Islam’s Loqmân (Lukman) was based on Balaam

 

 

 

“Loqmân seems to be a translation of Balaam,

as both Hebrew baláʹ and Arab. láqama mean to swallow”.

 

W. F. Albright

 

 

 

 

We have already found that the sage Loqmân (Lukman, Lokman) of the Islamic sura is based on (at least in part) as to his wise sayings the famous sage, Ahiqar, who was the nephew of the Israelite (Naphtalian) Tobit of the Book of Tobit:

 

Ahiqar and Aesop. Part Two: Ahiqar, Aesop and Lokman

 

https://www.academia.edu/38391296/Ahiqar_and_Aesop._Part_Two_Ahiqar_Aesop_and_Lokman

 

Like Mohammed, Loqmân, emerging from the unreliable Qurân, would no doubt be a non-historical character:

 

Further argument for Prophet Mohammed's likely non-existence. Part Three: Qur’an (Koran) quite unreliable

 

https://www.academia.edu/36762594/Further_argument_for_Prophet_Mohammeds_likely_non-existence._Part_Three_Qur_an_Koran_quite_unreliable

 

a composite, perhaps bearing likenesses to both Ahiqar, and Balaam centuries before Ahiqar.

 

W. F. Abright, following Dérenbourg et al., linked Loqmân to Balaam in his 1915 article, “The House of Balaam” (Jstor):

 

In 1850 Joseph Dérenbourg, in his Fables de Loqmân le Sage, following the suggestion of Ewald and Rödiger, identified the pre-Islamic prophet, Loqmân, mentioned in the thirty-first sura of the Qurân, with Balaam. …. Loqmân seems to be a translation of Balaam, as both Hebrew baláʹ and Arab. láqama mean to swallow. Translations of proper names from Hebrew are not infrequent; e. g. the modern Tell el-Qáḍî represents the ancient Dan. In the same way, the modern name of Megiddo, which means garrison, is Lejjun = Lat. Legio. …. Mohammedan commentators say that Loqmân belonged to the tribe of tribe of ‘Ad, and lived at Elath in Midian. Other reports concerning him, e. g., that he was a Nubian freedman, and was born in the tenth year of David’s reign,  … are late inventions.