March 27, 2025 • 32 mins
🎓 Christoph Burgmer im Gespräch mit Christoph Luxenberg. Wie brisant das Thema ist, verdeutlicht dass der Autor ein Pseudonym für seine Veröffentlichungen gewählt hat. Der Koran, nach islamischer Vorstellung das gesprochene Wort Gottes, enthält zahlreiche unverständliche Stellen. Unter zu Hilfenahme sprachwissenschaftlicher Methoden und altorientalischer Sprachen gelang es Christoph Luxenberg, zahlreiche Stellen neu und verständlich zu übersetzen. Damit begründete Christoph Luxenberg die textkritische Koranforschung.
/🎓 Christoph Burgmer in conversation with Christoph Luxenberg. The fact that the author has chosen a pseudonym for his publications illustrates how controversial the topic is. The Koran, according to Islamic belief the spoken word of God, contains numerous incomprehensible passages. Using linguistic methods and ancient oriental languages, Christoph Luxenberg succeeded in translating numerous passages in a new and comprehensible way. In doing so, Christoph Luxenberg founded text-critical Koran research.
كريستوف بورغمر في حوار مع كريستوف لوكسنبرغ. وحقيقة أن المؤلف اختار اسمًا مستعارًا لمنشوراته توضح مدى إثارة الموضوع للجدل. يحتوي القرآن الكريم، الذي هو كلام الله المنطوق حسب المعتقد الإسلامي، على العديد من المقاطع غير المفهومة. باستخدام الأساليب اللغوية واللغات الشرقية القديمة، نجح كريستوف لوكسنبرغ في ترجمة العديد من المقاطع بطريقة جديدة ومفهومة. وبقيامه بذلك، أسس كريستوف لوكسنبرغ لأبحاث نقد النص القرآني.
📚 Veröffentlichungen u.a. / publications o.a.:
- Christoph Luxenberg: "Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache." Das Arabische Buch, Berlin 2000. Derzeit in der 5. Auflage im Schiler Verlag Berlin 2015.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Audioarchiv Team (00:08):
Welcome to Audio Archive, the channel for historical interviews with female writers, philosophers,
activists, and intellectuals from around the world.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
In the year 2000, a book was published in German with the cryptic title The Syro-Aramaic Reading
of the Koran (00:43):
A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran by Christoph Luxemberg.
To delve deeper into the content at this point, this is all easily understandable.
The content of the conversation with Christoph Luxemberg, literature references in the show
(01:04):
notes, followed the English-language review in the New York Times of this German and, until
then, scarcely noticed linguistic study, which caused an outcry in the Islamic world as well
as in classical Koran research in the West.
Here, someone actually dared to analyse the Koran text, hence the actual language of God, linguistically
(01:30):
and to interpret previously incomprehensible passages.
The outcry, particularly from radical Islamists, less so from Islamic linguists, the largely
formulated rejection of Luxemberg's research findings in the university disciplines of Arab
studies and Islamic studies, at least made it clear how entrenched and stagnant Western Koran
(01:57):
research is, as well as how politically instrumentalised the Koran text is in the Islamic world.
While critical biblical research has been established since the nineteenth century, Christoph
Luxemberg's publication must be understood as the beginning of critical Koran research.
(02:17):
How explosive this research is is highlighted by the fact that the author's name, Christoph
Luxemberg, is a pseudonym, a homage from the author to the great Enlightenment thinker of the
eighteenth century, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.
Who is behind the name Christoph Luxemberg remains unclear to this day.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Mr Luxemberg, your publication with the cryptic-sounding title The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the
Koran (02:46):
A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran has made quite a splash.
Worldwide, newspapers reported on your research findings, and there were sometimes heated reactions and discussions. Conferences and seminars followed.
Your book is a bestseller.
And this, despite being written and published in German and although it is extremely difficult to read and understand.
(03:12):
Why did you decide to examine the Koran using linguistic methods?
Christoph Luxemberg (03:18):
I am actually not an Islamic scholar, I am a Semitist and I had only heard that the Quran is difficult to understand.
I became interested in the language because even Arabs, for example, prominent Arabs like Jawad
(03:39):
Ali, studied the average and was a professor in Baghdad.
He wrote a ten-volume work on the history of the Arabs before Islam, and he dedicates a chapter
to the language of the Quran.
He clearly distinguishes between Arabic language and Quranic language.
(04:00):
It became clear to me that this language is understood quite differently, and I simply asked
myself the question, who could write in Arabic at that time?
For we know from a historical-linguistic perspective that the Arabic language at that time in
the seventh century was not yet a written language.
We only know of a few inscriptions, which were rather Nabataean, and were actually a kind of co-language, Aramaic Arabic.
(04:30):
But a work, a book had not yet been written at that time, so we can say that the Quran is the
first book written in Arabic.
I actually wanted to approach the language from a historical-linguistic perspective, and I was
clear that at that time Aramaic was not only the lingua franca but also the written language throughout the Near East.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
In order to properly understand their approach, it may be necessary to briefly explain how the
Arabic language is structured and what the difference is between today's Arabic language and Quranic language.
Christoph Luxemberg (05:12):
Yes, we today distinguish between colloquial language and written language.
And this written language has certainly been regarded in Oriental studies as older, thus classified
as older than other Semitic languages.
It has been classified at the level of Akkadian, about 3000 years before Christ.
