Manuscripta Orientalia - E. Rezvan. “Fear Him Who Created You, and the Generations of the Ancients”: Back to the Term Jibill (Jibilla) in the Qur’ān (Ancient Reality and New Perspective)

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E. Rezvan. “Fear Him Who Created You, and the Generations of the Ancients”: Back to the Term Jibill (Jibilla) in the Qur’ān (Ancient Reality and New Perspective)

Efim Rezvan

Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera) RAS,
St. Petersburg, Russia
E-mail: efim.rezvan@mail.ru

“Fear Him Who Created You,
and the Generations of the Ancients”: Back to the Term Jibill (Jibilla) in the Qur’ān (Ancient Reality and New Perspective)

Abstract. Using the method of contextual analysis, the author shows that the term jibill (jibilla) in the Qur’an means exclusively “the ancient peoples”. Comparison of Qur’anic data with Northern and Central Arabian epigraphy indicates a certain level of cultural continuity between the society of sedentary centres in Inner Arabia sedentary centres during 6th — 7th centuries and the Arabian states of the beginning of our era. In this context, it is essential that the museum complexes currently under development in Saudi Arabia reflect an ideological foundation deeply rooted in the ancient history of Arabia. They connect the region's rich cultural past with the message of the Qur’an as the pinnacle and natural culmination of the prophetic mission: “Muḥammad is not the father of any one of your men, but the Messenger of God, and the Seal of the Prophets…” (Q 33:40).

Keywords: History of pre-Islamic and early-Islamic Arabia, The Qur’anic ethnography, language of the Qur’an, Qur’anic terminology and its functional meanings, ethno-social groups in the Qur’an

Acknowledgments. The study was carried out within the framework of the research topic “Russia — the West — the Islamic World: conflicts and interaction in competitive paradigms of spatial development (historical, cultural, museum and archival sources)” of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences. It forms part of the research direction “Ethnic History and Diversity of the Cultural Heritage of the Islamic World in Historical Dynamics”, which has been pursued by the International Centre for Islamic Studies at the MAE RAS since the Centre establishment.

DOI: 10.31250/1238-5018-2025-31-2-29-33

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Received by the Editorial Board: 07.12.2024