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118 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIC TEXT

Digesting these 'facts' is too much for the objective scholar's stomach.
Whether consciously or otherwise, these theories appear to be based on a
highly subjective, antagonistic view of Arabic achievements. Muslim scholars
who hold fast to these ideas are simply acquiescing to Western scholarship
without any independent analysis of their own. To clarify my claims, Figure
9.1 shows a partial map as supplied by Abbott for relevant inscriptions.
Here are the sites of the five inscriptions in Plate I of Abbott's work,
which form the basis for this N abataean conclusion:
1. "Nabataean inscription on tombstone of Fihr. Umm al-jimal, c.
A.D. 250"9
2. "Arabic inscription of Imru' al-Kais, Namarah, A.D. 328"
3. ''Arabic inscription from Zabad, A.D. 512"
4. ''Arabic inscription at Harran, A.D. 568"
5. ''Arabic inscription at Umm al-jimal, 6th century"
Here we have only one so-called Nabataean inscription (from Umm al-
Jima!) while four are in Arabic, including another one at that same site. Of
the Arabic inscriptions one lies in Zabad, very close to Aleppo in northern
Syria; another is in Namarah, southeast of Damascus; the third and fourth
are from north of Ma'an, once the Nabataean capital. So how did the Arabic
manage to stretch itself from northern Syria down into Arabia, carving
straight through the Nabataean homeland itself? I doubt there was any
language known to its speakers as 'Nabataean', as I will show next.

2. Studies in Earry Arabic Documents andInscriptions

i. The Blurred Line Between Nabataean and Arabic Inscriptions

Among scholars there isa general disagreement concerning what constitutes
a Nabatacan or Arabic inscription. Some scholars cited a few of the later
inscriptions as Nabataean only to see their colleagues revise them subse-
quently as Arabic, and the following examples will illustrate this.
1. A bilingual N abataean-Greek inscription on the tombstone of Fihr,
Umm al-Iimal, dated to c. 250 C.E. Cantineau, Abbott and Gruendler
all subscribe to Littmann's view, who treats it as Nabataean.'?

9 Interestingly, in page 4 Abbott names the same inscription: "a Greek-Aramaic
inscription at Umm al-jimal",
10 J. Cantineau, LeNabateen, Otto Zeller, Osnabruck, 1978 , ii:25 (reprint of 1930
edition); N. Abbott, TheRiseif theNorth Arabic Script, Plate (I- 1);see also B. Gruendler,
TheDevelopment if the Arabic Script, p. 10.