(05:39):
That does not seem to be the case according to my findings, although we certainly observe archaic features in this language.
But in terms of vocabulary and semantics, it was probably quite different.
This means that this language is heavily influenced by Aramaic.
However, since the Semitic languages are sister languages, any word can be transformed into
(06:03):
an Arabic form, so that the difference can no longer be determined.
That is why this language has been considered very old in purely formal terms.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Can you give an example of how the Arabic language works, which is a consonantal language, specifically
the language of the Quran as a Semitic language?
Christoph Luxemberg (06:22):
Yes, that is of course also a problem of the writing system, because generally in Semitic languages,
only the consonants are written.
Then at some point, long before Christ, people began to use so-called vowel letters.
This includes the long U, the long I, and later also the long A.
(06:44):
Otherwise, the short vowels are not indicated.
One must therefore master the language in order to be able to read at all.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Can you give an example of a very well-known word from the Quran, for instance, of how that works?
Christoph Luxemberg (06:59):
Yes, for example, the verb 'to say' can be in the first person.
So I can say 'kultu', but it can also mean 'Kylet' she said or 'gulta' you said.
So in writing, one cannot distinguish that.
Only from the context can one recognise whether the first, second, or third person is meant.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Now you have approached the instrument of the Syro-Aramaic written tradition of the Quran.
Why was it so obvious to do this?
Christoph Luxemberg (07:36):
At first, the name of the Quran itself seemed enlightening to me, because look, Nöldicke had
recognised that this word is Syro-Aramaic.
The Arabs probably did not know this, but in Western Orientalism, it was accepted and has been acknowledged since then.
(07:58):
And that is why it was actually clear to me that the language must correspondingly be so.
I said to myself, the Quran itself is the key word to understanding its own language.
If the Quran is called that, then one must ask who the editors could have been.
The Quran refers to a Christian liturgical book.
(08:21):
This book is also recognised in the Western Church, in the Roman Church for example, and it
is called in Latin 'lectionarium', in German 'lektionar'.
It is therefore the book of readings, which means pieces of scripture, whether from the Old
or New Testament, particularly from the epistolary literature, for example, the letters of Paul,
(08:44):
which are presented in the service.
This is indeed a technical term and it refers to this book, the Koran.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Now one must still clarify, or perhaps you can make it clear again, what the significance of
the Koran is for believing Muslims.
This is something different from the Bible for Christians.
Christoph Luxemberg (09:07):
For the believing Muslim, the content of the Koran is the word of God.
This means that every word, every letter comes directly from God through revelation.
So for the believing Muslim, the content of the Koran is the revelation of God.
There is no doubt about that.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
They would not doubt that either.
Christoph Luxemberg (09:29):
I would say this is not the subject of a linguist, it belongs to the realm of faith.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Rather, they try to find out what origins the Koran has.
Christoph Luxemberg (09:42):
Yes, I mean, even if God has spoken to humanity, He must have done so in the language of the
people to make this clear to them.
For the Koran itself says that God has never sent a messenger except in the language of his
people, so that he can clarify the message to them.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Now one of the facts that is repeatedly stated is that the messages that Mohammed spread were
in the clearest and purest Arabic.
Christoph Luxemberg (10:15):
It is also repeatedly stated in the Koran that this is a clear Arabic language.
By the way, regarding Arabic, the Koran is the first book that refers to this language as Arabic.
Until then, the language was not known as the Arabic language, at least not under this designation.
(10:36):
There were Arabs, but Arabs referred to a way of life in the desert, meaning actually desert
dwellers, but these tribes, the Arab tribes, each spoke their own dialect, and the respective
dialect was named after the name of the relevant tribe.
(10:56):
So there was not a unified Arabic language; that only came about through the Koran.
Later, a grammar was established towards the end of the eighth century, and this language was of course called Arabic.
Historically, one could not imagine such a development.
This means that in Western Oriental studies, this development of Arabic, including Modern Standard Arabic, was not experienced.
(11:21):
One started relatively late to engage with this language, with this culture and, of course,
viewed it as it presented itself, namely as a strictly regulated, classical language.
One could therefore not imagine that this language developed from Aramaic.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Now, according to Islamic tradition, the written codification of the Quran is attributed to
the third rightly guided caliph, Osman, who is recognised by all Muslims as the third successor
to Mohammed in leading the Muslim community.
He is said to have collected, reviewed, and arranged the various Quranic fragments of what Mohammed
(12:10):
said and received from God a few years after Mohammed's death.
Is there any doubt about this fact, due to the investigations they have conducted, or?
Christoph Luxemberg (12:21):
Not directly doubt, no. There is a kernel of truth, as it is stated in Islamic tradition that
Othman used an original, the original of one of the Prophet's wives, that of Hafsa, and that
(12:42):
he created this canonical version based on this original Quran, and that he later ordered the
destruction of this original version, that is, the original Quran.
This naturally raises questions about why he, how he came to order the destruction of the original.
Audioarchiv Team (13:08):
We will continue with the interview shortly.
Like us if you enjoy it.
Christoph Luxemberg (13:13):
Even for a Muslim, for a devout Muslim, it is incomprehensible, as one would have thought that
the original Quran should have been preserved and especially revered.
The results show that something about this tradition is true, as the language indeed seems to
have been a Syrian language, and that they probably used the Syrian script, and that later,
(13:42):
for political reasons, they came to the consideration of transferring this script into a new
writing system, to transcribe it.
