فِرْدَوْس firdaws – Arabic, Persian, or Greek?

[Apollodorus]

فِرْدَوْس firdaws – Arabic, Persian, or Greek?

According to Wiktionary, Arabic فِرْدَوْس firdaws (“garden”, “heaven”, “paradise”) was “perhaps borrowed from Iranian as a plural فَرَادِيس‎ (farādīs) and the singular فِرْدَوْس (firdaws) created as a back-formation from it. However, the plural فَرَادِيس‎ (farādīs) could have been borrowed from Ancient Greek παράδεισος (parádeisos) instead”.

This seems rather inconclusive. Any suggestions as to which might be the more likely derivation?

 

[djmc]

The Greek was used by Xenophon to describe ornamental gardens in Persia in Anabasis. The word is borrowed from Persian (ancient Iranian).

 

[WadiH]

The word is ultimately Persian, but Arabic could have borrowed it from Greek rather than Persian directly. Since the word occurs in the New Testament with a similar meaning to the Qur'an, I would lean towards it being borrowed from Greek.

 

[Platytude]

Since the word occurs in the New Testament with a similar meaning to the Qur'an, I would lean towards it being borrowed from Greek.

Aramaic apparently borrowed it from both Persian (as just "garden") and Greek (+"Eden" and "paradise"). So, if Arabic had borrowed it via Aramaic, the question would be which language Aramaic borrowed it from first.

 

[WadiH]

What makes us think it had to have come through Aramaic?

When it comes to religious terminology, recent scholarship shows the Greek and Aramaic borrowings in the Qur'an match the forms found in Ge'ez, so that's another avenue that should be investigated.

 

[Apollodorus]

I don’t know much about the connection with Aramaic ܒܦܪܕܝܣܐ pardaysa, but it would probably be useful to start by distinguishing between the secular and religious meanings of the word.

Certainly in the Quran فِرْدَوْس firdaws has important religious connotations - also occurring in the phrase Jannatu al-Firdaws, “Gardens of Paradise”:

إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ كَانَتْ لَهُمْ جَنَّـٰتُ ٱلْفِرْدَوْسِ نُزُلًا

“Verily, those who have believed and done righteous deeds - they will have the Gardens of Paradise as abode” - Quran 18:107

Apart from the fact that there is a certain Christian ring to this, it seems safe to infer that familiarity with the term among the audience was assumed. And this familiarity must have been due to contact with Christian monks and preachers of whom there was no shortage in pre-Islamic Arabia.

See the Christians Salman and Addas and Prophet Mohammad’s cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal:

“She took him [Mohammad] to Waraqah bin Naufal who was a Christian convert and used to read the Gospel in Arabic” - Bukhari 4:55:605.

The Persians themselves were probably familiar with the Greek term as a result of contact with Christianity and availability of Greek texts under Khosrow I of Persia (sixth C AD) who also initiated a translation movement.

In any case, it makes sense for Christians – irrespective of their cultural and linguistic background – to have spoken of Paradise.

I think @WadiH could be on the right track …

 

[djmc]

Xenophon was a Greek writer of the 4th century BC. His usage of the term did not imply any prelapsarian Eden. He was describing his return from Persia, and uses the word to describe gardens there.

 

[Apollodorus]

Xenophon was a Greek writer of the 4th century BC. His usage of the term did not imply any prelapsarian Eden. He was describing his return from Persia, and uses the word to describe gardens there.

Entirely possible. And there is no evidence that the Arabs borrowed the word from Xenophon.

Moreover, firdaws in the sense of "Paradise" and firdaws in the sense of "garden" could have been borrowed at different points in time and from different sources.

Incidentally, I’ve just noticed that according to another account, the Christian Waraqah “used to write from the Gospel in Hebrew” (Bukhari 1:1:3) - which reminds us that in addition to Christians there were Jews living in Arabia.

If Arabian Jews spoke Hebrew, not Aramaic, and they had a concept of Paradise similar to the one found in the Quran, could Persian/Greek “paradise” have been transmitted to Arabic via a Hebrew word like פַּרְדֵּס pardes?

Another point of interest would be how Arabic came to form the plural فَرَادِيس faradis.

 

[WadiH]

The idea seems to be that Arabic re-analyzed the Greek 'paradeis' as an Arabic plural on the fa3a:li:l pattern, and then derived a singular firdaws from that.

 

[fdb]

Is Paradise in Luke 23:43 a Persian loan into Hebrew?

 

[Apollodorus]

The idea seems to be that Arabic re-analyzed the Greek 'paradeis' as an Arabic plural on the fa3a:li:l pattern, and then derived a singular firdaws from that.

In that case firdaws is an Arab construct that was borrowed by Persian (فردوس‎ firdaus) after the Arab-Muslim conquest (7th C).

But the question remains as to why Arabs felt a need to borrow a word for "garden/Paradise" in the first place. And the answer must be that neighbouring cultures contained elements that were sufficiently attractive to warrant a borrowing.

The Persians were widely famed for their royal gardens (Persian Gardens – Wikipedia), which is why Persian pairidaēza, “enclosed garden” found its way into Ancient Greek as παράδεισος parádeisos, into Hebrew as פַּרְדֵּס pardes, etc.

Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism also had conceptions of afterlife that seem to have been lacking in native Arabian religion.

Certainly, Firdaws holds an important position in Islam, being regarded as the highest level of Heaven:

“Heaven has one hundred grades ... The highest and best of them is al-Firdaws. If you ask of Allah, ask Him for al-Firdaws’” – Bukhari 4.52.48

But neither Zoroastrianism nor Judaism seem to have used a word related to “paradise” for Heaven.

And the Christian terms parádeisos (Greek) and pardaysa (Aramaic) are masculine (as is Hebrew pardes).

Did Arabic first borrow the concept of جنات عدن jannāt ʿadni, "Gardens of Eden", which is why it treated “paradise” as a feminine plural?

Is Paradise in Luke 23:43 a Persian loan into Hebrew?

If the original text was Greek, then no. Greek παράδεισος paradeisos had already been used in the Septuagint (LXX) for “Garden of Eden/God”.

 

[Platytude]

But the question remains as to why Arabs felt a need to borrow a word for "garden/Paradise" in the first place.

