Language miracles in the Qur'an

[Bin Abd Al-Matin]

Assalamu 'alaykum Wa Rahmathullah Wa Barakathuhu

This is the first time I am starting a new thread (I'm kind of new), so if I have put it in the wrong place, please can the moderators move it to the correct place. If it is moved, please could the moderators e-mail me the link, so I know where to go to visit this forum. Jazakallah Khaira.

I want to make a thread explaining the entire language miracle of the Qur'an. Insha Allah some scholars/ knowledgable people on the site can explain some aspects of the miracle pertaining to language. It is useful to have material like this in the English language- usually the available material is in Arabic only! Please could the answers and writings about the language miracle be such that even non-muslims too can understand. Jazakallah Khaira.

Wasalam.

[Bin Abd Al-Matin]

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Miracle/ijaz.html


What Is The Challenge Of The Qur'an With Respect To Arabic Prose & Poetry?

M S M Saifullah, cAbd ar-Rahman Robert Squires & Muhammad Ghoniem

© Islamic Awareness, All Rights Reserved.

Last Modified: 9th September 1999


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Assalamu-alaikum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:

The Qur'an in many places challenges the people to produce a surah like it. It appears that the Christian missionaries who call the challenge irrelevent or an utterly subjective criterion are pretty much unaware of how the Arabic poetry and prose compares with the Qur'an. This article is devoted to deal with one aspect of the Qur'anic challenge of produce a surah like it. What is meant by surah like it with respect to the Arabic prose and poetry?

The verses of the Qur'an dealing with the challenge are given below (Hilali and Muhsin Khan's Translation):

Say: "If the mankind and the jinns were together to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like thereof, even if they helped one another." [Qur'an 17:88]

And if you (Arab pagans, Jews, and Christians) are in doubt concerning that which We have sent down (i.e. the Qur'an) to Our slave (Muhammad Peace be upon him ), then produce a surah (chapter) of the like thereof and call your witnesses (supporters and helpers) besides Allah, if you are truthful. [Qur'an 2:23]

And this Qur'an is not such as could ever be produced by other than Allah (Lord of the heavens and the earth), but it is a confirmation of (the revelation) which was before it [i.e. the Taurat (Torah), and the Injeel (Gospel), etc.], and a full explanation of the Book (i.e. laws and orders, etc, decreed for mankind) - wherein there is no doubt from the the Lord of the 'Alamin (mankind, jinns,and all that exists).

Or do they say: "He (Muhammad(P)) has forged it?" Say: "Bring then a surah (chapter) like unto it, and call upon whomsoever you can, besides Allah, if you are truthful!" [Qur'an 10:37-38]

Or they say, "He (Prophet Muhammad(P)) forged it (the Qur'an)." Say: "Bring you then ten forged surah (chapters) like unto it, and call whomsoever you can, other than Allah (to your help), if you speak the truth!" [Qur'an 11:13]

Or do they say: "He (Muhammad(P)) has forged it (this Qur'an)?" Nay! They believe not! Let them then produce a recital like unto it (the Qur'an) if they are truthful. [Qur'an 52:33-34]

cAbdur Rahim Green mentions that:

These are the sixteen al-Bihar (literally "The Seas", so called because of the way the poem moves, according to its rhythmic patterns): at-Tawil, al-Bassit, al-Wafir, al-Kamil, ar-Rajs, al-Khafif, al-Hazaj, al-Muttakarib, al-Munsarih, al-Muktatab, al-Muktadarak, al-Madid, al-Mujtath, al-Ramel, al-Khabab and as-Saria'. So the challenge is to produce in Arabic, three lines, that do not fall into one of these sixteen Bihar, that is not rhyming prose, nor like the speech of soothsayers, and not normal speech, that it should contain at least a comprehensible meaning and rhetoric, i.e. not gobbledygook. Now I think at least the Christian's "Holy spirit" that makes you talk in tongues, part of your "Tri-Unity" of God should be able to inspire one of you with that!

To begin with; the Arabic language and Arab speech are divided into two branches. One of them is rhymed poetry. It is a speech with metre and rhyme, which means every line of it ends upon a definite letter, which is called the 'rhyme'. This rhymed poetry is again divided into metres or what is called as al-Bihar, literally meaning 'The Seas'. This is so called because of the way the poetry moves according to the rhythmic patterns. There are sixteen al-Bihar viz; at-Tawil, al-Bassit, al-Wafir, al-Kamil, ar-Rajs, al-Khafif, al-Hazaj, al-Muttakarib, al-Munsarih, al-Muktatab, al-Muktadarak, al-Madid, al-Mujtath, al-Ramel, al-Khabab and as-Saria'. Each one rhymes differently. For metres of Arabic poetry please see please see Lyall's book Translations Of Ancient Arabian Poetry, Chiefly Pre-Islamic.[1] He discusses al-Kamil, al-Wafir, al-Hajaz, at-Tawil, al-Bassit, al-Khafif and al-Madid briefly.[2]

The other branch of Arabic speech is prose, that is non-metrical speech. The prose may be a rhymed prose. Rhymed prose consists of cola ending on the same rhyme throughout, or of sentences rhymed in pairs. This is called "rhymed prose" or sajc. Prose may also be straight prose (mursal). In straight prose, the speech goes on and is not divided in cola, but is continued straight through without any divisions, either of rhyme or of anything else. Prose is employed in sermons and prayers and in speeches intended to encourage or frighten the masses.[3] One of the most famous speeches involving sajc is that of Hajjaj bin Yusuf in his first deputation in Iraq in post-Islamic and Quss bin Sa'idah in pre-Islamic times.

So, the challenge, as cAbdur Rahim Green mentions, is to produce in Arabic , three lines, that do not fall into one of these sixteen al-Bihar, that is not rhyming prose, nor like the speech of soothsayers, and not normal speech, that it should contain at least a comprehensible meaning and rhetoric, i.e. not gobbledygook. Indeed

The Qur'an is not verse, but it is rhythmic. The rhythm of some verses resemble the regularity of sajc, and both are rhymed, while some verses have a similarity to Rajaz in its vigour and rapidity. But it was recognized by Quraysh critics to belong to neither one nor the other category.[4]

It is interesting to know that all the pre-Islam and post-Islamic poetry collected by Louis Cheikho falls in the above sixteen metres or al-Bihar.[5] Indeed the pagans of Mecca repeated accuse Prophet Muhammad(P) for being a forger, a soothsayer etc. The Arabs who were at the pinnacle of their poetry and prose during the time of revelation of the Qur'an could not even produce the smallest surah of its like. The Qur'an's form did not fit into any of the above mentioned categories. It was this that made the Qur'an inimitable, and left the pagan Arabs at a loss as to how they might combat it as Alqama bin cAbd al-Manaf confirmed when he addressed their leaders, the Quraysh:

Oh Quraish, a new calamity has befallen you. Mohammed was a young man the most liked among you, most truthful in speech, and most trustworthy, until, when you saw gray hairs on his temple, and he brought you his message, you said that he was a sorcerer, but he is not, for we seen such people and their spitting and their knots; you said, a diviner, but we have seen such people and their behavior, and we have heard their rhymes; you said a soothsayer, but he is not a soothsayer, for we have heard their rhymes; and you said a poet, but he is not a poet, for we have heard all kinds of poetry; you said he was possessed, but he is not for we have seen the possessed, and he shows no signs of their gasping and whispering and delirium. Oh men of Quraish, look to your affairs, for by Allah a serious thing has befallen you.

It is a well known fact that the Qur'an was revealed in seven ahruf (or seven forms) to facilitate greater understanding of it among the Arabs who had different dialects. This was also to challenge them on their own grounds to produce a surah like that of the Qur'an. The challenge became more obvious when none of the seven major tribes could imitate it even in their own dialects as no one could claim that it was difficult to imitate due to it not being in their own dialect.[6]

What Do The Orientalists Say About The Inimitability Of The Qur'an?

E H Palmer, as early as 1880, recognized the unique style of the Qur'an. But he seem to have been wavering between two thoughts. He writes in the Introduction to his translation of the Qur'an:

That the best of Arab writers has never succeeded in producing anything equal in merit to the Qur'an itself is not surprising. In the first place, they have agreed before-hand that it is unapproachable, and they have adopted its style as the perfect standard; any deviation from it therefore must of necessity be a defect. Again, with them this style is not spontaneous as with Muhammad and his contemporaries, but is as artificial as though Englishmen should still continue to follow Chaucer as their model, in spite of the changes which their language has undergone. With the Prophet, the style was natural, and the words were those in every-day ordinary life, while with the later Arabic authors the style is imitative and the ancient words are introduced as a literary embellishment. The natural consequence is that their attempts look laboured and unreal by the side of his impromptu and forcible eloquence.[7]

The famous Arabist from University of Oxford, Hamilton Gibb was open upon about the style of the Qur'an. In his words:

...the Meccans still demanded of him a miracle, and with remarkable boldness and self confidence Mohammad appealed as a supreme confirmation of his mission to the Koran itself. Like all Arabs they were the connoisseurs of language and rhetoric. Well, then if the Koran were his own composition other men could rival it. Let them produce ten verses like it. If they could not (and it is obvious that they could not), then let them accept the Koran as an outstanding evident miracle.[8]

And in some other place, talking about the Prophet(P) and the Qur'an, he states:

Though, to be sure, the question of the literary merit is one not to be judged on a priori grounds but in relation to the genius of Arabic language; and no man in fifteen hundred years has ever played on that deep-toned instrument with such power, such boldness, and such range of emotional effect as Mohammad did.[9]

As a literary monument the Koran thus stands by itself, a production unique to the Arabic literature, having neither forerunners nor successors in its own idiom. Muslims of all ages are united in proclaiming the inimitability not only of its contents but also of its style..... and in forcing the High Arabic idiom into the expression of new ranges of thought the Koran develops a bold and strikingly effective rhetorical prose in which all the resources of syntactical modulation are exploited with great freedom and originality.[10]

On the influence of the Qur'an on Arabic literature Gibb says:

The influence of the Koran on the development of Arabic Literature has been incalculable, and exerted in many directions. Its ideas, its language, its rhymes pervade all subsequent literary works in greater or lesser measure. Its specific linguistic features were not emulated, either in the chancery prose of the next century or in the later prose writings, but it was at least partly due to the flexibility imparted by the Koran to the High Arabic idiom that the former could be so rapidly developed and adjusted to the new needs of the imperial government and an expanding society.[11]

As the Qur'an itself says:

And if ye are in doubt as to what We have revealed from time to time to Our servant, then produce a Sura like thereunto; and call your witnesses or helpers (If there are any) besides Allah, if your (doubts) are true. But if ye cannot- and of a surety ye cannot- then fear the Fire whose fuel is men and stones,- which is prepared for those who reject Faith. (Qur'an 2:23-24)

Lastly, the beautiful style of the Qur'an is admired even by the Arab Christians:

The Quran is one of the world's classics which cannot be translated without grave loss. It has a rhythm of peculiar beauty and a cadence that charms the ear. Many Christian Arabs speak of its style with warm admiration, and most Arabists acknowledge its excellence. When it is read aloud or recited it has an almost hypnotic effect that makes the listener indifferent to its sometimes strange syntax and its sometimes, to us, repellent content. It is this quality it possesses of silencing criticism by the sweet music of its language that has given birth to the dogma of its inimitability; indeed it may be affirmed that within the literature of the Arabs, wide and fecund as it is both in poetry and in elevated prose, there is nothing to compare with it.[12]

The above sentences speak of themselves. Summing up: Within the Arabic literature, either poetry or prose, there is nothing comparable to the Qur'an. Muslims throughout the centuries are united upon the its inimitability.

There is also a talk by Christian missionaries that there are grammatical 'errors' in the Qur'an. In retort, it can be mentioned that the Arab contemporaries of Muhammad(P) were most erudite and proficient in the idiosyncrasies of Arabic speech; and hence, if they had found any grammatical 'errors' in the Qur'an, they would have revealed it when Muhammad(P) challenged them with to do so. Therefore, since they did not take up his challenge on this issue, we can be rest assured that no such grammatical 'errors' exist in the Qur'an.

Indeed the grammatical errors claimed by Christian missionaries have been already discussed and refuted in a reputed journal.[13] It turns out that lack of knowledge of intricate constructions in classical Arabic by Christian missionaries gave rise to so-called grammatical 'errors'.

I'jaz al-Qur'an (Or Inimitability Of The Qur'an) & Its Exposition

I'jaz literally means "the rendering incapable, powerless". It is the concept relating to the miraculous nature of the Qur'an. What consitutes this miracle is a subject that has engaged Muslims scholars for centuries. By the early part of the third century AH (ninth century CE), the word i'jaz had come to mean that quality of the Qur'an that rendered people incapable of imitating the book or any part; in content and form. By the latter part of that century, the word had become the technical term, and the numerous definitions applied to it after the tenth century have shown little divergence from the key concepts of the inimitability of the Qur'an and the inability of human beings to match it even challenged (tahiddi).[14]

Thus, the Islamic doctrine of i'jaz al-Qur'an consists in the belief that the Qur'an is a miracle (mu'jizah) bestowed on Muhammad(P). Both terms, i'jaz and mu'jizah come from the same verbal root. While mu'jizah is the active principle of a'jaza, i'jaz is its verbal noun.[15]

The early theological discussions on i'jaz introduced the hypothesis of sarfah ("turning away") and argued that the miracle consisted of God's turning the competent away from taking up the challenge of imitating the Qur'an. The implication of sarfah is that the Qur'an otherwise could be imitated. However, cAbd al-Jabbar (d. 1025 CE), the Mu'tazilite theologian rejected sarfah because of its obvious weaknesses.

cAbd al-Jabbar rejects the doctrine of sarfah for two main reasons. Firstly, because it contradicts the verse of the Qur'an stating that neither jinn nor human can rival the Qur'an, and secondly because it makes a miracle of something other than the Qur'an, i.e., the sarfah, the prohibition from production, and not the Qur'an itself. In addition to this, according to 'Abd al-Jabbar, the doctrine of sarfah displays four major weaknesses:

It ignores the well-known fact that the Arabs of Muhammad's time had acknowledged the superior quality of speech of the Qur'an;

It is in direct conflict with the meaning of the verses of the Challenge;

It implies that the Qur'an is not a miracle; and

It asserts that the Arabs were out of their minds (khuruj 'an al-'aql).
This doctrine, in fact, implies that they could have produced a rival to the Qur'an, but simply decided against doing so. It effectively calls into question either their motives or their sanity. Therefore, according to cAbd al-Jabbar the correct interpretation of sarfah is that the motives to rival the Qur'an disappeared (insarafah) because of the recognition of the impossibility of doing so.[16]

cAbd al-Jabbar insisted on the unmatchable quality of the Qur'an's extra-ordinary eloquence and unique stylist perfection. In his work al-Mughni (The Sufficient Book), he argued that eloquence (fasahah) resulted from the excellence of both meaning and wording, and he explained that there were degrees of excellence depending on the manner in which words were chosen and arranged in any literary text, the Qur'an being the highest type.[17]

al-Baqillani (d. 1013 CE), in his systematic and comprehensive study entitled I'jaz al-Qur'an upheld the rhetorically unsurpassable style of the Qur'an, but he did not consider this to be a necessary argument in the favour of the Qur'an's uniqueness and emphasized instead the content of revelation.

