

Per.

22 f. 19r l. 2.]

v

v

28

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY ⟦Ar. ‫ ر َيْطَة‬rayṭa any [covering of the body such as is called] ‫ م ُ� َ�ءة‬not of two

pieces joined together, but a single piece, all one web: it is said by Az. to be, without exception, white: or it signifies also, sometimes, any garment, or piece of cloth, that is thin and soft (E.W. Lane, 1200).⟧ Transcription

̇ ‫ܪܕܝܕܐ ܩܪܐ‬ ݂‫ܠܗܘ ܡܐܢܐ ܩܛܝܢܐ ܘܩܨܝܦܐ ܐܝܟ ܪܐܢܙܓ ܐܘ ܡܕܡ ܕܐܝܟ ܗܟܢ‬ ̇.‫ܩܛܪܐܝܬ ܕܝܢ ܕܐܝܛܗ‬

Scripture calls “veil” that thin and tenuous garment such as the rānzg or something similar. In Qaṭrāyīth it is the dāyṭah. Analysis The Syriac name for light veil, ardīdhā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis

24:65 and in the AC as the variant rdhīdhā, where it is first glossed using the

unidentified lexeme rānzg, followed by the Qaṭrāyīth noun dāyṭah. The

Qaṭrāyīth gloss is not found in the DC and must, therefore, have been added

by the unnamed editor of the AC. Given that the AC generally only glosses in Pahlavi and Qaṭrāyīth for the Pentateuch section, and the Qaṭrāyīth noun

is explicitly cited in this gloss, there is the strong likelihood that rānzg is the

Pahlavi rāzīg, defined in MacKenzie as secret or covert. The Qaṭrāyīth dāyṭah, on the other hand, appears to be derived from the Arabic rayṭa, signifying

any garment, or piece of cloth, that is thin and soft. This definition in Lane

correlates almost exactly with the description of the artefact in the AC gloss as being thin and tenuous. If, furthermore, this Qaṭrāyīth gloss is Arabic

transliterated using Syriac letters, then the noun dāyṭah would be the local

Arabic form of the Classical Arabic rayṭa, where the diacritical dot has been

erroneously added below the Syriac consonant /d/ (dolath) rather above /r/ (rīsh) for the Qaṭrāyīth, suggesting a simple scribal error or that the copyist may not have recognized the Arabic origin of the noun. This proposition is

given further credibility in the very same gloss given that the Pahlavi rānzg

in MSS Mingana 553 and Vat. Sir. 502 appears as dāndg in MS Diyarbakır

22. Here too it seems that an error resulting from the copyist’s inability to

recognize the noun in Pahlavi leads to the diacritical dot being erroneously placed below rather than above the first consonant giving Syriac /d/, while

with the fourth consonant an unnecessary diacritical mark is also placed below giving Syriac /d/, whereas one should not have been added at all since

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

29

this is the Syriac /z/ (zayn). If this hypothesis is correct then the Qaṭrāyīth

noun would be pronounced exactly the same as the Classical Arabic rayṭa,

differing perhaps only with the shortening of the /a/ vowel in the latter. Notable also is the fact that the final /a/ vowel of the Arabic noun rayṭa has

been transliterated not by the phonetic but by the graphical equivalent of the tāʾ marbūṭa /t/ ending, characteristic of later Garshūnī which commonly

uses Syriac /h/ to indicate the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa, and implies a knowledge

of written Arabic. Once again we see evidence that the unnamed editor’s Arabic from Eastern Arabia and those of his readers naturally contains lex-

emes that are mainly derived from Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with

Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary. Images

Mingana 553 f. 16v l. 12–13.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 28v l. 2–4.

ܰ ‫ ܐ ܰܕܡ‬adam /adem Edom, red (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 17 29 l. 3; Diyarbakır 22 f. 19 l. 28. v

r

r

l. 17; Vat. Sir. 502 f.

.‫ܡܛܠ ܗܢܐ ܩܪܐ ܫܡܗ ܐܕܘܡ‬ ܰ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ ܐܕܘܡ‬adhūm Edom, red, red earth

Genesis 25:30 =

‫العيص ومعناه‬

‫( ا���رة و يقال ا��رض ا���راء‬Bar Bahlul, 35). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 17r l. 17; Vat.

Sir. 502 f. 29v l. 3; Diyarbakır 22 f. 19r l. 27.

⟦Ar. ُ ‫ آدَم‬ādam tawny, dark-complexioned ‫( ا��ر ال� ّ�ن‬E.W. Lane, 37); brown (Hava, 5); bruni, fauve, tirant sur le rouge (Kazimirski, 19).⟧

Transcription

ܰ ‫ܐܕܘܡ ܩܛܪܐܝܬ ܐ ܰܕܡ‬

30

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY Adhūm (Edom) in Qaṭrāyīth is Adem / Adam. (Mingana 553 f. 17r l. 17; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 29v l. 3).

‫ ܐܝܟ ܐܢܫ ܢܐܡܪ‬.‫ ܕܡܝܐ ܕܗܘ ܝܥܩܘܒ ܣܡ ܠܗ ܫܡܐ ܗܢܐ‬.‫ܐܬܩܪܝ ܫܡܗ ܐܕܘܡ‬ .‫ܩܛܪܐܝܬ ܐܕܡ‬

His name was called Adhūm (Edom). It is probable that Jacob himself gave him this name, as one would say in Qaṭrāyīth Adam. (Diyarbakır 22 f. 19r l. 27– 28).

Analysis The Syriac term for Edom or the colour red, adhūm, is given in both the

Peshitta Genesis 25:30 and in the DC, where it is glossed using only the

Qaṭrāyīth cognate adam / adem. No Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi

lexical counterpart be found resembling the Qaṭrāyīth term, leaving open the

possibility that the Arabic ādam, meaning Adam, or tawny/reddish in colour,

may very well be the source of Qaṭrāyīth adam. If, furthermore, this Qaṭrāyīth

noun is in fact Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then adam would be

the local Arabic form of the Classical Arabic ādam, differing perhaps only

with the lengthening of the first /a/ vowel in the latter. It is important to

note at this early point that the variation in the vowelling of the Qaṭrāyīth

vocabulary in the AC manuscripts is often the result of the copyists’ discrepancies, or their inability to recognize the Arabic or Pahlavi origin of the

Qaṭrāyīth lexemes they are transcribing. Once again there is evidence here

that the Qaṭrāyīth of the anonymous author and of his readers contains lex-

emes that are mainly derived from the Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with the Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary found. In this case the DC gloss is highlighting the fact that the pronunciation of the name Edom in Qaṭrāyīth differs from

the Syriac, leaving the Classical Arabic vowelling as most closely resembling the pronunciation of this Arabic homonym, particularly in the light of the

vowels that have been added to this transliterated noun in the copy of MS Vat. Sir. 502 f. 29v l. 3. Images

Mingana 553 f. 17r l. 17.

