يحيى

See also: يحيي, يحيا, and یحیی

Arabic

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /jaħ.jaː/
Homophone: يَحْيَا (yaḥyā)

Etymology 1

Uncertain. It was long unclear why Arabic (e.g. in the Quran, 19:7) gave John the Baptist a name dissimilar to Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yōḥānān, “Yahweh is gracious”); the traditional Muslim explanation related يَحْيَى (yaḥyā) to حَيِيَ (ḥayiya, “to live”) / يَحْيَا (yaḥyā, “he is alive”), while Western scholars alternatively theorized that, because early Arabic texts omitted diacritics, the current vocalization يَحْيَى (yaḥyā) derived from misreading the unvocalized rasm (visually ىحىى) of *يُحَنَّى (yuḥannā)^[1]^[2] (a more expectable cognate to the Hebrew figure's name; compare Christian Arabic يُوحَنَّا (yūḥannā)).

Circa 1910, an inscription from 306 CE containing the name Yḥya was found; it was made in al-Ula by a Jew or a Christian in Nabatean Aramaic or another language, and has been variously interpreted, either as indicating that in some communities Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yōḥānān) had developed into Yḥya and familiarity with this is why early Muslims used that form of the name for John the Baptist in the Quran, or alternatively as indicating that the name يَحْيَى (yaḥyā) existed in pre-Islamic Arabic and was used by al-Ulans named יוֹחָנָן (Yōḥānān) as the Arabic form (translation) of that name.^[3]^[4]

(The Mandaic Ginza Rabba also contains ࡉࡀࡄࡉࡀ (yaħya),^[5] but it is unclear whether this spelling predates or influenced, or postdates or was influenced by, the use of يَحْيَى (yaḥyā) in Arabic.)

Proper noun

يَحْيَى • (yaḥyā) m

(Islam) John (the Baptist)
a male given name, Yahya or Yehia

Usage notes

يَحْيَى (yaḥyā) is used almost exclusively in Islamic and Mandaean contexts. Arabic-speaking Christians refer to John as يُوحَنَّا (yūḥannā).

Declension

Declension of noun **يَحْيَى** (yaḥyā)
singular	singular invariable
singular	indefinite	definite	construct
informal	—	يَحْيَى yaḥyā	—
nominative	—	يَحْيَى yaḥyā	—
accusative	—	يَحْيَى yaḥyā	—
genitive	—	يَحْيَى yaḥyā	—

Etymology 2

Verb

يَحْيَى • (yaḥyā)

obsolete spelling of يَحْيَا (yaḥyā)
misspelling of يَحْيَا (yaḥyā)