The choice and arrangement of words, referred to as nazm was the focus of discussion by al-Jahiz, al-Sijistani (d. 928 CE), al-Bakhi (d. 933 CE) and Ibn al-Ikhshid (d. 937 CE). al-Rummani and his contemporary al-Khattabi (d. 998 CE) discussed the psychological effect of nazm of the Qur'an in their al-Nukat fi I'jaz al-Qur'an and Bayan I'jaz al-Qur'an, respectively.

The author who best elaborated and systematized the theory of nazm in his analysis of the i'jaz is cAbd al-Qahir al-Jurjani (d. 1078 CE) in his Dala'il al-I'jaz. His material was further organized by Fakhr ad-Din al-Razi (d. 1209) in his Nihayat al-I'jaz fi Dirayat al-I'jaz and put to practical purposes by al-Zamakhshari (d. 1144 CE) in his exegesis of the Qur'an entitled al-Kashasaf, rich in rhetorical analysis of the Qur'anic style.[18]

Hardly anything new has been added by later authors.

Is The Bible Inimitable?

Anyone who has read the history of the Bible as a text as well as the constantly changing canon at the whims of the leaders of the Church and some 300,000+ variant readings in the New Testament itself would suggest that no book in history enjoyed such as reputation. The process of serious editing through which the Christian Bible went through is unparalleled in its almost 2000 year history. This would itself make the Bible an inimitable book.

As far as the language of the Bible and its stylistic perfection is concerned, the Bible does not make any such claim. Therefore, it not does challenge the mankind of produce a few verses or a chapter like it. Further, it is a Christian claim that the Bible contains scribal and linguistic errors. The language in which the Greek New Testament was written is demotic Greek which itself has little or no regard for grammatical rules of classical Greek. Comparing the stylistic perfection of the Qur'an versus stylistic imperfection of the Bible, von Grunebaum states:

In contrast to the stylistic perfection of the Kur'an with the stylistic imperfections of the older Scriptures the Muslim theologian found himself unknowingly and on purely postulative grounds in agreement with long line of Christian thinkers whose outlook on the Biblical text is best summed up in Nietzsche's brash dictum that the Holy Ghost wrote bad Greek.[19]

Futher, he elaborates the position of Western theologians on the canonization process and composition of the Bible:

The knowledge of the Western theologian that the Biblical books were redacted by different writers and that they were, in many cases, accessible to him only in (inspired) translation facilitated admission of formal imperfections in Scripture and there with lessened the compulsive insistence on its stylistic authority. Christian teaching, leaving the inspired writer, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, free in matters of style, has provided no motivation to seek an exact correlation between the revealed text on the one hand and grammar and rhetoric on the other. It thereby relieved the theologian and the critic from searching for a harmony between two stylistic worlds, which at best would yield an ahistoric concept of literary perfection and at worst would prevent anything resembling textual and substantive criticism of Revelation....

In Christianity, besides, the apology for the "low" style of the Bible is merely a part of educational problem - what to do with secular erudition within Christianity; whereas in Islam, the central position of the Kur'an, as the focal point and justification of grammatical and literary studies, was theoretically at least, never contested within the believing community.[20]

That pretty much sums up the Bible, its stylistic perfection (or the lack of it!) and the position of Western theologians.

And Allah knows best!

[Bin Abd Al-Matin]

http://alrisala.org/Articles/quranworld/quran_prophets_miracle.htm


Quran - The Prophet's Miracle
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Every Prophet is given a miracle — a sign. The miracle of the Prophet of Islam is the Qur’an. The Prophethood of Muhammad, on whom be peace, was to be valid until the Last Day. It was imperative, therefore, that his miracle also be one which would last for all time. The Qur’an was, therefore, assigned to the Prophet as his everlasting miracle.

The Prophet’s opponents demanded miracles, such as those performed by previous prophets, but the Qur’an stated clearly that such miracles would not be forthcoming. (17:59) The Qur’an even had this to say to the Prophet:

If you find their aversion hard to bear (and would like to show
them a miracle), seek if you can a burrow in the earth or ladder
to the sky by which you may bring them a sign. Had God pleased,
He would have given them guidance, one and all. Do not be
ignorant then. (6:35)

Instead, the revealed Book of God was made into the Prophet’s miracle:

They ask: ‘Why has no sign been given him by his Lord?’
Say: ‘Signs are in the hands of God. My mission is only to give
plain warning.’ Is it not enough for them that We have revealed
to you the Book which is recited to them? Surely in this there
is a blessing and an admonition to true believers.
(Qur’an, 29:50-51)

There are many different aspects of the Qur’an’s miraculous nature. Here we are going to concentrate on just three:

The language of the Qur’an — Arabic — has, unlike other international languages, remained a living form of communication over the ages.
The Qur’an is unique among divine scriptures in that its text has remained intact in the original form.
The Qur’an challenged its doubters to produce a book like it. No one has been able to take up this challenge, and produce anything comparable to the Book of God.
The languages in which all the ancient scriptures were revealed have been locked in the archives of history. The only exception is Arabic, the language of the Qur’an, which is still current in the world today. Millions of people still speak and write the language in which the Qur’an was revealed nearly 1500 years ago. This provides stunning proof of the miraculous nature of the Qur’an, for there is no other book in history which has been able to make such an impact on its language; no other book has molded a whole language according to its own style, and maintained it in that form over the centuries.

Take the Injil known as the New Testament, of which the oldest existing copy is in Greek and not Aramaic, the language which Jesus is thought to have spoken. That means that we possess only a translated account of what the Prophet Jesus said and did; and that too, in ancient Greek, which is considerably different from the modern language. By the end of the 19th century the Greek language had changed so much that the meaning of at least 550 words in the New Testament — about 12% of the entire text — was not known. At that time a German expert, Adolf Deissman, discovered some ancient scrolls in Egypt. From them it emerged that biblical Greek was in fact a colloquial version of classical Greek. This language was spoken in Palestine during the first century ad. Deissman was able to attach meanings to some of the unknown words, but there are another fifty words whose meanings are still unknown. (The Gospels and the Jesus of History, by Xavier Leon-Dufour S.J.) Ernest Renan (1823-s1894) carried out extensive research on Semitic languages. He wrote a book on their vocabularies, in which he had this to say about the Arabic language:

“The Arabic language is the most astonishing event of human history. Unknown during the classical period, it suddenly emerged as a complete language. After this, it did not undergo any noticeable changes, so one cannot define for it an early or a late stage. It is just the same today as it was when it first appeared."

In acknowledging this ‘astonishing event of human history’ Renan, a French orientalist, is in fact acknowledging the miraculous nature of the Qur’an. It was the Qur’an’s phenomenal literary style which preserved the Arabic language from alteration, such as other languages have undergone. The Christian Jurgi Zaydan (1861-1914) is one of the scholars to have recognized this fact. In a book on Arabic literature he writes:

“No religious book has had such an impact on the language in which it was written as the Qur’an has had on Arabic literature."

World languages have changed so much throughout the ages that no expert in any modern language is able to understand its ancient form without the aid of a dictionary. There have been two main causes of language alteration — upheavals in the social order of a nation and the development of a language’s literature. Over the centuries these factors have been at work in Arabic, just as in other languages. The difference is that they have not been able to change the structure of the Arabic language. The Arabic that is spoken today is the same as that which was current in Mecca when the Qur’an was revealed. Homer’s Iliad (850 BC), Tulsi Das’ Ramayan (1623 AD), and the dramas of Shakespeare (1564-1616), are considered literary masterpieces of their respective languages. They have been read and, in the case of the Ramayan and Shakespeare’s plays, performed continuously from the time of their compilation until the present day. But neither their literary worth nor their form has been able to prevent the languages in which they were written from being altered. The Greek of Homer, the Sanskrit of Tulsi Das and even the English of Shakespeare, are now classical rather than modern languages. The Qur’an is the only book to have molded a language and maintained it in that same form over the ages. There have been various intellectual and political upheavals in Arab countries, but the Arabic language has remained as it was when the Qur’an was revealed. No change in the Arab social order has been able to alter in any way the Arabic tongue. This fact is a clear indication that the Qur’an came from a supernatural source. One does not have to look any further than the history of the last 1500 years to see the miraculous nature of the Book revealed to the Prophet Mohammad.


Social Upheavals
The example of Latin shows how social upheavals affect languages. Though in latter days Italy became the center of Latin, it was not originally a product of that country. Around the 12th century BC, during the Iron Age, many central European tribes spread out into surrounding regions. Some of them, especially the Alpine tribes, entered Italy and settled in and around Rome. Their own language mixed with the language of Rome, and that was how Latin was formed. In the third century BC Lubus Andronicus translated some Greek tales and dramas into Latin, thus making it a literary language. The Roman Empire was established in the first century BC, and Latin became the official language. The strength of Latin was even further reinforced by the spread of Christianity. With the support of religious and political institutions, and backed by social and economic forces, Latin continued to spread until eventually it came to cover almost the whole of ancient Europe. At the time of St. Augustine, Latin was at its peak, and right up to the Middle Ages it was considered the main international language.

The 8th century ad was an age of Muslim conquest. The Romans were forced to take refuge in Constantinople, which became the capital of the eastern half of the Empire, until in 1453 the Turks took Constantinople and banished the Romans from this, their last stronghold. The decline of the Roman Empire enabled various local languages to flourish, notably French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Latin had a strong influence on all of them, being the language from which they were all derived, but itself survived only as the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. No longer a living tongue, it was ultimately only of historical interest, although it did continue to provide the linguistic bases for technical, legal and scientific terms. Without a good grasp of Latin, for instance, one cannot read Newton’s Principia in the original.

Every classical language followed much the same pattern, changing along with social circumstances until, eventually, the original language gave way to another, completely changed one. Ethnic integration, political revolutions, and cultural clashes have always left a deep imprint on the languages of the affected peoples. These factors have been at work on the Arabic language over the last 1500 years, but amazingly it has remained intact. This extraordinary resilience of the Arabic language is entirely due to the miraculous spell the Qur’an has cast on it.

After the coming of Islam, Arabs settled in many parts of Africa and Asia where other languages besides Arabic were spoken. Their intermingling with other races, however, did not have any effect on the Arabs’ language, which remained in its original state. There are also instances of other peoples changing over to Arabic, such as the Jewish tribes who left Syria in 70 A.D. and settled in Medina where, having come in contact with the Arabic-speaking ‘Amaliqa tribe, they adopted Arabic as their language, although the Arabic they spoke was different from common Arabic, retaining a strong Hebrew influence.

In the very first century after the revelation of the Qur’an, Arabic was exposed to the sort of forces which cause a language to alter radically. This was when Islam spread among various Arab tribes, who began to congregate in major Muslim cities. Intonation and accent varied from tribe to tribe. So much so that Abu ‘Amr ibn al-ula was moved to remark that the ‘Himyar tribe do not speak our language; their vocabulary is quite different from ours.’ ‘Umar ibn Khattab once brought before the Prophet an Arab whom he had heard reciting the Qur’an. The Arab had been pronouncing the words of the Qur’an in such a strange manner that ‘Umar was unable to make out what part of the Book of God he was reading. The Prophet once spoke to a visiting delegation from some Arab tribe in their own dialect. It seemed to ‘Ali as if the Prophet was speaking in a foreign tongue.

The main reason for this difference was variation in accent. For instance, the Banu Tameem, who lived in the eastern part of Najd, were unable to say the letter ‘j’, and used to pronounce it as ‘y’ instead. The word for mosque (masjid), they used to pronounce ‘masyid’, and instead of ‘shajarat’ (trees), they would say ‘sharat’. ‘Q’ they pronounced as ‘j’, calling a ‘tareeq’ (road) a ‘tareej’, a ‘sadiq’ (friend) a ‘sadij’, ‘qadr’ (value) ‘jadr’ and ‘qasim’ (distributor) ‘jasim’. According to normal linguistic patterns, the coming together of tribes who spoke such varying dialects should have initiated a fresh process of change in the Arabic language, but this was not to be. The supreme eloquence of the language of the Qur’an guarded Arabic from any such transformation. What happened instead has been explained by Dr Ahmad Hasan Zayyat:

“After the coming of Islam, the Arabic language did not remain the monopoly of one nation. It became the language of all those who entered the faith.”