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

31

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 29v l. 3.

Diyarbakır 22 f. 19r l. 27–28.

ܰ ‫ ܰܠ‬lamṣat name of an eye disease that causes tears (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 ‫ܡܨܬ‬ f. 18v l. 28; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 32r l. 14; Diyarbakır 22 f. 20r l. 21.

̈ ‫ܢܝܗ ܕܠܝܐ �ܟܝܟܢ‬ ̇ ̈‫ܘܥܝ‬ .‫ܗܘܝ‬ ܶ ̈ ܶ̈ ܶ ܳ ܶ ܶ ܶ ܶ ܶ̈ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ �ܡ� ܐ‬remṣe ‫ ܕܡ� ܐ‬demṣe ‫ ܨܡ� ܐ‬ṣemṣe ‫ ܛܝܛܐ‬ṭīṭe ‫ܡ�ܥܐ‬ melʿā rheum that collects in corner of eyes (Sokoloff, 1475, 1293, 526, 774); ܶ ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈ ‫( ܕܡ�ܐ ]�ܡ�ܐ[ ܘܨܡ�ܐ ܘܡܠܥܐ ܚܕ ܐܢܘܢ ܘܐܝܬܝܗܘܢ ܛܝܛܐ � َ� َص رَم َص العيون‬Bar Genesis 29:17 =

Bahlul, 582, 1671).

⟦Ar. ‫ رَم َص‬ramaṣ, ‫ � َ� َص‬ghamaṣ filth or white filth etc. that collects or

concretes in the inner corner of the eye: if fluid it is called ‫( � َ� َص‬E.W. Lane, 1156).⟧

Transcription

̈ ̇ ̈‫ܳܗ ̇ܝ ܕܥܝ‬ ‫ܡܕܡܥܢ ܠܡ ܕܡܝܐ ܕܟܐܒܐ ܡܕܡ ܐܝܬ ܗܘܐ‬ ‫ܢܝܗ ܕܠܝܐ �ܟܝܟܢ܆ ̄ܗ܆‬ ܰ ‫ܒܗܝܢ ܩܛܪܐܝܬ ܰܠ‬ .‫ܡܨܬ‬

The words “Leah’s eyes were weak,” that is to say: they were tearful. Namely, it is probable that they had some disease in them, in Qaṭrāyīth lamṣat. (Mingana 553 f. 18v; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 32r).

̈ ̇ ̈‫ܳܗ ̇ܝ ܕܝܢ ܕܥܝ‬ ‫ ܕܡܝܐ ܕܟܐܒܐ ܡܕܡ ܐܝܬ‬.‫ܡܕܡܥܢ ܗܘܝ‬ .‫ ܗܢܘ‬.‫ܢܝܗ ܕܠܝܐ �ܟܝܟܢ‬ .‫ܠܗܝܢ ܐܝܟ ܕܐܢܫ ܢܐܡܪ ܩܛܪܐܝܬ ܰܠܡܨܬ‬

The words “Leah’s eyes were weak,” that is to say: they were tearful. It is probable that they had some disease, as one would say in Qaṭrāyīth lamṣat. (Diyarbakır 22 f. 20r). Analysis

The Syriac name for a particular eye disease that produces tears does not

actually appear in the Peshitta Genesis 29:17 and in the DC. It is in the DC

that Leah’s condition is diagnosed in this way and a Qaṭrāyīth name for this

32

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY disease is given as lamṣat. No Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found resembling the Qaṭrāyīth term, leaving open the

possibility that the Arabic ghamaṣ, meaning a white fluid that collects in the

inner corner of the eye, may very well be the source of Qaṭrāyīth lamṣat. If,

furthermore, this Qaṭrāyīth noun is in fact Arabic transliterated using Syriac

letters, then lamṣat would be the local Arabic form of the Classical Arabic

ghamaṣ, where the first consonant Syriac /l/ (lomad = ‫ )ܠ‬has been errone-

ously transcribed and should be the similarly written but shorter Syriac /ʿ/

(ʿé = ‫)ܥ‬. If this hypothesis is correct then the Syriac /ʿ/ may in fact be

conveying the Arabic consonant /gh/ (ghayn) as is occasionally the case in later Garshūnī. The final consonant Syriac /t/ (taw) in lamṣat may be con-

veying the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa /t/ as is also occasionally the case in later Garshūnī. The Qaṭrāyīth feminine noun ending might in fact be pronounced

in this particular vernacular, hence the addition of the /t/ rather than the

more commonly added Syriac /h/ to indicate the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa. The

Qaṭrāyīth noun would consequently be read ghamṣat, referring to a single case of this particular eye disease known in Classical Arabic as ghamaṣ. If such a reading is correct then this is further evidence that the Qaṭrāyīth of

the anonymous author and those of his readers contains lexemes that are mainly derived from Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary.

Images

Mingana 553 f. 18v l. 27–28.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 32r l. 12–14.

Diyarbakır 22 f. 20r l. 20–21.

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

33

‫ ܐܓܝܐܠ‬agayāl watch-tower (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 20 f. 34 l. 3. v

.‫ ܢܚܙܐ ܡܪܝܐ ܒܝܢܝ ܘܠܟ‬.‫ ܕܐܡܪ‬.‫ܘܕܘܩܐ‬ ܰ Counterparts: Syr. ‫ ܕܘܩܐ‬dawqā watch-tower,

r

l. 21; Vat. Sir. 502

Genesis 31:49 = Lexical

look-out (J. Payne

Smith, 87); observatory, terrace (Costaz, 61); lookout, watch-tower

̈ .‫ ܕܩ ܚܙܐ‬.‫راصد رقيب د��بان‬ ̈ ‫ܠܒܥܠܕܒܒܐ‬ ‫ܕܘܩܐ ܢܛܘ�ܐ ܕܚܝܪܝܢ‬ ‫ ܕܘܩ ܕܘܩܐ‬.‫( ا����بان‬Bar Bahlul, 546). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 20 l.

(Sokoloff, 286);

.‫ا�ّ �ذ د��بان‬

r

21; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 34v l. 3. Syr.

ܶ ܶ �‫ ܐܓ‬eghle to reveal, uncover, make visible ‫( اظهر اكشف اب�ّن‬Bar Bahlul, 28).

⟦Ar. �َّ �َ � jallā to make clear, unobscured, exposed to view, displayed, laid open, disclosed or uncovered (E.W. Lane, 446).⟧

Transcription

Watch-tower in Qaṭrāyīth is agayāl.

