Article

Introduction

Two features in particular have led to the extensive commentary on Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (Q 112) in Muslim exegesis and Western scholarship. Arne Ambros even argues, in his extensive philological analysis of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, that the rela tion between the brevity of the sūrah (fifteen words) and its extensive commentary make it the most commented upon Arabic text: “Wollte man versuchen, das bestimmten Texten bekundete phi lologisch-exegetische Interesse zu quantifizieren, indem man eine numerische Relation zwischen der Länge des Textes und dem Umfang der diesem gewidmeten ‘Worte über Worte’ herstellt, dann würde unter den Texten arabischer Sprache der Sure 112 mit ihren knappen 15 Wörtern wohl der erste Rang zufallen” (Ambros, “Die Analyse von Sure 112,” 219):

• firstly, it articulates, alongside the shahādah, the Muslim creed per se; secondly, certain philological and stylistic features of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ have posed a challenge to understanding it fully. Although the main objective of the sūrah in articulating the monotheistic confession of the early Muslim ummah seems to be straightforward, the brevity and high density of philological peculiarities have generated a vast discourse about the exact nature and addressees of the sūrah (Rosenthal, “Some Minor Problems in the Qur’ân”; Calverley, “The Grammar of Sūratu ‘l-Ikhlāṣ”; Köbert, “Das Gottesepitheton aṣ-ṣamad in Sure 112,2”; Paret, “Der Ausdruck ṣamad in Sure 112,2”; Schedl, “Nochmals ṣamad in Sure 112,2”; Rubin, “Al-Ṣamad and the High God”; Neuenkirchen, “Sourate 112: Al-Ikhlāṣ”; Hammond, “The Problem of the Quranic al-ṣamad”).

The sūrah consists of four short verses and contains several puzzling syntactical and semantical features:

• (1) Say: He is God, one, (qul huwa llāhu aḥad)
• (2) God, the absolute, (allāhu l-ṣamad)
• (3) He did not beget, nor is he begotten, (lam yalid wa-lam yūlad)
• (4) And there is none like him. (wa-lam yakun lahu kufuwan aḥad

The syntactical structure of the first verse is ambiguous:5 Is the personal pronoun huwa the subject (mubtadaʾ) of the sentence and allāh the predicate (khabar)? (“He is God”). Is aḥad a second predicate to huwa and attached without repeating the pronoun huwa? (“He is God, he is one”). Or is aḥad only an apposition (badal) to allāh? (“He is God, one”). But how can aḥad be in apposition to the definite allāh while being indefinite? And is it possible that huwa is a “pronoun of the fact” (ḍamīr al-shaʾn), which introduces the proposition that “allāh is one” so that allāh is the subject and aḥad the predicate? Two qirāʾāt-traditions further complicate these syntactical observations on the first verse. One of them dismisses the first two words (qul huwa), and the other gives the definite adjective al-wāḥid instead of the indefinite aḥad (Khaṭīb, Muʿjam al-qirāʾāt, 10:635). The latter qirāʾah would solve the “ungrammaticality” of the indefinite noun aḥad. And the sūrah further contains two hapax legomena: al-ṣamad in verse two and kufuʾ in verse four.

Contextualizing Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ: The Christian, Jewish, and pagan background(s)

Several traditions give various Jewish inquiries as a context for the revelation of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ:10 either they asked for the lineage of Muḥammad’s Lord (unsub lanā rabbaka), or they asked, “Who created God (fa-man khalaqahu)?” But in Muslim exegesis, no explicit Jewish credo or ideas are discussed as a possible background for Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ. In Western scholarship, several features of the sūrah have been contextualized with conceptions from Jewish traditions. Claus Schedl, for instance, argued for the Jewish background of the whole sūrah (Schedl, “Probleme der Koranexegese,” 1–14). The first verse, he explained, is identical to the Shema Yisrael from Deuteronomy: “Hear Israel; the Lord, our God, is one” or “Hear Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one (šmaʿ yisrāʾēl YHWH ʾĕlōhênû YHWH ʾeḥād)” (Deut 6:4) (Hirschfeld, New Researches, 35). And analyzing the second verse of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, Schedl follows an earlier proposal of Köbert (Köbert, “Das Gottesepitheton aṣ-ṣamad,” 204–5) in understanding the hapax ṣamad as the Hebrew epithet ṣūr (“rock”) for God (Schedl, “Probleme der Koranexegese,” 2–3). His interpretations conclude that the structure and form of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ extensively share a vocabulary and content with the Jewish tradition (Ambros, “Die Analyse von Sure 112,” 222). Many Muslim traditions report that the mushrikūn of Mecca also asked the prophet Muḥammad to describe his Lord to them (ṣif lanā rabbaka) and give his lineage (unsub lanā rabbaka), whereupon Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ was revealed (Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, 24:727–28; Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 32:175). Uri Rubin systematically analyzed the Muslim exegesis on the sūrah and was convinced that the primary addressees were the Quraysh of Mecca and their beliefs in daughters of God and the kinship between them (Rubin, “Al-Ṣamad and the High God,” 197–217). According to him, the whole sūrah owes its distinctive creed to an articulation of monotheistic belief against the mushrikūn.

