A Historical Semantic Study of the Word "Rabb"

With regard to the importance and central function of the Name “Rabb” in the semantic system of the Holy Qur’ān, this study aims to find the meaning of the word “Rabb”, its semantic change and usage to refer to the True God/ Creator in the Semitic languages, and under what circumstances it has been transferred to Pre-Classical Arabic, using historical semantics and historical-comparative linguistics approaches.In the first part, this study represents the comparison between the Arabic “Rabb” and its cognates in the Semitic language family and also the Egyptian language. Thus, the initial concept of "great" for Semitic rab and its Egyptian cognate nib have been figured out as well as the relationship between the two Semitic roots r-b-b and r-b-w/y.In the second part, it was paid more attention not to the Semitic word rab, but to the usage of its concept in the pre-Islamic religious context and the other words referring to this concept in the Semitic languages and Jewish and Christian texts via a historical approach. Therefore, beside specifying the historical revolving of usage of the meaning “Lord/ Owner of a slave” referring to the True God/ Creator and introduction of Hebrew ’Adonāy, Greek Kyrios, Aramaic Mār’/ Māry and SyriacMoryo, all of them referring to this concept, archaeological evidences have revealed that rab has been used as one of the Names of God in the Sabaic language for the first time in the early 5th century A.D. Then, this usage has made its way to Hijaz and the Arabic language used in the emergence of Islam.