Then these Arab Muslims left their native land, conquering territory extending from Kashghar in the east to Gibraltar in the west. Persian, Qibti, Berber, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Aramaic and Suryani were among the languages spoken by the peoples they came into contact with. Some of these nations were politically and culturally more advanced than the Arabs. Iraq, bastion of an ancient civilization and the cultural center of major tribes, was one of the countries they entered. They mingled with the Iranians, masters of one of the world’s two great empires. The highly advanced Roman civilization and an expanding Christian religion were two of the forces that they clashed with. Among the countries they occupied was Syria, where Phoenician, Ghassanid, Greek, Egyptian and Cana‘anian tribes had left behind outstanding traditions in literature and ethics. Then there was Egypt, the meeting place of oriental and occidental philosophy. These factors were more than enough to transform the Arabic language, as had been the case with other tongues exposed to similar forces. But they were rendered ineffective by the Qur’an, a specimen of such unrivalled literary excellence that no power could weaken the hold of the language in which it had been written.

With the conquests of Islam, Arabic no longer belonged to one people alone; it became the language of several nations and races. When the ‘Ajamis’ (non-Arabs) of Asia and Africa accepted Islam, they gradually adopted Arabic as their language. Naturally, these new converts were not as proficient in speaking the language as the Arabs of old. Then the Arabs in their turn were affected by the language spoken by their new co-religionists. The deterioration of Arabic was especially evident in large, cosmopolitan cities, where there was more intermingling of races. First it was the rank and file, those who did not pay much attention to the finer points of linguistics, who were affected. But the cultural elite did not remain immune either. A man once came to the court of Ziyad ibn Umayya and lamented. ‘Our fathers have died, leaving small children,‘ with both ‘fathers’ and ‘children’ in the wrong grammatical case. Mistakes of this nature became commonplace, yet the Arabic language remained essentially the same. Shielded by the Qur’an’s supreme eloquence, written Arabic was not corrupted by the degradation of the spoken version. It remained cast in the mould of the Qur’an.

For proof of the Qur’an’s miraculous nature, one has only to look at all the traumatic experiences that Arabic has been through over the last 1500 years. If it had not been for the protective wing of the Qur’an, the Arabic language would surely have been altered. The unsurpassable model that was established by the Qur’an remained the immutable touchstone of standard Arabic.

The fall of the Umayyad dynasty in the second century Hijrah posed a great threat to the Arabic language. The Umayyad had been a purely Arab dynasty. Strong supporters of Arab nationalism, they took their promotion of Arabic literature and language almost to the point of partiality. Their capital was situated in Damascus, in the Arab heartland. In their time, both the military and the civil administration were controlled by Arabs. Now the Abbasids took over the reins of power. Since it was Iranian support that had brought the caliphate to the Abbasids, it was inevitable that the Iranians should maintain a strong influence on their administration. This influence led to the capital being moved to Baghdad, on the threshold of Persia. The Abbasids gave the Iranians a free hand in affairs of government, but looked down on the Arabs and their civilization, and made conscious efforts to weaken them, unlike the Umayyad who had always preferred Arabs for high posts. With the wane of pro-Arab favoritism, Iranians, Turks, Syrians, Byzantine and Berber elements were able to gain control over all affairs of society and state. Marriages between Arabs and non-Arabs became commonplace. With the mixing of Aryan and Semitic civilizations, Arabic language and culture faced a new crisis. The grandsons of the emperors and lords of Persia arose to resurrect the civilization of their forefathers.

These events had a profound effect on the Arabic language. The state that it had reached by the time of the poet Mutanabbi (915-965 AD) is expressed in the following lines:

“The buildings of Iran excel all others in beauty
As the season of spring excels all other seasons.
An Arab youth goes amongst them,
His face, his hands, his tongue, a stranger in their midst.
Solomon, they say, used to converse with the jinns.
But were he to visit the Iranians, he would need a translator.”
(Diwan al-Mutanabbi)

It was the Qur’an’s literary greatness alone which kept Arabic from being permanently scarred by these upheavals. The language always returned to its Qur’anic base, like a ship which, after weathering temporary storms on the high seas, returns to the safety of its harbor.

During the reign of the caliph Mutawakkil (207-247 ah), large numbers of Ajamis—especially Iranians and Turks—entered Arab territory. In 656 the Mongolian warrior Hulaku Khan sacked Baghdad. Later the Islamic empire received a further setback when, in 898, Andalusia fell to the Christians. The Fatimid dynasty, which had held sway in Egypt and Syria, did not last long either: in 923 they were replaced by the Ottoman Turks in large stretches of Arab territory. Now the center of Islamic government moved from Cairo to Constantinople; the official language became Turkish instead of Arabic, which continued to assimilate a number of foreign words and phrases.

The Arab world spent five hundred and fifty years under the banner of Ajami (non-Arab) kings. Persian, Turkish and Mughal rulers even made attempts to erase all traces of the Arabic language. Arabic libraries were burnt, schools destroyed; scholars of the language found themselves in disgrace. The Ottoman emperors launched an anti-Arabic campaign, fittingly called “Tatreek ‘ul-’Arab” (Turkisation of Arabs) by the well-known reformer Jamaluddin Afghani (1838-97). But no effort was strong enough to inflict any permanent scar on the face of Arabic. Fierce attacks were launched on Arabic language and literature by the Tartars in Bukhara and Baghdad, by the Crusaders in Palestine and Syria, then by other Europeans in Andalusia. According to the history of other languages, these assaults on Arab culture should have been sufficient to eradicate the Arabic language completely. One would have expected Arabic to have followed the path of other languages and merged with other Semitic tongues. Indeed, it would be true to say that if Arabic had not come up against Turkish ignorance and Persian prejudice, it would still be spoken throughout the entire Muslim world today. Its very survival in the Arab world was due solely to the miraculous effect of the Qur’an whose greatness compelled people to remain attached to Arabic. It inspired some Arab scholars — Ibn Manzoor (630-711 ah) and Ibn Khaldun (732-808 ah) being two that spring to mind — to produce, in defiance of the government of the day, works of great literary and academic excellence.

Napoleon’s entry into Cairo (1798) ushered in the age of the printing press in the Middle East. Education became the order of the day. The Arabic language was invested with new life. Yet the centuries of battering that Arabic had received was bound to leave its mark: instead of pure Arabic, a mixture of Arabic and Turkish had been taken as the official language in Egypt and Syria.

The situation changed again with the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. They opposed Arabic with all their strength, prescribing compulsory English in schools and eliminating other languages from syllabi. The French did the same in areas over which they had gained control. With the colonial powers forcing their subjects to learn their languages, Arabic lived in the shadow of English and French for over one hundred years. Yet it still remained in its original form.

Certainly, it assimilated new words — the word “dabbaba” meaning tank, for instance, which had previously been used for a simple battering ram. New styles of writing emerged. If anyone were to write a book about why people adopt Islam today, he might call it. “Limadha aslamna” (Why we accepted Islam), whereas in the old days rhythmical and decorative titles were preferred. Many words were adopted by the Arabic language — the English word “doctor” for example. But such changes were just on the surface. Arabic proper still remained the same as it had been centuries ago, when the Qur’an was revealed.



Literary Advancement
Once in a while, writers of outstanding status appear on a language’s literary scene. When this happens, the language in which they write undergoes some change, for their literary masterpieces influence the mode of popular expression. In this way languages are continually passing through progressive evolutionary stages, until eventually they become quite different from their original form. With Arabic this did not happen. At the very outset of Arabic history, the Qur’an set a literary standard that could not be excelled. Arabic maintained the style set for it by the Qur’an. No masterpiece comparable to the Qur’an was destined to be produced after it; so Arabic remained cast in the mould of that divine symphony.

Take the example of English. In the 7th century AD it was just an ordinary local dialect, not geared to the expression of profound intellectual thought. For another five hundred years this situation continued. The Normans conquered England in 1066 and, when the founding father of the English language — Geoffrey Chaucer — was born around 1340, the official language of their court was still French. Chaucer himself had a command of Latin, French and Italian, besides his native English. This, along with his great gifts of scholarship, enabled him to make English into an academic language. To use Ernest Hauser’s words, he gave the English language a ‘firm boost’ with his Canterbury Tales. Chaucer transformed a dialect into a language, paving the way for fresh progress in times to come.

For two hundred years English writers and poets followed Chaucer’s guidelines. When William Shakespeare (1558-1625) appeared on the scene, English took another step forward. His dramas and poems set a new literary standard, enabling English to march further forward. The coming of the scientific age two hundred years later had a tremendous impact on every stratum of society. Language now began to follow the dictates of science. Prose became more popular than poetry, factual expression more effective than storytelling. Dozens of poets and writers from Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) to T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) were representative of this trend. They were the makers of the modern age of English literature through which we are now passing.

The same thing happened with other languages. Writers, or groups of writers, kept on emerging who became more popular than their predecessors. Whenever they appeared, they steered the language on a new course. Eventually every language changed so much that it became impossible for a person to understand the ancient form of his own tongue without the aid of dictionaries and commentaries.

There is only one exception to this universal trend, and that is Arabic. The claim of the Qur’an, that no one would ever be able to write a book like it, has been borne out to the letter. For further proof of this fact, one need only look at the various attempts to produce a work equal to the Qur’an that have been made over the centuries. All attempts have failed dismally. Musailema ibn Habib, Tulaiha ibn Khuwailid, Nadhr ibn al Harith, Ibn al Rawandi, Abu al Ala al Ma’arri, Ibn al Muqaffa, Al Mutanabbi, and many others, have tried their hand at it, but their efforts, like Musailema’s extraordinary reference to ‘God’s blessing upon pregnant women, extracting from them a sprightly life, from between the stomach and the fetal membrane’ look ridiculous when compared with the literary majesty of the Qur’an.

But the greatest substantiation of the Qur’an’s claim that no one would be able to write a work like it (17:88) comes from what Ernest Renan has called the ‘linguistic miracle’ of the Arabic language. As with every other language, masters of Arabic — great poets and writers — have appeared over the ages. But, in the 1500 years since the Qur’an was revealed, no one has been able to produce a work that excelled it. Its standard has never been improved upon and Arabic has remained on the course set for it by the Qur’an. The impact that the Qur’an has had on Arabic is like that of a writer who produces a work of unsurpassable literary excellence at the very beginning of a language’s history. After such a figure has made his mark, no lesser writer can change the face of the language. The Qur’an, revealed in the Arabic current at the time was cast in a more elevated literary mould than had ever been seen before or afterwards.

By making vital additions to traditional modes of expression, the Qur’an opened the way for expansion of the Arabic language. The use of the word ‘one’ (ahad) in the 112th chapter of the Qur’an, entitled ‘Oneness’, is a good example. Previously it had been used in the genitive to express ‘one of us’ for example, or for the ‘first day’ of the week, Saturday or Yaum al Ahad. It was used for general negations, as in ‘Ma Ja’ni ahadun’ — ‘no one came to see me.’ But in using ahad as an attribute of Almighty God, the Qur’an put the word to an entirely novel use. The Qur’an brought many foreign words into Arabic usage, for instance istabraq from Persian, qaswara from Abyssinian, sirat from Greek, ‘yamm’ from Syrian, ghassaq from Turkish, qistas from Latin, ‘malakut’ from Aramaic and ‘kafoor’ from Hindi. The Qur’an tells us (25:60) that the idolaters of Mecca were baffled at the word ‘rahman’. They used to say ‘What is this ‘rahman’? This was because the word was not Arabic; it had been taken from the Sabaean and Hamiri languages. The Christians of Yemen and Abyssinia used to call God ‘rahamnan’. The Meccans considered the word foreign when it appeared in the Qur’an in an Arabic zed form. They enquired what ‘rahman‘ meant, being unaware of its linguistic background. Over one hundred non-Arabic words of this nature were used in the Qur’an, taken from languages as far apart as Persian, Latin, Nabatean, Hebrew, Syrian, Coptic and many others.

Although the Qur’an was revealed mainly in the language of the Quraysh, words used by other Arab tribes were also included. Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas, a Qurayshi Muslim, was puzzled when the word fatir appeared in the Qur’an. ‘I did not know what the expression ‘Originator of the heavens and the earth’ meant,’ he explained. ‘Then I heard an Arab saying that he had ‘originated’ a well, when he had just started digging it, and I knew what the word ‘fatir’ meant.’ Abu Huraira said that he had never heard the word ‘sikkin’ until he heard it in the chapter, ‘Joseph’, of the Qur’an. ‘We always used to call a knife ‘mudiya’, he said.

As Jalaluddin Suyuti has pointed out in Al-Itqan, many words were pronounced differently by various Arab tribes. The Qur’an took some of these words, and used them in their most refined literary form. The Quraysh, for instance, used the word a’ata for ‘he gave’, while the Himyaris used to pronounce it ‘anta’. The Qur’an preferred a’ata to anta. Likewise it chose ‘asabi’ rather than shanatir and dhi’b instead of kata. The general trend of preferring Qurayshi forms was sometimes reversed, as in the phrase ‘layalitkum min a’amalikum’ — ‘nothing will be taken away from your actions’ — which was borrowed from the Bani ’Abbas dialect.

In giving old Arabic words and expressions new depth and beauty, the Qur’an set a standard of literary excellence which no future writer could improve on. It revised certain metaphors, rephrasing them in a more eloquent form than had been heard before. This was how an ancient Arab poet described the impermanence of the world:

“Even if he enjoys a long period of secure life, every mother’s son will finally be carried aloft in a coffin.”

The Qur’an put the same idea in the poignantly succinct words: ‘Every soul shall taste death’ (3:185). Killing and plundering presented a major problem in ancient Arabia. Certain phrases had been coined to express the idea that only killing could put an end to killing, and these were considered highly eloquent in pre-Islamic days. ‘To kill some is to give life to the whole,’ one of them went. ‘Kill more, so that there should be less killing,’ and ‘Killing puts an end to killing,’ were some other examples. The Qur’an expressed the idea in these words: ‘In retaliation there is life for you, O men of understanding.’ (2:179).