1. A comprehensive and systematic analysis of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ as a counter-dis course to a Christian creed was also formulated in the Corpus Coranicum project. The database for “The world of the Qur’an” proposes the Niceno-Constantinopoli tan Creed (381) as a possible background for Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (https://corpuscoranicum.de/de/verse-navigator/sura/112/verse/1/intertexts/47).
2. The authors of this entry on the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed argue that it resembles Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ in its structure and content. While the Niceno-Con stantinopolitan Creed speaks about Jesus as “begotten from the Father (ton ek tou patros genēthenta),” “begotten, not made (genēthenta ou poiēthenta),” and “of one substance with the Father (homoousios tō patri),” the last two verses of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ deny that God begets or is begotten (lam yalid wa-lam yūlad) or that there is any entity that resembles him (wa-lam yakun lahu kufuwan aḥad). But also, the first part of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan may share structural parallels to Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ. At least functionally, the word “almighty” (pantokra tor) probably corresponds to ṣamad, although the meanings of both words differ. Recently Andrew Hammond has questioned that God’s description as pantokrator in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed could be the reference point for the qurʾānic ṣamad (Ham mond, “The Problem of the Quranic al-ṣamad,” 607–31). He convincingly argues that the whole Christological discussion of God’s ousia is the subject of the second verse in Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ. That God is al-ṣamad means that he is “ontologically unique” and indivisible (ibid., 629). He argues that the Qurʾān newly introduced the theological concept of al-ṣamad (ibid., 628): “[…] the epigraphic evidence suggests that Arabic-speaking audiences of the Hijaz and Levant could have recognized the word, even if the specific grammatical and lexical form was new to their ears. […] The Quran uses many words only recently naturalized into Arabic or even deployed ex nihilo, words that would have been understood intellectually by an inner circle while pro ducing a purely magical effect for those on the outside. A nontechnical term like ṣmīdā does not appear to be one of them, even if Syriac often provides the answer to problems of obscure quranic terminology.”

While I agree with the overall analysis of Hammond, I would propose that the qurʾānic al-ṣamad is possibly referring to Christian theological vocabulary as Jacob’s phrase ṣmad ḥāṣeh.

The polyvalent background

Most of the scholars discussed in the previous section were still indebted to an approach to the Qurʾān as a written “text,” which is possibly influenced by previous written “texts” (“Vorlagen”). In recent decades, the perception of the Qurʾān as a primarily oral and recited proclamation, which is in theological discourse with different concepts, has become more accepted (Rippin, “Academic Scholarship and the Qur’an,” 27–38). Following this approach, scholars of the Qurʾān do not search for written “Vorlagen” of specific statements. Still, they want to understand the religious discourse in the Ḥijāz and the circulating ideas and motives that build the context for the qurʾānic proclamation (Griffith, “Late Antiquity and the Religious Milieu of the Qur’an,”; Sinai, The Qur’an, 59–75, 138–43). Angelika Neuwirth in particular has mastered this approach in her historical-critical commentary of the Qurʾān. In her commentary on Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, she argues that it is not one credo or one text, which shapes the context of the sūrah, but we have to assume a “Denkraum” of Late Antiquity (Schmidt, Schmid, and Neuwirth, ed., Denkraum Spätantike), where different religious groups engaged with each other about their confessional beliefs (Neuwirth, The Qur’an and Late Antiquity, 477–82). She demonstrates that the sūrah is in a dialectic discourse with the Shema Yisrael and the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Holger Zellentin has followed Neuwirth’s dialectic interpretation of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ in conversation with the Shema and the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. He also proposes a broader context for the dynamics of religious polemics in Late Antiquity to understand the qurʾānic credo (Zellentin, “The Rise of Monotheism in Arabia,” 162).

1. Within this late ancient context of confessional discourse and polemics, it becomes plausible that the religious self-un derstanding of the early Muslim community in the Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ was coded in a language that Neuwirth describes as “polyphonic.” Zellentin thus summarizes the intention of the sūrah in the following way, “To the Jewish, Christian, and gentile denizens of Arabia, the Medinan Qurʾān thus presents a rejuvenated form of mon otheism that dismisses the Nicene Creed, or a creedal confession very close to it, in a reformulation of the biblical Shema.” Zellentin gives further evidence for the type of confessional demarcation as presented in Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ by referring to the Clementine Homilies, which also contain a denial of Jesus’ divinity by adapting the Shema (ibid., 165–67).
2. Material evidence

In 697 the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān (r. 66–86/685–705) introduced a dinar bearing Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ on the observe legend of the coin: https://id.smb.museum/object/2357503/umayyaden-abd-al-malik. The fourth verse is missing probably for reasons of space. More remarkable is the missing qul huwa at the beginning of verse one. Although denied by Ambros,30 this may reflect a reported variant reading (Khaṭīb, Muʿjam al-qirāʾāt, 10:635). Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ is cited in its entirety at the beginning of the mosaic inscription on the ambulatory of the Dome of the Rock (691) (Grabar, The Dome of the Rock, 91). This evidence indicates, that “the Umayyad state … deployed the sura as a fundamental statement of official ideology and one directed first and foremost at its Christian subjects, who were most likely a demographic majority within the empire’s central lands at this time, with an increasing percentage of Arabic speakers among them” (Hammond, “The Problem of the Quranic al-ṣamad,” 609). An early, albeit undated, Islamic inscription from the region of Najrān shows some possible variant readings of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ: https://twitter.com/DxqNXDiDbYvi3mL/status/1484257118073073672. There are several remarkable features with regard to the spelling and wording of this inscription. Marijn van Putten has given an overview of these features: https://twitter.com/PhDniX/ status/1484498586515746816. In the earliest manuscripts, Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ is not well preserved because it was recorded on the vulnerable final folios of ancient muṣḥafs and, thus, liable to getting lost or damaged. At least Sarayı Medina 1a (ca. 700–900)38 bears Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ in its canonical form: https://corpuscoranicum.de/de/manuscripts/56/page/394r?sura=112&verse=1.

