Inscriptional Evidence of Pre-Islamic Classical Arabic: Selected Readings in the Nabataean, Musnad, and Akkadian Inscriptions

Authors

Saad D. Abulhab, CUNY Bernard M Baruch CollegeFollow

Document Type

Book

Publication Date

2013

Abstract

This book investigates the ancient roots of Classical Arabic through detailed tracings and readings of selected, Pre-Islamic, ancient inscriptions from the Northern and Southern Arabian Peninsula. It provides detailed readings of important Akkadian, Nabataean, and old Arabic Musnad inscriptions, including Namarah and the Epic of Gilgamesh inscriptions. The book provides clear inscriptional evidence indicating that Classical Arabic was predominantly utilized in the major population centers of the greater Arabian Peninsula, including Mesopotamia and the Levant regions, many, many centuries before Islam. In his book, the author presents several important new readings. Among them, a new reading of two important Classical Arabic poetry verses inscribed in Nabataean and dated back to the first century CE. The author also provides, for the first time, a Classical Arabic transliteration and reading of a sample text from two ancient editions of the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, separated by more than1000 years, utilizing verifiable evidence from major historical Arabic etymological dictionaries.