In pre-Qur’anic days, poetry held an important place in Arabic, as in other languages of the world. Poetical expression of ideas was given pride of place in the literary arena. The Qur’an, however, left this beaten track, and used prose instead of poetry. This in itself is proof that the Qur’an came from God, for in the 7th century AD who, save God — who knows the future just as He knows the past — could know that prose rather than poetry should be chosen as the medium for divine scripture that was to last for all time. The Qur’an was addressed to future generations, and soon poetry was going to become less important as a mass medium of communication. Rhetorical language was also very much in vogue before the Qur’an, but for the first time in literary history, the Qur’an introduced a factual rather than a rhetorical style. The most famous topics for literary treatment had previously been military and romantic exploits. The Qur’an, on the contrary, featured a much wider spectrum, including matters of ethical, legal, scientific, psychological, economic, political and historic significance within its scope. In ancient times, parables were a popular mode of expression. Here too, the Qur’an trod new ground, adopting a more direct method of saying things. The method of reasoning employed in the Qur’an was also considerably different from that used in pre-Qur’anic times. Whereas purely theoretical, analogical proof was all that the world had known prior to this, the Qur’an introduced empirical, scientific reasoning. And to crown all its achievements, the Qur’an expressed all this in a refined literary style, which proved imperishable in times to come.

There was an ancient Arab saying that ‘the sweetest poem was the one with the most lies.’ The Qur’an changed this, introducing a new mode of ‘articulate speech’ (55:4) based on verifiable facts rather than on hypothetical fables. Now Arabic followed the Qur’an’s lead. Pre-Islamic Arabic literature was collected and compiled, keeping the preservation and understanding of the language of the Qur’an in mind. Great departments of learning, facilitating understanding of the Qur’an and explaining its orders and prohibitions came into existence. The learning of Arabic grammar, syntax and etymology, Islamic theology and traditions, as well as Qur’anic studies, were all aimed at helping us to understand the message of the Qur’an. Even the subjects of history and geography were originally taken up as part of the Arabs’ attempt to understand and practice the teachings of Qur’an. There is no other example in the history of the world of any single book having such an enormous impact on a people and their language.

Through its development and improvement of the Arabic language, the Qur’an became a superb literary masterpiece. Anyone who knows Arabic can appreciate the unique quality of the Qur’an’s style as compared to that of any other work of Arabic literature. The Qur’an is written in a divine style vastly superior to anything humans can aspire to. We will close this chapter by relating a story which clearly portrays the difference between the work of God and that of man. It is taken from Sheikh Tantawi’s commentary of the Qur’an, Al-Jawahir fi Tafsir Al-Qur’an Al-Karim.

‘On 13 June 1932,’ Tantawi writes, ‘I met an Egyptian writer, Kamil Gilani, who told me an amazing story. One day he was with an American orientalist by the name of Finkle, with whom he enjoyed a deep intellectual relationship. ‘Tell me, are you still among those who consider the Qur’an a miracle?’ whispered Finkle in Gilani’s ear, adding a laugh to indicate his ridicule of such belief. He thought that Muslims could only hold this belief in blind faith. It could not be based on any sound, objective reasoning. Thinking that his blow had really gone home, Finkle was visibly pleased with himself. Seeing his attitude, Gilani too started laughing. ‘Before issuing any pronouncement on the style of the Qur’an,’ he said, ‘we should first have a look and see if we can produce anything comparable to it. Only when we have tried our hand, shall we be able to say conclusively whether humans can produce anything comparable to the Qur’an or not.’

Gilani then invited Finkle to join him in putting a Qur’anic idea into Arabic words. The idea he chose was: Hell is extremely vast. Finkle agreed, and both men sat down with pen and paper. Between them, they produced about twenty Arabic sentences. ‘Hell is extremely vast,’ ‘Hell is vaster than you can imagine,’ ‘Man’s intellect cannot fathom the vastness of Hell,’ and many examples of this nature, were some of the sentences they produced. They tried until they could think of no other sentence to express this idea. Gilani looked at Finkle triumphantly. ‘Now that we have done our best, we shall be able to see how the Qur’an stands above all works of men,’ he said. ‘What, has the Qur’an expressed this idea more eloquently?’ Finkle enquired. ‘We are like little children compared to the Qur’an,’ Gilani told him. Amazed, Finkle asked what was in the Qur’an. Gilani recited this verse from Surah Qaf: ‘On that Day We will ask Hell: ‘Are you full?’ And Hell will answer: ‘Are there any more?’ (50:30) Finkle was startled on hearing this verse. Amazed at the supreme eloquence of the Qur’an, he openly admitted defeat. ‘You were right, quite right,’ he said, ‘I unreservedly concede defeat.’ ‘For you to acknowledge the truth,’ Gilani replied, ‘is nothing strange, for you are a man of letters, well aware of the importance of style in language.’ This particular orientalist was fluent in English, German, Hebrew and Arabic, and had spent all his life studying the literature of these languages. (Sheikh al-Tantawi al-Jauhari, Al-Jawahir fi Tafseer Al-Qur’an Al-Kareem, Vol. 23, pp. 111-12).

[Bin Abd Al-Matin]

http://www.caliphate.co.uk/beliefs/proofquran.htm


On Miracles, Messages and Proofs

The discussion regarding the conclusive proof of the existence of god, even once one concludes that He undoubtedly exists is really not a religious discussion. It does not necessitate that one become a Muslim, a Christian or a follower of any faith, merely that one believes an unlimited Creator exists.

The question regarding which religion, if any, is the correct religion or the truth, is a question of whether God revealed anything to mankind or not. Did He pass to us a message by which to live and if so how do we authenticate this?

It is supposed by advocators of mainstream religions that the Creator did indeed send revelation to us over the course of history. The method of revelation was a message to one from amongst the people, a man who proved that he was a messenger of god to the populace by the performance of a miracle[s]. We know their names, Musa, Isa, Muhammad, Ibrahim and so on.

Naturally if any man claimed to be a messenger the people would not believe him simply on his word. Most people would harbour a healthy amount of scepticism to the claim. If however the same man performed a miracle the same people would then believe him. By miracle what is meant is the clear and obvious breaking of the natural laws of the universe, such that an unheard of and totally unnatural occurrence is observed.

One good definition of miracle: "An event that appears so inexplicable by the laws of nature, that it is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God."

So if the man for example split the red sea in the name of God or split the moon into two parts his claims to prophet-hood would be verified in the eyes of those who witnessed the miracle, or later verified its occurrence by some other means.

The breaking of natural law may only occur via the permission of the one who defined them and brought them into existence; the Creator of the universe [see discussion re: conclusive proof of the existence of God]. As all of mankind, like everything else in the universe is bound by these laws, the proclaimed messenger who performs a miracle has proven he is indeed a messenger. For only God may alter or suspend the natural laws. Thus the messenger has done so by His permission alone as there is no other way and so authenticated his claims. No ordinary man has the ability to do this.

It would not be correct to say that illusionists and the like appear to break the natural law. Their illusions cannot withstand scrutiny, rather they are revealed to merely be deception. The miracles of the past were so apparent as to withstand any scrutiny. The two examples mentioned already demonstrate this; the splitting of the red sea and the splitting of the moon. In the times of these two miracles, attributed to Musa and Muhammad respectively, there were no cameras, special effects or television.

Any sincere and intelligent man who witnessed Isa give life to the dead and heal with just a touch, or saw Ibrahim emerge from the raging fire unharmed would believe they were indeed, as they claimed to be, messengers of God. There is no other explanation for a miracle, an event which defies the laws of nature, the only possibility is that it occurs by the permission of the Creator. As there is no other possibility this reason must be true, it must be the cause for the effect witnessed. A problem arises because these miracles are lost in time. Millennia later how are human beings in the 21 st century to believe such events did occur?

Miracles have been reported to us in textual accounts such as those found in the new testament and the old testament. The problem with books like the Torah and the Inj'eel [bible] is that they have undoubtedly been subject to alteration over the course of history. There exist very different versions of the same books. This is proof that they have been altered by human beings from their original versions. So the report of Isa walking upon water in the Inj'eel is not something we can believe in as it may be fabricated. It becomes a matter of faith not belief. If the books mentioned were indeed the very revelation sent to Musa or Isa then we would find:

1) Every version would be identical. Any alteration over time would manifest as different forms of the book.

2) There would be some way to authenticate that the book actually is the original. Otherwise how can anyone know the book they hold is really the revelation of a messenger?

It is worth mentioning that all Muslims believe in the revealed books as part of their Aqueedah [belief] as well as the Qur'an. These books are the Torah , Inj'eel and the Psalms of Dawud. Muslims believe that these books were revealed by God but their integrity has been compromised over time as mentioned. The reason they have definite belief in their revelation is because the Qur'an details this and there exists a unique method to verifying the authenticity of the Qur'an which is only applicable to it

This is the same reason Muslims believe in some of the miracles of the previous prophets. They may be lost in time but those miracles that are mentioned in the Qur'an can be believed in as long as one is aware as to how the Qu'ran is the word of God and how its authenticity can be verified.

Muhammad was the final messenger of God and the foremost miracle he brought is the Qur'an itself. The consequences of this are important.

1) As a miracle is a breaking of natural law, they are by definition inimitable by man. This means someone may not alter the Qur'an or insert in additional sections as its style is inimitable and the human made elements would immediately become apparent to someone with mastery of Arabic language.

2) If the Qur'an itself is miraculous in nature then it means the Muslims of today are in possession of a timeless miracle; a miracle that can validate the correctness of Islam at any time, not only around the time of revelation.

However the teachings of Islam can only be believed in today if the miraculous nature of the Qur'an can be understood by any individual of this current age. If its miraculous nature can be understood intellectually then there is no need for the people of the 21 st century to have ‘faith' in corrupted books or to simply follow the religion of their forefathers. Human beings of this age have often rejected religion because of there lack of evidence and definite proof. Preaching to faith or following tradition is not required in such times. What is required is that mankind understands the proof behind the Creators final revelation and its timeless aspect.

It can only make sense that if Islam was indeed the last religion revealed from God that in His wisdom, its proof would be such that any person could understand its proof from the time of revelation to Muhammad until the last day. Otherwise God would have indeed have left men to faith and their own devices as some believe. This is not the reality as will be seen.

The Nature of the Miracle

How exactly can a book be miraculous?

The Qur'an is miraculous because the eloquence of its language is so amazing, so sublime as to peak in every characteristic of Arabic as to be unmatchable. To the Arabs who heard it, it was undoubtedly not from a human being. Indeed the language is such that it cannot be imitated at all by man, even a small part. This is one of the attributes of a miracle, inimitability, no-one else can repeat the miracle, or even conceive of attempting it as it is beyond the realms of natural law. The splitting of the red sea is an example of this. No-one else can repeat this phenomenon. The revelation of the Qur'an is equally miraculous and inimitable, but requires a little more depth of thought to appreciate.

It is worth noting that the miracles brought by the previous prophets and messengers came as challenges to the people of the time. At the time of Ibrahim there existed many fire worshippers. Yet when he was plunged into the inferno their fire did not burn him. Clearly his God had mastery over the very attributes of the thing they worshipped. At the time of Musa they ruler in the land was the tyrant Fir'awn . In his entourage were a group of illusionists who often performed their tricks in his court. By the will of God Musa's staff transformed into a snake, which consumed their own staffs. The illusionists who were masters of deception new full well that this was no mere trick and understood it must be from God. Similarly in the time of Isa skill in healing and medicine was respected greatly, and Isa was able to cure the diseased with a touch and restore life with a touch where once there had been death.

The Arabs at the time of the Qur'an's revelation were enamoured of poetry. They praised one another, admonished and even debated in poetry. Their poets were esteemed members of Makkan society. In Ukaz there took place an annual market where poets would compete in eloquence, the champion's poetry would be hung from the door of the Ka'bah itself.

When Muhammad brought the Qur'an, it was obvious to these people who were masters of Arabic that it was a supernatural phenomenon. For these people whose mastery of Arabic was it its peak could not match its eloquence, its sublime beauty.

Allah himself challenged the Arabs to match His book.

“Or they say ‘he [Muhammad] forged it', Say: ‘Bring ten chapters like it and call [to your help] whomever you can other than Allah if you speak the truth” [TMQ Hud: 13]

And then:

“If you are in doubt of what we have revealed to our messenger, then produce one chapter like it. Call upon all your helpers, besides Allah, if you are truthful” [TMQ Al-baqarah: 23]

Here it can be seen that God himself is challenging the doubters [and all the help they can muster] to produce ten similar chapters to the Qur'an. In the latter challenge the challenge is lessened to only one single like chapter.

Chapter has been translated from the Arabic sura [pl. suwar ]. The smallest sura or chapter is sura kauthar which is only three lines long, thus the final challenge made was to produce only three lines that matched the Qur'an. In effect Allah told the Arabs this book is from Him. He laid down the simplest of tasks that they could never achieve. It was a poignant exclamation to the authenticity of the Qur'an.

History attests that the Arabs were not able to meet the challenge. This inimitable quality is known as i'jaz ul-quran , the miraculous nature of the Qur'an.

The Qur'an clearly is an Arabic discourse. If the Arabs could meet the challenge then the Qur'an would have simply been from Muhammad or one of the Arabs. As not one of them could then it could not have been from any one of them. It could not have been from any non-Arabs either being an Arabic book, so it must be from God himself. We will examine this in detail in the next section.

History also attests that the Arabs were awed by what they heard.

One of the finest of the Arab poems was written by an esteemed poet called Labid ibn Rabiah. His poem when recited at Ukaz called all the people present to prostrate themselves before him in admiration. When the same Labid heard the Qur'an recited he immediately embraced Islam and gave up poetry altogether. When he was once asked to recite some poetry the former master replied: “What! After the Qur'an?”

