The Nabataeans were an Arabic people who lived on the eastern borders of the Jews. They spoke Aramaic and they were allies of the Romans.
Their religion was apparently a mixture of Arab paganism with tinges of Judaism and Christian influences as well.
If the Koran shows as heavy an Aramaic influence as this guy suggests, it makes it pretty likely that the Koran is just cobbled-together fragments of eclectic Nabataean religious texts.
Just as many Jewish texts are written in a blend of Aramaic and Hebrew using Aramaic script, the Koran could be a blend of Arabic and Aramaic in Arabic script.
This would explain the thousands of words and phrases in the Koran that are obscure and that have provoked endless commentary.
It would also explain why the Koran is so disorganized and shuffled. It is the least coherent, in terms of narrative structure, of any major Near Eastern text.
Thanks for posting this. We have to dissiminate the information about the Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran especially next year when an English translation appears.
Here is an academic book review:
Christoph Luxenberg (ps.) Die syro-aramaeische Lesart des Koran; Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qur'ansprache.
http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No1/HV6N1PRPhenixHorn.html