About This Project
by Ibrahim Ibrahim
Disclaimer: I’m a computer science student at Columbia, not a linguist or religious scholar. This project is my take on the creative assignment for Professor bin Tyeer’s AHUM course at Columbia. My main role was compilation: I gathered, organized, and presented research from the scholars and sources listed below. Some of the language and analysis on this site is borrowed directly from those sources. I did not independently verify every etymological claim or read every referenced work cover to cover. Technical terms appear with dotted underlines like this throughout the site. Tap or hover for plain-language definitions. This is a work in progress, and I welcome corrections and feedback.
I came across an Instagram reel about how Arabic prophetic names are tied to their missions. Ādam from adīm al-arḍ, Nūḥ from n-w-ḥ (to wail), Ṣāliḥ from ṣ-l-ḥ (righteous). It reminded me of something I kept doing in my discussion posts all semester: going back to the Arabic to find what the English translations miss. Things like ṣabrun jamīl losing the jamīl in Abdel Haleem’s translation of the Qur’an, or ḥikāya vs. qiṣṣa carrying different theories of storytelling, or ẓālim literally meaning “oppressor” in Princess Fatima.
When I emailed Professor bin Tyeer about the idea, her response changed everything. She asked: does this apply to all prophets? Not all of them spoke Arabic. ʿĪsā spoke Aramaic. Isḥāq is Yiṣḥāq in Hebrew, meaning “he laughs,” linked to Sarah’s laugh when she was told she’d have a baby at her age. So the question became: is the name-mission connection a rule, or does it apply sometimes but not others?
I traced all 25 prophetic names across Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and other Semitic languages. The pattern works for about a third of them, works through shared roots across languages for another third, and breaks down for the rest. This site organizes them into four tiers based on how transparent their names are in Arabic, from fully readable (Tier 1) to completely opaque (Tier 4).
The project picks up on the semester’s central concern: what Arabic does that English translations cannot convey. Our readings spanned the Qur’an, Kalīla wa-Dimna, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, The Thousand and One Nights, The Conference of the Birds, Rūmī, Ibn Khaldūn, and more. Across all of them, the Arabic root system kept surfacing as the key to meanings the translations couldn’t carry.
How I Did This
For each prophet, I looked up the Arabic name and identified its root (the three core consonants that Semitic words are built from). Then I checked whether that root exists in the source language (usually Hebrew or Aramaic) and whether the meanings line up. For example, the Hebrew name Yiṣḥāq comes from a root meaning "to laugh," and Arabic has a cognate root (a related root inherited from the same ancestor language) that also means "to laugh." That's a match. But for a name like Mūsā (Moses), the Arabic gives you nothing because the name comes from Egyptian, not from a Semitic language at all.
I organized the 25 prophets into four tiers based on how much meaning an Arabic speaker can actually hear in the name. Tier 1 names are plain Arabic words. Tier 4 names are completely opaque borrowings. The tiers in between cover the gray area.
Most of the etymological analysis on this site comes from published scholarship, primarily Arthur Jeffery's Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān (1938, reprinted 2007), which catalogs borrowed words in the Qur'an, and Brannon Wheeler's work on the prophets shared between the Qur'an and the Bible. I also drew on classical Qur'anic commentaries (tafsīr) by al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr, and on Ahmad Al-Jallad's recent epigraphic research on pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions. I compiled and organized this material, but the linguistic analysis is theirs, not mine.
Course Information
Asian Humanities: Major Texts from the Middle East, taught by Professor Sarah R. bin Tyeer. Spring 2026, Columbia University.
Feedback
Spotted an error? Have a correction or suggestion? I’d genuinely appreciate hearing from you.
Sources
The etymological analysis on this site draws primarily from the following works. I consulted these sources to varying degrees. Some I read closely, others I accessed for specific entries or claims. Where individual prophet pages cite a source, it means that source informed the analysis for that entry.
Qur’an Translations Used
- Abdel Haleem, M.A.S., trans. The Qur’an. Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Arberry, A.J., trans. The Koran Interpreted. Allen & Unwin, 1955.
- Khalidi, Tarif, trans. The Qur’an. Viking, 2008.
Main Sources for Etymological Analysis
- Jeffery, Arthur. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān. Leiden: Brill, 1938 (2007 reprint). The primary reference for identifying borrowed words in the Qur’an.
- Wheeler, Brannon. Arab Prophets of the Qur’an and Bible. London: Continuum, 2002. Covers the prophets shared across both traditions.
- Al-Jallad, Ahmad, and Ali Al-Manaser. “The Pre-Islamic Divine Name ʿsy.” Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association 6 (2021). Key evidence for the pre-Islamic form of ʿĪsā.
- Reynolds, Gabriel Said. “Reading the Qurʾān as Homily.” In New Perspectives on the Qurʾān, edited by G.S. Reynolds. Routledge, 2011.
Classical Qur’anic Commentaries (Tafsīr)
Accessed through secondary scholarship and online databases, not read in full.
- Al-Ṭabarī. Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āy al-Qurʾān.
- Ibn Kathīr. Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm.
- Al-Qurṭubī. Al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān.
- Al-Zamakhsharī. Al-Kashshāf.
Other Sources Referenced in Individual Entries
- Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language. University of Haifa, 1987.
- Erder, Yoram. “The Origin of the Name Idrīs in the Qurʾān.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49, no. 4 (1990).
- Schneider, Thomas. “Moses the Egyptian? A Reassessment of the Etymology of the Name Moses.” Springer, 2023.
- Larcher, Pierre. “Lūṭī and Liwāṭ: On the Etymology of Two Arabic Words.” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 14 (2014).
- Sanmartin-Ascaso, J. “dōd.” In Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament.
- McGrath, James. The Mandaean Book of John. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020.
- Van Bladel, Kevin. “The Alexander Legend in the Qurʾān.” In The Qurʾān in its Historical Context.