It is worth noting that it cannot be argued that eloquence of language is a subjective phenomenon, and thus judging whether the Qur'anic challenge has been met is a subjective matter. This is because there are rules pertaining to grammar and expression in Arabic and indeed any other language, and it is these rules the Qur'an alone transcends. Examination any given work and its level of excellence with regards to such rules is an objective matter for one with sufficient mastery of the language.

Eloquence, beauty, rhetoric, structure, rhythm, rhyme, grammar, clarity, depth. These are some of the attributes sought for in Arabic poetry, prose and rhymed prose. These were the then three existent styles of artistic expression in Arabic. Also amongst the attributes superlatives are sought in are the number of words used to convey [less is superior] and their depth, coherence, consistency, symmetry and force.

It was impossible for the poets to write verses in Arabic that peaked in each and every considered category all at once. Inevitably quality in on or a few attributes would be at the expense of quality in some of the others. This is a normal rule of any language. The Qur'an when it arrived produced a fourth category of its own. In each and every sura the very highest level of every attribute was achieved all at once. The Qur'an was renowned for its ability to covey an extraordinary depth of meaning in just a few words. All while maintaining excellence in all characteristics of the language. It was in a league of its own, a league no man could produce even one small piece of in the same style.

As a further example in Arabic there are sixteen forms of poetry, sixteen al-Bihar , literally “seas” so-called because of the way the poem moves, according to a rhythm.

In Arabic poetry each one is more suited to one or a few of the above mentioned characteristics at the expense of the others. The Qur'an achieved an unparalleled excellence throughout in all considerations. Thus it transcended any of the Bihar , any prose or rhymed prose.

This is why the Arabs were shaken by what they heard, and many converted upon hearing the spoken words. For them it was akin to seeing the moon split into two.

More on the nature of the Miracle

The Qur'an literary qualities are at a level beyond man's ability to replicate it. To break this down further we can characterize Qur'an's style [ usloob ] into three qualities:

a) Force [Quwwah ]

b) Beauty [Jamaal ]

c) Clarity [wudooh ]

The language has a force which has an impact on the one who listens to its verses. It brings tears of ecstasy, fear and hope to the heart which contemplates its meanings. With regards to the force the following narration by Ibn Hisham epitomizes this point. He narrated that Jubayr b. Mut'im b. iddi came to the Messenger of Allah [saw] regarding Mu'anna [an ally of the polytheists] in order to ransom him. When he came into the room the Prophet [saw] was reciting Sura at-Tur to him and when he [saw] came to the section:


“Verily, the Torment of your Lord will surely come to pass” [TMQ at-Tur: 7]


“There is none that can avert it;” [TMQ at-Tur: 8]

The polytheist began to shake and then embraced Islam and explained his sudden behaviour by saying: ‘I feared that the torment [ ‘azaab ] would come upon me'.

The Quranic style exhibits a certain beauty in terms of the fittingness [ mulaa'amah ] of the words, as if the words were created for that sentence in which it was used. So for example for where the meaning is delicate the delicate expressions are used as in the following ayah:

“ Verily, for the Muttaqeen [God fearing], there will be a success [Paradise]; Gardens and grape yards. And maidens of equal age. And a full cup [of wine]” [TMQ An-Naba: 31-34].

The expression hadaaiqah a'naaba ‘gardens and grape yards' and ka'san dihaaqa [a full cup of wine'] are all expressions which give a soft and inviting meaning.

But where the meaning is forceful the Qur'an expresses in this way:

“Truly, Hell is a place of ambush, a dwelling place for the Tagheen [Those who transgress the limits set by Allah (swt)]. They will abide therein for ages, nothing cool shall they taste therein, nor any drink. Except boiling water, and dirty wound discharges. An exact recompense [according to their evil crimes].” [TMQ An-Naba: 21-26]

So it describes Hell as mirsaada [i.e. a place of ambush] and the only drink available is hameeman ghassaaqa [boiling water and dirty wound discharges].

The Quranic style is also clear and the vivid figurative imagery that it paints is easy

to grasp. Look at the following ayah:

“When they are cast therein, they will hear the [terrible] drawing in of its breath as it blazes forth.”

“It almost bursts up with fury. Every time a group is cast therein, its keeper will ask: ‘Did no warner come to you?'”

Here Jahannam [hell] is depicted like an angry human being, every time its sees the disbelievers thrown in it rages with anger.

The literary miracle of the Qur'an is that it combines all of these qualities of force, beauty and clarity throughout its verses. This is something which has not been achieved by any human endeavour simply because the Qur'an is the not result of any human endeavour; rather it is ‘ Kalaam Allah ' the Speech of Allah revealed to Mankind from the Seven Heavens.

How do we appreciate the Miracle?

There are 25 letters in the Arabic language. There are only a very limited number of ways to arrange them so they make sense according to the grammatical rules and the finite number of words that exist. There exist far less ways to arrange them to produce fine prose or poetry.

It stands to reason that anyone can with mastery of a language and a blueprint to imitate could easily do so. This is because he possesses all the tools he needs, knowledge of the words and the grammatical rules, and he has the style he must produce.. As an example if one were given a Medical text book and a medical dictionary for the scientific terms and asked to write several paragraphs in the same style, it would take a group of educated people half an hour or so to produce a few paragraph of similar sounding text. A group of consultant physicians could doubtless produce an identical style in a matter of minutes.

In his first challenge Allah [swt] invites the Arabs to a fair contest.

"Say: "If the whole of mankind and Jinn were to gather together to produce the like of this Qu'ran they could not produce the like thereof, even if they backed up each other with help and support” [TMQ Al-israa': 88]

The challenge is to produce the like of the Qur'an. The second challenge confers to the Arabs a clear advantage.

“Or they say ‘he [Muhammad] forged it', Say: ‘Bring ten chapters like it and call [to your help] whomever you can other than Allah if you speak the truth” [TMQ Hud: 13]

Now only ten suwar must be produced. The final challenge is so easy that it should if it could really be matched have taken the Arab poets of the time a very short amount of time to meet.

“If you are in doubt of what we have revealed to our messenger, then produce one chapter like it. Call upon all your helpers, besides Allah, if you are truthful” [TMQ Al-baqarah: 23]

There 114 suwar in the Qur'an, the longest of which is 286 ayat [phrase or sentence] long, the shortest is 3 ayat long [or 4 if one includes bimillahir rahmanir rahim ; In the name of Allah the most beneficent, the most merciful] which begins all suwar save one. That is only three sentences.

Given the Arabic language, given the blueprint of the entire Qur'an itself, it should definitely be possible to imitate the style for only three lines. But the challenge to this day remains unmet. How can this be? If a man had produced the Qur'an then another man would have been able to copy the process and achieve the same result. It should be noted that the process only need be replicated for 3 lines! The fact that this cannot be done defies all the known laws of language, and yet it is the case.

This is analogous to giving a team of expert Ferrari engineers the blueprint to a Ferrari, all of the building materials and tools and yet they are unable to assemble it. Pharmaceutical companies may spend years and invest millions of pounds in producing a new drug, but they immediately patent the drug to prevent other companies from producing the same thing. This is because the drug can be examined in a laboratory, its composition analysed, the process replicated. The same rules apply to language, any style can be examined, its rules understood, the style replicated. But with the Qur'an this has never been done. The inimitability is testament to its miraculous nature.

So where did the Qur'an come from? Let us examine the possibilities. They are:

1) From Muhammad

2) From the Arabs

3) From the non-Arabs

4) From the Creator

It would be false to claim that it was from the best of the Arab poets who produced it or one possessed of genius. If it were one such then it would still be possible to imitate his work even if he produced it first. This is according to the normal rules of language. Thus Shakespeare is considered by many the finest writer of English language, yet it is definitely possible to imitate him. There is still debate over certain parts of Henry VIII [‘All is true'] as to who authored them. The same is true of book 10 of Homers ‘Illiad'. In fact neither claims to be beyond human capacity or inimitable but this demonstrates that both can be imitated and equalled, if not bettered. Yet this is not possible with the Qur'an. So it cannot be from the Arabs themselves or they would have been able to replicate it. Instead they could not, and it brought a new style of Arabic language, the Qur'an in addition to the poetry, prose and rhymed prose of the Arabs. It remained however a unique style they could not repeat.

The same argument applies to the Qur'an being from Muhammad. He himself was an Arab and illiterate amongst them. Also it cannot have come from a non Arab being itself an Arabic discourse.

The only other possibility is that it came from the Creator. This is the final possibility and consequently must be true. It also is the only explanation for the Qur'an's inimitability, for as previously discussed any miracle can occur only by the Creators will.

It is also worth noting also that the Qur'an maintains its flawless brilliance throughout. Had it been produced by men, then there would have been fluctuations in its excellence. People may have been expected to improve their style over time, to eventually peak. People may be expected to not maintain the same incredible standard for every line of every page. But the inimitable perfection of the Qur'an encompasses any three lines that may be put under scrutiny.

Taken from the book “ Ash-shakhsia al-Islaamiya: Vol I”

“Thus their style fluctuates in strength and weakness, apart from the occurrence of some frivolous thoughts and trite expressions in their texts. On the other hand, we find that style of the Quran from the day of the revelation of the first Ayah , "Read! In the name of your Lord and Cherisher, Who created," [TMQ Al-'alaq: 1] until the day of the revelation of the last Ayah, "O you who believe! Fear Allah [swt], and give up what remains of your demand for usury [riba], if you are indeed believers" [TMQ Al-baqarah: 278] was uniformly at its peak with respect to articulacy and rhetoric and the sublimity of the thoughts therein and the vigour of its expressions. You will never find one trite expression or one frivolous thought in it, but it is one homogeneous piece, to the smallest detail, its entirety is, in respect of style, just like one single sentence. This is proof that it is not the speech of human beings, whose speech is susceptible to divergence in expressions and meanings; but it is indeed the speech of the Lord of the Worlds.”

In conclusion:

1) As the Qur'an could not have been from the Arabs, Muhammad, a non-Arab or any man we are left with the conclusion that is revealed from the only other possible source; from the Creator

2) The inimitability of the Qur'an, the fact that the impossibility of such a simple challenge not being met is an actual reality is testament to its miraculous nature. A miracle is: "An event that appears so inexplicable by the laws of nature, that it is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God", such an inimitable occurrence can only occur via the permission of the one who sets the natural laws and then breaks them Himself, thus the Creator is the only one who could have revealed the Qur'an.

How does one appreciate the Miracle without mastery of classical Arabic?

As Islam came for all of mankind, not only the Arabs, there must be a way for non Arabs to understand the Qur'an's timeless miracle. Indeed most Arabs these days do not know the fusha [classical] Arabic of the Qur'an. How then do the people of the 21 st century appreciate Islam and understand its truth without first mastering fusha Arabic?

An expert in classical Arabic may well be able to simply hear the Qur'an and appreciate the miracle as the following example demonstrates:

One of the most famous conversions was that of Umar ibn al-Khattab the second of the righteously guided Khulafah and one of the best of the Muslims. Prior to his conversion he was a staunch opponent of the Prophet, devoted to paganism and a drunkard who buried his children alive. On top of this he was a mighty warrior. Ibn Ishaq reports in his Sira that Umar was on his way to assassinate Muhammad one day when he came upon his sister who had embraced Islam secretly, listening to some new verses of the Qur'an being recited. He stormed into the house shouting “What is this nonsense?” and knocked his sister to the ground. He softened slightly when he noticed her bleeding, feeling ashamed of himself somewhat, picked up the manuscript and began to read. Umar was and an acknowledged authority of Arabic poetry and used to be consulted regarding the precise significance of language. But Umar had never encountered the like of the Qur'an and he exclaimed “How fine and noble is this speech!” converting there and then to Islam for which he famously became as mighty a champion for as he ever had been against prior to converting.

However if someone who does not know Arabic listens to the Qur'an being recited, as melodious as it may sound, he would not be able to ascertain its divine nature. It would be akin to the splitting of the red sea before a blind girl. She does not possess the tools to sense the miracle before her.

However what can be understood is that in the 1400 years since Islam was revealed, no scholar of classical Arabic be they Muslim, Christian or of any other belief has upheld any meeting of the Qur'an's challenge. Their consent over this is unanimous. Testimonials to its miraculous origin and inimitability can be found by the dozens.

Further to this attempts to imitate the Qur'an have been met with the scholar's derision.

Some claim that the Qur'an was matched by ‘Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa', Abu ‘Ala al-Ma'arri and others. But the point we need to remember is that the Qur'an did not challenge that someone should make a claim but that he should ‘bring something like it'. Where are the writings of such people which equal the oratory of the Qur'an? In fact it has not been even established conclusively that such people even claimed to have matched the Qur'an.

One of the earliest claimants to rivalling the Qur'an was the amusing concoction of Musaylimah al-Kazzab. Regarding his poetry the great scholar of I'jaz al-Qur'an Imaam al-Baqilanni wrote: ‘The pieces reported to have been composed by Musaylimah are so ridiculously poor in style that nobody could seriously compare them with the Qur'an.' Take a look at the following rendition by Musaylimah and you will see what he means:

"The elephant. What is the elephant? And who shall tell you what is the elephant? He has a ropy tail and a long trunk. this is a [mere] trifle of our Lord's creations" !

As regards Ibn Muqaffa' no texts exist which claim to challenge the Qur'an so the discussion is rather academic. On the contrary it is said that Ibn al-Muqaffa' himself gave up after attempting to replicate the Qur'an when he came to the verses 42-46 of Surah Hud.

As for Abu ‘Ala al-Ma'arri only some parts survive from his Kitab al-Fusul wal Ghayaat. But these parts are no more than rhymed prose and cannot be described a unique genre of writing which is what it would have to be to challenge the Qur'an. In fact some scholars such as Fakhr ad-Deen ar-Raazi denied that al-Ma'arri ever meant to challenge the Qur'an. Nonetheless ar-Raazi mentions a dozen reasons why the language of the Qur'an is superior to that of al-Ma'arri's text.