Contextualizing the Qurʾān

How did biblical ideas/motifs enter the environment of Muhammad? Since there is a lack of evidence for an organized community of Christians in the Ḥijāz (Hainthaler, Christliche Araber, 137–42) hypotheses about an oral reception of certain theological ideas via missionary activity (perhaps proceeding from Najrān, al-Hīrah, or Bostra) (Fisher et al., “Arabs and Christianity”; Fisher, Between Empires, 34–71; Block, “Philoponian Monophysitism in South Arabia”) or via cultural exchange through trade with North and South Arabia may provide a solution, even if there is not yet sufficient evidence for this apart from the Qurʾān itself. Research has been done on the relationship between qurʾānic theology and ideas and motifs from the tradition of Syriac Christianity (Decharneux, Creation and Contemplation; Ghaffar, “Kontrafaktische Intertextualität im Koran”; Rizk, “Prophetology, Typology, and Christology”; El-Badawi, The Qurʾān and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions; Anthony, “Further Notes on the Word ṣibgha in Qurʾān 2:138”; Witztum, “The Syriac Milieu of the Quran”; Griffith, “Christian Lore and the Arabic Qurʾān ”; Van Bladel, “The Alexander Legend in the Qurʾān). Therefore, texts from the corpus of the Syriac poet Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–521) are included in the following sections. Jacob’s homilies are of particular importance here. These represent the third largest collection by a late ancient author and have a wide range of addressees and reception (Forness, Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East, 1–24). This is also evidenced by the fact that they have been translated into several languages. Likewise, recent studies show how influential homilies have been in the wide dissemination of complex theo logical problems.

The dynamics of Late Antique religious polemics in the Arabian Peninsula

Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ does not cite either text (the Shema Yisrael and the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed). Taking the example of the qurʾānic mushrikūn, who do not seem to be purely pagan polytheists as the Muslim tradition wants us to assume (Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry; Crone, The Qurʾānic Pagans; Linnhoff, “‘Associating’ with God in Islamic Thought”; Sinai, Key Terms of the Qurʾan, 425–43), Zellentin has proposed to look more closely at the religious developments in South Arabia and the imperial conflicts between the Ḥimyarite and Aksumite empires to give a more concrete scenario for qurʾānic discourse (Zellentin, “The Rise of Monotheism in Arabia,” 174). Recently, the evidence that qurʾānic diction and phrases can be tied more strongly to the reli gious discourse in South Arabia has become even stronger and it is astonishing how profound the theological discourse of the Qurʾān was indebted to the religious developments within the Arabian Peninsula (Al-Azmeh, The Emergence of Islam; Dost, “An Arabian Qurʾān”; Bowersock, The Crucible of Islam).

Jacob of Serugh’s letter to the Ḥimyarites and his Christological credo

At the beginning of the sixth century, the religious conflicts in South Arabia culmi nated in the massacre of the Christians in Najrān by the Ḥimayrite king Joseph (Dhū l-Nuwās). After having come into power, Joseph persecuted the Christians and their Ethiopian supporters in his realm (Nebes, “The Martyrs of Najrān,” 45). After the siege of Najrān, a large part of its Christian community was probably massacred. These events were noticed beyond Ḥimyarite borders. In 525, the Aksu mites invaded Ḥimyar and defeated Joseph. Jacob of Serugh wrote a letter to the Christians of Najrān to console them for their persecution (Schröter, “Trostschreiben ”; Olinder, ed., Iacobi Sarugensis epistulae, 87–102. For the reception history of Jacob’s letter, see Forness, “Jacob of Serugh’s Letters”). Since Jacob died around 520/521, he probably referred to earlier persecutions of the Christian population and wrote this letter during the last years of his life (Forness, Preaching Christology, 119–20). There are other letters that testify to a Monophysite interest in Christian Arabs. For example, Philoxenus of Mabbug (d. 523), who also ordained two bishops in Najrān, wrote a letter to the Nasrid ruler in al-Ḥīrah that gives an overview of Christian heresies from a Monophysite perspective (Martin, Syro-chaldaicae institutiones, 71–78; Mingana, “The Early Spread of Christianity,” 352–67). Symeon of Beth Arsham (d. before 548) also wrote a letter from al-Ḥīrah about the persecution of Christians in Najrān (Guidi, “La lettera di Simeone”).

This gives an account of what happened during the persecution. The same is the case in another anonymous letter also attributed to Symeon by Irfan Shahid (The Martyrs of Najran, iii–xxxii, with English translation pp. 43–111.). What is special about Jacob of Serugh’s letter is the fact that he addresses the Christian Ḥimyarites directly, placing their fate in a Christological and soteriological context (Forness, Preaching Christology, 115–31). This creates a special intimacy in the letter. For this article, it is important that he explicitly describes the true Christological confession of the Christians in Najran. Since there is also a Muslim tradition that locates the revelation of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ in the context of the arrival of a delegation from Najrān (Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 32:175), it makes sense to compare the confession of the Najrānites insinuated by Jacob in his letter with Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ. Jacob comforts the Christian community of Najrān by reminding them of the suf ferings of Christ. He polemicizes heavily against the Jews, who have again come forth as “enemies of the cross (bʿeldbābaw da-zqipā)” and are responsible for their persecutions (Schröter, “Trostschreiben,” 371; Olinder, ed., Iacobi Sarugensis epistulae, 89). In the middle part of the letter, Jacob explains that the Christians in Najrān have true beliefs, which is also the reason for their suffering. Jacob insists that their faith is true.

Jacob here explores the dialectic nature of the trinitarian creed: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three and one simultaneously; therefore, it is no doubt that true Christians are monotheists. Philip Michael Forness explains that Jacob had a “miaphysite interest in Ḥimyar” and formulates the genuine faith of Martyrs of Najrān in contrast to a “dyophysite Christology” (Forness, Preaching Christology, 128). Thus, Jacob for mulates the following Christological credo as the pure belief of the Christians in Najrān. Several elements of this credo are adapted from the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (Forness, Preaching Christology, 128–29): “Son, begotten of the Father” (brā da-ylid men ʾabā), the “only-begotten” (ʾiḥidāyā), and “of the same nature as the Father” (bar kyānā d-abu). The transmis sion history of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed into Syriac is complex and remains to be studied comprehensively (De Halleux, “Le symbole des évêques perses au synode de Séleucie-Ctésiphon (410),” 161–190; idem, “La philoxénienne du symbole,” 295–315), but the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed was translated into Syriac at a synod convened in 410 by the great king Yazdgerd I (r. 399–420) in Ctesiphon (Bruns, “Bemerkungen zur Rezeption des Nicaenums”). There is a West-Syrian (Vööbus, “New Sources,” 295) and East-Syrian version (Chabot, Synodicon orientale, 22) of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, although it seems that the West-Syrian version is earlier.