And this writing system was later called Arabic.
We have, of course, become accustomed to seeing an Arabic script in this writing, but that was not always the case.
(14:07):
It is not quite the Nabataean script, but it is the closest to the Aramaic script, let us say.
However, that this script was then called Arabic was a novelty.
Therefore, it is to be assumed that the earlier Quran, that is, the original Quran, was written
in a different writing system.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Now, it is of course difficult to draw conclusions about religious historical elements solely from linguistic studies.
From the seventh century of the emergence of the Quran, relatively little is known from the
region of Hijaz, that is, the Arabian Peninsula, where the Quran was revealed.
(14:49):
How can one use linguistic means to provide historical evidence of a religious history without
involving neighbouring disciplines such as archaeology or critical historiography?
Christoph Luxemberg (15:06):
Of course, everything is part of it, but language can explain a great deal to us.
And since this language has not been properly understood until now, it is therefore important
to start by clarifying this language.
This would help clarify not only linguistic aspects but also many religious historical aspects.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
How were the revelations of Mohammed actually recorded in the early period?
So he had a revelation, he communicated it to his community, but it must have been recorded in some form.
Was it written down, or was it memorised, very much in the ancient, late ancient sense of classical rote learning?
(15:55):
Or how was it then transmitted further?
Christoph Luxemberg (15:59):
According to Islamic tradition, it is said that some contemporaries took his words to heart, that is, memorised them.
On the other hand, it is said that his revelations were inscribed on various writing materials.
But that seems unlikely to me.
(16:21):
What is important to me is that they were written down.
But the idea that they were written by separate scribes and then collected later seems extremely difficult to me.
With such a complex text, that seems hardly credible to me.
I am more of the opinion that this demanding text was indeed written down from the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
What is the oldest textual basis, that is, the written form of the Quran that we know?
Christoph Luxemberg (16:53):
From the inscriptions, we only know this inscription on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
But this inscription does not represent a quote from the Quran.
It comes very close to the Quran.
Nevertheless, it is not a verbatim reproduction of the content of the Quran.
Otherwise, we have manuscripts from the Quran find of the Great Mosque of Sanaa.
(17:21):
They are likely to be among the oldest.
Nevertheless, we still have no historical evidence for manuscripts from the end of the seventh century.
To my knowledge, the oldest manuscripts date back to the first half of the eighth century.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Now, these manuscripts are not yet completely legible.
To this day, many parts of the Quran are relatively incomprehensible even for devout Muslims.
The exact content is unknown.
Christoph Luxemberg (17:53):
You rightly address this problem.
In these manuscripts, not only the vowel signs are indeed missing, but, which is much more serious, the so-called diacritical points.
For we have 28 letters in today's Arabic alphabet.
In the Quran, there are only 15 signs. 15 letters that are supposed to represent 28.
(18:22):
Of these 15 letters, only six are unambiguous, nine are to be interpreted.
Of these nine, seven are ambiguous, making 14.
One sign is threefold ambiguous, 14 and three makes 17.
One sign is even fivefold ambiguous, 17 and five makes 22.
(18:44):
Six unambiguous letters make 28.
This is the whole problem of the Quranic script.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
One can certainly assume that this problem must have been known to the early Muslim community
in some way, for it is hard to imagine that one would use such a defective and ambiguous script
to set down a sacred text in writing.
That is to say, it must have had significance for those who set down this text.
Christoph Luxemberg (19:18):
Correct. That this text was not equally unambiguous for early Muslims is evidenced by Islamic tradition itself.
For we know that especially in the ninth century, so-called reader schools emerged, which argued
among themselves about how this and that, how the Quran should be read at all.
(19:41):
So we have entire schools, Quran schools.
The current reading has not been so unambiguous.
It was only established, one does not know exactly when, but I mean during the time of Tabari,
when the great Quran commentary was written, around the 10th.
Century, that the text was established in roughly the way we know it today.
(20:01):
But as I said, until it came to that, there were disputes among the scholars.
And that does not exactly speak for a secure oral tradition.
In order to explain this, one has spoken of seven readings and more.
But on the other hand, it is said that Osman, that is, the Caliph Osman, in his wisdom established
(20:26):
the text of the Koran.
However, we know that only the consonantal script was established, and not the reading, as to
how the Koran should also be read.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
That means, if I join their argumentation, I can engage with the Koran in such a way that I
read it quite differently than I find it, for example, in the German translation.
Christoph Luxemberg (20:50):
Quite right.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Can you give an example of such a passage, of such a place?
Christoph Luxemberg (20:57):
I have discussed a passage from the Surah of Mary.
It says in context that Mary was suspected by her relatives of being pregnant out of wedlock.
She is therefore cast out and goes desperately under a palm tree to give birth and cries that
(21:19):
she would rather be dead than experience this moment.
Then it says in the following verse, here the infant Jesus is meant, after his birth from beneath her.
Do not be sad, your Lord has made a stream beneath you.
Audioarchiv Team (21:41):
We will continue with the interview shortly.
Like us if you enjoy it.
Christoph Luxemberg (21:46):
This verse seemed absolutely implausible to me.
For this reason, I tried to read the verse unaffected by the subsequently added diacritical
points and thus arrived at the following meaning in Syriac (21:57):
call to her immediately after her
delivery, do not be sad, your Lord has legitimised your delivery.