In recent times we have seen the cheap attempts of Christian missionaries who claim they have something better than the Qur'an. What they have is translations of the Bible or stories adapted from the Bible. One quick look at their texts indicates the feeble nature of their attempts; they are written mimicking the style of the Qur'an but always falling short. The Qur'an said bring something like it, not plagiarise its style in a substandard manner. So it's no wonder no-one studies their works as a piece of literature let alone something which is distinguished for its literary qualities.

The people who spoke the best Arabic, were its recognised masters and loved it most were the ones closest to the time when Qur'an was being revealed. They themselves were unable to replicate the Qur'an. Thus, al-Jaahiz [b. 160 AH] who was a master of Arabic language in his time said: ‘The Prophet came with this Book [Qur'an] which we read and obliged us to adhere to it. He challenged the masters of rhetoric; orators and poets with its word order and composition in many places and great gatherings but no one came or took up the challenge. No one was able to bring a part or the like and no one claimed he could do that'. If this was the case with the Arabs of the pure tongue in the time of the Prophet and after him, then what about the people today who make cheap claims but cannot read classical poetry without constantly referring to dictionaries and commentaries?

It is a physical impossibility for all the scholars of classical Arabic separated by time [over 1400 years] and space [whichever country they may abide in] to have collaborated to fool the entire world into believing the Qur'an is inimitable. Those who are Christians, Jewish or atheist would have no reason to do this anyway. As we know they have not colluded to tell the world that the Qur'anic challenge has gone unmet by the fact there are too many scholars of Arabic who are unknown to each other, in too many different places at any given point in history the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they are telling the truth.

Having understood this anyone, Arab or otherwise can now begin to examine the points expounded in the previous section ‘Appreciating the Miracle' which explains why this inimitability can only mean the Qur'an is revealed by the Creator. If all the people of Musa told the blind girl of the example the red sea had been split into two, provided the numbers were large enough and the people unknown to each other to such an extent that collaboration were an impossibility, she herself could only conclude a miracle had indeed been performed, though she had not directly sensed it .

In this regard the sincere, thinking man is in a better position to understand the divine origin of the Qur'an than those people of Quraysh, Christian and Jewish Arabic scholars who knew it could not be imitated but would not embrace Islam for other reasons, such as fear of change, or out of pride. Some may have not made the required intellectual linkages developed in the previous section explaining why the Qur'an can only be from the creator.

The continuous transmission of the Qur'an

Barring one or two slightly different manuscripts [which differ only in very minor issues like the angle some tashkil are scribed] the Qur'an the world over is exactly the same book This can be tested easily for there are thousands of huffaz [individuals who have committed the Qur'an to memory, literally ‘guardians'] who have memorised the Qur'an the world over. They recite the Qur'an every day in salat [prayer]. During the month of Ramadhan the entire Qur'an is recited aloud in salat in every masjid around the world. Were anyone to recite it differently it would immediately be recognised. Any Muslim is familiar with this for we have all witnessed the correcting of the Imam should he falter or make an error in prayer.

Consider what this means. It means that over the last 1400 years as Muslims have moved to live all over the globe, there has been no alteration at all to any of the manuscripts of the Qur'an. If there had been then there would definitely be variants of the Qur'an. The Qur'an held by a man in London would be different than one held by a woman in Vienna. As the Qur'an is the same the world over this has not occurred.

One can imagine this as a spider's web. Each strand represents the spread of Muslims around the world and over time. If there were changes to the Qur'an at any point the manuscripts at the end of the web would be different at different points. As they are not it means that we hold the same Qur'an as the version at the centre of our imaginary web.

The centre of the web represents the period where Uthman the third Khalifah of Islam gathered together all variant manuscripts and produced one standard manuscript based on the version that Abu Bakr had used. The sahabi [companions of the prophet] reached a consensus regarding the correct nature of this version as the Prophet had himself made the majority of them memorise the Qur'an before his death. This version was distributed to the other Muslims of the state. As currently we all have the same version of the Qur'an it must be the very same copy of Abu Bakr's that Uthman standardised for everyone as previously explained.

It cannot be argued the Qur'an may have been tampered with at this point, and that we possess other than that which Allah revealed. If anything had been added into the Qur'an or altered by men, then these verses would have lost their inimitable quality, their miraculous nature. As the entire Qur'an to this day still possesses these attributes, what was compiled by Uthman and the companions was definitely all revelation from the Creator.

Indeed once it is established that it is without a doubt the word of Allah, now we can examine its words in peace and tranquillity. Allah [swt] himself has told us that He will protect the book:

"Verily We: It is We Who have sent down the Qur'an and surely, We will guard it" [TMQ al-Hijr: 9]

This is very different from the Christian argument that one should have faith in the Bible. When asked why I should have such faith one missionary replied by opening the bible and pointing out a verse that commanded you must have faith in the Bible! This is known as a circular argument; believe in the book because the book says so, and is intellectually bankrupt. Such an argument cannot amount to a definite belief for any case.

Rather with the Qur'an the Muslim must first understand its challenges, its inimitable nature, and the fact that this demonstrates it is a miracle and finally then that a miracle must come from God. After proving the divine revelation of the Qur'an from without, we can now happily take anything inside knowing that it is from the creator. More than this we are obliged to.

And they will say: 'Had we but listened or used our intelligence, we would not have been among the dwellers of the Fire!'" [TMQ al-Mulk: 10]

The Final Conclusion

The sincere and deep man who scrutinises the miracle of the Qur'an will easily arrive at the realisation that mankind is in possession of a perfectly preserved codex of revelation from his Creator. This book, the Qur'an is the only such book in the world today. It explains clearly how all of mankind must live their lives and organise their societies. It teaches him right from wrong and gives us knowledge of life after death and creation that we would otherwise never know. It directs us in each and every one of our personal matters, our family issues, from how we pray and clean ourselves to the relationships between nations and how a state governs itself.

Can there be a more important conclusion, a more important proof that any man will ever ponder?

A beautiful summary

Imam at-Tabari wrote in his tafseer

“There can be no doubt that the highest and most resplendent degree of eloquence is that which expresses itself with the greatest clarity, making the intention of the speaker evident and facilitating the hearer's understanding. But when it rises beyond this level of eloquence, and transcends what man is capable of, so that none of the servants of God is able to match it, it becomes proof and a sign for the Messengers of the One, the All-powerful. It is then the counterpart of raising the dead and curing of lepers and the blind, themselves proofs and signs for the Messengers…”

Continuing he says:

". . . it is obvious that there is no discourse more eloquent, no wisdom more profound, no speech more sublime, no form of expression more noble, than this clear discourse and speech with which a single man challenged people at a time when they were acknowledged masters of the art of oratory and rhetoric, poetry and prose, rhymed prose and soothsaying. He reduced their fancy to folly and demonstrated the inadequacy of their logic. He dissociated himself from their religion and summoned all of them to follow him, accept his mission, testify to its truth, and affirm that he was the Messenger sent to them by their Lord. He let them know that the demonstration of the truth of what he said, the proof of the genuineness of his prophet-hood, was the bayan [the clear speech], the hikma [the evidential wisdom], the furqan [the criterion between right & wrong], which he conveyed to them in a language like their language, in a speech whose meanings conformed to the meanings of their speech. Then he told them that they were incapable of bringing anything comparable to even a part of what he brought, and that they lacked the power to do this. They all confessed their inability, voluntarily acknowledging the truth of what he had brought, and bore witness to their own insufficiency . . ."

[Bin Abd Al-Matin]

Assalamu 'alaykum Wa Rahmathullah Wa Barakathuhu

One of the miracles of the Qur'an is relating to its system. Mufti Taqi Uthmani wrote,


''A miracle of the Qur'an lies in the mutual link and coordination, and arrangements and systems of its verses...The style adopted by the Qur'an in its arrangement and system is, therefore, its most subtle miracle, and a reproduction the like is beyond human power. Many scholars have written exclusive books to explain the system of Qur'anic arrangement and some commentators have made special references to it in their writings. Imam Razi's Tafsir Kabir is probably the most commendable work in this connection. He had a divine gift for elaborating the system of the Qur'an. After him Qadi Abus Sa'ud has also made special efforts to describe the attributes of the Qur'anic system...''

Are the above works mentioned avaialable in English (translation)? If anyone could translate the relevant parts that would be brilliant Insha Allah? Also, could someone please explain in detail what is the miracle of system in the Qu'ran mentioned above?

Jazakallah Khaira

Wasalam.

[jinnzaman]

Assalamu 'alaykum Wa Rahmathullah Wa Barakathuhu

One of the miracles of the Qur'an is relating to its system. Mufti Taqi Uthmani wrote,



Are the above works mentioned avaialable in English (translation)? If anyone could translate the relevant parts that would be brilliant Insha Allah? Also, could someone please explain in detail what is the miracle of system in the Qu'ran mentioned above?

Jazakallah Khaira

Wasalam.

Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmutallahi wa barakatahu

Sister, do you have a reference for the statement by Mufti Taqi Usmani?

masalama

[Bin Abd Al-Matin]

Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmutallahi wa barakatahu

Sister, do you have a reference for the statement by Mufti Taqi Usmani?

masalama

Wa 'alaikumus Salam Wa Rahmathullah Wa Barakathuhu

I am a brother :thumbsup: .

Yes, I got it from the book called 'An Approach to the Qur'anic Sciences' by Mufti Taqi Uthmani Saheb (rahmathullah 'alaihi). It is from chapter 7, where the respected Mufti mentions some of the outstanding miracles of the Qur'an pertaining to language. His book can be brought online http://www.azharacademy.com/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=154 . Al-Hamdulillah Masha Allah, it is an excellent book. Just to reiterate, he wrote,


''A miracle of the Qur'an lies in the mutual link and coordination, and arrangements and systems of its verses...The style adopted by the Qur'an in its arrangement and system is, therefore, its most subtle miracle, and a reproduction the like is beyond human power. Many scholars have written exclusive books to explain the system of Qur'anic arrangement and some commentators have made special references to it in their writings. Imam Razi's Tafsir Kabir is probably the most commendable work in this connection. He had a divine gift for elaborating the system of the Qur'an. After him Qadi Abus Sa'ud has also made special efforts to describe the attributes of the Qur'anic system...''

I was wondering whether the passages from Tafsir Kabir (by Imam Razi) and the works of Qadi Abus Sa'ud in regards to this miracle of system, which Mufti Taqi Uthmani has mentioned was available to read in English.

Jazakallah Khaira

Wasalam.

[Bin Abd Al-Matin]

Assalamu 'alaykum Wa Rahmathullah Wa Barakathuhu

For irrefutable proof of the miraculousness of the Qur'an in regards to language, visit www.theinimitablequran.com . It really is an excellent website. Please spread it around to everyone.

Jazakallah Khaira,

Wasalam.

[Bin Abd Al-Matin]

Assalamu 'alaykum Wa Rahmathullah Wa Barakathuhu

A nice article on the Qur'an is posted below.


www.theinimitablequran.com

An Introduction to the Literary Excellence of the Qu'ran

DRAFT 0.2

By Hamza Tzortzis
hamza.tzortzis@theinimitablequran.com

"Neither as Christians or Jews, nor simply as intellectually responsible individuals, have members of Western Civilisation been sensitively educated or even accurately informed about Islam… even some persons of goodwill who have gained acquaintance with Islam continue to interpret the reverence for the prophet Muhammad and the global acceptance of his message as an inexplicable survival of the zeal of an ancient desert tribe. This view ignores fourteen centuries of Islamic civilisation, burgeoning with artists, scholars, statesmen, philanthropists, scientists, chivalrous warriors, philosophers… as well as countless men and women of devotion and wisdom from almost every nation of the planet. The coherent world civilisation called Islam, founded in the vision of the Qur'an, cannot be regarded as the product of individual and national ambition, supported by historical accident."

The book 'The Heart of the Qur'an' by Lex Hixon, from where this excerpt is taken, intended to stimulate the western reader to return to the Qur'an, the book of the Muslims, with openness and new inspiration. The Qur'an has undoubtedly had an immense impact on global politics as well as the lives of billions of individuals; for a book, its impact has arguably been unparalleled. Its contents range from addressing questions of individual spirituality to articulating intricate systems to govern society. Significantly, the Qur'an presents what can only be described as a unique paradigm of social and political thought that was previously unknown. Margoliouth explains the impact of the Qur'an,

"The Koran [sic] admittedly occupies an important position among the great religious books of the world. Though the youngest of the epoch-making works belonging to this class of literature, it yields to hardly any in the wonderful effect which it has produced on large masses of men. It has created an all but new phase of human thought and a fresh type of character. It first transformed a number of heterogeneous desert tribes of the Arabian peninsula into a nation of heroes, and then proceeded to create the vast politico-religious organizations of the Muhammadan world which are one of the great forces with which Europe and the East have to reckon today."

Linguistically the word 'Qur'an' means 'reading' and came to be referred to as 'the text which is read'. The Qur'an also calls itself 'kitab', which lexically refers to a written book. Thus the significance of writing, reading and reflecting upon the Qur'an has been emphasised from the very beginning of Islam. The Qur'anic material is divided into 'surahs' or 'chapters'. According to Phillip Hitti, the collected written text of the Qur'an was the first book in the Arabic language. It is the supreme authority in Islam being a fundamental and essential source of the Islamic creed, ethics, laws, and guidance. For Muslims, the Qur'an is of divine origin; not the word of the Prophet Mohammed but the speech of the Creator revealed to him in word and meaning.

