QURANIC ARABIC
ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND IMPACT ON ARABIC LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AND THE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE OF OTHER ISLAMIC PEOPLE
by Muhammad Abed Haleem
The Quran, which was revealed in Arabic, has had a profound and lasting effect on the theology, language, and culture of the Arab and non-Arab Islamic peoples in their various countries. Theologically, it is the Arabic text, the direct Word of God, that is considered the true Quran, which is read in acts of worship. Translations of the Quran are deemed to be merely renderings of the meanings of the Quran; no translation can be taken to be the direct Word of God in the same way as the Arabic, and thus none has the same status. In many Muslim countries, translations of the Quran are not permitted unless they are accompanied by the Arabic text.
All Muslims, Arab and non-Arab, learn and read the Quran, or parts of it, in Arabic in order to have the satisfaction and blessing of reciting the Holy Speech —the very same words that were uttered from the mouth of the Prophet and recited by his Companions; the same words that the Islamic canonical prayers are required to be spoken in; the same words that have been uttered by successive generations of Muslims in different lands throughout the Islamic era. No translation can claim this status. In fact, it is its connection with the Quran that has kept the Arabic language alive and given it an unrivaled position in the central area of the Islamic world, the Arab Middle Eastern and North African countries. The literary language, common to all Arabs, is used for writing, education, and formal speech.
Quranic Arabic as the Language of Divine Speech
Recite in the Name of thy Lord Who created (96:1). This command, sent down to Muhammad in AD 610, was the first verse of the Quran to be revealed. The word iqraʾ (“Read!” or “Recite!”) is an order addressed to Muhammad, linguistically making the source of the speech outside of him. God is seen here to speak Himself directly to the Prophet. Later on, other commands, including qul (“Say!”), which occurs in the Quran over three hundred times, are addressed to the Prophet. Likewise, he is told, Convey (balligh) that which has been sent down (unzila) unto thee (5:67). Other forms of the verbs nazzala and anzala (“to send down”) occur over three hundred times in the body of the Quran, again stressing the fact that it has been sent down from God and is His direct Word. In addition to addressing the Prophet, God also speaks directly to various other people in the Quran: the believers who have accepted Islam and those who have not, whether disbelievers (al-kāfirūn), the recipients of earlier revelations (ahl al-kitāb), the Children of Israel (Banī Isrāʾīl), or humanity in general (al-nās).
In a further expression of this truth, the Quranic discourse often takes the form of God speaking in the first person, as in 2:152: So remember Me, and I shall remember you. Give thanks unto Me, and disbelieve not in Me. More often, God speaks in the first-person plural of majesty, as in 15:9: Truly it is We who have sent down the Reminder, and surely We are its Preserver. When God speaks of Himself in the third person, it is normally for the purpose of comparing Himself with the presumed gods, or “partners,” ascribed to Him by the polytheists to stress that it is God, not others, Who creates:
God it is Who created you, then nourished you; then He causes you to die; then He gives you life. Is there anyone among those you ascribe as partners who does aught of that? Glory be to Him and exalted is He above the partners they ascribe. (30:40)
Thus, the first characteristic of the language of the Quran is that it is viewed by Muslims as sacred language. The direct Divine mode of speech gives the Quran unique power and gripping effect. As the Word of God, the Quran has unparalleled status in Arabic and Islam in general and has been crucial in the building of beliefs, laws, morals, and nearly all aspects of Islamic culture. When Muslims hear it, they bear in mind the Divine instruction: And when the Quran is recited, hearken unto it, and listen, that haply you may receive mercy (7:204). In accordance with its preeminent status as Divine Revelation, the Quran must be accurately recited according to the particular rules of tajwīd (proper recitation): even the rules for recitation of classical Arabic poetry, considered an art form in itself, come nowhere near the exacting requirements for reciting the Quran. Similarly, the act of writing the Quran is treated in a very special way. Indeed, the art of Arabic calligraphy was developed especially for writing down the Quran and has continued to be used for this purpose over the centuries. Moreover, a copy of the Arabic Quran or any part of it is to be handled in a unique way: None touch it, save those made pure, a revelation from the Lord of the worlds (56:79–80).