For what has troubled Mary is this ominous accusation that she is pregnant out of wedlock.
(22:18):
So out of wedlock equals illegitimate.
And he reassures her that her birth is legitimate.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
They are trying to explain the Koran with a Syro-Aramaic, that is, a language that was prevalent
at the time of the Koran's emergence, a commonly used language in this area, a well-known language, a transmitted language.
Now, there were certainly countless other prevalent languages at that time, probably also Arabic
(22:51):
dialects on the Arabian Peninsula.
Wouldn't that now be a point of criticism, that one could say, well, one could also take these
languages and apply them to the Koran, precisely because it does not exhibit a clear system? Was this added later?
Christoph Luxemberg (23:09):
That cannot be ruled out, but one would have to prove it.
Historically, it is more plausible to assume that it was Christian or at least Jewish-Christian
missionaries who wanted to bring their message to the Arabs.
For me, it was also clear that the editors of the Quran must have been educated.
(23:34):
If they were educated, then one must ask where they got their education from.
Certainly not in Arabic schools.
Most likely it was in Aramaic schools.
And for me, the consideration was also that if they started writing in a language that had never
been a written language, what were they doing then?
(23:55):
They were inevitably translating from their cultural language.
And since this cultural language is very close to Arabic, which cannot be distinguished in writing,
it was of course very easy to convert every Aramaic word into an Arabic form.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Now, it is the case that Muslims themselves have been in decades-long dispute over whether the
Quran is created or uncreated.
To what extent does this play a role in today's reception of the Quran by Muslims and within their work?
Christoph Luxemberg (24:33):
That it is created? So this idea was defended, for example, by the Mother of the Seljuks in
the 9th to 10th century. Century.
Ultimately, Ahmad ibn Hanbal did prevail with his idea that the Quran is uncreated and God's eternal word.
But the dispute took place within Islam.
(24:56):
And even if today, when the official doctrine states that it is so, many Muslims still believe
that human hands have contributed.
For I mean, the Quran manuscripts were not written by God himself.
Even if the content, for all I care, came from God.
(25:19):
The manuscripts, as they are presented to us, are certainly the work of humans.
And we must try to solve this problem with human means.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Now, your scientific approach gains particular relevance in the current situation because certain
Islamic fundamentalist groups explicitly refer to the Quran and also to specific passages.
For example, the martyr enters paradise directly without any examination of whether his life
(25:57):
was in accordance with the Islamic faith or not.
This is a very important thesis, developed into an ideology by certain groups, which is based on the Koran.
If one presents such a critical reading of the Koran in the light of Syro-Aramaic, might it
(26:18):
then also shake such notions that are prevalent in these political groups?
Christoph Luxemberg (26:25):
That will probably be unavoidable.
I must read this text in its original context without regard to the further development of Islam.
If a Muslim takes this text seriously, then he will consider the objective understanding of
this text as decisive compared to the later development of Islamic tradition.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
They say it themselves, their approach as a scientific approach is of course an attack on Islamic
tradition and is perceived as such.
Within the Islamic world, there are numerous critics who attempt to engage with the Koran using various approaches.
For example, critical literary approaches where one tries to understand the Koran in the context
(27:19):
of its time, thus developing a historically critical understanding of a religious text.
That alone is already a dangerous matter, even within the Islamic world, at least at this time.
But it has not always been this way.
Christoph Luxemberg (27:35):
Yes, to alleviate this problem, I must repeatedly emphasise that we must sharply distinguish
between the Koran as a text and Koranic exegesis, meaning the human interpretation of this text.
And if we make this clear to a believing Muslim, he will accept it without question.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
How significant do you think the Aramaic language component is in the Koran?
Christoph Luxemberg (28:04):
I cannot yet determine it statistically, but it is more, significantly more, than has been assumed so far.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
But if one were to paraphrase the original text, which is particularly important in the Islamic
religion, much more so than in Christianity or Judaism, then I would naturally shake a belief system, wouldn't I?
Christoph Luxemberg (28:33):
I mean, one would have to approach this pedagogically and make it clear to him that the language
we now call Arabic has not always been called Arabic, and that the language referred to as Arabic
in the Koran differs significantly from today's Arabic language.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Now, there is also a history of critical tradition within the scientific history of Islam.
There are Quran scholars who worked in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, who found a lot
in the Quran that is not originally Arabic, that is correct.
Christoph Luxemberg (29:11):
There are indeed such works that speak of foreign elements in the Quran, which are well-known works.
However, quite early on, philologists made an effort to identify non-Arabic elements.
And they had no problem stating that this word is, for example, Syriac, Syro-Aramaic, or Ethiopian, or even Greek.
(29:36):
But they also believed that, as in every language, there are also foreign words in every language.
And for that reason, it was also accepted.
But they did not go so far as to say that the structure of this language is not Arabic.
It did not go that far.
It was always about individual words.
And even in Western Quran research, one has actually been content with the etymological explanation
(30:02):
of such foreign words, without this leading to a different understanding of the historical Quran,
that is, the traditional Quran.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Now, however, there is a certain risk in the work they are doing.
They themselves are not a Muslim and yet they have adopted a pseudonym.
Why did they do that if it is purely a linguistic-historical investigation of the Quran?
Christoph Luxemberg (30:29):
You are absolutely right. It was not my idea originally, but it was precisely Muslim friends
who advised me to do so.