Maybe Persian gardens were so different, in design, usage, management or crops, that needed a new word, comparable to how park and garden are different even tough are etymologically synonymous, sort of.

 

[WadiH]

And the Christian terms parádeisos (Greek) and pardaysa (Aramaic) are masculine (as is Hebrew pardes).

Did Arabic first borrow the concept of جنات عدن jannāt ʿadni, "Gardens of Eden", which is why it treated “paradise” as a feminine plural?

The Quran uses the word twice. The first time it refers to janna:t al-firdaws, so the feminine refers to jann:at. In the second instance it just says al-firdaws, but we can assume that it is referred in the feminine because janna:t is implied.

Seems Arabic lexicons consider both feminine and masculine usages to be valid.

 

[Apollodorus]

Maybe Persian gardens were so different, in design, usage, management or crops, that needed a new word, comparable to how park and garden are different even tough are etymologically synonymous, sort of.

Yes, there would have been a difference between a small plot of land for growing vegetables and a royal park/garden complex conceived as a sort of paradise on earth, with water features, trees, animals, etc.

So, presumably, firdaws referred to “Persian/royal garden/park” and, by extension, “heavenly garden/paradise”, depending on when and how the term entered Arabic – which doesn’t seem entirely clear.

It could equally have applied to Paradise from the start if borrowed under religious influence, in which case a Christian derivation would seem the best bet.

The Quran uses the word twice. The first time it refers to janna:t al-firdaws, so the feminine refers to jann:at. In the second instance it just says al-firdaws, but we can assume that it is referred in the feminine because janna:t is implied.

Seems Arabic lexicons consider both feminine and masculine usages to be valid.

So, presumably, it is treated as feminine because janna/t, "garden/s" itself is feminine.

Does firdaws anywhere mean just "garden" in a non-religious sense?

 

[WadiH]

Not to my knowledge, except by allusion to the religious sense, e.g. referring to a long-lost Eden like Al-Andalus as الفردوس المفقود, i.e. "lost paradise" (and indeed that is the usual Arabic rendering of the title of Milton's Paradise Lost).

 

[Apollodorus]

In that case, firdaws couldn’t have meant “Persian garden/park” as Greek paradeisos originally did.

And if the original Arabic was a plural (فَرَادِيس faradis) then it was indeed formed from the Greek plural - παράδεισοι paradeisoi, “gardens (of Heaven)”, “paradises” – and not Aramaic. Greek parādīs(i) and Arabic farādīs are pretty much phonetically identical.

Christians in Mohammad’s entourage may have had some knowledge of Greek and Mohammad himself would have had little difficulty meeting Greek-speaking Christians, for example, on his journeys to Syria which was part of the Byzantine Empire.

 

[Platytude]

The Christians in Mohammad’s entourage may have had some knowledge of Greek and Mohammad himself would have had little difficulty meeting Greek-speaking Christians on his travels to Syria, for example.

There had been Arabic and Aramaic speaking Christians in Levant long before Muhammad, including an entire kingdom of Christian Arabs. There is no reason to assume the use of firdaws as paradise had something to do with Muhammad or his acquaintances' contact with Greek language.

Yes, there would have been a difference between a small plot of land for growing vegetables and a royal park/garden complex conceived as a sort of paradise on earth, with water features, trees, animals, etc.

Just to make it clear, I don't think Arabs had much idea about those royal Persian gardens to borrow the word. The contemporary (royal) Persian gardens might not have been called like "paradise" anymore in Persian.

It was Aramaic that adopted a different word for garden in addition to their native gnn root, centuries before Islam. The reason for Aramaic's usage of the word might not have been due to a difference either, but to the fact that Aramaic was a official language of Iranian empires for a long period, and so borrowed many administrative terms (to clarify, I only think Aramaic borrowed it from Persian (too) because it had it with a Persian suffix. If there is an alternative explanation for this suffix, then there might have all been from Greek).

 

[Apollodorus]

I only think Aramaic borrowed it from Persian (too) because it had it with a Persian suffix. If there is an alternative explanation for this suffix, then there might have all been from Greek).

Sure. But there seems to be no evidence that Arabic firdaws is of Aramaic origin.

The plural faradis in any case seems closest to the Greek.

According to tradition, Mohammad in Syria met a Christian monk who predicted that he would become a prophet, and who was in possession of the original (Greek?) Gospels. See Bahira - Wikipedia

IMO Greek influence can't be ruled out.

 

[WadiH]

As I mentioned above, in addition to direct-borrowing from Greek and direct-borrowing from Aramaic, there are Aramaic and Greek words that seem to have come to Arabic through Ge'ez. Is there an attested cognate for فردوس in Ge'ez?

 

[Apollodorus]

Ge’ez seems to have gannat and edom for “paradise”.

See also Amharic ገነት gannat: Amharic Bible - Book of Luke (st-takla.org)

Of course, as in Islam, oral Christian traditions tend to be more elaborate and use a wider vocabulary. Some may have used Greek-origin terms of which we currently have no written records.

Just to make it clear, I don't think Arabs had much idea about those royal Persian gardens to borrow the word. The contemporary (royal) Persian gardens might not have been called like "paradise" anymore in Persian.

Well, that’s right. After Alexander’s conquests and centuries of Greek dominance, Xenophon’s “Persian gardens” probably weren’t even particularly Persian anymore. “Hellenistic gardens” may be more appropriate for Early & Late Antiquity.

Question is, did paradeisos enter Arabic in the sense of “garden” or “Paradise”? And when?

According to Arthur Jeffery:

“The authorities are agreed that it means a garden, but they differed considerably as to what sort of garden it means …
Obviously فِرْدَوْس represents παράδεισος, and on the ground of the plu. فَرَادِيس, G. Hoffmann would derive it directly from the Greek. It seems, however, merely a coincidence that this plu. form (which is not uncommon in borrowed words), is so close in sound to the Greek word, and it is unlikely that it came directly into Arabic from Greek …
Its origin is almost certainly Christian, and probably Syriac, for [Syriac for paradise] was very commonly used for the abode of the Blessed, and could easily have been learned by the Arabs from the Aram. speaking Christians of Mesopotamia or N. Arabia. Vollers, ZDMG, 1, 646, suggests that possibly the plu. form فَرَادِيس was the form that was borrowed, and فِرْدَوْس later formed from this.
It was a pre-Islamic borrowing, and possibly occurs in the Thamudic inscriptions” - Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān (Brill, 2007), pp. 223-4.

