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Featuring of Islam in the writings, particularly Old Testament commentaries, of Adrianus Van Selms (1906-1984)

Summary

This is a study in religious history and biblical scholarship, not an NLP paper. It looks at a neglected side of the South African Old Testament scholar Adrianus Van Selms (1906–1984): how he treated Islam. Dockrat reads three groups of sources:

  • Van Selms' editions of 19th-century Arabic-Afrikaans texts, meaning Afrikaans written in Arabic script.
  • A co-authored 1974 Christian discussion of the Muslim confession of faith.
  • His Old Testament commentaries, where Islamic material appears as comparisons.

In the commentaries these comparisons include a tradition from al-Tabari used for Gen 3:1, Muslim and biblical marital rules around Gen 30:14-16, and a parallel between the exclusivity of Ezra 10:11 and the Muslim idea of ummah. The method is close reading, source criticism and placing each remark in context. Dockrat finds that Van Selms is consistently respectful of Islam while still holding a Christian theological frame. However, his Islamic comparisons in the commentaries stay fairly general, and more focused use of Islamic sources would have served better. Overall the evaluation is positive: setting biblical and Islamic material side by side deepens the understanding of both traditions.

Key points

  • Van Selms coined the term "Arabic-Afrikaans" for Afrikaans written, with some adaptations, in Arabic letters.
  • The 1951 catechism: Van Selms transcribed it into standard Afrikaans. It uses the su'āl wa-jawāb (question-and-answer) format and has 80 questions and answers.
  • The 1979 edition of Abu Bakr Effendi's 1869 text:
    • 218 pages give a transliteration alongside a rather literal Afrikaans translation.
    • It ends with a register listing standard Afrikaans words and the various ways the manuscript spells them.
    • The introduction warns readers not to use the book to mock Islam.
  • In Gesprek met Islam (1974):
    • Van Selms calls Muhammad one of humanity's great figures, but a borderline figure outside Christian salvation history.
    • Dockrat links this view to 8th–9th century Christian polemic, citing Griffith (2008).
  • Two critiques by Dockrat:
    • Van Selms traced the catechism genre back to Babylonian oracles, which Dockrat finds debatable, since question-and-answer is ordinary teaching practice (compare the Heidelberg catechism, 1563).
    • He judges one transliteration of "allāhu" suspect, because the Arabic original may have had ilāh ("god").

Interesting ideas

  • I1. Van Selms attached a register that maps each standard word to all the variant spellings found in the manuscript, which is a cheap, auditable bridge between a messy source and its normal form. — For Mova (tokens): a similar explicit variant-to-lemma table for nonstandard or archaic English spellings would let the lemmatizer normalize input while keeping every mapping inspectable.
  • I2. The edition sets a source-faithful transliteration and a literal translation side by side, and adds no structure that the original lacks. — For Mova (back): the text → graph → text compressor could store the untouched surface form next to the normalized one, so regenerated text can be checked against what was actually there.
  • I3. Dockrat flags a transliteration as suspect because the text was itself a translation of an Arabic original, so two consonant skeletons stayed possible. — For Mova (learn): silver labels produced from an already-translated or converted layer could carry an ambiguity flag and keep both readings instead of committing to one.
  • I4. Dockrat doubts that a shared question-and-answer format proves descent from ancient oracles, since the format is common teaching practice anyway. — For Mova (learn): evaluations could add negative controls asking whether a found similarity also appears in unrelated material before treating it as evidence of a real link.
  • I5. Catechism questions mainly introduce a topic, and their ideal answers list the topic's key aspects. — For Mova (answer): school-course test sets could pair topic-opening questions with gold answers that list the expected key facts, so partial credit is scored per aspect.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

Fields: Linguistics & languages

Cite

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

@inproceedings{dockrat2020featuring,
  title = {{Featuring of Islam in the writings, particularly Old Testament commentaries, of Adrianus Van Selms (1906-1984)}},
  author = {Dockrat, Muhammad Ashraf Ebrahim},
  booktitle = {Old Testament Essays 33},
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.17159/2312-3621/2020/v33n1a5},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2020/v33n1a5}
}

