ABSTRACT
The Qur’an, proclaimed in Arabic by Muhammad in the northwestern region of the Arabian peninsula during the first quarter of the seventh century, reveals a significant relationship to the tradition of the Jewish and Christian scriptures and echoes themes found in their midrashic and apocryphal writings. No single collection of biblical writings, normative, apocryphal or midrashic, however, has been identified as the major source in which the Qur’an may have been rooted.1
To the best of our present knowledge, the Bible had not been translated into Arabic by the time of Muhammad, either in its entirety or in the form of single books.2 It is generally believed that Muhammad gathered his biblical knowledge principally, if not exclusively, from oral sources.3 This oral lore was communicated to Muhammad in his mother tongue, but its original forms were in Syriac, Aramaic, Ethiopian and Hebrew materials, as evidenced by the vocabulary of foreign origin to be found in the Arabic Qur’an.4 This foreign vocabulary formed an integral part of Muhammad’s proclamation and was understood by his audience in Mecca and Medina whom he addressed in eloquent Arabic.5