So, this isn’t particularly helpful.

Firdaws means “garden” but we don’t know what kind and it was still borrowed with the sense of “Paradise”?

"Unlikely that it came directly from Greek" isn’t the same as impossible.

Must an Arabic word come from Aramaic/Syriac because it was most widely used in that language?

If the Aramaic/Syriac word was used for “Paradise”, so was the original Greek.

What is “pre-Islamic”?

Where is the evidence?

Could there have been alternative sources, e.g., Coptic or Ge'ez?

Etc.

One reason why a Greek derivation of firdaws shouldn’t be dismissed is that there was a lot of interaction between Greek-speakers and Aramaic-speakers from the 3rd century into the Islamic period. Greek-Aramaic bilingualism was common throughout this period and a number of native Aramaic-speakers had at least some knowledge of Greek, among them Pawlos of Kallinikos (first half of 6th c.), Tumo of Ḥarqel (d. ca 640), Athanasios II of Balad (d. 687), ʿEnanishoʿ (7th c.), Yaʿqub of Edessa (d. 708) and many others.

A large body of biblical, patristic and philosophical texts was translated from Greek into Aramaic for half a millennium - from the 4th to the 9th century.

See Greek and Syriac - Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics

And: “The life of Arab Christians in Late Antiquity was marked by a kind of diglossia: Arabic for daily life, Syriac/Aramaic or Greek for liturgy …” - Traces of Bilingualism/Multilingualism in Qur'anic Arabic

So, it isn’t at all implausible for seventh-century Arabs to have met Christian monks in possession of original Greek Gospel texts (as claimed by the Hadith) and, indeed, with some knowledge of Greek.

At any rate, I’m not convinced that Aramaic-speakers had no knowledge of Greek, especially when it comes to important religious terms like paradeisos that they could have passed on to Arabs.

 

[Platytude]

You are making several leaps of unsupported assumptions. The reality is:
1. The "Christian" acquaintances of Muhammad might not have been Christians (in a Nicene sense).
2. Their gospels were not canonical and could have been originated in any language.
3. They could have been hostile to the Greek Church (which persecuted them).
4. That Muhammad was informed of Christian terminology by this or that encounter, rather than a continual contact with thousands of neighbouring Arabic-speaking Judeo-Christian communities, or even his own monotheist relatives.

On top of that, we mistakenly assumed that the religious notion of "paradise" is Christian and Greek. In fact, it actually can be Jewish and native to Aramaic (the 2nd c. AD Aramaic translation of OT by Jews from Hebrew apparently uses paradise to refer to the garden of Eden). Most importantly, it makes more sense that a Greek word with p be rendered with b in Arabic not f. A p>f loan makes more sense if the source language, like Aramaic, do not distinguish p and f as strongly as Greek.

I’m not convinced that Aramaic-speakers had no knowledge of Greek

No one claimed so that your lack of conviction would matter. Most likely, Aramaic-speaking scholars knew Greek because, regardless of religion, Greek was the official language of the Roman and Byzantine empires, and for Christians, their lingua franca. But this is irrelevant because the word was internalised in Syriac for hundreds of years before Islam.

 

[Apollodorus]

It looks very much like the unsupported assumptions are yours, not mine. 🙂

There is no logical requirement for Mohammad’s informers to have been “officially approved Christians”.

For the same reason, there is no need for their Gospels to have been “canonical”

There is no evidence that they were “persecuted” by anyone. And even if they had been, it would make zero difference.

I simply quoted Islamic tradition as an example. I never said that Greek paradeisos must have been transmitted to Mohammad by his Christian acquaintances.

Of course Jewish sources are a theoretical possibility. I considered this myself (see #8, above). The issue is evidence, though.

The fact that the word for paradise "was internalised in Syriac for hundreds of years before Islam” is irrelevant. The issue isn't Syriac but Arabic. The issue is how it entered Arabic and how it ended up in the Quran, given that it doesn't seem to be attested in other Arabic sources.

 

[berndf]

it makes more sense that a Greek word with p be rendered with b in Arabic not f. A p>f loan makes more sense if the source language, like Aramaic, do not distinguish p and f as strongly as Greek.

Representing foreign p as b is more recent, emerging only after the p>f shift in Arabic. There is still some debate when this shift happened precisely but it is likely that it happened in post-Qur'anic times. Old Arabic transcriptions of Greek give no evidence that ف had already shifted to /f/ by the 7th century AD.

 

[Apollodorus]

Representing foreign p as b is more recent, emerging only after the p>f shift in Arabic. There is still some debate when this shift happened precisely but it is likely that it happened in post-Qur'anic times. Old Arabic transcriptions of Greek give no evidence that ف had already shifted to /f/ by the 7th century AD.

This is what makes it all a bit of a puzzle. It’s no good saying “Aramaic had pardaysa for centuries”, if we can’t show how and when it entered Arabic as firdaws.

 

[Apollodorus]

Incidentally, Ge’ez seems to have anṭorṭos “hell” < Greek tártaros and one would expect it to have a corresponding Greek-derived term for “paradise”. Perhaps it’s just a case of “seek and you shall find”?

 

[Apollodorus]

If we start from the historical facts - based on archaeological, epigraphical and historical evidence – it is indisputable that Christian communities existed in Syria, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, Ethiopia, Yemen and Arabia itself, in particular, at Najran in the south and along the western coast, but also in the east (Beth Qatraye, Beth Mazunaye).

We know from Islamic tradition itself that prophet Mohammad was in contact with Christians: the Syrian monk Bahira, Mohammad’s relative Waraqah bin Naufal, Salman the Persian (Salman el-Farsi), etc. At least two of these (Bahira and Waraqah) were reportedly in possession of the Gospel text and Salman was an erudite man who had been in touch with Christian priests, theologians and scholars on his travels around the Middle East and later translated the Quran into Persian.

A large percentage of Christians in the region spoke Greek either as their first or second language, or had some knowledge of Greek.

In the period in which the Quran was composed (7th c.) Greek had significantly increased in importance and prestige among Aramaic-speaking Christians. New translations of Greek texts into Aramaic were made, in which the lexical and morphological material of Aramaic was mapped onto the semantic and grammatical categories of Greek producing what resembles a sub-type of mixed language called “converted language”.