Jacob adapts some key phrases from the second article of the creed to counter a dyophysite Christology. He insists that the Son has the same nature as the Father and takes only the number one (and not two) (“One is the only-begotten, who takes no other order and number like him”). The Father and the Son are similar in every aspect (“One is he who was like his Father in everything”). Interestingly, Jacob applies the stylistic feature of an anaphora to strengthen his argument. He repeats the number one (ḥad) three times in his Christological credo: ḥad brā […]/ḥad da-dmā […]/ḥad ʾiḥidāyā […]. This emphasis on the oneness of the Son is directed against a dyophysite position, that Jesus has two natures (divine and human) in him. From the perspective of Jacob, this type of Christology would also have significant consequences for the concept of the Trinity as a whole. If one assumes that Jesus has two natures (kyānē), then it would not lead to three but four persons (qnomē) in God. Thus, it is no coincidence that Jacob’s threefold repetition of ḥad refers also to his previous statement that the three names of the Trinity are “one and as one are three (d-itayhon ḥad w-ḥad tlātā). And his Christological proposition that the Son “takes no other order and number like him (d-lā mqabbel ʿammeh sedrā w-menyānā ḥrinā)” matches his earlier confession that for the Trinity “no other name and number” (šmā w-menyānā ḥrinā lā mqabbli-tton) can be accepted. Only if Jesus is one like his Father does the integrity of the trinitarian conception of God remain intact.

The parallels to Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ

There are striking parallels between Jacob’s Christological credo in his Letter to the Ḥimyarites and Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ concerning their stylistic and semantic features and their particular function. Several scholars have proposed the possibility that the syntactical and semantic irregularities of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ are due to the continuous -ad rhyme scheme (aḥad, al-ṣamad, lam yūlad, aḥad). Rudi Paret proposed that the first verse ends on aḥad instead of al-wāḥid because of the rhyme (Paret, Der Koran, 530). Ambros assumed that using the term al-ṣamad and the unusual syntax of verses three and four ensure the continuous -ad rhyme scheme (Ambros, “Die Analyse von Sure 112,” 239–44). A fourfold -ad rhyme scheme could signify that it makes no difference how often God’s one nature is repeated (three times, four times etc.): God is one in his nature. The whole discussion of the Son’s nature and the integrity of the trinitarian conception of God is therefore misleading. The semantic parallels between both credos could reinforce a possible interplay of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ with the Christological credo, since every statement of the credo seems to be addressed and denied in Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ.

The first verse of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ insists on the oneness of God (allāhu aḥad), while Jacob begins his statement with the oneness of the Son (ḥad brā). Jacob then articulates that the Son is begotten from the Father (brā da-ylid men ʾabā), while the third verse of the sūrah clarifies: “He did not beget, nor is he begotten (wa-lam yakun lahu kufuwan aḥad).” With the second ḥad, Jacob emphasizes that the Son is like his Father in everything (ḥad da-dmā l-abu b-kull). This proposition is inverted in the last verse of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ: “And there is none like him” (wa-lam yakun lahu kufuwan aḥad). The third sentence beginning with ḥad explains the only-begotten as numerically and substantially identical to the Father (ḥad ʾiḥidāyā d-lā mqabbel ʿammeh sedrā w-menyānā ḥrinā). The epithet al-ṣamad for God in verse 2 (allāhu l-ṣamad) possibly denies this. Rudi Paret proposed that al-ṣamad should be under stood as “compact” and negates the possibility that God could be thought of in three persons (Paret, “Der Ausdruck ṣamad,” 294–95). This explanation perfectly matches the qurʾānic rejection of a trinitarian conception of God: “Unbelievers are those who say, ‘God is the third of the three (inna llāha thālithu thalāthatin).’ There is no god but One God (wa-mā min ilāhin illā ilāhun wāḥidun)” (Q 5:73). From the perspective of qurʾānic theology, the most prob lematic aspect of Jacob’s Christological credo would be that God is reduced to Christ. This is repeatedly stated in the Qurʾān: “Unbelievers are those who say: God is Christ (inna llāha huwa l-masīḥ) the son of Mary”(Q 5:7, cf. 5:72). Previous scholars rightly observed the inverted nature of this statement (Griffith, “Al-Naṣārā in the Qur’ān,” 311, 316).

1. Usually, Christians do not confess that God is Christ but, rather, that Christ is (the Son of) God. The Qurʾān seems to argue that if Christians say, as Jacob does, that Jesus is one like his Father, similar to Him in everything, and takes no other number than the ‘one’ of his divine nature, then this would consequently lead to the conclusion that God is Christ. Against this type of reasoning, Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ defends the integrity of the oneness of God.)
2. There is possible evidence that the epithet al-ṣamad evocates a Jacobean vocab ulary to tackle his credo. In one of his homilies, Jacob says in reference to the cre ation of Adam as God’s icon (Gen 1:26–27), “He fashioned [gbal] him and gave him form [ṣāreh], He made him into a solid and hard body [ṣmad ḥāṣeh] (Alwan, ed. and tr., Quatre homélies, 2:175)”. Manolis Papoutsakis gives an in-depth analysis of the phrase ṣmad ḥāṣeh (Papoutsakis, Vicarious Kingship, 142–47). He refers to a study of Christos Simelidis, which shows: A careful examination of the early Muslim understanding of ṣamad in Sura 112.2 and the Greek words holosphyros and sphyropēktos suggests that the latter are not deliberate mis translations of ṣamad in order to prove that Muslims believe in a material God, as various scholars have suggested. The words, which could mean ‘solid’ or ‘massive’ and are often mis translated by scholars, have been found to be accurate and knowledgeable renderings for ṣamad and in fact testify to an early Islamic understanding of this term (Simelidis, “The Byzantine Understanding of the Qurʾanic Term al-Ṣamad,” 912). Simelidis further explains that a synonymous term to holosphyros was applied by Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403) in a metaphorical sense to discuss the creation of man and the unity of his body. Papoutsakis argues that Jacob of Serugh seems to draw on this tradition when applying the phrase ṣmad ḥāṣeh in his homily: As explained, […] ṣmad (“to make solid”), sharpened by ḥāṣ (“to make hard/tight”) is used in the context of the creation of man […] It seems reasonable to conclude: a) that […] Jacob of Serugh reflects awareness of that same early tradition, and b) that his usage strongly supports the Greek rendering of the enigmatic term ṣamad, a hapax legomenon in the Qur’an, and con firms Simelidis’ evaluation of the ninth-century Greek translation (Papoutsakis, Vicarious Kingship, 146).