"Read in the Name of your Lord". These were the first few words of the Qur'an revealed to the Prophet Muhammad over 1400 years ago. Mohammed, who was known to have been in retreat and meditation in a cave outside Mecca, had received the first few words of a book that would have a tremendous impact on the world we live in today. Not being known to have composed any piece of poetry and not having any special rhetorical gifts, Mohammed had just received the beginning of a book that would deal with matters of belief, legislation, international law, politics, ritual, spirituality, and economics in an 'entirely new literary form'. Armstrong states,

"It is as though Muhammad had created an entirely new literary form that some people were not ready for but which thrilled others. Without this experience of the Koran, it is extremely unlikely that Islam would have taken root."

This unique style was the cause of the dramatic intellectual revival of desert Arabs, and after thirteen years of the first revelation, it became the only reference for a new state in Medina. This new genre of speech, the Qur'an, became the sole source of the new civilisation's political, philosophical, and spiritual outlook. Steingass states,

"Here, therefore, its merits as a literary production should perhaps not be measured by some preconceived maxims of subjective and aesthetic taste, but by the effects which it produced in Muhammad's contemporaries and fellow countrymen. If it spoke so powerfully and convincingly to the hearts of his hearers as to weld hitherto centrifugal and antagonistic elements into one compact and well-organised body, animated by ideas far beyond those which had until now ruled the Arabian mind, then its eloquence was perfect, simply because it created a civilized nation out of savage tribes…"

Many historians, scholars, and writers do not contend that the Qur'an has had a huge impact on history - just as it does in global politics today, being an authority for billions of Muslims - and so the reason for this timeless influence should be understood. It is the purpose of this article to show how the Qur'an can be described as a new genre of speech and a literary masterpiece. Rational arguments that substantiate this and the Qur'an's inimitability are presented by Muslims to argue the conclusiveness of their beliefs to a world in constant need of proof.

This article intends to contribute to the growing interest in the Qur'an's message as well as its literary power and will highlight the Qur'an's ability to convey key concepts and messages in the most profound way, a way that is described by the most experienced Arabic litterateurs as inimitable and unmatched throughout history. The famous Arabist H. Gibb comments:

"Though, to be sure, the question of the literary merit is one not to be judged on a priori grounds but in relation to the genius of Arabic language; and no man in fifteen hundred years has ever played on that deep toned instrument with such power, such boldness, and such range of emotional effect as Mohammad did."

Qur'an and Literature

"In making the present attempt to improve on the performance of predecessors, and to produce something which might be accepted as echoing however faintly the sublime rhetoric of the Arabic Koran, I have been at pain to study the intricate and richly varied rhythms which - apart from the message itself - constitutes the Koran's undeniable claim to rank amongst the greatest literary masterpieces of mankind."

Coming from a prominent Orientalist and litterateur deeply conversant with Arabic, this excerpt from A.J. Arberry's translation of the Qur'an highlights its literary excellence. However it should be noted that the literary merit, which is ascribed to the Qur'an here, is based on its 'sublime rhetoric' and its 'richly varied rhythms'. With regard to the Quran's rhetoric, there are volumes of work from classical as well as contemporary literary scholars on the subject. Concerning the Quran's rhythm, its impact has been noted by litterateurs throughout history, many times being described as beautiful and unique. This reference to the Qur'an is just a small part of its literary power, which cannot be ignored. However, literary structures are not limited to the two elements that Arberry referred to.

Many Orientalists and linguists highlight how the Qur'anic discourse is a unique and sensitive genre that exemplifies the peak of literary beauty. The linguistic environment of the Qur'an is such that a change in the word order will lead to a change in its communicative effect and the meaning it intends to portray. This can also disfigure the Qur'anic stylistic effect and can disturb the harmony of semantic cohesion throughout the book. Schact describes the nature of the Qur'anic style,

"The Koran was also a linguistic document of incomparable importance. It was viewed as a source of grammatical and lexicographical information. Its stylistic inimitability not-withstanding, it even came to be treated as a standard for theories of literary criticism."

Rhythm and sound is also a major contributing factor to the Qur'an's style and beauty. The Qur'an not only places words to produce the desired communicative result, but it also does this to set up rhythms and sounds in order to heighten the impact and enhance the psychological effect. Arberry states,

"Briefly, the rhetoric and rhythm of the Arabic of the Koran are so characteristic, so powerful, so highly emotive, that any version whatsoever is bound in the nature of things to be but a poor copy of the glittering splendour of the original."

Furthermore, the Qur'anic use of rhetoric and eloquence is arguably unparalleled in the Arabic language. The language of the Qur'an is precise and accurate in both meaning and expression; each letter and word has its place while the language is free from fault. Stubbe explains:

"The truth is I do not find any understanding author who controverts the elegance of Al Qur'an, it being generally esteemed as the standard of the Arabic language and eloquence."

Another feature of the Qur'an, which is responsible for its dynamic style, is its sudden change of person and number. This feature, also known as a grammatical shift, plays a rhetorical role as the sudden changes are perfectly logical and are used to enhance expression. Robinson states,

"Sudden pronomial shifts are characteristic of the Qur’anic discourse....they are a very effective rhetorical device."

Dawood, an Iraqi Jewish Scholar in his translation of the Qur'an comments on the sum effect of these and numerous other literary qualities of the Quran, describes it as a 'literary masterpiece':

"The Koran is the earliest and by far the finest work of Classical Arabic prose... It is acknowledged that the Koran is not only one of the most influential books of prophetic literature but also a literary masterpiece in its own right... translations have, in my opinion, practically failed to convey both the meaning and the rhetorical grandeur of the original."

Literary structures are composed of many elements that are too numerous to be discussed in detail in this article. They include diction, phonology, rhetoric, consonance, composition, morphology, syntax, architecture, rhythm, and style, in addition to matters related to tone, voice, orality, imagery, symbolism, allegory, genre, point of view, intertextuality, intratextual resonance, and other literary aspects - all of which are set within a historical, cultural, intellectual, and psychological context. These elements combine with each other in the Qur'an in myriad ways that produce the Qur'an's unique character. Zammit comments on this,

"Notwithstanding the literary excellence of some of the long pre-Islamic poems, or qasaid, the Qur'an is definitely on a level of its own as the most eminent written manifestation of the Arabic language."

Such assessments form the backdrop to the doctrine of Ijaz al-Quran - the inimitability of the Qur'an - that lies at the heart of the Qur'an's claim to being of divine origin. The Qur'an states,

"If you are in doubt of what We have revealed to Our messenger, then produce one chapter like it. Call upon all your helpers, besides Allah, if you are truthful"

And

"Or do they say he fabricated the message? Nay, they have no faith. Let them produce a recital like it, if they speak the truth."

In these verses, the Qur'an issues a challenge to produce a chapter that resembles its literary power and excellence. It is to demonstrate that its claim to divine authorship can be debased by producing what amounts to three lines of Arabic (its shortest chapter) that are grammatically correct, unique in style and employ various literary structures to its high standard. The tools needed meet this challenge are the finite grammatical rules and the twenty eight letters that make-up the Arabic language; these are independent and objective measures available to all. The fact that it has not been matched since it emerged to this day does not surprise most scholars familiar with the language Arabic and that of the Qur'an, as Palmer explains:

"That the best of Arab writers has never succeeded in producing anything equal in merit to the Qur'an itself is not surprising"

Due to the depth and scope of literary devices in the Qur'an this article will introduce selected literary structures that have been summarised above; sound, unique genre, dynamic style and its aesthetic elements. These features have been appropriately described by Hirschfield,

"The Qur'an is unapproachable as regards convincing power eloquence and even composition."

Sound

The Qur'an enhances its expression by the use of sounds. It employs various phonetic features that have an aesthetic and communicative effect. These features include the lengthening and modification of sounds so that words and letters become similar to an adjacent or nearby sound, and nasalization. This unique feature can be found throughout the whole of the Qur'anic discourse. The Qur'an is abundant with these phonetic devices which construct an emotive and powerful image. This is done by the selection of the most apt word to portray the intended meaning while producing semantically orientated sounds. The way the Qur'an uses the words make it a harmonious tune as Sells states,

"…there is a quality to the sound of the Qur'an which anyone familiar with it in Arabic can recognize. Qur'anic commentators have discussed the power and beauty of this sound… is one of the key aspects of the science of analysing ijaz al-Qur'an (the inimitability of the Qur'an)."

The Qur'anic choice of words coupled with the power of sound, conveys meanings in a unique way. This feature of the Qur'an produces images and describes events as though they were happening in front of the reader. Johns explains,

"It is the language itself which constitutes the iconic tradition. Not a single word can be taken or heard in isolation. All represent nuclei of meaning that are cumulative and cohere, serving as triggers to activate the profoundest depths of religious consciousness."

The use of delicate sounds in the following example, exhibits the Qur'an's ability to express meaning via the sound of its text:

"And by the Night when it is still."

Waallayli itha saja

The way the Qur'an uses the word 'when it is still' produces a tranquil tone and a smooth sound. This indicates the peace, stillness and serenity that night time provides. The Qur'an also uses sound to build intense images, for example,

"And the producers of sparks striking"

Faalmooriyati qadhan

The word for sparks striking, 'qadhan', that is used here emits a sound that develops the sense of this image, the proximity of the Arabic letters 'daal' and the 'ha' is responsible for this sound. In another example,

"Stirring up thereby clouds of dust."

Faatharna bihi naqAAan

The use of the word 'atharna' in this verse, with its series of vowels emits a sound of splattering and scattering, which expresses the image of the drama.

The utilisation of sounds in the Qur'an also play a rhetorical role. For example in the verse below the Qur'an uses words that imitate the sound they denote. This rhetorical device called onomatopoeia is widely used throughout the Qur'anic discourse,

"At length when there is a deafening noise"

Fa-itha jaati alssakhkhatu

The word for 'deafening noise', 'alssakhkhatu,' chosen here produces a sound eluding to its meaning. The Arabic letters 'kha' and 'ta' emanate harsh sounds which conform to the meaning of the text.

Sounds in the Qur'an are employed to increase the effect of its message. The Arabic language has many words for a single meaning, but yet the Qur'an selects and arranges the words to portray the intended meaning in addition to create sounds to conform to the image, scene and message the book conveys. This is not only done by selecting the right words but also arranging them in a specific way to develop sounds and rhythms. Just by touching upon a few simple examples it can be seen why Pickthall was lead to believe that the Qur'an had an "inimitable symphony". Arberry on his personal experience with the rhythm of the Qur'an:,

"Whenever I hear the Quran chanted, it is as though I am listening to Music, underneath the flowing melody there is sounding… insistent beat of a drum, it is like the beating of my heart."

Unique Genre

"As a literary monument the Koran thus stands by itself, a production unique to the Arabic literature, having neither forerunners nor successors in its own idiom. Muslims of all ages are united in proclaiming the inimitability not only of its contents but also of its style… and in forcing the High Arabic idiom into the expression of new ranges of thought the Koran develops a bold and strikingly effective rhetorical prose in which all the resources of syntactical modulation are exploited with great freedom and originality."

This statement coming from the famous Arab grammarian H. Gibb, is an apt description of the Qur'anic style, but this genre is not simply a subjective conclusion, it is a reality based upon the use of features that are abundant in all languages. This may seem strange that the Qur'an has developed its own style by using current literary elements. However, it should be noted that the Qur'anic discourse uses these common elements of language in a way that has never been used before. Penrice acknowledges the Qur'an's literary excellence:

"That a competent knowledge of the Koran is indispensable as an introduction to the study of Arabic literature will be admitted by all who have advanced beyond the rudiments of the language. From the purity of its style and elegance of its diction it has come to be considered as the standard of Arabic…"

The Qur'an is an independent genre in its own right. Its unique style is realised through two inseparable elements; rhetorical and cohesive elements. From a linguistic point of view rhetoric can be defined as the use of language to please or persuade. Cohesiveness is the feature that binds sentences to each other grammatically and lexically. It also refers to how words are linked together into sentences and how sentences are in turn linked together to form larger units in texts.

These elements combine with each other in such a way that interlock and become inseparable. This unique combination captivates the reader and achieves an effective communicative goal. The rhetorical and cohesive components of the Qur'anic text cannot be divorced from each other. If the Qur’anic text were stripped of these elements, the remaining text would cease to be the Qur’an and neither would it not sound like the Qur’an. Arbuthnot states:

"…the Koran is regarded as a specimen of the purest Arabic, written in half poetry and half prose. It has been said that in some cases grammarians have adopted their rules to agree with certain phrases and expressions used in it, and that though several attempts have been made to produce a work equal to it as far as elegant writing is concerned, none has as yet succeeded."

From a linguistic point of view the Qur'an employs various rhetorical features such as the use of rhythm, figures of speech, similes, metaphors, and rhetorical questions. Also, the use of irony and the repetition of words are a just a small part of the Qur'an's repertoire of rhetorical devices. Its cohesiveness includes various methods such as parallel structures, phrasal ties, substitution, reference and lexical cohesion. These features provide the bedrock and hang together to create the Qur'an's unique style.