See Peter Bakker, “Mixed languages as autonomous systems”, in Y. Matras and P. Bakker, eds., The mixed language debate. Theoretical and empirical advances, 2003, pp. 116-120.

Given that Paradise was the highest heaven, special care must have been taken to find an appropriate word for it. And this word was coined on the basis of Greek παράδεισοι paradeisoi, “gardens (of Heaven)”, which (a) corresponded to Arabic jannat and (b) was associated with παράδεισος paradeisos in the original Gospel text.

If an Arab were to ask a Syriac-speaking Christian with knowledge of Greek what Greek for Arabic jannat is, the logical answer would be “paradeisoi”. Hence Arabic paradis/faradis.

A key question that needs to be settled is the shift /p/→/f/. If this was already underway in areas of the Middle East, Arabic firdaws could easily have been coined by somebody like Salman the Persian. (Or, for that matter, by some supernatural agent who can hardly be suspected of being ignorant of Greek or incapable of forming new words from old 🙂).

 

[Ihsiin]

If we start from the historical facts - based on archaeological, epigraphical and historical evidence – it is indisputable that Christian communities existed in Syria, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, Ethiopia, Yemen and Arabia itself, in particular, at Najran in the south and along the western coast, but also in the east (Beth Qatraye, Beth Mazunaye).

We know from Islamic tradition itself that prophet Mohammad was in contact with Christians: the Syrian monk Bahira, Mohammad’s relative Waraqah bin Naufal, Salman the Persian (Salman el-Farsi), etc. At least two of these (Bahira and Waraqah) were reportedly in possession of the Gospel text and Salman was an erudite man who had been in touch with Christian priests, theologians and scholars on his travels around the Middle East and later translated the Quran into Persian.

A large percentage of Christians in the region spoke Greek either as their first or second language, or had some knowledge of Greek.

In the period in which the Quran was composed (7th c.) Greek had significantly increased in importance and prestige among Aramaic-speaking Christians. New translations of Greek texts into Aramaic were made, in which the lexical and morphological material of Aramaic was mapped onto the semantic and grammatical categories of Greek producing what resembles a sub-type of mixed language called “converted language”.

See Peter Bakker, “Mixed languages as autonomous systems”, in Y. Matras and P. Bakker, eds., The mixed language debate. Theoretical and empirical advances, 2003, pp. 116-120.

Given that Paradise was the highest heaven, special care must have been taken to find an appropriate word for it. And this word was coined on the basis of Greek παράδεισοι paradeisoi, “gardens (of Heaven)”, which (a) corresponded to Arabic jannat and (b) was associated with παράδεισος paradeisos in the original Gospel text.

If an Arab were to ask a Syriac-speaking Christian with knowledge of Greek what Greek for Arabic jannat is, the logical answer would be “paradeisoi”. Hence Arabic paradis/faradis.

A key question that needs to be settled is the shift /p/→/f/. If this was already underway in areas of the Middle East, Arabic firdaws could easily have been coined by somebody like Salman the Persian. (Or, for that matter, by some supernatural agent who can hardly be suspected of being ignorant of Greek or incapable of forming new words from old 🙂).

I rather think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Why do you assume the word فردوس entered Arabic contemporaneously with the Qur’an? There has been Arab Christians who used Greek and Aramaic as liturgical languages for centuries previously, and the word is not ‘introduced’ as a new concept in the Qur’an - one assumes that the audience would have already been familiar with it.

 

[Apollodorus]

one assumes that the audience would have already been familiar with it.

That’s exactly what I said. See #6, above.

However, assumption doesn’t constitute proof. Ultimately, it all depends on evidence.

If Arabic firdaws is unattested before the time of Mohammad, then we can’t claim that it is. Unless and until some evidence is found, it remains part of the puzzle and alternative possibilities must be explored.

In any case, the fact that both the Greek and the Aramaic words were in use doesn't answer the question as to which of them was the immediate source for the Arabic term.

 

[Apollodorus]

A key question is, Who was the audience? Certainly not the pagan Arabs who were unfamiliar with Christian concepts of afterlife and who flatly rejected Mohammad’s message as a made-up tale (and even threw stones at him):

“And the Unbelievers say, ‘This is a sorcerer telling lies!’ … ‘We never heard [the like] of this among the people of these latter days: this is nothing but a made-up tale!’” - Quran 38:4-7.

If anything, the initial audience was a small circle of Christians who – according to Islamic tradition – accepted Mohammad as a prophet: the monk Bahira, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, Salman el-Farsi, Addas.

Moreover, if Arab Christians were familiar with Greek paradeisos or Aramaic pardaysa, it doesn’t follow that they, or Arabs in general, knew the term firdaws.

And the earliest Arabic translation of the NT (Acts and Epistles) seems to have been made after Mohammad (in 867 AD or thereabouts).

 

[WadiH]

It’s possible the word entered Arabic before the Quran or was at least familiar to Christian Arabs. It also could have entered directly from Greek or indirectly through Aramaic.

However I have to disagree with the notion (currently popular in some circles) that the Quran *always* assumes prior knowledge of this kind of term or that its audience was a group of Christians. It’s a good idea that’s been taken way too far.

In the Medinan suras the Quran is clearly debating Jews and Christians, but in the Meccan suras (where the term firdaws incidentally occurs), the audience is clearly the Prophet’s own Meccan kin who followed their ancestral religion. As described in the Quran, this religion centered around Allah and was possibly influenced by Christianity and Judaism, but still retained pagan practices like animal sacrifice and drawing of lots, reserved some (subordinate) role for pagan deities, and most crucially, had no belief in a resurrection or afterlife. The Meccans were aware of Christianity and Judaism, but there is no reason to think they had any deep knowledge of them, let alone being Christians of some sort themselves. A great recent discussion on this can be found in Walid Saleh’s paper “The Preacher of the Meccan Qur’an”.

Ignorance of the Biblical background to the Quranic stories has never prevented Muslims from appreciating them so there’s no reason to think the same didn’t apply to the Meccans. I think the simplest explanation is that the Quran was introducing the idea of firdaws to the Meccans (regardless of whether Christian Arabs had used the term previously or not).

