The Arabic Language

Chapter 4
Arabic in the Pre-Islamic Period
4.1 The language of the Arabs
The 
Qurʾān
that was delivered to the Qurayš by the Prophet Muḥammad describes 
itself as being 
ʿarabiyyun
‘Arabic’ and
mubīnun
‘clear’. The two attributes are 
intimately connected, as for instance in 
Q
43/2–3: ‘By the clear Book: We have 
made it an Arabic recitation in order that you may understand’ (
wa-l-kitābi 
l-mubīni: ʾinnā jaʿalnāhu qurʾānan ʿarabiyyan laʿallakum taʿqilūna
). All later genera
-
tions have believed that its text was the best example of the 
ʿArabiyya
, ‘the 
language of the Arabs’; in fact, that its style and language could not be imitated 
because of its clarity and correctness (
ʾiʿjāz al-Qurʾān
). In combination with the 
word 
lisān
, the adjective 
ʿarabiyyun
came to indicate a supra-tribal language that 
served as the binding factor for all those who lived in the Arabian peninsula, 
as opposed to the 
ʿAjam
, the non-Arabs who lived outside it and spoke different 
languages. The 
Qurʾān
does not use the word 
ʿArab
, only the adjective 
ʿarabiyyun
, 
but mentions the 
ʾAʿrāb
. The latter term probably indicates those who lived in the 
desert outside the cities and resisted the message of the Prophet, as, for instance, 
in 
Q
9/97 
al-ʾAʿrābu ʾašaddu kufran wa-nifāqan
‘the Bedouin are the worst in disbe
-
lief and hypocrisy’.
Retsö (2003) believes that the distinction between 
ʿArab 
and 
ʾAʿrāb 
goes back 
to the Assyrian and South Arabian inscriptions (see Chapter 3, pp. 26f.). In these 
inscriptions, the 
ʾʿrb 
are mentioned as allies and auxiliary troops of sedentary 
civilisations. In the 
Qurʾān
, too,
 
the 
ʾAʿrāb
appear in a military context; they are 
chastised because they neglect their duty in warfare. The 
ʿrb
, on the other hand, 
appear to constitute a special nomadic group, residing in southern Syria. After 
the third century 
ce
they
 
disappear from the sources; the an-Namāra inscription 
of 328 
ce (see p. 35) is one of the last sources in which they appear, when Imruʾu 
l-Qays calls himself ‘king of the Arabs’. Retsö connects the disappearance of the 
ʿArab 
from the sources with the absence of this group from the 
Qurʾān
, and their 
almost complete absence from pre-Islamic poetry and 
Ḥadīṯ
.
Yet the adjective 
ʿarabiyyun
occurs as a characteristic of the revealed text, and 
this gives it special significance. It cannot refer to a group of people called 
ʿArab
, 
but is used as an epithet of the language of the revelation. Perhaps this use is to be 

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Arabic in the Pre-Islamic Period 
43
connected with the distinction between East and West Arabia. Such a distinction 
is posited by Macdonald (2010b: 18), who investigated the distribution of inscrip
-
tions in the peninsula. He observes that in the eastern part of the peninsula 
inscriptions are rare and usually in foreign scripts, whereas in the western part 
inscriptions and graffiti in North Arabian script abound. One explanation for this 
disparity might be the one proffered by Knauf (2010: 239–40) that East Arabia was 
home to an emerging poetic Arabic tradition which was predominantly oral in 
nature. In this area, the kingdom of Kinda and the confederation of the Qays had 
created larger cultural and political entities, in which there was a fertile environ
-
ment for the emergence and development of poetry. In the commercial centres 
in West Arabia, on the other hand, a variety of Arabic was used for commercial 
purposes that was more related to the Ancient North Arabian that is used in the 
numerous inscriptions in this part of the peninsula.
From East Arabia, the poetic language is then assumed to have spread to other 
centres, first to the court of al-Ḥīra, the buffer state in the north between the 
Bedouin tribes and the Persian empire, and subsequently to the commercial 
centres in the peninsula, such as Mecca and Medina. Because of its prestigious 
and supra-tribal character, it is not surprising that this was the language in which 
the