For they told me that not all Muslims are intellectuals and I should not be so naive, as this would indeed shock many.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
In this respect, one should not be surprised that there have already been political reactions
to it in various Islamic countries, namely in Pakistan and Malaysia.
So a Newsweek issue was indeed pulped, which only contained a review of their investigations.
(31:08):
On the other hand, however, there are large publications, for example in Iran or in Lebanese
newspapers, that openly engage with this topic and see no difficulties in it at all.
What significance does Quran interpretation have and what role can it play in the present?
Christoph Luxemberg (31:27):
I believe that for intellectuals and scholars this does not pose a great problem.
In contrast, one can imagine that it causes a shock among the people, as they are not at all prepared for it.
In particular, non-Arabic speaking Muslims, who know the Quran only through translations, cannot
(31:51):
even imagine such a misunderstanding.
And that's why I can understand well that this is a shock for them.
Audioarchiv Team (32:00):
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See you next week, your Audio Archive team.
Welcome to Audio Archive, the channel for historical interviews with female writers, philosophers,
activists, and intellectuals from around the world.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
In the year 2000, a book was published in German with the cryptic title The Syro-Aramaic Reading
of the Koran (00:43):
A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran by Christoph Luxemberg.
To delve deeper into the content at this point, this is all easily understandable.
The content of the conversation with Christoph Luxemberg, literature references in the show
(01:04):
notes, followed the English-language review in the New York Times of this German and, until
then, scarcely noticed linguistic study, which caused an outcry in the Islamic world as well
as in classical Koran research in the West.
Here, someone actually dared to analyse the Koran text, hence the actual language of God, linguistically
(01:30):
and to interpret previously incomprehensible passages.
The outcry, particularly from radical Islamists, less so from Islamic linguists, the largely
formulated rejection of Luxemberg's research findings in the university disciplines of Arab
studies and Islamic studies, at least made it clear how entrenched and stagnant Western Koran
(01:57):
research is, as well as how politically instrumentalised the Koran text is in the Islamic world.
While critical biblical research has been established since the nineteenth century, Christoph
Luxemberg's publication must be understood as the beginning of critical Koran research.
(02:17):
How explosive this research is is highlighted by the fact that the author's name, Christoph
Luxemberg, is a pseudonym, a homage from the author to the great Enlightenment thinker of the
eighteenth century, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.
Who is behind the name Christoph Luxemberg remains unclear to this day.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Mr Luxemberg, your publication with the cryptic-sounding title The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the
Koran (02:46):
A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran has made quite a splash.
Worldwide, newspapers reported on your research findings, and there were sometimes heated reactions and discussions. Conferences and seminars followed.
Your book is a bestseller.
And this, despite being written and published in German and although it is extremely difficult to read and understand.
(03:12):
Why did you decide to examine the Koran using linguistic methods?
Christoph Luxemberg (03:18):
I am actually not an Islamic scholar, I am a Semitist and I had only heard that the Quran is difficult to understand.
I became interested in the language because even Arabs, for example, prominent Arabs like Jawad
(03:39):
Ali, studied the average and was a professor in Baghdad.
He wrote a ten-volume work on the history of the Arabs before Islam, and he dedicates a chapter
to the language of the Quran.
He clearly distinguishes between Arabic language and Quranic language.
(04:00):
It became clear to me that this language is understood quite differently, and I simply asked
myself the question, who could write in Arabic at that time?
For we know from a historical-linguistic perspective that the Arabic language at that time in
the seventh century was not yet a written language.
We only know of a few inscriptions, which were rather Nabataean, and were actually a kind of co-language, Aramaic Arabic.
(04:30):
But a work, a book had not yet been written at that time, so we can say that the Quran is the
first book written in Arabic.
I actually wanted to approach the language from a historical-linguistic perspective, and I was
clear that at that time Aramaic was not only the lingua franca but also the written language throughout the Near East.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
In order to properly understand their approach, it may be necessary to briefly explain how the
Arabic language is structured and what the difference is between today's Arabic language and Quranic language.
Christoph Luxemberg (05:12):
Yes, we today distinguish between colloquial language and written language.
And this written language has certainly been regarded in Oriental studies as older, thus classified
as older than other Semitic languages.
It has been classified at the level of Akkadian, about 3000 years before Christ.
(05:39):
That does not seem to be the case according to my findings, although we certainly observe archaic features in this language.
But in terms of vocabulary and semantics, it was probably quite different.
This means that this language is heavily influenced by Aramaic.
However, since the Semitic languages are sister languages, any word can be transformed into
(06:03):
an Arabic form, so that the difference can no longer be determined.
That is why this language has been considered very old in purely formal terms.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Can you give an example of how the Arabic language works, which is a consonantal language, specifically
the language of the Quran as a Semitic language?
Christoph Luxemberg (06:22):
Yes, that is of course also a problem of the writing system, because generally in Semitic languages,
only the consonants are written.
Then at some point, long before Christ, people began to use so-called vowel letters.
This includes the long U, the long I, and later also the long A.
(06:44):
Otherwise, the short vowels are not indicated.
One must therefore master the language in order to be able to read at all.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Can you give an example of a very well-known word from the Quran, for instance, of how that works?
Christoph Luxemberg (06:59):
Yes, for example, the verb 'to say' can be in the first person.