 

[Apollodorus]

According to Islamic tradition, when Mohammad started to receive his revelations, he was taken by his wife Khadija to her Christian cousin Waraqah.

Clearly, a Christian and not a pagan Arab was consulted because a pagan Arab would have had no knowledge or understanding of what M was talking about and would have dismissed him as a madman – as the Quran itself relates:

“They say, ‘Receiver of this Quran! You are definitely mad’” 15:6;

“‘Has he invented a lie about God? Is he mad?’” 34:8;

“‘Are we to forsake our gods for a mad poet?’” 37:36;

“The disbelievers almost strike you down with their looks when they hear the Quran. They say, ‘He must be mad!’” 68:51.

What is the likelihood that people who not only had never heard of Christian teachings, but found them utterly unbelievable, would have been familiar with a word (firdaws) that is unattested anywhere?

Christians may have been a different matter. But if they used Greek and/or Aramaic for religious purposes, then there would have been no need for an Arabic Gospel or an Arabic word for “Paradise”.

And if there was no need for it, we can’t assert that they must have had one.

 

[Apollodorus]

The Meccans were aware of Christianity and Judaism, but there is no reason to think they had any deep knowledge of them, let alone being some sort of Christians themselves.

Correct. I think there is a difference between biblical (e.g., OT) narratives that may have reached Arab audiences from Christians and Jews, on one hand, and more specialised concepts like “Paradise”, on the other, that had no equivalent in pagan Arab religion.

Proclus in his Commentary on Hesiod’s Works and Days, 169, uses παράδεισος paradeisos for the Isles of the Blessed (μακάρων νῆσοι makárōn nêsoi) of Hellenistic religion. Unlike the Platonists, pagan Arabs lacked an equivalent concept and are unlikely to have used a similar term.

 

[WadiH]

Christians may have been a different matter. But if they used Greek and/or Aramaic for religious purposes, then there would have been no need for an Arabic Gospel or an Arabic word for “Paradise”.

I think we should say "liturgical" or "scholarly" purposes rather than religious. Surely there was a need to express the basic concepts to lay people in their own vernacular (whether by finding equivalent Arabic words or introducing loan words from other languages). That said, it seems that 'Paradise' was used as a proper name (much like "Djahannam"), and so not translatable.

Correct. I think there is a difference between biblical (e.g., OT) narratives that may have reached Arab audiences from Christians and Jews, on one hand, and more specialised concepts like “Paradise”, on the other, that had no equivalent in pagan Arab religion.

Proclus in his Commentary on Hesiod’s Works and Days, 169, uses παράδεισος paradeisos for the Isles of the Blessed (μακάρων νῆσοι makárōn nêsoi) of Hellenistic religion. Unlike the Platonists, pagan Arabs lacked an equivalent concept and are unlikely to have used a similar term.

Yes, of course. The Qur'an either introduced the word into Arabic, or it was introduced into Arabic by Christian Arabs and then later used in the Qur'an. But in either case, it doesn't seem like we can definitively determine whether the word passed into Arabic via Aramaic or directly through Greek (I think both are plausible).

 

[aruniyan]

As an Indian, The word paradise, is a combination of words, par(un restricted/spread out) + dise(direction/country), in the notion of a place where everything is available, an unrestricted place. Here too we have the concept of paraloka(the world after), and also there are similar words like paradesi(one who has no land/nomad).

 

[Apollodorus]

Yes, of course. The Qur'an either introduced the word into Arabic, or it was introduced into Arabic by Christian Arabs and then later used in the Qur'an. But in either case, it doesn't seem like we can definitively determine whether the word passed into Arabic via Aramaic or directly through Greek (I think both are plausible).

That’s right, in the absence of hard evidence it seems impossible to decide “beyond reasonable doubt”. The matter will have to be settled on the balance of probabilities, at least for now.

Unfortunately, it seems unclear when exactly the Quran was composed, compiled, committed to writing, or redacted and there seems to be no original MS which is rather odd. One would have expected the original copy to have been preserved (if there was any)?

What’s interesting is that St John of Damascus, a native of Syria who was born a few decades after the death of Mohammad and was in a position to inquire into the various oral traditions concerning the prophet, concluded that he had obtained knowledge of Christian texts through Christian informants.

In addition to having been a Christian prior to conversion, Salman the Persian seems to have been the most learned in Mohammad’s entourage which is probably why he was put in charge of translating parts of the Quran into Persian. And if he was involved in the translation, he could have played a role in the composition or redaction of the Arabic “original”. After all, somebody must have done it.

Interestingly, the first translation of the complete version of the Quran appears to have been not in Persian but in Greek and was made sometime in the 800s AD.

In any case, given that pagan Arabs had no concept of a “Paradise”, it seems likely that firdaws is derived from Christian sources.

 

[Mahaodeh]

Unfortunately, it seems unclear when exactly the Quran was composed, compiled, committed to writing,

Why do think it’s unclear? It was written down between 610 and 632, it was compiled several times with the final version around 650 BCE. The oldest existing copy is from around that time.

hristian prior to conversion, Salman the Persian seems to have been the most learned in Mohammad’s entourage which is probably why he was put in charge of translating parts of the Quran into Persian.

Was he? Up to my knowledge he only translated the first Sura, which is less than half a page, 25 words to be exact. That’s hardly a translation of the Quran. I don’t know when the Quran was translated to Persian, but I was under the impression that it was some time in the 10th century.

In any case, given that pagan Arabs had no concept of a “Paradise”,

How do you know that? The pagan religion were not preserved, especially it’s mythology and beliefs. For all we know, they may have believed in such a concept. I’m not saying that they do and they called it Firdous, I’m just saying that we don’t know what they believed and if they did believe in a heaven, it could have been called Firdous, or it could have been called Janna, or maybe something else - we don’t know.

 

[WadiH]

Unfortunately, it seems unclear when exactly the Quran was composed, compiled, committed to writing, or redacted and there seems to be no original MS which is rather odd. One would have expected the original copy to have been preserved (if there was any)?

The final recension of Qur'anic text was issued by the third Caliph Uthman in the 650s, and it is in the local Arabic dialect of the Hijaz region (the region of Mecca and Medina). There are several manuscripts dating from that period as Maha mentioned, and this has been supported by both paleography, linguistic analysis and radiocarbon dating in recent decades. There are also the San'aa manuscripts which not only reflect the Uthmanic recension but also preserve a pre-Uthmanic recension underneath it.