From this background, it is at least worth considering that the qurʾānic epithet al-ṣamad possibly utilizes the theological meaning of a verb from the same root attested in the Jacobean vocabulary for discussing the unity of something. The Qurʾān would then be applying a verbal root already employed for discussing the unity of things and to make clear that God is absolutely one without any division. And it is worth taking note that later Greek translations, when translating the epithet al-ṣamad, use a Greek term whose synonyms were used centuries before for describing the unity of something. In Safaitic inscriptions, the root ṣmd is associated with sacrificial sites in high places (Al-Jallad, Religion and Rituals, 23–26). It is remarkable that Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī quotes a tradition from Ibn Abbās, that Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ was revealed when a delegation from Najrān came (qadima wafd najrān) and asked the Prophet to describe his Lord (Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 32:175). Jacob as well formulates a credo for the Christians in Najrān. So it is at least possible that Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ is react ing to a miaphysite Christology, which circulated in Najrān and in an area where Christians were in conflict with a form of monotheism that was shaped by Jewish tradition (Robin, “Ḥimyar, Aksūm, and Arabia Deserta”; Nebes, “The Martyrs of Najrān,” 35–40). Another possible scenario could be that Q 112 was composed in a context outside of the Ḥijāz, like that of Najrān, and was subsequently included in the Qurʾān. Overall, there are several formal, stylistic, semantic, and functional parallels between Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ and Jacobs’s credo. The relevant part of the Christological credo (20 words) and Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (15 words) are comparable in length, even if the sūrah is a bit shorter. Stylistically both apply cognate rhetorical forms for struc turing the credo with the term ḥad/aḥad. While Jacob uses a threefold anaphora, the sūrah deploys a fourfold epistrophe.

1. Possibly, identical themes are discussed on the semantic level in both credos: 1) the unity of the Son vs. the unity of God; 2) the begotten Son vs. God, who is not begotten and does not beget; 3) the Son is absolutely like his Father vs. God, who is like no one; and 4) the only Son, who takes the same number and order like his Father vs. God, who is absolute and cannot be divided. Both credos have the polemical function to articulate their own monotheistic belief in discourse with pre-existing creedal claims of monotheistic faith. The Christological credo for the Christians in Ḥimyar formulated by Jacob defends a miaphysite Christology and the trinitarian conception of God against a rival dyophysite Christology. The above discussion of the possible Jewish, pagan, and Christian backgrounds of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ evince its discursive nature, but it seems to be the trinitarian conception of God and miaphysite Christology that are on the horizon of the qurʾānic expression of monotheistic belief. Thus, there are strong indications that the Islamic credo’s style, structure, and content were formu lated against Christological credos such as Jacob’s. Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ is much closer to Jacobs’s credo than to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (see table 2), which is a lengthy text compared to Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ. The previously proposed parallel between pantokrator (Almighty) and al-ṣamad is also not convincing; the terms do not have the same semantics. Rather, the Qurʾān seems to allude to Jacobean vocabulary (ṣmad) to articulate the absolute and indivisible nature of God. Also, the parallel between the last verse of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, “And there is none like him (wa-lam yakun lahu kufuwan aḥad),” and the phrase “one substance with the Father” (homoousios tō patri) in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is not as straightforward a parallel to Q 112 as Jacob’s statement, “One, who was like his Father in everything”.
2. The comparison to another adaptation of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Syriac tradition can strengthen the proposed closeness of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ to Jacob’s formulated creed. In his commentary on the sūrah, Paul Neuenkirchen (Neuenkirchen, “Sourate 112: Al-Ikhlāṣ,” 2b:2311–28) referred to a parallel passage in Narsai’s Homily on our Lord’s birth from the Holy virgin (McLeod, Narsai’s Metrical Homilies, 36–69). In it, Narsai (d. ca. 500) formulates a creed at the end, which also adapts the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Since later Muslim exegesis has understood ṣamad also in the sense of eternal, Neuenkirchen argues that there is a correspondence between Narsai’s statements and Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (Neuenkirchen, “Sourate 112: Al-Ikhlāṣ,” 2b:2325): both state the unity (ḥad alāhā/allāhu aḥad) and the eternity (d-itaw men mtum/al-ṣamad) of God. Likewise, the Qurʾān reverses Narsai’s posi tive statements about Jesus being born from God (da-ylid menneh/lam yalid wa-lam yūlad) and the equality of God and Christ (wa-šwe ʿammeh b-kullhēn/wa-lam yakun lahu kufuwan aḥad). And these creedal propositions are in the same sequence. Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ and the formulated creeds of Jacob and Narsai are good evi dence for late ancient reception of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed; however, the qurʾānic sūrah and Jacob’s creed are nearer to one another. While the latter are coherent texts of similar length, in Narsai’s homily the parallel statements are inter rupted by further propositions. Also, the assumed meaning of ṣamad in the sense of eternal is in need of explanation (as is the equation of ṣamad with pantokrator). Against this, I have argued that the Qurʾān may be evoking Jacobean vocabulary with its deployment of ṣamad as a divine epithet.