The collected written text of the Quran was the first book in the Arabic language. It was also the starting point around which and for the service of which the various branches of Arabic language studies were initiated and developed. It was in order to ensure correct reading of the Quran, especially when non-Arabs began to accept Islam, that Arabic grammar was first written down and developed. 5 The same is true of Arabic phonetics, whose function is to ensure proper pronunciation and recitation of the Quran. Similarly, the study of Arabic rhetoric (balāghah) developed as Quranic scholars endeavored to identify the secrets behind the surpassing language and inimitability (iʿjāz) of the Quran.
Branches of Islamic knowledge such as tafsīr (exegesis of the Quran), theology, Islamic Law, Sufism, and ethics and morals are likewise based on Quranic language, which permeates them. Even in their study of principles of literary criticism Arab critics drew heavily on the text of the Quran. This can be seen, for example, in the celebrated work of the famous critic ʿAlī ibn al-Athīr (d. 636/1239), al-Mathal al-sāʾir fī adab al-kātib wa’l-shāʿir (On the Criticism of Prose and Poetry). As stated by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), a writer on many subjects including Quranic studies and linguistics, the Quran is in fact the source for all branches of knowledge in Arabic.
Characteristics of the Conceptual Language of the Quran
As seen above, the foremost characteristic of the language of the Quran is that it is for Muslims a sacred language. There are, however, several other concepts fundamental to the Quranic message that can be seen in its characteristic use of language and mode of expression.
GUIDANCE
The overriding objective of this Divine Speech is guidance (hudā), a word that occurs over three hundred times in the Quran. Thus, in the first sūrah, al-Fātiḥah, the believers recite, Guide us upon the straight path (1:6), and immediately at the beginning of the second sūrah it is announced that the Quran is guidance: This is the Book in which there is no doubt, a guidance for the reverent (2:2).
CLARIFICATION
To achieve this guidance, the Quran uses clarification (bayān), a word that occurs 266 times in the text. The Quran describes itself on numerous occasions as making (things) clear (mubīn): There has come unto you, from God, a light and a clear Book, whereby God guides whosoever seeks His Contentment unto the ways of peace, and brings them forth from darkness into light (5:15–16). To this end, the Quran addresses the Prophet: We sent down unto thee the Book as a clarification of all things (16:89)—all things, that is, pertaining to religion: beliefs, rituals, laws, ethics, and all the other teachings of Islam. The Prophet is told that the Quran was revealed to him to explain to people what had been sent down to them (16:44) and is instructed: Say, “It is the truth from your Lord! So whosoever will, let him believe, and whosoever will, let him disbelieve” (18:29). Thus, the bayān of the distinction between truth and error is the Quran’s primary objective, and on this basis it declares: There is no coercion in religion. Sound judgment has become clear from error (2:256).
SIGNS AND PROOFS
In making everything that it says intellectually clear, the Quran provides arguments even for the existence of God Himself and His Oneness, for the prophethood of Muhammad, for the Resurrection and Judgment, and for its legal and moral teachings. As part of this process, it provides āyāt (a word that occurs 382 times), meaning “signs” or “proofs”:
And among His signs is that He created mates for you from among yourselves, that you might find rest in them, and He established af ection and mercy between you. Truly in that are signs for a people who reflect. And among His signs are the creation of the heavens and the earth and the variation in your tongues and colors. Truly in that are signs for those who know. (30:21–22)
One of the remarkable characteristics of the language of the Quran is that the arguments and signs it uses satisfy the inquiries of those philosophers and intellectuals open to the truth of revelation and at the same time are equally available to ordinary men or women. After all, religion is meant for everybody, and such is the “magical” quality of the language of the Quran and the way it is received by Muslims all over the world.