What’s interesting is that St John of Damascus, a native of Syria who was born a few decades after the death of Mohammad and was in a position to inquire into the various oral traditions concerning the prophet, concluded that he had obtained knowledge of Christian texts through Christian informants.

In addition to having been a Christian prior to conversion, Salman the Persian seems to have been the most learned in Mohammad’s entourage which is probably why he was put in charge of translating parts of the Quran into Persian. And if he was involved in the translation, he could have played a role in the composition or redaction of the Arabic “original”. After all, somebody must have done it.

Well John was just stating the obvious wasn't he? Divine inspiration or contact with Christians (directly or indirectly) would be the only ways to know about Christian texts. As Maha said, there is no evidence that Salman translated the Qur'an, and there is no solid evidence that he was the most learned of the Prophet's followers.

I don't see much point in speculating on how exactly the Prophet or his people would have encountered any specific Christian term or concept. There is simply no way of finding out. We can be confident, though, that there were many points of contact between Christians and non-Christians in the Arabian world, either through local Christians or through trade, warfare and other travels. Arabian peoples have always been very mobile, and Christianity and Judaism were predominant in the region when Islam appeared.

Interestingly, the first translation of the complete version of the Quran appears to have been not in Persian but in Greek and was made sometime in the 800s AD.

That is interesting indeed, but Muslims tended not to translate the Qur'an in the early period (one exception was Qutayba reportedly ordering a translation to Sogdian in order to help consolidate the conquest of Transoxiana). The Persian language proper only emerged relatively late (10th century) and by then Iran was producing Muslim scholars who worked in Arabic.

How do you know that? The pagan religion were not preserved, especially it’s mythology and beliefs. For all we know, they may have believed in such a concept. I’m not saying that they do and they called it Firdous, I’m just saying that we don’t know what they believed and if they did believe in a heaven, it could have been called Firdous, or it could have been called Janna, or maybe something else - we don’t know.

I will have to disagree with you there. We can't generalize over the Arabian Peninsula as a whole, but as far as the Prophet's Meccan audience was concerned, it's clear from the Qur'an that they did not believe in a resurrection or afterlife. This was one of the major points of conflict between the Prophet and the Meccans. Pre-Islamic poetry from the Hijaz, Najd, Bahrayn and Iraq also does not show any concern with an afterlife, so we can say that the ancestral "pagan" religion of the Arabs proper (those who spoke Arabic and shared the same cultural sphere as Mecca) did not recognize that concept.

 

[Apollodorus]

What I meant was that there seem to be various accounts of how the Quran was recorded and transmitted.

According to one account (Wikipedia),

“The Quran was recorded on tablets, bones, and the wide, flat ends of date palm fronds … the Quran did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad's death in 632. There is agreement among scholars that Muhammad himself did not write down the revelation”.

So, the original MS wasn’t a “book” as such.

In any case, the earliest record of Arabic firdaws seems to be relatively late and it doesn’t predate the Islamic period.

Of course, John of Damascus’ view was coloured by his own understanding of what constitutes the “true religion”. But this is true of all writers, ancient or modern. And he may have felt that certain oral traditions within Islam, that were in circulation at the time, supported his conclusions.

Interestingly, John’s view of the Quran as a misinterpretation of Christian (and Jewish) teachings is mirrored by the Islamic belief that the Christian Gospels are not the “original book” (إنجيل Injil) as supposedly revealed to Jesus … 🙂

 

[WadiH]

What I meant was that there seem to be various accounts of how the Quran was recorded and transmitted.

According to one account (Wikipedia),

“The Quran was recorded on tablets, bones, and the wide, flat ends of date palm fronds … the Quran did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad's death in 632. There is agreement among scholars that Muhammad himself did not write down the revelation”.

So, the original MS wasn’t a “book” as such.

Yes because the Qur'an is a collection of discrete surahs that were preached by the Prophet over a 23-year period and dictated to his scribes. These were then collected into a single text on the order of the first Caliph. An authoritative recension was issued by third Caliph, Uthman, who ordered the destruction of all other codices. Reports suggest a couple of pre-Uthmanic codices continued to be used in certain circles (at least in fragments) and are referred to in later exegetical works, notably that of Ibn Ma'sud. The bottom line though is that by the 650s, we have the Qur'an in essentially the form we have today.

In any case, the earliest record of Arabic firdaws seems to be relatively late and it doesn’t predate the Islamic period.

What record is that?

 

[Platytude]

In any case, the earliest record of Arabic firdaws seems to be relatively late and it doesn’t predate the Islamic period.

This doesn't matter because we shouldn't have expected to find firdaws in pre--Islamic Arabic records, even if the word was native Arabic. firdaws is a rare word (1 in 40000 words in Quran), that means we should have around that much Old Arabic writings of a diverse narrative so to have a considerable of chance of firdaws appearing there. But the entire corpus of pre-Islamic Arabic/Arabian writings is mostly consisted of single-sentence formula with names and kinship and what the name-bearer had done.

What record is that?

In the oldest near-complete manuscripts like Codex Mashhad or Or. 2165 in London, both from the early 700s at the latest.

 

[WadiH]

This doesn't matter because we shouldn't have expected to find firdaws in pre--Islamic Arabic records, even if the word was native Arabic. firdaws is a rare word (1 in 40000 words in Quran), that means we should have around that much Old Arabic writings of a diverse narrative so to have a considerable of chance of firdaws appearing there. But the entire corpus of pre-Islamic Arabic/Arabian writings is mostly consisted of single-sentence formula with names and kinship and what the name-bearer had done.

But there is a substantial corpus of pre-Islamic poetry, which has to be taken into account.

 

[Ihsiin]

According to Islamic tradition, when Mohammad started to receive his revelations, he was taken by his wife Khadija to her Christian cousin Waraqah.

Clearly, a Christian and not a pagan Arab was consulted because a pagan Arab would have had no knowledge or understanding of what M was talking about and would have dismissed him as a madman – as the Quran itself relates:

“They say, ‘Receiver of this Quran! You are definitely mad’” 15:6;

“‘Has he invented a lie about God? Is he mad?’” 34:8;

“‘Are we to forsake our gods for a mad poet?’” 37:36;

“The disbelievers almost strike you down with their looks when they hear the Quran. They say, ‘He must be mad!’” 68:51.