Further, it can be argued that the closest inner-qurʾānic parallel to Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (Q 4:171, see below) is against creedal statements that divide God into three persons. This favors an understanding of ṣamad in terms of indivisible/absolute. Formally, too, Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ and Jacob’s credo contain similar stylistic devices in the form of an anaphora/epistrophe with an -ad rhyme scheme. And for both creeds, it is possible to identify a Najrānite context (Letter to the Himyarites being occasioned by regional persecution, and Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ being revealed when a delegation came from Najrān).

A qurʾānic parallel to Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ?

Several scholars have referred to inner-qurʾānic parallels for the use of certain terms and phrases in Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ to explain its structure and meaning, but there has been no attempt to analyze whether there are inner-qurʾānic parallels to Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ as a whole and whether these are related to a critique of creedal artic ulations within the Qurʾān. The following verse of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ (Q 4:171) seems to contain a phraseology and structure close to Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ while addressing trinitarian creeds: O People of Scripture, do not go beyond the bounds in your religion. Do not say anything but the truth about God. Christ, Jesus, the son of Mary, is truly God’s messenger, and His word (kalimatuhu), which He cast into Mary, and a spirit from Him (rūḥun minhu). So believe in God and His messengers and do not say, ‘Three’ (wa-lā taqūlū thalāthatun). Desist. [That is] better for you. God is one god (innama llāhu ilāhun wāḥidun). Glory be to Him! He is above having a son (subḥānahu an yakūna lahu waladun). To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and on earth. God is sufficient trustee (wa-kafā bi-llāhi wakīlan). This verse is primarily concerned with the expression of creeds. The imperative “Do not say!” (lā taqūlū) is used twice, and it warns against articulating a trinitarian concept of God. Interestingly, Jesus is positively described as a word (kalimah) and a spirit (rūḥ). It is important to note that the word and the spirit are the two persons of three persons who are named in trinitarian invocations of God (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). The verse insists, furthermore, that no one is allowed to say “Three” (lā taqūlū thalāthatun). Hence, the addressees of this verse were most probably Christians who have a trinitarian invocation of God.

1. The verse is at least denying a certain type of trinitarian creeds or even trinitarian creeds per se. It further formu lates a credo, which is acceptable from the perspective of qurʾānic theology, “God is one God. Glory be to Him! He is above having a son. To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and on earth. God is sufficient trustee (wa-kafā bi-llāhi wakīlan).” In both cases, the oneness of God is expressed. While Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ uses the term aḥad, in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ (4:171) the term wāḥid is applied, which is also contained in alternative readings of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (112:1) (Khaṭīb, Muʿjam al-qirāʾāt, 10:635). Overall, Q 4:171 formulates a sequence of statements that have a semantic and structural affinity to Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ as a whole and are directed against a trinitarian creed of Chris tians. While Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ introduces positively a credo, which should be spoken (qul), in Q 4:171 an articulation of a trinitarian credo is prohibited (lā taqūlū) and followed by a monotheistic credo close to Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ. That there was at least a strong exegetical connection between Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ and Q 4:171 is evident from the fact that both are contained in the main inscription of the Dome of the Rock.83 This reveals the early reception and interpretation of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ as an anti-Christian text.

Jacob of Serugh’s explanation of the Trinity to Jews and Q 4:171

In his homilies against the Jews (For the relationship between Syriac Christianity and Jewish tradition see Butts and Gross, ed., Jews and Syriac Christianity) Jacob of Serugh discusses several themes that are typical of anti-Jewish polemics in the Christian tradition (circumcision, the Sabbath, Jewish laws, etc.). In one of these homilies, he tackles the Jewish denial of the idea that God has a son. Jacob explains the trinitarian nature of God and defends it against a Jewish polemic (Graffin, ed., Jacques de Saroug: homélies contre les Juifs, 50). Thus, Jacob insists that God has a word and a spirit. This is the reason one may speak of three persons (qnomē tlātā) without this being a denial of the fact that God is one (ḥad alāhā). Jacob further argues that he is not testifying to three gods when he confesses to the word and spirit of God. The trinitarian creed does not lead to tritheism. Jacob exemplifies this by comparing the three persons of God with the sun. Jacob denies that the confession to the trinitarian concept of God implies the plu rality of Gods. This is why he repeatedly insists that he does not say “three gods” or “lords” in the plural. The qurʾānic discourse in Q 4:171 has close connections to Jacob’s defense of the Trinity. In both cases, the true and confessional articulation of God’s nature is disputed. The Qurʾān denies that it is permissible to say “three,” and Jacob defends the trinitarian creed from being an articulation of “three gods.” God has a spirit (ruḥā) and a word (melltā), which are persons (qnomē).