Non-Qur'anic Arabic texts mostly employ cohesive elements but the Qur'an uses both cohesive and rhetorical elements in every verse. The following is a good example to highlight the uniqueness of the Qur'anic style:

"Men who remember Allah much and women who remember"

Al-dhalikirin Allaha kathiran wa'l-dhakirati

The Qur'anic verse above, in a different word order such as the verse below,

"Men who remember Allah much and Women who remember Allah much"

al-dhakirina Allaha kathiran wa'l-dhakirati Allaha kathiran

Would not deliver the same effect, as the word 'Allah' has become linguistically redundant, in other words it has become needlessly wordy or repetitive in expression. The original Qur'anic structure achieved its objective by separating the two subjects in order to sandwich the word 'Allah' and using the 'wa' particle as a linguistic bond. This Qur'anic verse has also a rhetorical element as the word Allah is 'cuddled' and 'hugged' by the pious who remember Him a lot, which is indicated by the arrangement of the words in this verse. Furthermore the sounds produced by the Qur’anic word order achieve greater euphony than any other arrangement. This example the Qur'an combines rhetorical and cohesive elements to produce the intended meaning. Any change to the structure of a Qur'anic verse simply changes its literary effect. The Qur’an also achieves a unique literary form as it does not fit into any of the known styles such as Poetry, Rhymed Prose and Prose; this argument will not be dealt here but will be examined in the article “The Literary Form of the Qur’an”. Arbuthnot explains in his book "The Construction of the Bible and the Koran" this effect of the Qur'anic style:

"It is confessedly the standard of the Arabic tongue... The style of the Koran is generally beautiful and fluent... and in many places, especially where the majesty and attributes of God are described, sublime and magnificent… He succeeded so well, and so strangely captivated the minds of his audience, that several of his opponents thought it the effect of witchcraft and enchantment." To end this section, with the words of Professor Philip H. Hitti:

"The style of the Koran is Gods' style. It is different, incomparable and inimitable. This is basically what constitutes the 'miraculous character' (ijaz) of the Koran. Of all miracles, it is the greatest: if all men and jinn were to collaborate, they could not produce its like. The Prophet was authorized to challenge his critics to produce something comparable. The challenge was taken up by more than one stylist in Arabic literature-with a predictable conclusion."

Dynamic Style

The dynamic style of the Qur'anic discourse occurs as a result of the use of grammatical shifts. This is an accepted rhetorical practice that has been termed the "Daring nature of Arabic". This rhetorical device is called 'iltifat, in English it literally means 'turning' from one thing to another.

Orientalists in the past such as Noldeke stated that some of these changes in person and number occur abruptly. This misconception has been shown to be a superficial understanding of classical Arabic. The changes that are made in the Qur'anic discourse are made according to an effective pattern. The Arab scholars in the past, such as Suyuti, al-Zarkashi and al-Athir, unanimously agreed that this use of Arabic was part of the science of rhetoric. Furthermore they stated that rather than being a peculiarity of the Arabic language, it is an effective rhetorical tool.

The Qur'an is the only form of Arabic prose to have used this rhetorical device in an extensive and complex manner. Haleem states:

"…it employs this feature far more extensively and in more variations than does Arabic poetry. It is, therefore, natural to find…no one seems to quote references in prose other than from the Qur'an"

One example of this complex rhetorical feature is in the following verse where it changes to talking about God, in the third person, to God Himself speaking in the first person plural of majesty:

"There is no good in most of their secret talk, only in commanding charity, or good, or reconciliation between people. To anyone who does these things, seeking to please God, We shall give a rich reward."

Instead of saying "He will give him…" God in this example speaks in the plural of majesty to give His personal guarantee of reward for those who do the positive actions mentioned in the above verse.

Another example of this sudden change in person and number is exhibited in the following verses:

"He it is who makes you travel by land and sea; until when you are in the ships and they sail on with them in a pleasant breeze, and they rejoice, a violent wind overtakes them and the billows surge in on them from all sides, and they become certain that they are encompassed about, they pray to Allah, being sincere to Him in obedience: 'If Thou dost deliver us from this, we shall most certainly be of the grateful ones.' But when He delivers them, lo! they are unjustly rebellious in the earth. O humankind! your rebellion is against your own souls - provision of this world's life - then to Us shall be your return, so We shall inform you of what you did"

Neal Robinson in his book "Discovering the Qur'an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text" explains this verse in context of its rhetoric:

"At first sight it may appear hopelessly garbled, but the three consecutive pronominal shifts are all perfectly logical. The shift from the second person plural to the third person plural objectifies the addressees and enables them to see themselves as God sees them, and to recognize how ridiculous and hypocritical their behaviour is. The shift back to the second person plural marks God's turning to admonish them. Finally the speaker's shift from the third person singular to the first person plural expresses His majesty and power, which is appropriate in view of the allusion to the resurrection and judgment."

The dynamic style of the Qur'an is an obvious stylistic feature and an accepted rhetorical practice. The Qur'an uses this feature in such a way that conforms to the theme of the text while enhancing the impact of the message it conveys. The complex manner in which the Qur'an uses this feature provides a dynamic expressive text, which was unknown to Arabists in the past. It is not surprising that Neal Robinson concluded that the grammatical shifts used in the Qur'an:

"…are a very effective rhetorical device."

Aesthetic Reception

The Egyptian Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi'i states:

"Anyone who heard it had no option but to surrender to the Qur'an… every single part of his mind was touched by the pure sound of the languages music, and portion by portion, note by note, he embraced its harmony, the perfection of its pattern, its formal completion. It was not much as if something was recited to him by rather as if something had burned itself into him."

The aesthetic reception of the Qur'an is not a literary device as such, but it is a manifestation of its literary beauty on the human psyche. This aesthetic element may seem subjective but it highlights all the other objective literary structures and places them in the context of life, experience and humanity; thus making the Qur'an real. Goethe summaries the aesthetic elements of the Qur'anic discourses.

"However often we turn to it [the Qur'an]… it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence… Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim is stern, grand, terrible-ever and anon truly sublime- Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence."

Such reactions and experiences upon hearing the Qur'an have indeed been witnessed throughout history, an early example of which is described by the following episode taken from Kermani's article 'The Aesthetic Reception of the Qur'an as reflected in Early Muslim History'.

"Abu Ubaid, a companion of the prophet mentions that a Bedouin listened to a man reciting 'so shalt that thou art commanded'. After this he threw himself to the ground worshipping and said, ‘I threw myself down for the eloquence of this speech’.”

Montet in his translation of the Qur'an explains this unique Qur'anic feature,

"All those who are acquainted with the Qur'an in Arabic agree in praising the beauty of this religious book; its grandeur of form is so sublime that no translation into any European language can allow us to appreciate it.”

Another example of the aesthetic nature of the Qur'an is demonstrated by the conversion of great companion of the Prophet Mohammed, Umar, as handed down by the famous Islamic historians, Ibn Hisham and Ibn Kathir. On the very day he had intended to kill the Prophet he had heard that his sister Fatima and her husband had converted into the religion of Islam, infuriated he went to their house. "What is this balderdash I have heard?" Umar screamed, "'You have not heard anything." Fatima and her husband tried to calm him down. Umar, however, already regretted his behaviour and asked to read the scriptures she had tried to hide away. Umar started to read surah Taha and after only a few verses he stopped and cried "How beautiful and noble is this speech!" Umar, the second Caliph of Islam had converted to the religion of Muhammad.

Guillaume suggests the reason for the Qur'an's aesthetic qualities,

"It has a rhythm of peculiar beauty and a cadence that charms the ear. Many Christian Arabs speak of its style with warm admiration, and most Arabists acknowledge its excellence. When it is read aloud or recited it has an almost hypnotic effect…"

This effect of the Qur'an was changing the hearts and minds of many Arabs at the time of revelation. Non-Muslim Arabs at that time had realized its power and some had tried to lessen the effect by shouting, clapping, singing and loud chatter while it was recited. Abu-Zahra comments on this reality,

"The greatest among Muhammad's enemies feared that the Qur'an would have a strong effect on them, while they preferred lack of faith to faith and aberration to right guidance. Thus, they agreed not to listen to this Qur'an. They knew that everyone listening was moved by its solemn expressive force that exceeded human strength. They saw that the people – even great personalities, the notables and mighty - one after another believed it, that Islam grew stronger, that the faithful became more numerous, polytheism became weaker, and their supporters became less."

To truly appreciate the point, however, it is crucial to note the historical context in which the Quran emerged. The Arabs at the time considered themselves - and are still considered by historians and linguists to this day masters of the Arabic language who took great pride in its mastery; tremendous social status was granted to all those who did. In particular, formulating innovative and inspiring poetry was a great pastime and a source of intense social rivalry. The following quotation from Ibn Rashiq illustrates the importance attached to language at the time. He writes,

"Whenever a poet emerged in an Arab tribe, other tribes would come to congratulate, feasts would be prepared, the women would join together on lutes as they do at weddings, and old and young men would all rejoice at the good news. The Arabs used to congratulate each other only on the birth of a child and when a poet rose among them." Ibn Khaldun, a notable scholar of the fourteenth century, remarked on the importance of poetry in Arab life,

"It should be known that Arabs thought highly of poetry as a form of speech. Therefore, they made it the archives of their history, the evidence for what they considered right and wrong, and the principal basis of reference for most of their sciences and wisdom."

An earlier scholar Ibn Faris elaborated on the same theme, but went further to comment on the quality of the poetry that was composed during the pre-Islamic era,

"Poetry is the archive of the Arabs; in it their genealogies have been preserved; it sheds light on the darkest and strangest things found in the Book of God and in the tradition of God's apostle and that of his companions. Perhaps a poem may be luckier than another and one poem sweeter and more elegant than another, but none of the ancient poems lacks its degree of excellence."

The failure of those at the peak of their trade - mastery of the Arabic language - to rival the Qur'an which challenged them should make one think. So too should the differing reactions the Qur'an received from those best placed to challenge its origin. Gibb states,

"Well then, if the Qur'an were his own composition other men could rival it. Let them produce ten verses like it. If they could not (and it is obvious that they could not) then let them accept the Qur'an as an outstanding evidential miracle."

By appreciating the aesthetic elements of the Qur'anic discourse it is expected that the reader will investigate the Qur'an's innumerable devices used to express its incontestable literary power as Paul Casanova states:

"Whenever Muhammad was asked a miracle, as a proof of the authenticity of his mission, he quoted the composition of the Qur'an and its incomparable excellence as proof of its divine origin. And, in fact, even for those who are non-Muslims nothing is more marvellous than its language with such apprehensible plenitude and a grasping sonority… The ampleness of its syllables with a grandiose cadence and with a remarkable rhythm have been of much moment in the conversion of the most hostile and the most sceptic.“

Conclusion

The literary devices employed in the Qur'an are not ornamental elements such that they can be dispensed with, they are part and parcel of its meaning and linguistic make up. Without them its meaning and literary excellence is lost. The Quran, like all other great literary masterpieces, stands out because of its use of language to convey meaning. However, the Qur'an has remained in a unique position because of its particular use of literary devices. Irving explains:

"The Qur'an is a magnificent document... because of its matchlessness or inimitability."

The Qur'an reaches, indeed defines, the peak of eloquence in the Arabic language The Qur'an stakes its claim to divine origin on the matter of its language, by issuing a challenge to rival even its shortest chapter. This has rested at the core of many historical studies of the Qur'an, as many have attempted to answer the central question of authorship. For Bucaille,

"The above observation makes the hypothesis advanced by those who see Muhammad as the author of the Qur'an untenable. How could a man, from being illiterate, become the most important author, in terms of literary merits, in the whole of Arabic literature?"

This article serves only as an introduction to the Qur'an's literacy excellence. It intends to provoke further questions and sufficiently stimulate the reader to research further, particularly the question of authorship. At the heart of that question lies only a limited set of possible answers. The Qur'an can only have come from an Arab, a non-Arab, the Prophet Mohammed - if you believe he had a mastery of Arabic better than the Arabs of his time - or, as Muslims suggest, the Creator, which only counts as a possible source if you believe in its existence (that is of course a subject unto itself but an important pre-requisite). Discounting possible authors, Armstrong suggests,

"From the above evidence the Quran is acknowledged to be written with the utmost beauty and purity of Language. It is incontestably the standard of the Arabic tongue, inimitable by any human pen, and because it still exists today, therefore insisted on as a permanent miracle sufficient to convince the world of its divine origin. If the Quran was written by Muhammad, why were not Arab scholars and linguists able to rival the Quran?"

There are however many other questions that relate back to the issue of authorship. To illustrate a vital point; How was it possible for an illiterate man to produce a unique style of the Arabic language and maintain that over a 23 year period, such that it has been collected to form a book, divided into chapters centred around major themes but yet related to events that happened throughout that period and were specific to it? The following section taken from Draz's book "An Eternal Challenge" probes this point further,

"When we consider carefully the timing of the revelation of the Qur'anic passages and surahs and their arrangement, we are profoundly astonished. We almost belie what we see and hear. We then begin to ask ourselves for an explanation of this highly improbable phenomenon: is it not true that this new passage of revelation has just been heard as new, addressing a particular event which is its only concern? Yet it sounds as though it is neither new nor separate from the rest. It seems as if it has been, along with the rest of the Qur'an, perfectly impressed on this man's mind long before he has recited it to us. It has been fully engraved on his heart before its composition in the words he recites. How else can it unite so perfectly and harmoniously parts and pieces that do not naturally come together?… Is it as result of an experiment that follows a spontaneous thought? That could not be the case. When each part was put in its position, the one who placed them never had a new thought or introduced any modification or re-arrangement. How then could he have determined his plan? And how could he have made his intention so clear in advance?... When we consider such detailed instructions on the arrangement of passages and Surahs we are bound to conclude that there is a complete and detailed plan assigning the position of each passage before they are all revealed. Indeed the arrangement is made before the reasons leading to the revelation of any passage occur, and even before the start of the preliminary causes of such events… Such are the plain facts about the arrangement of the Qur'an as it was revealed in separate verses, passages and surahs over a period of 23 years. What does that tell us about its source?"

After being introduced to the literary excellence of the Qur'anic discourse, it is hoped that the reader will turn to the Qur'an in a new light, with a fresh perspective and an open mind. It is only through frank and open dialogue that the main authority of Islam, the Qur'an, will be understood and rational arguments for its origin appreciated. To end, Rev. R Bosworth Smith concludes that the Qur'an, in his book "Muhammad and Muhammadanism", is:

"…A miracle of purity of style, of wisdom and of truth. It is the one miracle claimed by Muhammad, his standing miracle, and a miracle indeed it is."


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http://www.theinimitablequran.com

Wasalam.

[mortazaB]

Wa 'alaikumus Salam Wa Rahmathullah Wa Barakathuhu

I am a brother :thumbsup: .



LoL! :cheesygri