‫ܕܘܩܐ ܩܛܪܐܝܬ ܐܓܝܐܠ‬

Analysis The Syriac term for watch-tower, dawqā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis

31:49 and in the AC where it is glossed using the Qaṭrāyīth noun agayāl. The

Qaṭrāyīth gloss is not found in the DC and must, therefore, have been added

by the unnamed editor of the AC. No Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a

Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found resembling the Qaṭrāyīth term for watch-tower, leaving open the possibility that the Syriac verb eghle, meaning

to reveal or uncover, or the Arabic verb jallā, with the sense of making clear or uncovered, may very well be the source of agayāl. Given that this lexeme is most likely a noun glossing the Syriac dawqā, then there is a strong possi-

bility that the initial olaf in agayāl is either the vernacular form of the Arabic definite article or a shortened Arabic definite article al-, a common feature

in the Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary listed. If this Qaṭrāyīth noun is, therefore, Arabic

transliterated using Syriac letters, then it may very well be a noun of intensity (faʿʿāl) used to denote a machine or instrument that performs a specific

task, and derived from the Arabic second form verb jallā. In the case of this

Arabic noun from Eastern Arabia that task would be exposing a region to view, as is the function of a watch-tower. If such a reading is correct then

this Qaṭrāyīth noun of instrument, not found in Classical Arabic, would be

34

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY pronounced with a doubling of the Syriac yūdh /y/ for intensification, and with the second and third radicals of jallā undergoing metathesis, to produce

the proposed pronunciation agayyāl. The velar plosive /g/ in the Qaṭrāyīth

noun suggests a degree of Syriac influence on the pronunciation, or a local Arabic where the /g/ pronunciation features. Alternatively, the Syriac letter

gomal may simply be indicating the Classical Arabic jīm /j/, as it generally

does in later Garshūnī. This transliterated noun, added only in the AC, may

then provide further evidence that the Qaṭrāyīth of the unnamed editor and

those of his readers contains idiosyncratic vocabulary derived from Arabic roots.

Images

Mingana 553 f. 20r l. 21.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 34v l. 3.

ܰ anawah dislocation (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 20 ‫ܐܢܘ ̇ܗ‬ l. 5.

v

l. 27; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35v

‫ ܘܫܢܬ ܚܪܘܬܗ ܕܝܥܩܘܒ‬.‫ܘܩܪܒ ܠܚܪܘܬܗ‬ ܳ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ ܫܢܐ‬shnā to be altered, displaced, dislocated (J.

Genesis 32:25 =

Payne Smith, 586); to go away, leave, recede, retreat (Sokoloff, 1579); to go away, leave, change, be dislocated (Costaz, 374); .‫اغ� ِب‬

̄ ‫ܣܪܘ‬ ‫( ܐܝܟ ܒܪ‬Bar

Bahlul, 1991). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 20v l. 26; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35v l. 4.

⟦Ar. ‫ نَو َى‬nawā ‫ ن َِّية‬niyya a distant or remote thing (E.W. Lane, 3040); to be

distanced, remote, to remove oneself (Kazimirski, 1374); to go off, be remote from (also ‫ ن َّيِة‬niyya) (Hava, 802).⟧

Transcription

.[‫ ܐܝܟ ܐܢܫ ܢܐܡܪ ܬܢܘܬ ]ܬܢܒܬ‬.‫ܳܗ ̇ܝ ܕܫܢܬ ܚܪܘܬܗ܆ ̄ܗ܆ ܫܢܝܬ ܶܡܢܶܗ ܚܝܘܬܐ‬ ܰ ‫ܩܛܪܐܝܬ ܕܝܢ‬ .‫ܐܢܘ ̇ܗ‬

The words “his hip joint was dislocated,” that is to say: life was withdrawn from it, as one would say “it grew numb.” In Qaṭrāyīth it is anawah.

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

35

Analysis The Syriac verb to be dislocated, shnā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis 32:25 and in the AC, where it is glossed using the Qaṭrāyīth anawah. The

Qaṭrāyīth gloss is not found in the DC and must, therefore, have been added

by the unnamed editor of the AC. No Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found resembling the Qaṭrāyīth term for dis-

location, leaving open the possibility that the Arabic verb nawā, with the

sense of to be removed or remote from, and its derivative noun niyya, may

well be the source of anawah. If the latter Arabic root is taken as a starting

point, then it is likely that the initial olaf in anawah is either the vernacular

form of the Arabic definite article or a shortened Arabic definite article al-,

a common feature in the Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary listed, added to the feminine

form nawah, the Arabic vernacular form of Arabic niyya or a verbal noun

from the Arabic root nawā, and with the consequent sense of dislocation or the dislocated. If this Qaṭrāyīth noun is, therefore, Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then the final letter /h/ in anawah may simply be indicating

the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa /t/ as it generally does in later Garshūnī. Notable in

this regard is the fact that the final /a/ vowel of the Arabic noun niyya has

been transliterated not by the phonetic but by the graphical equivalent of the tāʾ marbūṭa /t/ ending, characteristic of later Garshūnī which commonly

uses Syriac /h/ to indicate the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa, and implies a knowledge

of written Arabic. Furthermore, the initial consonant /n/ would be subject to assimilation, and thus the proposed pronunciation of this Qaṭrāyīth noun

would, therefore, be an-nawah. This reconstruction of the noun may then provide further evidence that the Qaṭrāyīth of the unnamed editor and those

of his readers contains idiosyncratic vocabulary derived from Arabic roots. Images

Mingana 553 f. 20v l. 25–27.

36

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35v l. 4–5.

‫ ܣܝܪܣ‬sīrs perineum (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 20 3; Diyarbakır 22 f. 21r l. 4.

v

l. 24; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35v l.

‫ܕܒܚܪܘܬܐ ܕܥܛܡܐ‬ ‫ܓܝ̇ܕܐ ܕܓܢܫ ̣ܝܐ‬ ̣ ܳ ܽ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ ܚܪܘܬ ܐ‬ḥrūthā upper part of the thigh, hip joint ̇ (J. Payne Smith, 156); thigh (Sokoloff, 488); .‫ܕܐܝܬܝܗ ��ج‬ ‫ܘܡܬܩܪܝܐ ܣܝܪܣ‬ ܰ ‫ ܕܘܟܬܐ ܕܩܪܝܒܐ �ܡܦܩܢܐ‬.‫ ܚܪܘܬܐ ܗܝ ܕܒܒܪ ܐܣܝܪܐ‬.‫ܚܪܘܬܐ ܬܘܒ ا��ا��ة وال�ُ�ّة‬

Genesis 32:32 =

.‫( الورك طَر َف ا��لية‬Bar Bahlul, 773). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 20v l. 23; Vat. Sir.