So I can say 'kultu', but it can also mean 'Kylet' she said or 'gulta' you said.
So in writing, one cannot distinguish that.
Only from the context can one recognise whether the first, second, or third person is meant.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Now you have approached the instrument of the Syro-Aramaic written tradition of the Quran.
Why was it so obvious to do this?
Christoph Luxemberg (07:36):
At first, the name of the Quran itself seemed enlightening to me, because look, Nöldicke had
recognised that this word is Syro-Aramaic.
The Arabs probably did not know this, but in Western Orientalism, it was accepted and has been acknowledged since then.
(07:58):
And that is why it was actually clear to me that the language must correspondingly be so.
I said to myself, the Quran itself is the key word to understanding its own language.
If the Quran is called that, then one must ask who the editors could have been.
The Quran refers to a Christian liturgical book.
(08:21):
This book is also recognised in the Western Church, in the Roman Church for example, and it
is called in Latin 'lectionarium', in German 'lektionar'.
It is therefore the book of readings, which means pieces of scripture, whether from the Old
or New Testament, particularly from the epistolary literature, for example, the letters of Paul,
(08:44):
which are presented in the service.
This is indeed a technical term and it refers to this book, the Koran.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Now one must still clarify, or perhaps you can make it clear again, what the significance of
the Koran is for believing Muslims.
This is something different from the Bible for Christians.
Christoph Luxemberg (09:07):
For the believing Muslim, the content of the Koran is the word of God.
This means that every word, every letter comes directly from God through revelation.
So for the believing Muslim, the content of the Koran is the revelation of God.
There is no doubt about that.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
They would not doubt that either.
Christoph Luxemberg (09:29):
I would say this is not the subject of a linguist, it belongs to the realm of faith.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Rather, they try to find out what origins the Koran has.
Christoph Luxemberg (09:42):
Yes, I mean, even if God has spoken to humanity, He must have done so in the language of the
people to make this clear to them.
For the Koran itself says that God has never sent a messenger except in the language of his
people, so that he can clarify the message to them.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Now one of the facts that is repeatedly stated is that the messages that Mohammed spread were
in the clearest and purest Arabic.
Christoph Luxemberg (10:15):
It is also repeatedly stated in the Koran that this is a clear Arabic language.
By the way, regarding Arabic, the Koran is the first book that refers to this language as Arabic.
Until then, the language was not known as the Arabic language, at least not under this designation.
(10:36):
There were Arabs, but Arabs referred to a way of life in the desert, meaning actually desert
dwellers, but these tribes, the Arab tribes, each spoke their own dialect, and the respective
dialect was named after the name of the relevant tribe.
(10:56):
So there was not a unified Arabic language; that only came about through the Koran.
Later, a grammar was established towards the end of the eighth century, and this language was of course called Arabic.
Historically, one could not imagine such a development.
This means that in Western Oriental studies, this development of Arabic, including Modern Standard Arabic, was not experienced.
(11:21):
One started relatively late to engage with this language, with this culture and, of course,
viewed it as it presented itself, namely as a strictly regulated, classical language.
One could therefore not imagine that this language developed from Aramaic.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Now, according to Islamic tradition, the written codification of the Quran is attributed to
the third rightly guided caliph, Osman, who is recognised by all Muslims as the third successor
to Mohammed in leading the Muslim community.
He is said to have collected, reviewed, and arranged the various Quranic fragments of what Mohammed
(12:10):
said and received from God a few years after Mohammed's death.
Is there any doubt about this fact, due to the investigations they have conducted, or?
Christoph Luxemberg (12:21):
Not directly doubt, no. There is a kernel of truth, as it is stated in Islamic tradition that
Othman used an original, the original of one of the Prophet's wives, that of Hafsa, and that
(12:42):
he created this canonical version based on this original Quran, and that he later ordered the
destruction of this original version, that is, the original Quran.
This naturally raises questions about why he, how he came to order the destruction of the original.
Audioarchiv Team (13:08):
We will continue with the interview shortly.
Like us if you enjoy it.
Christoph Luxemberg (13:13):
Even for a Muslim, for a devout Muslim, it is incomprehensible, as one would have thought that
the original Quran should have been preserved and especially revered.
The results show that something about this tradition is true, as the language indeed seems to
have been a Syrian language, and that they probably used the Syrian script, and that later,
(13:42):
for political reasons, they came to the consideration of transferring this script into a new
writing system, to transcribe it.
And this writing system was later called Arabic.
We have, of course, become accustomed to seeing an Arabic script in this writing, but that was not always the case.
(14:07):
It is not quite the Nabataean script, but it is the closest to the Aramaic script, let us say.
However, that this script was then called Arabic was a novelty.
Therefore, it is to be assumed that the earlier Quran, that is, the original Quran, was written
in a different writing system.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Now, it is of course difficult to draw conclusions about religious historical elements solely from linguistic studies.
From the seventh century of the emergence of the Quran, relatively little is known from the
region of Hijaz, that is, the Arabian Peninsula, where the Quran was revealed.
(14:49):
How can one use linguistic means to provide historical evidence of a religious history without
involving neighbouring disciplines such as archaeology or critical historiography?
Christoph Luxemberg (15:06):
Of course, everything is part of it, but language can explain a great deal to us.
And since this language has not been properly understood until now, it is therefore important
to start by clarifying this language.