References

^ M Gross, Early Islam: an alternative scenario of its emergence, in the Routledge Handbook on Early Islam, 2017: " […] the problem of the Arabic name Yaḥyā, which appears in the Qurʾān (e.g., Q 3:39, 6:85; 19:9, 19:12, 21:90), which corresponds to the Greek name John / Johannes, the Syriac form of which is Yuḥannā (1927: 177). The two forms are phonetically very different, but a comparison of the written forms brings us to the solution: yaḥyā (ﯽﯾﺣﯾ) and yuḥannā (ﯽﻧﺣﯾ) have exactly the same rasm, the only difference lies in the diacritical points" [not present in early texts].
^ Stephen J. Shoemaker, Creating the Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Study (2022), page 235: "In an unpublished paper, [Patricia] Crone further identifies, following up on an observation by D. S. Margoliouth, the […] form of John the Baptist's name as it appears in the Qur'an. It is highly revealing, she [says], that 'the believers unanimously read the ductur for Yuḥannā [ىحىى] or Yuḥannan as Yaḥyā, taking the undotted nūn to be a yāʾ. If they only had the ductus to go by, yāʾ is of course as good as guess as any. The significance of the example lies in its demonstration that it was all they had to go by. Whoever first read Yaḥyā in the five passages in which the name occurs cannot have had an oral tradition preserving the sound of the name. Nor can they have had prior knowledge of Yuḥannā, since they would in that case have found it easy enough to recognize him on the basis of the internal evidence.'"
^ Jeffrey Arthur, The Foreign Vocabulary Of The Quran, 1938, page 290: "This solution [that يُحَنَّى was misread] has much in its favour, and might be accepted were it not for […] epigraphical evidence from N. Arabia that in pre-Islamic times Christians in that area were using a form יחיא, probably derived from the Syriac.⁷ […] ⁷But see Lidzbarski, Johannesbuch, ii, 73, and Rhodokanakis, WZKM, xvii, 283." Lidzbarski (op. cit.) says: "Das Verhältnis des arabischen يَحْيَى zu יוֹחָנָן ist bis jetzt nicht aufgeklärt. In Fischer’s Arab. Chrestomathie, wo die Frage zuletzt berührt ist (Glossar, p. 155b), wird يحيى als eine Entlehnung aus dem Aramäischen angesehen und auf das mandäische יאהיא hingewiesen. Tatsächlich aber ist يحيى ein rein arabischer Name; er ist das regelmäßige Imprf. 3. sing. m. zu […] . Daß die arabische Orthographie vorschreibt, diese Form, im Gegensatz zum Namen, يحيا zu schreiben, ist ohne Belang. Der Name kommt auch bereits in nabatäischen und sinaitischen Inschriften vor: יחיא in el-'Öla Rev. bibl. 1914, p. 267 unt.;¹ […] am Sinai CIS II, 1026. Als die Juden in Arabien eingewandert waren und sich da heimisch fühlten, ersetzten sie, wie sie es sonst zu tun pflegen und andere es tun (Ephem. II, p. 341 f.), ihre Namen durch einheimische. Für die Wahl des fremden Namens genügen geringfügige lautliche Übereinstimmungen. Juden, die יוֹחָנָן hießen, nahmen den Namen يحيى an, wie später […] für […] gewählt wurde.^{2</su[> Die Juden lieben Namen, die den Begriff‘ des Lebens enthalten ( […] , […] , Vital u. and.) und hängen ja das Wort „Leben“ auch an andere Namen an. So paßte ihnen der Name يحيى sehr gut."}
^ Ahmad Al-Jallad, The Pre-Islamic Divine Name ʿsy and the Background of the Qurʾānic Jesus, with Ali al-Manaser, 2021, JIQSA, page 126: "The second option—which does not preclude the first—is the equation of pre-existing names with foreign ones through phonosemantic matching.⁶⁹ We can see this process active in the Qur'an. The name yaḥyē, for example, is not a direct port of yôḥānān or any of its derivatives, but is rather a pre-existing Arabic name—attested in Safaitic as yḥyy (C 614) and yḥy (RWQ 115)—that was equated with John.⁷⁰ Indeed, this equation was employed by Arabian Jews as well. The Jewish Nabataean funerary inscription JSNab 386 (dated 306 CE), from al-ʿUla, was set up by a man named yḥyʾ bn šm ʿwn, where yḥyʾ substitutes for the common Hebrew name ywḥnn (= yôḥānān).⁷¹ The two names derive from different roots, which demonstrates that phonetic proximity, rather than etymology, was the main driving force connecting them." (JSNab 386; DiCoNab states "The fact that Nabateo-Arabic script was not yet known at the time of Jaussen and Savignac explains why they read bn instead of br.")
^ ʿniania and Qabin, transliterated by Majid Fandi Al-Mubaraki, Brian Mubaraki 2000, from "Sidra d Nišmata, ʿniania and Qabin – English Transliteration"; unicodified by Ibrāhīm Šafiʿī, University of Tehrān

[1] M Gross, Early Islam: an alternative scenario of its emergence, in the Routledge Handbook on Early Islam, 2017: " […] the problem of the Arabic name Yaḥyā, which appears in the Qurʾān (e.g., Q 3:39, 6:85; 19:9, 19:12, 21:90), which corresponds to the Greek name John / Johannes, the Syriac form of which is Yuḥannā (1927: 177). The two forms are phonetically very different, but a comparison of the written forms brings us to the solution: yaḥyā (ﯽﯾﺣﯾ) and yuḥannā (ﯽﻧﺣﯾ) have exactly the same rasm, the only difference lies in the diacritical points" [not present in early texts].