502 f. 35v l. 2; Diyarbakır 22 f. 21r l. 4.

ܳ ‫ ܥܶܙܩܬܐ‬ʿezqtā the seat, anus (J. Payne Smith, 409); rectum (Sokoloff, ̄ 1090); .‫( ܥܙܩܬܐ ܕܗܦܝܟܐ ܐܝܟ ܒܪ ܣܪܘ ال��م ا��نقلب‬Bar Bahlul, 1426). MSS: Syr.

Mingana 553 f. 20v l. 24; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35v l. 2; Diyarbakır 22 f. 21r l. 4.

⟦Ar. ‫ �َ�ْج‬sharj crevice, crack in a rock (Hava, 351); fente, crevasse par où

l’eau descend d’un rocher (Kazimirski, 1211); the perinaeum or part between

the anus and the testicles (E.W. Lane, 1529).⟧ Transcription

.‫ ܩܪܝܒܐ ܕܝܢ ܠܥܙܩܬܐ ̇ܗܝ ܕܡܬܩܪܝܐ ܣܝܪܣ‬.‫ܚܪܘܬܐ ܪܫ ܥܛܡܐ ܗܘ‬

The hip joint is the upper part of the thigh, located near the anus – that which is

called sīrs. Analysis

The Syriac term for the upper part of the thigh or perineum, ḥrūthā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis 32:32 and in the DC, where it is glossed using

the unidentified noun sīrs. Notable is the fact that the Lexicon of Bar Bahlul,

well known for its reliance on the DC, directly cites from this gloss when defining ḥrūthā, stating that this is called sīrs, or in Arabic sharj. Given that

the DC generally only glosses in Pahlavi and Qaṭrāyīth for the Pentateuch

section, and no Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

37

be found resembling the unidentified noun, this leaves open the strong pos-

sibility that it is a Qaṭrāyīth term derived from the Arabic noun sharj, with

the sense of the perineum, or part between the anus and the testicles. If,

therefore, the Qaṭrāyīth term is Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then sīrs would be reflecting the local Arabic from Eastern Arabia where the

fricative consonants /sh/ and /j/ in the Classical Arabic sharj are replaced in this local pronunciation with the alveolar fricative /s/, a common phonolog-

ical process, particularly between Syriac and Arabic, where velar or palatal sounds are substituted with alveolar sounds. If the term sīrs is a local form

of the Classical Arabic sharj and, therefore, has an Arabic derivation rather

than a Syriac or Pahlavi one, then there is a strong likelihood that this uni-

dentified gloss is from the Qaṭrāyīth of the anonymous author and his read-

ers, given that such Arabic derivations are the overwhelming pattern with Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary. Images

Mingana 553 f. 20v l. 23–24.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35v l. 2–3. Diyarbakır 22 f. 21r l. 4.

ܰ gyad anashī sciatic nerve (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 21 l. 2; Vat. Sir. ‫ܓܝܕ ܐܢܫ̇ ܝ‬ r

502 f. 35v l. 9.

‫ ܐܢܫ̇ ܝ‬anashī sciatica (Kozah). MS: Diyarbakır 22 f. 21 l. 8. r

‫ܕܒܚܪܘܬܐ‬ ‫ܕܓܢܫܝܐ‬ ‫ܡܛܠܗܢܐ � ܐܟܠܝܢ ܒܢ̈ܝ ܐܝܣܪܐܝܠ�ܓܝ̇ܕܐ‬ ̣ ݂ .‫ܕܥܛܡܐ ܥܕܡܐ ܠܝܘܡܢܐ‬ ܶ ܶ ‫ܓ� ܳܕ ܐ‬ ܳ gyadhā dgheneshyā the sciatic Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ܕܓܢܫܝܐ‬ ̄ nerve (J. Payne Smith, 68); ischial tendon (Sokoloff, 250); ‫ܬܘܒ ܐܝܟ ܒܪ ܣܪܘ‬

Genesis 32:32 =

38

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

ܳ ‫( ܓܝܕܐ ܕܓܢܫܝܐ‬Bar Bahlul, 484). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 20 ‫ܓ� ܳܕܐ ܕܐܢܫ‬

28; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35 l. 7. v

v

l.

⟦Ar. ‫ عِ�قُ ال َّنسَا‬ʿirq an-nasā the sciatic vein (E.W. Lane, 3033); sciatic nerve,

ْ

sciatica (Hava, 759).⟧ Transcription

ܳ ܶ ‫ܓ� ܳܕܐ‬ ‫ ܗܢܐ ܕܡܬܩܪܐ‬.‫ ܠܓܝܕܐ ̇ܗܘ ܕܒܣܬܪܗ ܕܥܛܡܐ ܩܐܡ‬.‫ܕܓܢܶܫܝܐ ܩܪܐ‬ ܰ ‫ܩܛܪܐܝܬ‬ .‫ܓܝܕ ܐܢܫ̇ ܝ‬

Scripture calls “the sciatic nerve” that sinew which is found in the posterior compartment of the thigh. In Qaṭrāyīth this is what is called gyad anashī. (Mingana 553 f. 21r l. 2; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35v l. 9).

.‫ܗܘܝܘ ̇ܗܘ ܓܝܕܐ ܕܡܢܗ ̇ܢܒܥ ܗܢܐ ܟܘܪܗܢܐ ܕܡܬܩܪܐ ܐܢܫ̇ ܝ‬

It is that sinew from which originates the ailment called anashī. (Diyarbakır 22 f. 21r l. 8). Analysis The Syriac phrase for the sciatic nerve, gyadhā dgheneshyā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis 32:32 and in the AC, where it is explained and identified

as being that sinew which is found in the posterior compartment of the thigh

(MSS Mingana 553 f. 21r l. 2; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35v l. 9), then glossed using the

Qaṭrāyīth construct phrase gyad anashī. On the other hand, in the DC, a par-

ticular ailment glossed as anashī in Qaṭrāyīth is described as originating from

this same sinew. Notable is the fact that Ḥenanishoʿ bar Seroshway, cited in

the Lexicon of Bar Bahlul, and well known for his reliance on the AC, directly draws on this gloss defining gyadhā dgheneshyā using the Qaṭrāyīth phrase

but erroneously rendering it as gyadā danash, perhaps because it does not appear in MS Diyarbakır 22 upon which he seems to rely most heavily. The

alternative dolath construct state in Syriac is used while the second, ostensi-

bly Qaṭrāyīth part, is missing its final yūdh. No Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found resembling the Qaṭrāyīth phrase,

leaving open the strong possibility that the second part of the Arabic construct phrase ʿirq an-nasā, meaning the sciatic nerve, may very well be the

source of anashī. This is supported by the fact that we find, once again, an initial olaf in anashī which, it has been argued, is either the vernacular form

of the Arabic definite article or a shortened Arabic definite article al-, and a

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

39

common feature in the Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary listed. If, therefore, the