RATIONAL ARGUMENT
As commentator Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) explains, at the time of the revelation, in addition to those who believed in the message, the Prophet Muhammad had to deal with all kinds of people: those who did not believe in an omnipotent God who had power and free will, those who believed in more than one god, those who disbelieved in prophethood, those who did not want to accept the Shariah, and those Christians and Jews who had their own beliefs and did not accept the prophethood of Muhammad. In addressing all of these groups, the Quran produces logical arguments, accentuating the intellectual evidence that runs throughout the Quranic discourse. These arguments are often marked by various linguistic devices in the form of formulas such as:
If you are in doubt, . . . then . . . (in kuntum fī rayb fa-inna, 22:5)
Do they say . . . ? Rather, . . . (am yaqulūna . . . bal, 23:70; 32:3; 52:33)
Bring forward your witnesses (halumma shuhadāʾakum, 6:150)
Bring your proof (hātu burhānakum, 2:111; 21:24; 27:64; 28:75)
Have they not considered . . . ? (a-fa-lam yaraw, 34:9; a-fa-lā yarawna, 20:89; 21:44; a-wa-lam yaraw, 13:41; 16:48; 17:99)
Have they not contemplated . . . ? (a-wa-lam yanẓurū, 7:185)
Let man consider . . . (fal yanẓur al-insān, 80:24; 86:5)
INSTRUCTION AND PERSUASION
Since the Quranic message came to change people’s beliefs, it was not sufficient just to argue rationally with them. It requests the Prophet to admonish them and speak to them about their souls with penetrating words (qawlan balīghah; 4:63). The Quran seeks to persuade people to follow its teachings, especially when it is likely that they may think the instructions are hard to follow. An obvious example of this tendency toward persuasion can be seen in 2:183–87, which addresses the obligation to fast during Ramadan, demolishing, one by one, every possible obstacle that might arise in people’s minds concerning this matter. Likewise, even when it introduces a legal penalty, a subject that in legal texts is usually presented in sharp, detached language, the Quran couches it in persuasive language that elicits compassion. Thus, after prescribing the penalties for murder (O you who believe! Retribution is prescribed for you), it continues in the same verse:
But for one who receives any pardon from his brother, let it be observed honorably, and let the restitution be made to him with goodness. That is an alleviation from your Lord, and a mercy. Whosoever transgresses after that shall have a painful punishment. (2:178)
EXHORTATION AND REMEMBRANCE OR REMINDING (DHIKR)
One final device of significance that the Quran uses to achieve its objective of guidance is that of reminding (tadhkīr) its audience. God declares in the Quran, We have made the Quran easy to remember; so is there anyone who remembers (muddakir)? (54:17; see also 44:58). The Quran describes itself as dhikr (“remembrance” or “reminding”), and this concept of dhikr in its various forms occurs 255 times in the Quran. People are reminded of God Himself (7:205; 8:2), of God’s Favor (2:231; 8:26), His Power (19:67), His Punishment of earlier nations (14:5; 54:17, 22, 32, 40), and of the Hereafter, a reminder that occurs regularly throughout the Quran.
One feature of dhikr in the Quran is the multiple use of related material, particularly stories of earlier prophets. At a first glance, this may be seen as mere repetition, but different sections of these stories usually form integral parts of the arguments along with other material in the sūrah. In my recently published study “The Quranic Employment of the Story of Noah,” 12 it is shown that the Noah story appears ten times in passages whose length varies from two to thirty-eight lines, and that in each case the material selected is suitable for its context in the sūrah and the historical context of its revelation. This device ensures that when people hear or read in their daily lives any particular sūrah, they will usually find in it the employment of sacred history along with material about God, His Power and Grace, the Hereafter, and so on, so that what they receive in a very powerful way is a full picture of the faith.
The Quran, as seen above, carries the message of Islam, which is not just a spiritual faith, but a religion that guides and governs all aspects of Muslim life. As such, it necessarily includes teachings relating to knowledge of reality (ʿilm), belief (ʿaqīdah), law (Sharīʿah), and ethics and morals (akhlāq). Having said this, the basis upon which everything is built is belief, the ʿaqīdah, and it is for this reason that this aspect of the revelation occupies the greater part of the Quran. As al-Rāzī points out:
Sharīʿah provisions in the Quran occupy less than six hundred verses (out of 6,236). The rest of the Quran is taken up by explaining the Oneness of God (tawḥīd), prophethood, and refuting the claims of pagans and polytheists. As regards the verses that deal with stories, they are intended to show God’s Wisdom and Power.
Linguistic Characteristics of the Quran
The Quran’s interaction with listeners or readers, one of its most fundamental aspects, is manifested in various ways.
