@IslamicOrigins @Nightey04386956 Well a good example of correction is Ibn Wahb's Hadith collection, which is one of our earliest literary Arabic documents that we have. It's written on papyrus and its language is so incredibly deviant from the Classical norm that it can hardly be called Classical Arabic at all.
@IslamicOrigins @Nightey04386956 But of course, if you would look at a modern edition today, you would find it in perfect Classical Arabic prose. Certainly suggests that it has been classicised over time.
Personally I find the hadith corpus more interesting when it retains rare linguistic features.
Personally I find the hadith corpus more interesting when it retains rare linguistic features.
@IslamicOrigins @Nightey04386956 Like in the Hadith of Slander against Aisha, where consistently in different versions Muhammad is said to have said "Kayfa tīkum?" ("how is that one?") rather than the expected Hijazi "Kayfa tilkum?" That is clearly an archaism, as people would never correct in that direction.
@IslamicOrigins @Nightey04386956 I wrote a thread about it some time ago. It's actually difficult to deduce where this Najdi form came from.
People haven't even remotely started investigating the corpus in this manner, though I think there is some potential for it.
People haven't even remotely started investigating the corpus in this manner, though I think there is some potential for it.
@IslamicOrigins @Nightey04386956 Same would be true for Hadiths that clearly have Syriac looking vocabulary in it. Who are the common links? Where is it coming from? What does that tell us?
The corpus currently isn't very accessible in a way that facilitates research in this direction...
The corpus currently isn't very accessible in a way that facilitates research in this direction...
@IslamicOrigins @Nightey04386956 But in a basic level: we definitely cannot know whether hadiths had things like hamzah, or vowel harmony or whatever. Hadiths were first written down in a time that neither the hamzah sign nor vowel signs were invented. So all of that is obvious post hoc classicizing imposition.
جاري تحميل الاقتراحات...