Qaṭrāyīth phrase is Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then anashī

would be reflecting the local Arabic from Eastern Arabia where the alveolar fricative /s/ in the Classical Arabic an-nasā is replaced in this local pronunciation with the fricative consonant /sh/, a common phonological process,

particularly between Syriac/Arabic and Classical Arabic/vernaculars, where velar or palatal sounds are substituted with alveolar sounds and vice versa. Furthermore, the initial consonant /n/ would be subject to assimilation, and

thus the proposed pronunciation of this Qaṭrāyīth noun would, therefore, be

an-nashī. If this is indeed a local form of the Classical Arabic an-nasā then

the subsitution of the final long vowel /ā/ with /ī/ is not an uncommon process in Arabic vernaculars. This Qaṭrāyīth noun may then provide further

evidence that the anonymous author’s language and those of his readers contains vocabulary mainly derived from Arabic roots. Images

Mingana 553 f. 20v l. 28–f. 21r l. 1–2.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 35v l. 7–9.

Diyarbakır 22 f. 21r l. 8.

ܰ ‫ ܺܩ‬qilfat tree bark (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 22 ‫�ܦܬ‬ l. 2.

Genesis 37:25 =

v

l. 15; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 38v

̈ ̈ ‫ܘ� ܳܪܘܐ‬ ܰ ‫ܘܓܡܠܝܗܘܢ ܛܥܝܢܝܢ �ܗܛܢܐ‬ .‫ܘܒܛܡܐ‬

40

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

ܳ ܳ ‫ܩ�ܦܬܐ‬ qlaftā bark, rind, husk, peel, shells (J. ܶ ܰ ̈ Payne Smith, 507); bark, scale, shell, peel (Sokoloff, 1375); pl. ‫ ܩ�ܦܐ‬qlafe Lexical Counterparts: Syr.

rind, peel, husks, skins, shells = ‫( قُش ُور‬Bar Bahlul, 1795). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 22v l. 14; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 38v l. 1.

Syr.

‫ ܰ� ܳܪܘܐ‬ṣarwā balsam, opobalsam, mace, gum or root of a resinous tree, pine

kernels (J. Payne Smith, 484); pine fruit, cedar bark, macir (aromatic bark)

̄ ̄ ‫ ܒܨ‬.��‫��رة الصنو‬ ‫ �ܪܘܐ‬.‫ و�ي التوراة‬.‫ܥ ܩ�ܦܬܐ ܕܐܬܝܐ ܡܢ ܗܢܕܘ‬ ̄ ̄ ‫( الصنو�� ܨ‬Bar .‫ ܘܒܪ ܣܪܘ ع�ق ��رة با���ن يقال ��ا ال��ك�م و���ل �ي العطر‬.��‫حب الصنو‬ ّ (Sokoloff, 1300);

Bahlul, 1680). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 22v l. 14; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 38r l.20.

⟦Ar. ‫ قِلْف َة‬qilfa ‫ قِل ْف‬qilf tree bark, rind of pomegranate (Kazimirski, 805; Hava,

617).⟧

Transcription

ܳ ܰ ‫ ܗܢܐ ܕܐܦ ܩܪܝܢ ܠܗ ܩܛ�ܝܐ ܩ�ܦܬ‬.‫ܩ�ܦܬܐ ܕܐܬܝܐ ܡܢ ܶܗܢܕ ̇̇ܘ‬ ‫ܰ�ܪܘܐ‬

Ṣarwā is “qlaftā” (bark) that comes from India. This is also what the inhabitants of Qatar (the Qaṭraye) call qilfat. Analysis

The Syriac term for balsam or macir, ṣarwā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis 37:25 and in the AC where it is first glossed using the Syriac noun qlaftā, a more general term for bark or rind. The gloss, however, then ex-

plains that it is of the particular (aromatic) kind that comes from India, fol-

lowed by the Qaṭrāyīth noun for bark qilfat. The Qaṭrāyīth gloss is not found

in the DC and must, therefore, have been added by the unnamed editor of

the AC. Notable is the fact that the Lexicon of Bar Bahlul, well known for its

reliance on the AC, directly cites from this gloss when defining ṣarwā, stating

that this is qlaftā or bark that comes from India. No Pahlavi gloss is given,

nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found resembling the Qaṭrāyīth

term for bark, leaving open the possibility that the Arabic noun qilfa, with

the sense of tree bark, may very well be the source of qilfat. If, furthermore, this Qaṭrāyīth noun is Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then the bi-

labial stop /p/ (pé) would in fact be pronounced as the Arabic fricative /f/

(fāʾ). In addition, the final consonant Syriac /t/ (taw) in qilfat may be con-

veying the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa /t/ as is occasionally the case in later Garshūnī.

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

41

The Qaṭrāyīth feminine noun ending might in fact be pronounced in this par-

ticular Arabic dialect, hence the addition of the /t/ rather than the more commonly added Syriac /h/ to indicate the Arabic tāʾ marbūṭa. What is certain is that there is enough of a difference in the pronunciation between the

Syriac and Qaṭrāyīth to warrant glossing the former using the latter in the

AC. If such a reading of the pronunciation is correct then this is further evi-

dence that the Qaṭrāyīth of the unnamed editor and his readers contains lex-

emes that are mainly derived from Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with

the Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary listed here. Images

Mingana 553 f. 22v l. 14–15.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 38r l.20–f. 38v l. 1–2.

