As mentioned earlier, Western scholarship writing on Haman in the Qur’an has understood Haman as a personal name from their understanding of the alleged connection between the Qur’anic and biblical Hamans, which as our enquiry has shown lacks evidence. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that Haman, in the ancient Egyptian context, makes sense when various elements of the Qur’anic story are examined from a historical point of view. This presents us with our second line of enquiry considering Haman as a
name of a person, whether Arabized or not, in ancient Egypt during the time of Ramesses II. A search in Ranke’s well-known book Die Ägyptischen Personennamen under
ḤMN, unsurprisingly, reveals theophoric names associated with the ancient Egyptian deity
ḤMN,out of which only one name ‘
ḥmn-ḥ’ comes from the New Kingdom Period.
[1] Originally housed in the K. K. Hof Museum, Vienna, the first person to publish the door jamb containing the ‘
ḥmn-ḥ’ inscription was Reinisch in the year 1865.
[3] It was again published by Walter Wreszinski.
[2] This door jamb, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna,The information of Inv. No. 5821/5822 at the Kunsthistorisches Museum was provided to us by Professor Helmut Satzinger who prepared it along with Monika Randl for the CD-ROM Egyptian Treasures in Europe Volume 5: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien / Vienna.[4] Although Satzinger and Randl have dated it to the time of Ramesses II, there is uncertainty as there is no mention of any king’s name on it, and the tomb from which it originates. The object belongs to the lot which the Egyptian Vice-King Saʿīd gave to the Austrian archduke Ferdinand Max as a diplomatic gift at the latter’s official visit to Egypt in 1855.
Date: 19th Dynasty, probably from the reign of Ramesses II, 13th century BCE
Provenance: Unknown
Current location: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Material: Limestone
Height: c. 117 cm; Breadth: 27 cm
Inventory number: 5821+ 5822
Collection: From the Miramar collection (1855–1882)
Inscription in two vertical lines (the left fragment goes on top of the right):
Left: "The offering which the King has given to Osiris, the Formost of the Westerners, the Lord of Eternity, the Ruler of eternal Duration, so may he give anything that has come forth from his table, and (also) the pleasant north-wind, and a good burial after old age, to the ka of the overseer of the stone-masons of Amûn, Hamen-ha, justified."
Right: "The offering which the King has given to the Western Desert and to Amauni, the Lady of the Sky, so may they give food and nourishment, all kinds of offerings, all kinds of good and pure things, to the ka of the overseer of the stone-masons of Amûn, Hamen-ha, justified."
Below: Relief depicting a seated couple (i.e., Hamen-ha and his wife) who are being attended by a man. Above them, the name of the lady: "His wife, the lady of the house Nefer-nûb, justified," and the name of the attendant: "Ka-pu-hótep."
Dr. Maurice Bucaille, perhaps the earliest scholar to deal with ‘Haman’ in the Qur’an as a
name from the point of view of Egyptology, made an interesting suggestion. He surmised that since ‘Haman’ was mentioned in the Qur’an during the time of Moses in Egypt, the best course of action was to ask an expert in the old Egyptian language, i.e., hieroglyphs, regarding the name.[5] The expert in hieroglyphs suggested to Dr. Bucaille to consult Ranke’s well-known book Die Ägyptischen Personennamen.The latter stated he had found the name ‘Haman’ in it, i.e., the door jamb containing ‘
ḥmn-ḥ’ as mentioned in Figure 9.
Although Dr. Bucaille’s suggestion sounds seductive, there are difficulties. At the request of an alliance of European evangelical Christian missionary organisations, Emeritus Professor Dr. Jürgen Osing of the Ägyptologisches Seminar, Freie Universität Berlin, a respected scholar of Egyptology, was solicited for his
comments regarding Haman as depicted in the Qur’an and the identification of an ancient Egyptian inscription allegedly bearing his name. Subsequently in July 2009 Osing read an earlier version of our article (Titled: ‘Historical Errors Of The Qur'an: Pharaoh & Haman’, Last Updated: 4th June 2006) and made a number of observations, specifically focusing on our analysis of an inscription which is found on said door jamb kept in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Regarding this inscription which contained the name ‘
ḥmn-ḥ’, we suggested the final ‘
ḥ’ was not actually part of the name, stating the remaining letters could possibly be rendered as ‘Haman’. This is incorrect. The interpretation of the final ‘
ḥ’ is questionable, but not its existence as part of the name. The final ‘
ḥ’ is most probably an abbreviation forming a theophoric name. We would like to thank Osing for this correction. Additionally he pointed out that it seemed doubtful that this particular person being an overseer of the quarry workers, usually only of local importance, would have been entrusted with the building of such a mighty edifice, let alone be a close confidant of the Pharaoh – a consideration we had overlooked. For clarification we would like to emphasise that at no point had we ever stated the ‘Haman’ we thought was mentioned in this inscription was the Haman of the Qur’an. What we had said was that it was a possibility, however, this is no longer the case. For the sake of completeness and to dispel any doubts regarding the inscription, full details have been provided above.
المراجع المذكورة:-
[1]
H. Ranke, Die Ägyptischen Personennamen, 1935, Volume I (Verzeichnis der Namen), op. cit., p. 240, Nos. 24-26 and p. 241, No. 1.
[2]
S. Reinisch, Die Aegyptischen Denkmaeler In Miramar, 1865, Wilhelm Braumüller: Wein, pp. 255-256, Nr. 18 and Nr 19, Tafel XXXIX A and B.
[3]
W. Wreszinski, Aegyptische Inschriften Aus Dem K.K. Hof Museum In Wien, 1906, J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung: Leipzig, I 34, p. 130.
[4]
D. van der Plas (Ed.), Egyptian Treasures in Europe Volume 5: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien / Vienna, 2002, U-CCER Production B. V.: Heidelberglaan (The Netherlands).
[5]
M. Bucaille, Moses and Pharaoh: The Hebrews In Egypt, 1995, NTT Mediascope Inc.: Tokyo, pp. 192-193.