A Review of Arthur Jeffery’s book The Foreign Vocabulary of the Quran with a Focus on Hebrew Vocabulary

The present paper examines and critiques Arthur Jeffery’s book The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān with a focus on Hebrew vocabulary in three parts. First, we give a brief overview of Arthur Jeffrey’s scholarly contributions and summarize his standing in society. Then we recount several short observations about his work and, with a brief look at the relevant verses, examine the foreign terms used in the Qurʾān from the viewpoint of exegetes and the lexicographers. Subsequently, after having identified the points of divergence, we discuss the phenomenon of foreign vocabulary and its importation and borrowing from other languages as an introduction to the subject of our study. The main reasons and factors for the presence of foreign vocabulary the Qurʾān makes up another part of this study. In the final section, while reviewing the 40-page preface by Arthur Jeffrey in his book, we critically review the classification of words by Arthur Jeffrey in this chapter, and then look at some of the words that the author did not address. In the end, we present a critical appraisal of the words that Arthur Jeffrey claims were taken from Jewish, Hebrew sources.