This would help clarify not only linguistic aspects but also many religious historical aspects.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
How were the revelations of Mohammed actually recorded in the early period?
So he had a revelation, he communicated it to his community, but it must have been recorded in some form.
Was it written down, or was it memorised, very much in the ancient, late ancient sense of classical rote learning?
(15:55):
Or how was it then transmitted further?
Christoph Luxemberg (15:59):
According to Islamic tradition, it is said that some contemporaries took his words to heart, that is, memorised them.
On the other hand, it is said that his revelations were inscribed on various writing materials.
But that seems unlikely to me.
(16:21):
What is important to me is that they were written down.
But the idea that they were written by separate scribes and then collected later seems extremely difficult to me.
With such a complex text, that seems hardly credible to me.
I am more of the opinion that this demanding text was indeed written down from the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
What is the oldest textual basis, that is, the written form of the Quran that we know?
Christoph Luxemberg (16:53):
From the inscriptions, we only know this inscription on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
But this inscription does not represent a quote from the Quran.
It comes very close to the Quran.
Nevertheless, it is not a verbatim reproduction of the content of the Quran.
Otherwise, we have manuscripts from the Quran find of the Great Mosque of Sanaa.
(17:21):
They are likely to be among the oldest.
Nevertheless, we still have no historical evidence for manuscripts from the end of the seventh century.
To my knowledge, the oldest manuscripts date back to the first half of the eighth century.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Now, these manuscripts are not yet completely legible.
To this day, many parts of the Quran are relatively incomprehensible even for devout Muslims.
The exact content is unknown.
Christoph Luxemberg (17:53):
You rightly address this problem.
In these manuscripts, not only the vowel signs are indeed missing, but, which is much more serious, the so-called diacritical points.
For we have 28 letters in today's Arabic alphabet.
In the Quran, there are only 15 signs. 15 letters that are supposed to represent 28.
(18:22):
Of these 15 letters, only six are unambiguous, nine are to be interpreted.
Of these nine, seven are ambiguous, making 14.
One sign is threefold ambiguous, 14 and three makes 17.
One sign is even fivefold ambiguous, 17 and five makes 22.
(18:44):
Six unambiguous letters make 28.
This is the whole problem of the Quranic script.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
One can certainly assume that this problem must have been known to the early Muslim community
in some way, for it is hard to imagine that one would use such a defective and ambiguous script
to set down a sacred text in writing.
That is to say, it must have had significance for those who set down this text.
Christoph Luxemberg (19:18):
Correct. That this text was not equally unambiguous for early Muslims is evidenced by Islamic tradition itself.
For we know that especially in the ninth century, so-called reader schools emerged, which argued
among themselves about how this and that, how the Quran should be read at all.
(19:41):
So we have entire schools, Quran schools.
The current reading has not been so unambiguous.
It was only established, one does not know exactly when, but I mean during the time of Tabari,
when the great Quran commentary was written, around the 10th.
Century, that the text was established in roughly the way we know it today.
(20:01):
But as I said, until it came to that, there were disputes among the scholars.
And that does not exactly speak for a secure oral tradition.
In order to explain this, one has spoken of seven readings and more.
But on the other hand, it is said that Osman, that is, the Caliph Osman, in his wisdom established
(20:26):
the text of the Koran.
However, we know that only the consonantal script was established, and not the reading, as to
how the Koran should also be read.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
That means, if I join their argumentation, I can engage with the Koran in such a way that I
read it quite differently than I find it, for example, in the German translation.
Christoph Luxemberg (20:50):
Quite right.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Can you give an example of such a passage, of such a place?
Christoph Luxemberg (20:57):
I have discussed a passage from the Surah of Mary.
It says in context that Mary was suspected by her relatives of being pregnant out of wedlock.
She is therefore cast out and goes desperately under a palm tree to give birth and cries that
(21:19):
she would rather be dead than experience this moment.
Then it says in the following verse, here the infant Jesus is meant, after his birth from beneath her.
Do not be sad, your Lord has made a stream beneath you.
Audioarchiv Team (21:41):
We will continue with the interview shortly.
Like us if you enjoy it.
Christoph Luxemberg (21:46):
This verse seemed absolutely implausible to me.
For this reason, I tried to read the verse unaffected by the subsequently added diacritical
points and thus arrived at the following meaning in Syriac (21:57):
call to her immediately after her
delivery, do not be sad, your Lord has legitimised your delivery.
For what has troubled Mary is this ominous accusation that she is pregnant out of wedlock.
(22:18):
So out of wedlock equals illegitimate.
And he reassures her that her birth is legitimate.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
They are trying to explain the Koran with a Syro-Aramaic, that is, a language that was prevalent
at the time of the Koran's emergence, a commonly used language in this area, a well-known language, a transmitted language.
Now, there were certainly countless other prevalent languages at that time, probably also Arabic
(22:51):
dialects on the Arabian Peninsula.
Wouldn't that now be a point of criticism, that one could say, well, one could also take these
languages and apply them to the Koran, precisely because it does not exhibit a clear system? Was this added later?
Christoph Luxemberg (23:09):
That cannot be ruled out, but one would have to prove it.
Historically, it is more plausible to assume that it was Christian or at least Jewish-Christian
missionaries who wanted to bring their message to the Arabs.
For me, it was also clear that the editors of the Quran must have been educated.
(23:34):
If they were educated, then one must ask where they got their education from.