‫ ܐܨܘܪ\ܐ�ܪܘ‬aṣūr / aṣrū balsam (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 22 f. 38 l. 2; Diyarbakır 22 f. 21 l. 43. v

v

v

l. 16; Vat. Sir. 502

̈ ̈ ‫ܘ� ܳܪܘܐ‬ ܰ ‫ܘܓܡܠܝܗܘܢ ܛܥܝܢܝܢ �ܗܛܢܐ‬ .‫ܘܒܛܡܐ‬ ܳ ܰ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ �ܪܘܐ‬ṣarwā balsam, opobalsam, mace, gum or root

Genesis 37:25 =

of a resinous tree, pine kernels (J. Payne Smith, 484); pine fruit, cedar bark,

̄ ̄ ‫ ܒܨ‬.��‫��رة الصنو‬ ‫ܥ ܩ�ܦܬܐ ܕܐܬܝܐ ܡܢ‬ ̄ ̄ ‫ �ܪܘܐ الصنو�� ܨ‬.‫ و�ي التوراة‬.‫ܗܢܕܘ‬ ‫ ܘܒܪ ܣܪܘ ع�ق ��رة با���ن يقال ��ا ال��ك�م‬.��‫حب الصنو‬ ّ macir (aromatic bark) (Sokoloff, 1300);

.‫( و���ل �ي العطر‬Bar Bahlul, 1680);

̄ ‫�ܪܘܐ ܕܝܢ ܐܝܟ ܕܡܫܠܡܝܢ ̈ܣܓܝܐܐ ܗܢܐ ܕܩܪܝܢ ܠܗ ܐ�ܐܒܝܐ ال� َ�و‬ ‫ܐܝܬܘ ܣܛܪ ܡܢ‬ .‫( ܩ�ܦܬܐ‬Bar Bahlul, 993). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 22 l. 16; Vat. Sir. 502 f. v

38v l. 3; Diyarbakır 22 f. 21v l. 43.

42

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY Per.

‫ ܨܒܘܪ‬ṣbūr balsam (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 22

f. 38 l. 5. v

v

l. 18; Vat. Sir. 502

ُ pl. ‫ أ� صْ وِر َة‬sweet odour, vesicle of musk, small quantity of musk ⟦Ar. ‫صو َار صِوَار‬ (E.W. Lane, 1745); bag of musk, small quantity of musk, sweet odour

(Kazimirski, 1384, Hava, 401); ���‫ تنبت ��� ا��بال و‬،‫الب ُطم �ي ��رة ا��بة ا����اء‬

‫ و�مغها‬،‫ و�ي ��رة ��رها ا��بة ا����اء‬،��‫ وح��ا اخ‬،‫ والشجرة عيدا��ا خ�� ا�ى السواد‬،‫ا���ارة‬ ‫ ��مى ��و و��و‬Pistasia terebinthus L. :‫ ا�مها الع��ي‬Anacardiaceae ��‫من فصي‬ .(31‫ ص‬،����‫ا‬-‫ التاء‬:2‫ ج‬،‫⟧و�ن ودو�ن )وك�ها فارسية( )ت���ة ا��عاجم العربية �����ارت دوزي‬ Transcription

̇ ‫ܪܒܢ ܕܝܢ‬ ‫ ܘܐܝܬ ܕܐܡܪܘ ܕܡܫܚܐ‬.‫ܠܗܘ ܡܘܕܟܐ ܕܩܪܝܢܢ ܠܗ ܐܨܘܪ ܩܪܐ �ܪܘܐ‬ .‫ ܝܘܢܝܐ ܐܣܛܩܛܐ ܐܡܪ ܘܡܐܩܪ ܦܪܣܐܝܬ ܕܝܢ ܨܒܘܪ‬.‫ܕܐܣܛܘܪܟܐ ܐܝܬܘܗܝ‬

Rabban: that mixture which we call aṣūr (balsam) scripture calls “ṣarwā.” There

are those who say that it is storax ointment. The Greek (LXX) has: “perfumed oils

and macir (aromatic bark).” In Persian it is ṣbūr. (Mingana 553 f. 22v; Vat. Sir.

502 f. 38v).

̇ ‫ܪܒܢ ܕܝܢ‬ .‫ܠܗܘ ܡܘܕܟܐ ܕܩܪܝܢܢ ܠܗ ܐ�ܪܘ ܩܪܐ �ܪܘܐ‬

Rabban: that mixture which we call aṣrū (balsam) scripture calls “ṣarwā.” (Diyarbakır 22 f. 21v). Analysis

The Syriac term for balsam, ṣarwā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis 37:25

and in the AC, where it is glossed citing Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya who clarifies

it to his readers as that mixture which “we call” aṣūr, while in the DC (MS

Diyarbakır 22 f. 21v) it is given as aṣrū, using this unidentified noun. The Pah-

lavi ṣbūr could not be located but appears to be a loanword derived from

aṣūr/aṣrū. Given that the AC generally only glosses in Pahlavi and Qaṭrāyīth

for the Pentateuch section, and the Pahlavi lexical counterpart is explicitly cited in the AC gloss, there is the strong likelihood that aṣūr/aṣrū is from the

Qaṭrāyīth of the anonymous author, editor, and their readers, particularly

given the fact that they directly cite Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya who also generally glosses using his native Qaṭrāyīth, whenever he initiates a gloss using the

phrase “we call.” Notable is the fact that the Lexicon of Bar Bahlul (993) glosses the Syriac term for balsam, ṣarwā, by stating that it is what the Arabs

call aṣ-ṣarū, and that it is to be differentiated from the Syriac noun qlaftā,

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

43

meaning bark. If aṣūr/aṣrū is indeed a Qaṭrāyīth noun meaning balsam, then it appears to be derived from the Arabic aṣ-ṣarū, used in the Lexicon of Bar

Bahlul to signify balsam. This is supported by the fact that we find, once again,

an initial olaf in aṣūr/aṣrū which, it has been argued, is either the vernacular

form of the Arabic definite article or a shortened Arabic definite article al-,

and a common feature in the Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary listed. If, furthermore, this

Qaṭrāyīth gloss is Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then the noun

would be the local Arabic form of the Classical Arabic aṣ-ṣarū, where the initial consonant /ṣ/ would be subject to assimilation, and thus the proposed pronunciation of this Qaṭrāyīth noun would, therefore, also be aṣ-ṣarū in the DC,

adding a short /a/ vowel after the first consonant. If, however, the Qaṭrāyīth

noun is the variant aṣūr rather than aṣrū, which we find in the AC (MSS

Mingana 553 f. 22v and Vat. Sir. 502 f. 38v), then there is the possibility that either metathesis (reversing the /ū/ and /r/) has taken place in the Arabic vernacular from Classical Arabic aṣ-ṣarū, or that this variant derives from the Classical Arabic aṣ-ṣwār, meaning a sweet odour or a small quantity of musk.

The likelihood, then, that this unidentified gloss is from the Qaṭrāyīth of Rabban Gabriel Qaṭraya and that of the DC author and AC editor is further sup-

ported by the fact that aṣūr/aṣrū seems to be derived from the Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary. Images

Mingana 553 f. 22v l. 15–18.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 38v l. 2–5.

44

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY

Diyarbakır 22 f. 21v l. 43.

‫ ܨܫܪܢ‬ṣashran earthen bowl (Kozah). MS: Diyarbakır 22 f. 22

v

l. 30.