What is the likelihood that people who not only had never heard of Christian teachings, but found them utterly unbelievable, would have been familiar with a word (firdaws) that is unattested anywhere?

Christians may have been a different matter. But if they used Greek and/or Aramaic for religious purposes, then there would have been no need for an Arabic Gospel or an Arabic word for “Paradise”.

And if there was no need for it, we can’t assert that they must have had one.

I fail to agree with your reasoning here. I sense that you somewhat take the approach that there needs to be a reason for the word to be borrowed and used, therefore concluding that since the polytheist Arabs did not believe in Paradise they would not have a word for it. However, in practice this is not the case - all that's required for words to be borrowed from one language to another is language contact, and there was certainly language contact between Arabic and both Persian and Aramaic. The word would then spread through the continuum of discourse within Arabic. A modern analogy might help - I do not need to believe in the concept of, or have any use for the word of, nirvana, but that doesn't stop me from knowing it or using it. Your reasoning might work if we were talking about some isolated tribes in the middle of the Arabian Desert, but Quraysh were a settled tribe and Mecca was a mercantile city.

The fact that فردوس is not attested before the Qur'an does not particularly help - much of pre-Islamic Arabic is relatively poorly attested, the majority of what we have coming from poetry composed in the century preceding Islam that was subsequently codified in the early Islamic period. I don't think this is enough to conclude (or even assume) that the term is coined in the Qur'an.

In fact, in double checking to see whether or not the word had been attested in the pre-Islamic period, I checked لسان العرب and, though I never encounter the word فردوس outside of a religious context, ابن منظور provides a number of temporal definitions for the word before the religious one, including البستان and الروضة and خضرة الأعناب. He also quotes ابن سيده as saying: الفردوس الوادي الخصيب عند العرب كالبستان and further on says: العرب تسمي الموضع الذي فيه كرم فردوسا and also: أهل الشام يقولون للبستان والكروم الفراديس.

All this rather suggests that فردوس was used to mean 'garden' in a temporal sense early on, though a rather more obscure one than the more common words for 'garden' used in Arabic, and particular a garden in which grapes are grown, with the religious sense being derived thereof (and probably influenced by Christian usage).

 

[WadiH]

Wasn't one of the gates of Damascus called باب الفراديس?

I suppose it's possible that Arabic got it from Persian in the generic sense of garden after all.

 

[Apollodorus]

I fail to agree with your reasoning here. I sense that you somewhat take the approach that there needs to be a reason for the word to be borrowed and used, therefore concluding that since the polytheist Arabs did not believe in Paradise they would not have a word for it. However, in practice this is not the case - all that's required for words to be borrowed from one language to another is language contact, and there was certainly language contact between Arabic and both Persian and Aramaic. The word would then spread through the continuum of discourse within Arabic. A modern analogy might help - I do not need to believe in the concept of, or have any use for the word of, nirvana, but that doesn't stop me from knowing it or using it. Your reasoning might work if we were talking about some isolated tribes in the middle of the Arabian Desert, but Quraysh were a settled tribe and Mecca was a mercantile city.

The fact that فردوس is not attested before the Qur'an does not particularly help - much of pre-Islamic Arabic is relatively poorly attested, the majority of what we have coming from poetry composed in the century preceding Islam that was subsequently codified in the early Islamic period. I don't think this is enough to conclude (or even assume) that the term is coined in the Qur'an.

In fact, in double checking to see whether or not the word had been attested in the pre-Islamic period, I checked لسان العرب and, though I never encounter the word فردوس outside of a religious context, ابن منظور provides a number of temporal definitions for the word before the religious one, including البستان and الروضة and خضرة الأعناب. He also quotes ابن سيده as saying: الفردوس الوادي الخصيب عند العرب كالبستان and further on says: العرب تسمي الموضع الذي فيه كرم فردوسا and also: أهل الشام يقولون للبستان والكروم الفراديس.

All this rather suggests that فردوس was used to mean 'garden' in a temporal sense early on, though a rather more obscure one than the more common words for 'garden' used in Arabic, and particular a garden in which grapes are grown, with the religious sense being derived thereof (and probably influenced by Christian usage).

Well, that was one line of reasoning among others possible.

Of course, theoretically, firdaws could have been borrowed and used more or less as nirvana has in modern times. However, it doesn’t follow that this must have been the case. That aside, the question remains as to which language it was borrowed from.

Personally, I’m inclined to consider even Aramaic (or Aramaic translation from Greek) as a source. But as Wiktionary seemed to alternate between Persian and Greek, I assumed that the editors had done their research and found Aramaic to be a less likely source.

If there is no evidence that the word in the religious sense was in use prior to Mohammad, it could have been introduced in Mohammad’s time.

And if it acquired its religious meaning under Christian influence, then Christians like Salman the Persian cannot be ruled out as a possible source.

Ibn Manzur sounds interesting, but I’m not sure about the date of his sources. BTW, does this tell us anything about the date of the /p/→/f/ shift?

 

[Platytude]

If there is no evidence that the word in the religious sense was in use prior to Mohammad, it could have been introduced in Mohammad’s time.

No. This doesn't make sense. For centuries up to Islam, there were hundreds of thousands of Christian Arabs with significant cultural and political power who certainly spoke Arabic with each other. It doesn't make sense to think they were unfamiliar with the term despite their Aramaic/Greek/Ge'ez scripture used a form of it. Lack of evidence should be considered with the reason for its lack. If Arabs didn't write liturgical texts in Arabic, this is not an evidence for that they didn't use Arabic in religious talk. Hence, it is not an evidence for the absence firdaws in Arabic prior to Islam.

And if it acquired its religious meaning under Christian influence, then Christians like Salman the Persian cannot be ruled out as a possible source.

I don't know why you keep wondering about Muhammad's contacts. Just remove the idea that Arabs were pagans from your equations, and then you see how unstable your argument is. You would be saying that historically Christian Arabs (for hundreds of years) needed a non-Arab to teach them the word 'paradise'. Why?

P.S. we can rule out Salman. By the time he and Muhammad first met in Medina, the latter was already done with Christian themes (which, including both mentions of firdaws, were predominantly part of his Meccan mission).