[2] Stephen J. Shoemaker, Creating the Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Study (2022), page 235: "In an unpublished paper, [Patricia] Crone further identifies, following up on an observation by D. S. Margoliouth, the […] form of John the Baptist's name as it appears in the Qur'an. It is highly revealing, she [says], that 'the believers unanimously read the ductur for Yuḥannā [ىحىى] or Yuḥannan as Yaḥyā, taking the undotted nūn to be a yāʾ. If they only had the ductus to go by, yāʾ is of course as good as guess as any. The significance of the example lies in its demonstration that it was all they had to go by. Whoever first read Yaḥyā in the five passages in which the name occurs cannot have had an oral tradition preserving the sound of the name. Nor can they have had prior knowledge of Yuḥannā, since they would in that case have found it easy enough to recognize him on the basis of the internal evidence.'"

[3] Jeffrey Arthur, The Foreign Vocabulary Of The Quran, 1938, page 290: "This solution [that يُحَنَّى was misread] has much in its favour, and might be accepted were it not for […] epigraphical evidence from N. Arabia that in pre-Islamic times Christians in that area were using a form יחיא, probably derived from the Syriac.⁷ […] ⁷But see Lidzbarski, Johannesbuch, ii, 73, and Rhodokanakis, WZKM, xvii, 283." Lidzbarski (op. cit.) says: "Das Verhältnis des arabischen يَحْيَى zu יוֹחָנָן ist bis jetzt nicht aufgeklärt. In Fischer’s Arab. Chrestomathie, wo die Frage zuletzt berührt ist (Glossar, p. 155b), wird يحيى als eine Entlehnung aus dem Aramäischen angesehen und auf das mandäische יאהיא hingewiesen. Tatsächlich aber ist يحيى ein rein arabischer Name; er ist das regelmäßige Imprf. 3. sing. m. zu […] . Daß die arabische Orthographie vorschreibt, diese Form, im Gegensatz zum Namen, يحيا zu schreiben, ist ohne Belang. Der Name kommt auch bereits in nabatäischen und sinaitischen Inschriften vor: יחיא in el-'Öla Rev. bibl. 1914, p. 267 unt.;¹ […] am Sinai CIS II, 1026. Als die Juden in Arabien eingewandert waren und sich da heimisch fühlten, ersetzten sie, wie sie es sonst zu tun pflegen und andere es tun (Ephem. II, p. 341 f.), ihre Namen durch einheimische. Für die Wahl des fremden Namens genügen geringfügige lautliche Übereinstimmungen. Juden, die יוֹחָנָן hießen, nahmen den Namen يحيى an, wie später […] für […] gewählt wurde.^{2</su[> Die Juden lieben Namen, die den Begriff‘ des Lebens enthalten ( […] , […] , Vital u. and.) und hängen ja das Wort „Leben“ auch an andere Namen an. So paßte ihnen der Name يحيى sehr gut."}

[4] Ahmad Al-Jallad, The Pre-Islamic Divine Name ʿsy and the Background of the Qurʾānic Jesus, with Ali al-Manaser, 2021, JIQSA, page 126: "The second option—which does not preclude the first—is the equation of pre-existing names with foreign ones through phonosemantic matching.⁶⁹ We can see this process active in the Qur'an. The name yaḥyē, for example, is not a direct port of yôḥānān or any of its derivatives, but is rather a pre-existing Arabic name—attested in Safaitic as yḥyy (C 614) and yḥy (RWQ 115)—that was equated with John.⁷⁰ Indeed, this equation was employed by Arabian Jews as well. The Jewish Nabataean funerary inscription JSNab 386 (dated 306 CE), from al-ʿUla, was set up by a man named yḥyʾ bn šm ʿwn, where yḥyʾ substitutes for the common Hebrew name ywḥnn (= yôḥānān).⁷¹ The two names derive from different roots, which demonstrates that phonetic proximity, rather than etymology, was the main driving force connecting them." (JSNab 386; DiCoNab states "The fact that Nabateo-Arabic script was not yet known at the time of Jaussen and Savignac explains why they read bn instead of br.")

[5] ʿniania and Qabin, transliterated by Majid Fandi Al-Mubaraki, Brian Mubaraki 2000, from "Sidra d Nišmata, ʿniania and Qabin – English Transliteration"; unicodified by Ibrāhīm Šafiʿī, University of Tehrān

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