‫ܡܢ ̇ܣ� ܡܢ ܠܥܠ ܡܢ ܪܝܫܝ‬ ܳܰ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. �‫ ܣ‬salā a basket (J. Payne Smith, 378); basket ̄ ܳ ܳ ‫ܒܨ ̄ ܶܛ‬ (Sokoloff, 1012); ‫ ܘܐܝܟ ܒܪ ܣܪܘ‬.‫ܪ�ܢܐ ܦܬܘܪܐ ܓܕܝ� طَب َق ما��ة من خُوص‬ Genesis 40:17 =

.�ّ�‫( طَب َق س‬Bar Bahlul, 1352).

⟦Ar. ‫�� َة‬ ِ ‫ صَا‬ṣākhira earthen bowl (Hava, 382); bowl en terre (Kazimirski,

1317); a kind of earthen vessel (E.W. Lane, 1658). Ar. ‫ طِرِّ� َان‬ṭirriyān dinner-

tray (Hava, 420); panier ou rond tressé de baguettes d’osier (Kazimirski, 80);

a dish or plate (E.W. Lane, 1852).⟧ Transcription

Scripture here calls ṣashran a “basket.”

.‫ܣ� ܬܢܢ ܠܨܫܪܢ ̇ܩܪܐ‬

Analysis The Syriac term for a basket, salā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis 40:17

and in the DC (MS Diyarbakır 22), where it is glossed using the unidentified

noun ṣashran. Given that the DC generally only glosses in Pahlavi and

Qaṭrāyīth for the Pentateuch section, and no Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could

a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found resembling the unidentified noun, this

leaves open the possibility that it is a Qaṭrāyīth term that may be derived from the Arabic noun ṭirriyān, with the sense of a basket or wicker tray. If,

therefore, the Qaṭrāyīth term is Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then ṣashran would be reflecting the pronunciation of the local Arabic from

Eastern Arabia where the palatal consonant /ṭ/ in the Classical Arabic ṭirri-

yān is replaced in this local pronunciation with the consonant sequence /ṣ/

and /sh/, although this proposed phonological process is merely hypothet-

ical and not documented elsewhere. If the term ṣashran is indeed a local form

of the Classical Arabic ṭirriyān and, therefore, has an Arabic derivation rather than a Syriac or Pahlavi one, then there is a strong likelihood that this uni-

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

45

dentified gloss is from the Qaṭrāyīth of the anonymous author and his read-

ers, given the overwhelming pattern of Arabic derivations in this Qaṭrāyīth

vocabulary. Images

Diyarbakır 22 f. 22v l. 30.

‫ ܐܢܓܢܓܪ‬angangir neckchain (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 24 41 l. 11. v

v

l. 17; Vat. Sir. 502 f.

.‫ܘܐܪܡܝ ܗܡܢܝܟܐ ܕܕܗܒܐ ܒܨܘܪܗ‬ ܳ ܺ ܰ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ ܗܡܢܝܟܐ‬hamnīkhā necklace, neckchain (J. Payne

Genesis 41:42 =

Smith, 104); necklace (Sokoloff, 346); ‫( طوق‬Bar Bahlul, 638). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 24v l. 17; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 41v l. 10.

⟦Ar. ���ْ �َ� janzīr ���� ْ�ِ‫ ز‬zinjīr chain (Kazimirski, 339, Hava, 96).⟧

Transcription

ܳ ‫ܰܗ‬ .‫ ܩܛܪܐܝܬ ܐܢܓܢܓܪ‬.‫ܡܢܝܟܐ ܕܒܨܘܪܗ‬

A neckchain about his neck: in Qaṭrāyīth it is angangir. Analysis

The Syriac noun for a neckchain, hamnīkhā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis 41:42 and in the AC, where it is glossed using the Qaṭrāyīth angangir.

The Qaṭrāyīth gloss is not found in the DC and must, therefore, have been

added by the unnamed editor of the AC. No Pahlavi gloss is given, nor could a Pahlavi lexical counterpart be found resembling the Qaṭrāyīth term for neckchain, leaving open the possibility that the Arabic noun janzīr/zinjīr, a

general word for a chain, may very well be the source of angangir. Given that this lexeme is most likely a noun glossing the Syriac hamnīkhā, then there is

a strong possibility that the initial olaf /a/ and nūn /n/ in an-gangir is either

the vernacular form of the Arabic definite article or the Arabic definite article al-, which might have undergone dissimulation in the Qaṭrāyīth. If this

Qaṭrāyīth noun is, therefore, Arabic transliterated using Syriac letters, then the noun gangir would be the local Arabic vernacular form of the Classical

Arabic janzīr/zinjīr, where the velar plosive /g/ in the Qaṭrāyīth suggests a

46

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY degree of Syriac influence on the pronunciation, or an Arabic vernacular

where the /g/ pronunciation features. Alternatively, the letter gomal may simply be indicating the Classical Arabic jīm /j/, as it generally does in later

Garshūnī, in which case the Qaṭrāyīth lexeme would be pronounced almost

the same as the Classical Arabic janzīr/zinjīr, differing perhaps only in the fact that dissimulation (from /l/ to /n/ and from /z/ to /j/) rather than

metathesis (between /z/ and /j/) takes place. Although the copy of MS Mingana 553 f. 24v adds vowels to the Qaṭrāyīth noun, reading it as angangar,

the copy of MS Vat. Sir. 502 f. 41v does not add any vowels at all. The lack

of or variation in the vowelling of the Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary in the AC man-

uscripts is often the result of the copyists’ discrepancies, or their inability to

recognize the Arabic or Pahlavi origin of the Qaṭrāyīth lexemes they are tran-

scribing. In this instance, it seems justifiable to base the vowelling on the

Arabic janzīr/zinjīr, given the argument that angangir derives from it. If such a reading of the Qaṭrāyīth noun angangir is correct then this is further evi-

dence that the Qaṭrāyīth of the unnamed editor and his readers contains lex-

emes that are mainly derived from Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with

the Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary listed here. Images

Mingana 553 f. 24v l. 17.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 41v l. 10–11.