1. They constitute one God. And Jacob complains about the Jewish denial of the spirit and word of God. Exactly this kind of argumentation is questioned by Q 4:171; it positively admits that Jesus is a word from God (kalimatuhu) and that he is a spirit from him (rūḥun minhu). Against Jacob the Qurʾān admits the reality of God’s word and spirit and still denies that this would justify saying and confessing “three”: “Do not say, ‘Three’ (wa-lā taqūlū thalāthatun).” It seems that the Qurʾān does not accept any kind of differen tiation in God, not even as qnomē. Ultimately, Q 4:171 articulates a true confession of God’s nature, which is reminiscent of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ. This would strengthen the idea that surah Q 112 already argues against differentiating God’s unity into three persons.
2. Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ as part of the religious discourse in Late Antiquity
3. I do not have a conclusive answer to the question of how the theological argu ments and ideas preserved in Jacob’s work found their way into the theological discourse of the Qurʾān. A possible scenario could be missionary activities or cul tural exchange from Najrān into the Ḥijāz. Philip Wood has recently pointed out an important reference in the hagiographic collection Lives of the Eastern Saints by John of Ephesus (ca. 507–590) (Wood, “Christianity in the Arabian Peninsula,” 237–38). In a chapter about Symeon of Beth Arsham (d. before 548), he describes his missionary activities in al-Ḥīrah (Brooks, ed. and tr., John of Ephesus: Lives of the Eastern Saints, 140). John further describes how Symeon translated the creed of the people he converted. Wood considers whether this practice of translating the creed into the local lan guages also influenced the development of Arabic writing and language (Wood, “Christianity in the Arabian Peninsula,” 238). In the context of this article, the question can be asked whether this practice of trans lating creeds into local languages by bishops is also relevant to Najrān, since two bishops are also attested there. It is possible and probable that they translated their miaphysite confessions into Sabaic or other languages of pre-Islamic Arabia (Al-Jallad, “The Linguistic Landscape of pre-Islamic Arabia”).

The creed of Christians in Ḥimyar formulated by Jacob of Serugh could be a candidate for how bishops in Najrān may have formulated their creeds in Syriac and then translated them into Arabic. Accordingly, Q 112 would be an example of engage ment with such translated confessions. It could also be possible that the ideas and arguments used by Jacob of Serugh in his homilies against the Jews were relevant in religio-political disputes and missionary activities due to the wide reception of his homilies. After all, the opponents of the Christians in Najrān were influenced by a form of monotheism closer to Jewish tradition (Robin, “Ḥimyar, Aksūm, and Arabia Deserta,” 127–71; Nebes, “The Martyrs of Najrān,” 35–40).

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1. Parmenides Fragment 8 and Q112
2. In an issue of Diogenes, Gilbert Grandguillaume refers to Youssef Seddik, Le Coran: Autre lecture, autre traduction (Algiers: La Tour d’Aigues: Barzakh/Éditions de l’Aube, 2002), p. 87 who claims that Qurʾān sūra 112 “appears identical to the beginning of Fragment VIII of the Poem of Parmenides” (Gilbert Grandguillaume, “The Forgotten Cultures of the Qur’an,” Diogenes, no. 226/57/2 (2010): p. 58). Burnet 1930: 174 n. 4, and Kranz in Diels and Kranz 1951: 235, rejected the reading μουνογενές at fr. 8. 4a, in large part because they took it to mean something like ‘once’ or ‘only begotten’ and saw that this sense is incompatible with What Is being ἀγένητον or ‘ungenerated’. In defending μουνογενές, Tarán 1965: 92, argued that it should be understood as ‘unique’, ‘the only thing of its kind’, or ‘single’; but his defence of this understanding by comparison with the phrase μονογενὲς τέκνον πατρί at Aesch. Ag. 898 is forced, and there are difficulties in finding an argument for uniqueness at the appropriate point. The arguments that What Is is ungenerated and deathless extend through fr. 8. 21, and the reasons given for taking What Is to be ἀτρεμές or ‘still’ begin at fr. 8. 26. Since Parmenides’ exposition follows the order of this initial programme, fr. 8. 22–5 must be where he argues that What Is is οὖλον and μουνογενές. But there is certainly no argument there for the uniqueness of What Is. It is therefore best to understand μουνογενές as ‘of a single kind’ or ‘uniform’.

Palmer notes the following additional synonyms in Parmenides: What Is “must be altogether” or “entirely,” πάμπαν πελέναι χρεών ἐστιν (8.11); “nor is it divided,” διαιρετόν; it is “all alike,” ὁμοῖον; “all replete,” ἔμπλεόν; “all continuous,” ξυνεχές (8.22‐25). With regard to the translation of 8.22’s διαιρετόν, Palmer explains that “‘divided’ seems preferable to ‘divisible’ since διαιρετόν picks up ‘whole and uniform’ from the main programme. As for What Is, it is not possible for anything “to come to be beyond (παρ’) it” (8.13a). What Is is also “unbeginning” and “unending,” ἄναρχον ἄπαυστον (8.27a); “the same,” τωὐτόν, and “in the same place,” i.e., “unmoving,” ἐν τωὐτῷ (8.29‐31); “inviolate,” ἄσυλον (8.48‐49).

Arabic ṣamad is here likely associated via wordplay with Arabic ḍamada, “to bind up”; cf. Syriac ṣmad. The Hebrew cognate bears the same basic meaning, דמצ, ṣāmad, “bind,” “join,” among whose derivatives are ṣemed, “couple,” “pair,” and ṣāmid, ‘”bracelet” (R. Laird Harris; Gleason L. Archer; Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), p. 769). From the root המצ comes the word “braid.” In the Hiphil ṣāmad means “to combine,” “to harness,” “to fit together.” In Syriac the cognate word means “to bind.” The basic sense of ṣamad in sūra 112 would then seem to imply by contrastive implication, “undivided.” In sūra 112, arguably ṣamad basically means “united.” The sense of “united” in this instance is related especially to the notion of being compact, and the allusion is to the compact solidity of a rock, boulder, or crag as support or foundation. The ultimate origin of sūra 112’s dyad of “one” and “compact” is Deutero-Isaiah’s talk of God as one and as Rock, as in Isa 44:8b: “Is there a God beside Me? Yea, there is no Rock (רוּצ).” There is a tendency in the LXX to render some MT Tanakh passages that call God ṣur, “Rock,” with theos (= ʾElohim). According to Peters, the Hebrew text in some cases originally may have read ʾelohim, so that the LXX’s theos could accurately reflect a pre-MT reading with ʾElohim in some of the pertinent passages.