Certainly not in Arabic schools.
Most likely it was in Aramaic schools.
And for me, the consideration was also that if they started writing in a language that had never
been a written language, what were they doing then?
(23:55):
They were inevitably translating from their cultural language.
And since this cultural language is very close to Arabic, which cannot be distinguished in writing,
it was of course very easy to convert every Aramaic word into an Arabic form.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Now, it is the case that Muslims themselves have been in decades-long dispute over whether the
Quran is created or uncreated.
To what extent does this play a role in today's reception of the Quran by Muslims and within their work?
Christoph Luxemberg (24:33):
That it is created? So this idea was defended, for example, by the Mother of the Seljuks in
the 9th to 10th century. Century.
Ultimately, Ahmad ibn Hanbal did prevail with his idea that the Quran is uncreated and God's eternal word.
But the dispute took place within Islam.
(24:56):
And even if today, when the official doctrine states that it is so, many Muslims still believe
that human hands have contributed.
For I mean, the Quran manuscripts were not written by God himself.
Even if the content, for all I care, came from God.
(25:19):
The manuscripts, as they are presented to us, are certainly the work of humans.
And we must try to solve this problem with human means.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Now, your scientific approach gains particular relevance in the current situation because certain
Islamic fundamentalist groups explicitly refer to the Quran and also to specific passages.
For example, the martyr enters paradise directly without any examination of whether his life
(25:57):
was in accordance with the Islamic faith or not.
This is a very important thesis, developed into an ideology by certain groups, which is based on the Koran.
If one presents such a critical reading of the Koran in the light of Syro-Aramaic, might it
(26:18):
then also shake such notions that are prevalent in these political groups?
Christoph Luxemberg (26:25):
That will probably be unavoidable.
I must read this text in its original context without regard to the further development of Islam.
If a Muslim takes this text seriously, then he will consider the objective understanding of
this text as decisive compared to the later development of Islamic tradition.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
They say it themselves, their approach as a scientific approach is of course an attack on Islamic
tradition and is perceived as such.
Within the Islamic world, there are numerous critics who attempt to engage with the Koran using various approaches.
For example, critical literary approaches where one tries to understand the Koran in the context
(27:19):
of its time, thus developing a historically critical understanding of a religious text.
That alone is already a dangerous matter, even within the Islamic world, at least at this time.
But it has not always been this way.
Christoph Luxemberg (27:35):
Yes, to alleviate this problem, I must repeatedly emphasise that we must sharply distinguish
between the Koran as a text and Koranic exegesis, meaning the human interpretation of this text.
And if we make this clear to a believing Muslim, he will accept it without question.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
How significant do you think the Aramaic language component is in the Koran?
Christoph Luxemberg (28:04):
I cannot yet determine it statistically, but it is more, significantly more, than has been assumed so far.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
But if one were to paraphrase the original text, which is particularly important in the Islamic
religion, much more so than in Christianity or Judaism, then I would naturally shake a belief system, wouldn't I?
Christoph Luxemberg (28:33):
I mean, one would have to approach this pedagogically and make it clear to him that the language
we now call Arabic has not always been called Arabic, and that the language referred to as Arabic
in the Koran differs significantly from today's Arabic language.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Now, there is also a history of critical tradition within the scientific history of Islam.
There are Quran scholars who worked in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, who found a lot
in the Quran that is not originally Arabic, that is correct.
Christoph Luxemberg (29:11):
There are indeed such works that speak of foreign elements in the Quran, which are well-known works.
However, quite early on, philologists made an effort to identify non-Arabic elements.
And they had no problem stating that this word is, for example, Syriac, Syro-Aramaic, or Ethiopian, or even Greek.
(29:36):
But they also believed that, as in every language, there are also foreign words in every language.
And for that reason, it was also accepted.
But they did not go so far as to say that the structure of this language is not Arabic.
It did not go that far.
It was always about individual words.
And even in Western Quran research, one has actually been content with the etymological explanation
(30:02):
of such foreign words, without this leading to a different understanding of the historical Quran,
that is, the traditional Quran.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Now, however, there is a certain risk in the work they are doing.
They themselves are not a Muslim and yet they have adopted a pseudonym.
Why did they do that if it is purely a linguistic-historical investigation of the Quran?
Christoph Luxemberg (30:29):
You are absolutely right. It was not my idea originally, but it was precisely Muslim friends
who advised me to do so.
For they told me that not all Muslims are intellectuals and I should not be so naive, as this would indeed shock many.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
In this respect, one should not be surprised that there have already been political reactions
to it in various Islamic countries, namely in Pakistan and Malaysia.
So a Newsweek issue was indeed pulped, which only contained a review of their investigations.
(31:08):
On the other hand, however, there are large publications, for example in Iran or in Lebanese
newspapers, that openly engage with this topic and see no difficulties in it at all.
What significance does Quran interpretation have and what role can it play in the present?
Christoph Luxemberg (31:27):
I believe that for intellectuals and scholars this does not pose a great problem.
In contrast, one can imagine that it causes a shock among the people, as they are not at all prepared for it.
In particular, non-Arabic speaking Muslims, who know the Quran only through translations, cannot
(31:51):
even imagine such a misunderstanding.
And that's why I can understand well that this is a shock for them.
Audioarchiv Team (32:00):
Thank you for being with us at Audio Archive.
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See you next week, your Audio Archive team.
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