Hanapute / al-Hanifiya

1« Previous thread | Next thread »
- Zimriel
- Member
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
OP - February 02, 2015, 01:56 AM

So I've posted this draught:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4-3UDjnJ4ybYjg5YWIwUGE5ZjA/

Quote
The term ḥanpé used to mean pagan to a Syrian. From the first conquest up to the 50s / 670s the Christians used it readily to label anyone Not Like Us: “Us” including Jews (and Samaritans) and Christians, and “Not Like” meaning anyone outside these confessions including Arabs and Manichees. This had changed by the 70s / 690s when Muslims were considered more like Jews and no longer ḥanpé. In the decade between, Jacobite patriarch Athanasius submitted an epistle to keep his community away from “pagans” which, possibly, was code for Muslims. So where ḥanîf appears in the Qur’an, it intends to be understood as Christians in the first seven decades AH understood it: as gentiles not associated with a religion but also not necessarily idolaters.

As usual for me, it's on that verge between scholarly and just plain ornery. I did it because I see lots of articles discussing ḥanîf(a) as the Qur'an looks at it, and I've never seen an article explaining its cognate ḥanpé as the Syrians used it - at least, not source-by-source. I fully expect that someone serious is already writing a better article and we'll see the link here within two years.

(Aside: There is no such word as al-ḥanîf. Luxenberg already looked. The word ḥanîf is pure Syriac, not Arabic, and that's why the Qur'an says ḥanîfâ when it refers to a specific ḥanîf.)

Any thoughts? I mean, besides that my seventh-century Syriac is minimal and transcribed wrong, which I know, partly because there are too many ways of transcribing Syriac (and don't get me started on the multiplicity of alphabets). Although improvements to my Syriac will be well-received... as will pointers on how to improve it, like a good textbook.
- countjulian
- Member
- Call Me Snake
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #1 - February 02, 2015, 02:23 AM

I studied Syriac. Not too hard, although mine is really rusty now. By the end of the semester I was reading with ease and only light dictionary use. I am kind of good at learning languages though. The best books are anything from Gorgias press. This is the one I used:

http://www.amazon.com/Leshono-Suryoyo-First-Studies-Syriac/dp/1593331908/ref=la_B001HPZAHU_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422843636&sr=1-2

Note that it was not $67.00 when I bought it, you might want to look into some of their more affordable. It teaches the Serto script, the more "modern" one used by the Maronite church inter alia. For Estrangelo I would recommend Thackston. Thackston is Thackston though, you'll probably want a study-buddy or teacher for his rather pedantic explanations.

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-To-Syriac-Wheeler-Thackston/dp/0936347988/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1RWA9GE9SBBATY0MW44J

I want to brush up on my own Syriac, so feel free to contact me if you want some help

إطلب العلم ولو في الصين

Es sitzt keine Krone so fest und so hoch,
Der mutige Springer erreicht sie doch.

I don't give a fuck about your war, or your President.
- Zimriel
- Member
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #2 - February 02, 2015, 02:46 AM

I file Gorgias alongside Brill - they rent be too darn high.

I really do think there's a market for books like Morony's book on seventh-century Iraq and Motzki's books on, well, anything. Also for Sayyari's book on Shi'ite variant Qur'an-readings. But Brill and Gorgias figure they can soak the libraries and rich amateurs.

Darwin Press has/had the right idea: the big hardbacks go for $60-70 and the smaller ones for $30ish. If the book you get in the mail is like Seeing Islam or Arabs and Others in Early Islam you won't feel ripped off. But Gorgias and Brill want hundreds of dollars for unproven merchandise.

It's annoying, and what it does for people like me is push us to go to the university libraries and to scan their books for free. *or, to go to Google Books and to run the search function to get JUST the quotes you need, and not buy the rest. So now these greedy publishers don't make ANY money. Yay!
- Zimriel
- Member
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #3 - February 02, 2015, 02:58 AM

The endorsement from Stephen "Christmas in the Koran" Shoemaker for Thackston is a huge point in its column.
- countjulian
- Member
- Call Me Snake
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #4 - February 02, 2015, 03:00 AM

Thackston is really, really good. I am using his book to brush up on my Quranic Arabic. He also has books on Persian and other languages. He even has one on Kurdish I found online as a PDF. The only problem with Thackston is that his explanations are both extremely pedantic and, at the same time, they assume deep knowledge of the language in question and the study of (dead) languages in general.

إطلب العلم ولو في الصين

Es sitzt keine Krone so fest und so hoch,
Der mutige Springer erreicht sie doch.

I don't give a fuck about your war, or your President.
- countjulian
- Member
- Call Me Snake
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #5 - February 02, 2015, 03:07 AM

LOL reading into page 3 of your paper I see you cite Morony as "overpriced by Gorgias, 2006" hahahaha I see what you meant by "ornery. "

إطلب العلم ولو في الصين

Es sitzt keine Krone so fest und so hoch,
Der mutige Springer erreicht sie doch.

