Sura XXV (al furgan), as it was transmitted, begins with the following verse:
It is usually translated as:
Blessed be He who sent down the furgan on His servant that he might be (or: become) a warner for the worlds,
understanding al furgan as the Koran and the "servant" as Muhammad.
This traditional understanding presupposes the understanding of the word nadhir as "warner." Both suppositions, the identification of furgan with the Koran and the understanding of nadhir as "warner," however, are erroneous.
The meaning "criterion" usually maintained for furgan results from the attempt to interpret the Syriac furqdn, which has the meaning of "redemption, salvation," in a way that relates both to the Arabic word farq, meaning "separation," and to the contexts in which the word furgan is found.'
The later and meanwhile traditional identification of furgan with the Koran is especially odd in Sura XXV 1. It is highly improbable that in the-according to traditional Islamic scholarship-earliest "revealed" verses the book that allegedly did not yet exist is already being referred to, even by its supposed later name.
The general evaluation of the alleged meaning "the warner" for nadhir is made possible by the etymological circumstances of this word. In all Semitic languages that functioned as vehicles for the transport of the Bible (and other religious material) to Arabia-Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac-the root n-dh-r uniformly has the meaning of "to vow" or "that which is vowed." And so we have also in Arabic for the basic verb nadhara, in clear etymological relation to all other Semitic languages, the general and main meaning "to vow."
The noun nadhir on account of its form fail is a verbal adjective or noun of predominantly passive participle meaning. The Arabic dictionaries, at least partly, indeed register the primary meaning "vowed," "votive gift," or "consecrated to God";2 others register "warner," as does the traditional Koran exegesis. This peculiarity is excused with the traditional comment that in this case the word of this pattern fail has the meaning as if it were of the pattern muf ` it (= mundhir, participle active of the IV. form of nadhara, which duly has the meaning "warner").3
The same lexica, on the other hand, report that the feminine variant of the masculine form nadhir, which reads nadhira, has the meaning "a votive gift": that which he gives who makes a vow, a child appointed by his parents by a vow to become a minister of the Church, and the like (see Lane s.v.) This is quite peculiar: that the masculine noun nadhir for those lexicographers should have a totally different meaning than the feminine noun of the same grammatical structure.
It can be seen from many phrases and examples of the usage of the word, how "to make someone vow" (IV. or causative form andhara) could change over to the meaning "to warn someone." Everybody who urges someone into a position where he has to make a vow brings this person into a difficult position and this can be paraphrased as "to warn him." But at the same time it becomes clear that "to warn" is not the real and basic meaning although it can-and this only with the causative (IV.) form andhara-get this secondary meaning in some cases.
Since nadhir is a verbal adjective/noun of the basic (I.) form nadhara-and not the causative (IV.) form andhara-it should originally not have had the meaning "warner," but the same significance as registered for the feminine form nadhira (which can also be understood as a nomen unitatis of the masculine noun): namely, "votive gift" or "sacrifice."
In the end we come to the original meaning of XXV. 1, namely,
Blessed be He, who sent down the redemption on His servant that he might be (or: become) a sacrifice for the worlds.
Now XXV.1 displays the central Christian teachings on Jesus Christ: "sent down" (John 1), "as votive sacrifice" (Eph. 5:1; Heb. 10:10-14) "for the redemption" (Eph. 1:7 and often) "of the world" (John 3:17 f.).
Additionally, the rasm of `alamina can be read as dual. And the dual "the two worlds" is theologically precise and correct since Christian theology sees the redemption brought about by Christ extending to the world of the living as well as to the world of the dead. As a corollary we may remark: this verse also displays the signs of the old pre-Islamic parts of the Koran, namely rhyme and metric pattern, as soon as one reads it as vernacular Arabic:
NOTES
1. For the changing of the meaning from "redemption" through "criterion" to "revelation script" see Theodor Noldeke, Geschichte des Qorans I (Leipzig, 1909), p. 34; Neue Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (StraBburg, 1910), pp. 23 f.; A.J. Wensinck, Enzyklopadie des Islam (Leiden-Leipzig, 1913-1938), II, p. 126; Josef Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen (BerlinLeipzig, 1926), S. 76; Jewish Proper Names and Derivatives in the Koran, Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. II (Ohio, 1925), pp. 145-227; Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an (Baroda, 1938), pp. 225-29; Richard Bell, The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment (London, 1926), pp. 118-25; Introduction to the Qur'an (Edinburgh, 1953), pp. 136-38; W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford, 1960), p. 16.
2. See, for instance, P. Belot, Al-Farafd. Arabe-Francois, 17th ed. (Beyrouth, 1955), p. 817, right column
3. See, for instance, E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London-Edinburgh, 1863-1893).