References

5 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

  1. Bosworth, Clifford E. (ed), The History of al-Tabari. Vol. XXXIII. Storm and stress along the northern frontiers of the Abbasid Caliphate. The caliphate of al-Mu'tas'im A.D. 833-842/A.H. 218-227. Translated and annotated by C.E. Bosworth. Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 1991. Brandel-Syrier, Mia.The Religious Duties of Islam as Taught and Explained by Abu Bakr Effendi. A Translation from the Original Arabic and Afrikaans, Edited with an Introduction and Notes. Leiden: Brill, 1960. Clines, David J.A. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984. Dakake, Maria, M. “Qur’anic ethics, human rights, and society”. Page 1785 in The Study Qur’an, a New Translation and Commentary. Edited by Nasr, Seyyed H. find
  2. New York: HarperCollins, 2015. find
  3. Drazin, Israel and Stanley M. Wagner. Onkelos on the Torah, Understanding the Bible Text. Jerusalem: Gefen, 2006. Freedman, Harry. Midrash Rabbah. Volume 2. Translated by Rabbi Dr H. Freedman. New York: The Soncino Press, 1983. Michael, J. Goeje, ed. Tārīkh al-rusul wa-al-mulūk, 13 volumes with two extra volumes containing indices, introduction and glossary. Leiden: Brill, 1879–1901. Griffith, Sidney H. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400834020. Hamidulla, Mohammed (ed), Tarikh Al-Tabari /par Al-Tabari Abi Ja‘far Mohammed Ibn Jarir Al-Tabari. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al-Maaref, 1967 Hebraïsches und Aramaïsches Lexicon zum Alten Testament, Dritte Auflage. Leiden: Brill, 1995. Heidelberg Catechisms (1563), http://www.heidelberg-catechism.com/pdf/lords-days/ Heidelberg-Catechism.pdf. Hoyland, Robert G. Seeing Islam as Others Saw it: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, 13 Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997. Janse van Rensburg J. F. (Hans). “Adrianus Van Selms (1906-1984): What does abide. Aspects of his life and literary contribution.” Journal for Semitics 26/1 (2017):504-545. https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/3133. Le Roux Jurie H. A Story of Two Ways, Thirty Years of Old Testament Scholarship in South Africa. Pretoria: Verba Vitae, 1993. Loader, James A. “Adrianus Van Selms: responsum.” Journal for Semitics 7 (1995): 240–250. Nasr, Seyyed H. (ed). The Study Qur’an, a New Translation and Commentary. New York: Harper Collins, 2015. ↗
  4. Naudé, Jacobus A., Van Selms, Adrianus and Willem D. Jonker. In Gesprek met Islam oor die Moslem Belydenis. Bloemfontein: N.G. Sendinguitgewers, 1974. Ṣaḥeeḥ International. The Qur’ān, Arabic Text with Corresponding English Meanings. London: Abulqasim Pubishing House, 1997. Soden, Wolfram von. Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. 3 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965–1981 Van Selms, Adrianus. Ezra en Nehemia. Tekst en Uitleg Praktische Bijbelverklaring. Groningen: J. B. Wolters’ Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1935. __________Arabies-Afrikaanse Studies 1. ’n Tweetalige (Arabiese en Afrikaanse) Kategismus. Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 14, No. 1. Amsterdam: N.V. find
  5. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1951. __________ “The manuscript and its author”. P. v-ix in The Religious Duties of Islam as Taught and Explained by Abu Bakr Effendi. A Translation from the Original Arabic and Afrikaans, with an Introduction and Notes. Edited by Mia Brandel-Syrier. Leiden: Brill, 1960. __________Genesis deel 1. De Prediking van het Oude Testament. Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1967. __________Genesis deel 2. De Prediking van het Oude Testament. Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1967. __________Levend Verleden, Een Zwerftog door Noord-Israel. Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1967. __________Jeruzalem deur de Eeuwen heen, van vóór Koning David tot Generaal Dayan. Baarn: Hollandia, 1968. __________Abu Bakr se ‘Uiteensetting van die Godsdiens’, ’n Arabies-Afrikaanse Teks uit die Jaar 1869. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1979. __________“sijjīn and sijjīl in the Qur’an.” Die Welt des Orients 9 (1979): 99-103. Westermann, Claus. Genesis 1-11: A Commentary. Translated by John J. Scullion. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984. find

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