AFFECTIVE SENTENCES
In addition to declarative sentences (jumal khabariyyah), the Quran frequently uses affective sentences (jumal inshāʾiyyah). This serves to involve readers or listeners, a very important consideration in Quranic discourse. It explains the frequent occurrence of imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory forms; of prohibitions, propositions, exhortations, and oaths; and of phrases expressing wishing, hoping, and supplication.
VERBAL SENTENCES
Arabic has two types of sentences: nominal sentences, which start with a noun, as is common in English; and verbal sentences, which start with a verb, laying stress on the action itself. The Quran frequently utilizes the power of the verbal sentence. Within this type of sentence it uses the past tense for historical accounts, in its argumentation, and even when discussing the Afterlife. This is effective, for example, in making momentous events of the Afterlife (mentioned directly or indirectly on almost every page of the Quran) seem as if they are already here, a device crucial for Quranic discourse and techniques of persuasion. This may involve iltifāt (for which, see the section on grammar below).
DIRECT SPEECH AND DIALOGUE
Direct speech, words represented (usually but not always by quotation marks) as spoken directly by someone, and dialogue, direct speech between two or more parties, occur frequently in the Quran. For example, the Quran depicts Moses speaking with God and Pharaoh (26:11–51), God speaking to the angels and Satan (Iblīs; e.g., 2:30–33; 38:71–85), and various prophets speaking with their communities (e.g., 11:25–35, 50–58, 61–68). 14 Dialogue is also used in descriptions of the Hereafter: the people in bliss express their joy and gratitude, while those in torment argue and blame one another, and sometimes the people in Paradise speak to those in Hell. 15 Part of the reason this narrative device is used in the Quranic discourse is that direct speech is more lively, dramatic, and easier to understand than third-person, reported speech. It also allows listeners to form their own judgment of characters and events as personalities emerge through the words they utter rather than through an indirect or secondhand report of what they said. The fact that the verb qāla (“he said”) occurs in the Quran hundreds of times is some indication of how frequently direct speech and dialogue are used.
EMPHASIS
Because of the Quran’s need to press home its messages to people who doubted or denied them, it frequently employs emphasis, using all the particles available in Arabic, such as inna and la-, and the suffix -anna with the imperfect verb.
GENERALIZATION
The Quran frequently uses generalization, since it maintains that it is for all people. It categorizes people using such plurals as “the believers” (al-muʾminūn), “the reverent” (al-muttaqūn), “the disbelievers” (al-kāfirūn), “the wrongdoers” (al-dhālimūn), and so forth, and employs conditional sentences with grammatical particles such as “whoever” (man), “whatever” (mā), “whichever” (ayy), “wherever” (haythumā), and “whenever” (aynamā) and also the indefinite noun.
CONTRAST
Contrast occurs naturally in a book that declares, in 18:29, Say, “It is the truth from your Lord! So whosoever will, let him believe, and whosoever will, let him disbelieve,” and is a central feature of Quranic style. One of the linguistic habits of the Quran is to contrast two classes of beings or things and their respective destinies. Thus, the Quran contrasts this world and the next (each occurring, normally together, exactly 115 times); believers and disbelievers; Paradise and Hell; angels and satans; life and death; secrecy and openness, and so on, all found to occur the same number of times. 16 Grammatically, contrast is achieved by such linguistic structures as Whosoever . . . and whosoever . . . or As for one who . . . and as for one who . . . (man . . . wa man . . .), as found in 4:123–24 and 92:5–8. Another frequently used device is As for . . . and as for . . . (amma . . . wa-amma . . .), as in, On the Day when faces whiten and faces blacken. As for those whose faces blacken, . . . And as for those whose faces whiten, . . . (3:106–7). Sometimes the contrasted elements follow each other without any conjunction, which shows the contrast even more powerfully, as in 89:25–30: That Day none punishes as He punishes, and none binds as He binds. O thou soul at peace! Return unto thy Lord, content, contenting. Enter among My servants. Enter My Garden.
FREQUENT USE OF ATTRIBUTES
The use of attributes (ṣifāt) is an important means of Quranic persuasion and argument, noticeable from the very opening words of the Quran: Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, the Compassionate, the Merciful (1:2–3). Because He has such Attributes, He is worthy of praise and worship. The required path is the straight one, the one of those whom Thou hast blessed, not of those who incur wrath, nor of those who are astray (1:6–7). Such qualifications make it worthy of asking God’s Guidance toward the path. Believers are also described using many attributes (see, e.g., 23:1–10; 70:22–29).