1. Peters posits that perhaps only at a later stage did the MT substitute in various cases ʾelohim with ṣur, “rock.”14 This trend is what we seem to see in sūra 112’s aḥad and ṣāmad. Sūra 112:3 alludes negatively to the Nicene creed by insisting that God does not beget and that God is not begotten. Jesus is not the son, but the servant of God. Therefore the relationship between God and Jesus is not walad, generation, but ṣamad in some sense. The term aḥad implies oneness, whereas ṣamad suggests multiplicity. This contrast is reflected elsewhere in Islamic kalām by the doctrine that there is one divine essence, but many divine attributes, some of which may even be personified, depending on the particular school of thought involved, such as word (kalima) and spirit (rūḥ). However, in standard Islamic theologies any personified attributes do not pertain to the plane of the divine essence as such, so that God remains essentially one. Bringing these insights to bear on sūra 112, in short, God is ṣamad not in the mode of generation of a son (āya 3), nor in the marital mode of possessing the maternal Holy Spirit as a wife who is mother of a son (see āya 4’s implied “consort”). According to al-Bayḍāwī, āya 4 combats the idea that God has a ṣāḥibah, a “consort”; see Edwin E. Calverley, “The Grammar of Sūratu ‘l-Ikhlāṣ,” Studia Islamica 8 (1957): p. 14. God is not a father who begets a son (āya 3), and as God does not have children, he does not have a consort or wife from whom children could be born; this is the general meaning of the āya according to classical commentators.
2. In the theological mode of creation and a philosophical mode of emanation, the latter possessing several different possible valences, again depending on the particular school of thought involved. J. M. F. Van Reeth refers to al-ṣamad’s Hebrew and Aramaic cognates which bear the sense of “yoke” (J. M. F. Van Reeth, “Die Vereinigung des Propheten mit seinem Gott,” in Markus Gross, Karl Heinz-Ohlig. Schlaglichter: Die beiden ersten Islamischen Jahrhunderte (Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 2008), p. 382). Before addressing the question of hypostases, Van Reeth points out with regard to sūra 4:157’s formula rafaʿa ʿanhu which describes Jesus’ assumption to God, that “this is in any case a Manichaean liturgical formulaic expression,” as well as being reflective of “pure adoptionism” in Ebionite mode.
3. That āya 2’s ṣamad synonymously overlaps conceptually with āya 1’s aḥad is indicated by the fact that several traditional variant readings attest al-wāḥid rather than al ṣamad; taken as a whole these traditions show a degree of theological synonymy between the three terms al-aḥad, al-wāḥid and al-ṣamad.19 Āya 3 alludes to the Nicene belief in God the Father and God the Son, whereas āya 4 alludes to the belief in God the maternal Holy Spirit. In light of this, we can conclude that āyāt 1 and 2 imply that God is not one and three, as in the Nicene creed, but that God is one, and the one God is bound through/in an intimate union with the word and the Holy Spirit, not through/in an identification in or of the divine essence, but on the lower plane of the personified or emanational attributes, valences encountered in both kalām and Sufi theosophy. However, although the passage alludes to the Nicene creed, the fact that āya 4 presupposes a maternal mode of the Holy Spirit indicates that the Trinitarian thought being dealt with in this context may have been mediated through the lens of what scholarship generally calls “Jewish-Christian,” but which I would more specifically describe in this instance as an Ebionite-like theology
4. [12:11 PM]Table 2 indicates that Parmenides fragment 8 lines 5-6 correspond, more or less, to both the content and sequence of Qurʾān sūra 112:1-4, with the exception that āya 3’s two main statements appear in reverse order, 3b followed by 3a. (Compare the reversed, chiastic structure we find when we compare sūra 112:1-3 with Eunomian theology’s fundamental articulations). By contrast, fragment 8 lines 2-3 correspond to sūra 112:3, 1-2, in that specific order. If one can coordinate fragment 8 line 4’s temporal “nor yet will it be” with line 6’s “increased,” which could be either spatial or temporal, then line 4 could be coordinated with sūra 112:3. When we recall that line 3’s “uniform” is the Greek μουνογενές, and that this could be understood hyper-literally as “only begotten,” then we can discern a further linguistic connection shared between μουνογενές and دلوي / دلي , “beget,” “begotten.” Indeed, it could be the case that sūra 112:3’s negation of دلوي / دلي is intended as a correction of a mistaken understanding of Parmenides’ μουνογενές by excluding its translation with the Arabic دلوي, “begotten,” by insisting through the negation دلوي ملو, “and not begotten,” that the correct meaning of μουνογενές is in fact دحأ, “one,” and its near semantic partner دمصلٱ, al ṣamad, rather than دلوي, “begotten.”

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Recent scholarship generally interprets Sūrat al-Iḫlāṣ (Q 112) as a polemic against Nicene Christian theology (Manfred Kropp, “Tripartite Formulas in the Qur’ānic Corpus, Possibly Pre-Qur’ānic,” in New Perspectives on the Qur’ān: The Qur’ān in its Historical Context 2, ed. G. Reynolds (New York: Routledge, 2011), 247–64; Angelika Neuwirth, “Two Faces of the Qur’ān: Qur’ān and Muṣḥaf,” Oral Tradition, 25/1 (2010): 141–56). As argued herein, al-ṣamad meant ‘the one bound/compressed indivisi bly,’ meaning the plurality that was bound into an indivisible unity, following the sense of the Syriac ṣ-m-d root. For God to be a plurality that is ‘bound/ compressed,’ however, seems inconsistent with quranic theology. Why would a term used by Syriac Christianity to describe the Trinity’s unity be invoked in a surah that insists God has not begotten a son (Q 112:3), and proclaims that God is one, without any equal to his level (Q 112:4)? The enigma can be resolved by interpreting Q 112 as a formula that pro claimed a popular soteriological innovation. Q 112 refutes the Nicene Creed by insisting that God has nothing to do with begetting, and had no walad (human son). But this blunt negation did not necessarily affirm the stricter forms of monotheistic theology developed by later Islamic tradition