‫ ܫܓܪ‬shagar a chariot, wagon (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 25

v

l. 27; Vat. Sir. 502

f. 43 l. 11; Vat. Sir. 578 f. 1 l. 25; Diyarbakır 22 f. 23 l. 44. v

Genesis 45:19 =

̇ ‫ܘ�ܝܩܪܬܟܘܢ‬

r

r

̈ ̇ ̈‫ܥܓܠܬܐ ܠܢܫܝ‬ ̇ ‫ܗܟܢܐ ܥܒܕܘ ܕܒܪܘ‬ ‫ܟܘܢ‬ ‫ܠܟܘܢ ܡܢ ܐܪܥܐ ܕܡ�ܪܝܢ‬

̈ ̇ ‫ܘܝܗܒ‬ ‫ܦܘܡܗ ܕܦܪܥܘܢ‬ ̣ ‫ܠܗܘܢ ܝܘܣܦ ܥܓܠܬܐ ܥܠ ̣ܡܠܬ‬ ܳ ܰܳ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ ܥܓܠܬܐ‬ʿagaltā a cart, wain, wagon (J. Payne ̈ Smith, 400); chariot, wagon (Sokoloff, 1068); ‫ܬܘܩܢܐ ܡܕܡ ܡܢ ܩܝܣܐ‬ Genesis: 45:21 =

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

47

̈ ̈ ‫ ܘܣܒܠܝܢ ܒܗ ܡܐ‬.‫ܘܓܡܘܫܐ ܘܫܪ‬ ‫ܕܡܪܟܒ ܥܠ�ܓܝܓ� ܘܡܬܢܓܕ ܡܢ ܬܘ�ܐ‬ ̈ ‫( ܕܨܒܝܢ ܐܝܟ‬Audo, 201); ‫ܣܪܘ ̄ܗ‬ ̄ ̈ ‫ܐܝܟ ܒܪ‬ .‫ܘܩܝܣܐ ܘܥܒܘܪܐ ܚܨܝܕܐ ܘܫܪ‬ ‫ܟܐܦܐ‬ ̄‫ ܥܓܠܬܐ ܗ‬.���� �‫ܫܒ‬ ̈ ‫ܰܕܩܝܣܐ ̄ܗ ܒܪܕܝܘܢ ܐܝܟ ̇ܗܝ ܕܡܥܝܩܐ ܥܓܠܬܐ ܕܡܠܝܐ‬ .‫( ܠܩܛܝܩܝܢ الع��� ال�ي � ُ�� َل �ل��ا‬Bar Bahlul, 1404). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 25 l. v

26; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 43v l. 9; Vat. Sir. 578 f. 1r l. 23; Diyarbakır 22 f. 23r l. 43. Per.

‫ ܰܒܪܕܝܘܢ‬bardīyūn carriage, chariot; cf. wardyūn vehicle, carriage, chariot

(D.N. MacKenzie, 87). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 25v l. 28; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 43v l.

12; Vat. Sir. 578 f. 1r l. 25; Diyarbakır 22 f. 23r l. 45.

⟦Ar. ‫ �َ �َار‬/‫ �ِ �َار‬shajār / shijār signifies the wood [or frame-work] of the ‫ه َود َج‬ which when covered becomes a ‫ ه َود َج‬AA (says that �ِ�‫ )مَشَا‬signifies vehicles smaller than ‫ ه َوَادِج‬having the heads uncovered, also called ‫ �ُ � ُر‬of which the

sing. is ‫( �ِ �َار‬E.W. Lane, 1507–1508); small litter (Hava, 344); petite litière

(Kazimirski, 1193).⟧ Transcription

̈ ] ‫ܥܓܠܬܐ ܠܗܠܝܢ‬ ̈ ‫ܘܩܪܐ ܬܘܒ‬ ̇ ‫[ ܕܐܝܬ ܠܗܝܢ ܓܝ̈ܓ�܇ ܕܛܥ̈ܢܢ ܡܐܢ̈ܐ‬D ‫�ܗܢܝܢ‬ .‫[ ܫܓܪ‬D ‫ ܗܠܝܢ ̇ܕܩܪܝܢ ܠܗ ]ܠܗܝܢ‬.‫ ܗܠܝܢ ܕܒܬܘ�ܐ ܡܬܕܒ�ܢ‬.‫ܝܩܝ�ܐ‬ ̈ .‫ܥܓܠܬܐ ܦܪܣܐܝܬ ܒܪܕܝܘܢ‬

Scripture also calls “chariots” those that have wheels, which transport heavy

loads, are pulled by bulls, and are called shagar. Chariots in Persian: bardīyūn. Analysis The Syriac name for chariot, ʿagaltā, is given in both the Peshitta Genesis

45:19/21 and in the DC, where it is first glossed using the unidentified noun

shagar, followed by the Pahlavi lexical counterpart bardīyūn, given in Mac-

Kenzie as wardyūn, meaning carriage or chariot. Given that the DC generally

only glosses in Pahlavi and Qaṭrāyīth for the Pentateuch section, and the

Pahlavi lexical counterpart is explicitly cited in this gloss, there is the strong

likelihood that shagar is from the Qaṭrāyīth of the anonymous author and his

readers. If this is indeed a Qaṭrāyīth noun meaning chariot, then it appears

to be derived from the Arabic shajār signifying some small vehicle or litter.

If, furthermore, this Qaṭrāyīth gloss is Arabic transliterated using Syriac let-

ters, then the noun shagar would be the local Arabic vernacular form of the

Classical Arabic shajār, where the velar plosive /g/ in the Qaṭrāyīth suggests

a degree of Syriac influence on the pronunciation, or an Arabic vernacular

48

BETH QAṬRAYE: A LEXICAL AND TOPONYMICAL SURVEY where the /g/ pronunciation features. Alternatively, the letter gomal may simply be indicating the Classical Arabic jīm /j/, as it generally does in later

Garshūnī, in which case the Qaṭrāyīth lexeme would be pronounced exactly

the same as the Classical Arabic shajār, differing perhaps only with the short-

ening of the /a/ vowel. The likelihood that this unidentified gloss is from

the Qaṭrāyīth of the anonymous author and his readers is further supported

by the fact that shagar seems to be derived from the Arabic, the overwhelming pattern with Qaṭrāyīth vocabulary. Images

Mingana 553 f. 25v l. 26–28.

Vat. Sir. 502 f. 43v l. 9–12.

Vat. Sir. 578 f. 1r l. 23–25.

Diyarbakır 22 f. 23r l. 43–45.

A LEXICAL SURVEY OF QAṬRĀYĪTH

49

‫ ܰܟܢܕܘܓ‬kandūg ‫ ܰܟܢܕܝܓ‬kandīg granary, storehouse (Kozah). MSS: Mingana 553 f. 33r l. 17; Vat. Sir. 502 f. 55ʳ l. 11; Vat. Sir. 578 f. 8ʳ l. 1; Diyarbakır 22 f. 25ᵛ l. 33.

̈ ܳ ‫ܘܒܢܝܢ ܗܘܘ ܩܘ�ܝܐ ܒܝܬ‬ ̇ .‫ܩܦ ܶܣܐ ܠܦܪܥܘܢ‬ ܳ ܰ Lexical Counterparts: Syr. ‫ ܟܢܕܘܩܐ‬kanduqā