In a sentence where a number of adjectives of various kinds occur, the Quran tends to arrange them in order of length with the shortest first. For example, 40:28: A believing man from the House of Pharaoh who was concealing his belief said . . . (Wa qāla rajulun muʾminun min āli Firʿawna yaktumu īmānahu . . .). Here we have a single adjective, believing (muʾminun), coming before a prepositional phrase, from the House of Pharaoh (min āli Firʿawna), and then we have the adjectival clause, who was concealing his belief (yaktumu īmānahu). According to Arabic conventions, this particular order serves to balance the sentence and maintain a good, effective rhythm.
Quranic Grammar
As we have seen, one overriding objective of the Quran is to speak with penetrating words. It is clear from the foregoing that the Quran uses Arabic grammar and style together to serve this purpose. In general, grammar may follow the normal rules (a process known as istiṣḥāb al-aṣl). Considerations of style, however, give priority to “departure from the original norm” (al-ʿudūl ʿan al-aṣl) or, as the scholars of balāghah say, “departure from what is normally expected” (al-khurūj ʿalā muqtaḍa’l-ẓāhir), but only “for considerations required by the situation in certain contexts.”
GRAMMATICAL SHIFTS FOR RHETORICAL PURPOSES
An obvious area for departure from what is expected is agreement between the pronoun and its referent. This is done first and foremost in what is known as iltifāt, grammatical shifts for rhetorical purposes, and is a widespread feature of Quranic style. Traditionally, Arab writers have classified this feature among the “remarkable things and exquisite subtleties we have found in the glorious Quran.” Iltifāt involves changes to verbal agreement made according to effective patterns and for stylistic reasons. Rhetoricians have referred to iltifāt as shajāʿat al-ʿarabiyyah, as it shows, in their opinion, the “daring nature of the Arabic language.” If any daring is to be attached to iltifāt, it should, above all be the daring of the language of the Quran, since it employs this feature more extensively and in more variations than does Arabic poetry. The hundreds of examples of iltifāt in the Quran show clearly that stylistic considerations can overrule grammar, but always for rhetorical purpose and without impairing the sense or causing any ambiguity. Without such rhetorical purpose, departure from the normal rules would be inadmissible (mumtaniʿ) according to the rules of rhetoric, and iltifāt can only be used with the proviso that the departure does not cause any confusion or obscurity (labs). Six types of iltifāt have been identified:
1. Change in person, between first, second, and third person, which is the most common. For example, in Is He Who created the heavens and the earth, and sent down water for you from the sky, through which We make grow beautiful gardens, whose trees it is not for you to make grow [ . . . ]? Is there a god alongside God? (27:60), the shift from third person to the first-person plural of majesty occurs at a crucial point for the listeners (see also 14:4). There is a shift from first to third person in Spend of that which We have provided you before death comes upon one of you and he says, “My Lord, wouldst that Thou grant me reprieve! . . . Yet God will not grant any soul reprieve when its term has come (63:10–11). In this example, the shift makes the final statement independent and absolute; it also indicates the contrast with other gods, who do not have such power.
An example of a shift from third to second person is Praise be to God. . . . Thee we worship and from Thee we seek help (1:2, 5). After establishing that praise is only due to the Creator, Who has such attributes to make Him truly worthy of praise and the only true source of help, worshippers turn to address God for the rest of the sūrah to ask for His Help.
A shift from second to third person can be seen in God has ordained mates for you. . . . He has ordained for you children and grandchildren. . . . Will they then believe in that which is false, and show ingratitude for the blessings of God? (16:72). In this shift God turns to call everyone to witness the ingratitude of the people addressed in this verse.2. Change in number, between singular, dual, and plural. For example, I swear by the blaming soul. Does man suppose that We shall not gather his bones? Nay! But We are able to fashion even his fingers and toes (75:2–4).
2. Change in addressee. For example, We revealed unto Moses and his brother, “Appoint (you, dual) for thy people houses in Egypt, and make your (plural) houses places of worship and perform the prayer, and give (you, singular) glad tidings unto the believers” (10:87).