I don't give a fuck about your war, or your President.
- countjulian
- Member
- Call Me Snake
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #6 - February 02, 2015, 03:24 AM

Good article, a little thick but that's your style so far from everything I have read of yours. I guess my question is, who were these non-Jewish non-Christian non-idolaters that the Quran and the pre-Islamic Syrians were referring to? Would these be the pre-Muhammadan Arabs who believed themselves to be cousins of the Jews and descendants of Abraham?

إطلب العلم ولو في الصين

Es sitzt keine Krone so fest und so hoch,
Der mutige Springer erreicht sie doch.

I don't give a fuck about your war, or your President.
- Zimriel
- Member
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #7 - February 02, 2015, 03:47 AM

I'd tried to pinpoint two sorts of hanp(e) from what I found in the sources: heathens, and astrologers. There's a third sort, as well, but the project's scope didn't get into that. It might be relevant to this forum though . . .

HEATHENS: hillfolk. Americans would call them snake-handlers; Haitians have other names for them. These are people off in the backcountry, practicing strangeness; the sort who go to church on Sunday morning and cut the throats of goats that night. (Or strangle them. Whichever.)

ASTROLOGERS: educated cityfolk. Like nowadays, the late-antique Near East had cosmopolitan elites too. Astrology is based on the movements of stars and planets and so is a mathematical discipline; the position of Mercury next Sunday at 4 PM is going to be what it will be no matter what religion you are. Some people take advantage of that and claim that this position of Mercury (which can be predicted) will affect your life (which it won't). It's still in the newspapers today I think.

It's hard for religious authorities to declare anyone a heretic or pagan if they don't know that said "anyone" is practicing such magic.

The third category - which is probably what you meant - is just

NONE OF THE ABOVE: mostly former Christians and Jews. They've lived near Jews and Christians, and they're looking for something new. I assume they're mostly cityfolk too. The Qur'an's suras mean this when they apply "hanif" to Abraham. Note that the Book of Jubilees and surat al-An'am have Abraham also experimenting with astrology, to reject it later.

Magical-minded people like the first two examples are likely to be shunned by Christians and Jews, and will seek pickings among the disillusioned people in the third category.
- countjulian
- Member
- Call Me Snake
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #8 - February 02, 2015, 04:07 AM

But this third category. If you weren't a Jew, a Christian, or a pagan, regardless of whether you practiced Satanic-esque rituals or astrology, what religion were you? Something like an average white American millenial today, who believes in God and thinks Jesus was a cool guy, but doesn't feel any particular need to pray (except when in danger/extreme situations), go to church, or refrain from sex until marriage? A member of the "Church of Jello" as I have read it described?

إطلب العلم ولو في الصين

Es sitzt keine Krone so fest und so hoch,
Der mutige Springer erreicht sie doch.

I don't give a fuck about your war, or your President.
- Zaotar
- Pub Regular
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #9 - February 02, 2015, 05:36 PM

I read the draft a couple times. It's a fascinating subject. The essay's argument is somewhat hard to follow, however. Really it seems less about the Qur'anic term than it is a discussion of Umayyad-era Syrian use of the term and how it evolved in relation to an evolving proto-Islamic community.

The essay cites Reynolds and Luxenberg on the meaning and origin of the Qur'anic use of the term (I think Luxenberg is surely right on this specific point), but does not really explain how that Qur'anic term came about, i.e. how it was dredged from an original Syriac context over into what became the Qur'anic text. And this is practically the heart of the Qur'anic puzzle: What sort of distortion (historical, orthographic, semantic, linguistic) has happened here? Where did it happen? Why did it happen?

I take your essay to be focusing on a somewhat different issue, which is how the Syrian use of the hanpe term in the Umayyad era sheds light on the formation of perceptions of Muslim confessional identity during that period (both external and internal to the Muslim community). That's an important issue. It's conceptually distinct from the Qur'anic hanifa question, however, and I think the essay might be easier to follow if it was more focused from the outset on the Syrian historical issue, rather than trying to tie it to Luxenberg and Reynolds' points about the Qur'anic term.
- Zimriel
- Member
- offline
Hanapute / al-Hanifiya
Reply #10 - February 03, 2015, 12:53 AM

I sure am glad I floated this here. Thank you much Zaotar. And thank you countjulian, for first taking it seriously and noticing that the essay might be confused.

Zaotar is right: the essay has an introduction that should be an appendix. A real introduction should concentrate on ḥanpé for its own sake and forget about ḥanîf. Same with the main text, except where contemporaries might be forcing the issue. Holger Zellentin thinks Athanasius II was forcing the issue.

*9 PM EST - fixed.
1« Previous thread | Next thread »