 

[Ihsiin]

If there is no evidence that the word in the religious sense was in use prior to Mohammad, it could have been introduced in Mohammad’s time.

It was almost certainly in use by Arab Christians for centuries prior.

And if it acquired its religious meaning under Christian influence, then Christians like Salman the Persian cannot be ruled out as a possible source.

Again, Arab Christians had been about for centuries prior to this, so it's superfluous to hypothesise that the word was introduced into Arabic by some Christian contemporary of Prophet Muhammed.

Ibn Manzur sounds interesting, but I’m not sure about the date of his sources. BTW, does this tell us anything about the date of the /p/→/f/ shift?

His sources go back to the 8th Century. The shift of ف from [p] to [f] is not very helpful here. There are words that would have been borrowed both before and after the shift where /p/ is imported as ف - see for example, the difference between Iraqi قنفة and Levantine كنباية for 'sofa', both I believe from French canapé, probably via Turkish.

 

[Apollodorus]

It was almost certainly in use by Arab Christians for centuries prior.

I’m not saying it’s impossible. But it still doesn’t answer the question of what the immediate source for the Arabic term was.

Even if it entered Arabic at an early stage, its use was likely very limited in the beginning, which means that it could have been reintroduced from a different source at a later time and popularised under Islamic influence.

Certainly, Greek had come into use in the north-west of the peninsula after the Roman conquest of Arabia Petraea and its influence, especially in an ecclesiastical context, likely increased with the spread of Christianity. In fact, it seems to have grown in influence in the Syriac-speaking Church in the centuries just before the emergence of Islam (5th to 7th c.).

So, it looks like Greek and Persian remain the main candidates.

 

[Apollodorus]

His sources go back to the 8th Century.

If Ibn Manzur (writing in the late 13th century) had sources going back to the eighth century, then it seems likely that St John of Damascus (writing in the late 7th to early 8th century) had sources going back to the time of Mohammad.

In his Πηγή Γνώσεως Pege Gnoseos (“Fount of Knowledge”), St John states that Mohammad introduced his new religion “after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk”.

Fount of Knowledge, 2 (On Heresies).101 in R. J. Deferrari et al. eds, The Fathers Of The Church: A New Translation, Vol. 37, p. 153

St John was an educated and knowledgeable man who, like his father, had been an official at the Caliphs’ court (John of Damascus - Wikipedia) and likely had access to relevant sources. According to the translator, Frederic H. Chase, Jr., “the Damascene shows a thorough knowledge of the Koran, which he cites verbatim, and of the Hadith”.

It is generally accepted that the text of the Quran shows evidence of various influences, particularly from biblical and para-biblical narratives (Wikipedia). Indeed, what tends to be overlooked is that in addition to Mohammad there were many other religious figures claiming to be the “prophet of the Arabs” and having similar teachings, such as Umayya ibn Abi ‘l-Salt, Abu Amir al-Rahib, Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid, Aswad al-Ansi, Sajah bint al-Harith, Maslama ibn Habib, etc.

As most of these were Christians or Christian-influenced, this increases the likelihood of Christian influence, both literary and linguistic, on Arabic from pre-Islamic times to the time of Mohammad himself.

Incidentally, Umayya (ca. 534-623) who was considered one of the greatest poets and is said to have introduced many new words, reportedly composed poems that were highly appreciated by Mohammad (al-Muslim 2255). His poems also showed a concern with afterlife and contained references to Paradise.

– Al Makin, “Re-thinking Other Claimants to Prophethood: the Case of Umayya ibn Abi Salt”, Al-Jamiah Journal of Islamic Studies · February 2010

– Umaiya ibn Abī s-Salt (second.wiki)

If فِرْدَوْس firdaws had indeed been in use for hundreds of years, it might be worth looking into evidence that Umayya and others actually used it.

 

[Platytude]

St John was an educated and knowledgeable man

He is irrelevant. In the present discussion he mattered for his commentary on this "source", i.e. the story of Muhammad and Bahira encounter. But this story is probably made up or vamped up (by either Christians to discredit Muhammad, or Muslims to prove his prophecy, depending how we look at it).

Umayya (ca. 534-623) ... His poems also showed a concern with afterlife and contained references to Paradise .... Indeed, what tends to be overlooked is that in addition to Mohammad there were many other religious figures claiming to be the “prophet of the Arabs” and having similar teachings, such as Umayya ibn Abi ‘l-Salt, Abu Amir al-Rahib, Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid, Aswad al-Ansi, Sajah bint al-Harith, Maslama ibn Habib, etc.

Because Umayya and Muhammad, as well as many other hanifs shared more or less the same belief system. As mentioned earlier, the Judeo-Christian inspired monotheism (hanafiyyah) had already been rooted in Arabia for centuries, due to its geographical and political betweenness of three Christian(ite) Arab communities (Levant, Iraq, Yemen) plus Ethiopia, plus Jewish communities in Arabia. Indeed, this is why there were prophets emerging like mushrooms, the latest of whom we know of thanks to Islamic sources. These prophets would have used a wide range of Biblical terms in their missions, as is evident from the (alleged) poems of Umayya. He didn't use firdaws but jannah that was (and is) the common Arabic word for paradise (that is the problem I mentioned in #40) but he also used Eden عدن once. If these biblical terms had found their way into the pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, there is no reason to assume firdaws hadn't.

So, it looks like Greek and Persian remain the main candidates.

No. The main candidates are Aramaic and Ge'ez. The three main Arab Christian communities were in Levant, Mesopotamia and in Yemen which were influenced by Church of East (in L, M and Y), Syriac Orthodox Church (in L and Y) and the Ethiopian church (in Y). While Greek was obviously known to the clergy, their liturgical language was Syriac or Ge'ez, and so the loan into everyday Arabic would have been from either of these two. Of course, there were Greek speaking missionaries (either exiles or on mission) and traders, but they would have been less numerous and influential than the established churches mentioned.

It's worth noting that the oldest (and probably first) Arabic translation of Bible (9th c.) uses firdaws though this doesn't prove anything because that could have been specifically made to appeal to Muslims.

 

[WadiH]

Why are we so confident that it couldn’t have come from Persian (in the secular sense)? Also why do we assume only clergy would know Greek? There are Greco-Arabic and bilingual Greek-Arabic inscriptions and documents.