3. Change in the tense of the verb. For example, He it is Who created you from dust, then from a drop, then from a blood clot. Then He brings you forth as infants (40:67).
4. Change in case marker. For example, But those among them who are firmly rooted (al-rāsikhūn) in knowledge, and the believers, . . . those who perform (al-muqīmīn) the prayer and give the alms (4:162), where the shift is from the nominative to the accusative, to highlight the importance of performing the prayer in this particular context.
5. Using nouns in place of pronouns. For example, We did not create Heaven and earth and whatsoever is between them in vain; that is the conjecture of those who disbelieve. So woe unto those who disbelieve in the Fire! (38:27). Here the noun is used again, rather than a pronoun, to indicate that it is because they disbelieve that they face the Fire. It also makes the final clause more quotable.
WORD ORDER
In certain cases the word order is fixed in the Arabic sentence, for example, between prepositions and the nouns they govern, and exception, conjunction, and interrogation, all of which must precede the noun. But there are also cases where the order is not fixed, such as the placement of the object in relation to the verb and its subject, and the predicate of the subject of the nominal sentence. In a non–fixed order sentence, the object may be introduced first to serve a stylistic purpose of restriction (ḥaṣr), as in 1:5: Thee we worship (iyyāka naʿbudu). Departure from the original word order in the sentence for a rhetorical purpose is very common in the Quran. Take, for example, 37:86: Is it a perversion, gods apart from (or lower than) God, that you desire (aʾifkan ālihatan dūn Allāh turīdūn)? The rhetorical question shows objection to what the disbelievers do, and the objection is arranged according to the order of strength. The strongest objection is that it is a perversion (aʾifkan); to be doing this with lower gods (ālihatan dūn Allāh) comes second in deserving rejection, and especially as these are below God; and the final objection is to the fact that this is all done of their own volition (turīdūn). An alternative order such as “Do you desire gods apart from God as a perversion?” (aturīdūna ālihatan dūn Allāh ʾifkan) would make the statement and the objection much weaker
ELLIPSIS
One mechanism to achieve conciseness is omission, or ellipsis (ḥadhf). One aspect of omission, which has been discussed by Abū Muḥammad ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, is that of the muḍāf (part of the iḍāfa construction). An example of this kind of ellipsis is in 23:102: As for those whose scales are heavy, it is they who shall prosper, an implied possessive noun “with his deeds” that would have appeared after heavy, has been omitted. Sometimes a whole clause is omitted, for example, in 13:31: If there were a Quran whereby the mountains were set in motion, or the earth was cleft, or the dead were made to speak; the implied concluding clause “it would have been this one” is omitted. See also 24:10: Were it not for God’s Bounty upon you, and His Mercy; the concluding clause is not supplied until v. 14.
Memorability
One objective of the language of the Quran and how it is presented is to make it easy to remember. Linguistically this is seen in such features as quotable statements, stories, imagery, balance and contrast, and rhythm and rhyme. Contrast has already been discussed above. The remaining features of Quranic Arabic that contribute to its memorability can be summarized as follows:
PROVERBIAL STATEMENTS
The Quran is well known for its short, proverbial statements (ījāz), as Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh Darāz rightly affirms. The Quran frames its statements in such a way as to make them proverbial and capable of multiple meanings. For example, God provides for whomsoever He will without reckoning (Wa’Llāhu yarzuqu man yashāʾu bi-ghayri ḥisāb; 2:212; 3:37; 24:38). In Arabic this can mean, “God provides for whomever He will without counting or being grudging,” or “without calling him to judgment in the Hereafter,” or “without anyone there to criticize or suggest to Him why He should give to this one or that one this much or that,” or “without the recipient expecting to get that much.” Since the context is God’s Power and Generosity, the multiple possible meanings enrich the statement and are all appropriate. This feature makes the Quran quotable for all sorts of situations. If we remember that the Prophet dealt with believers and nonbelievers of his time, that he lived during his mission for twenty-three years, and that he went through various stages from being persecuted to being a head of state, then we can understand why the Quranic text contains quotable statements for a great range of situations. This is one of the ways Muslims encounter the language of the Quran in everyday life.
STORIES AND PARABLES
The Quran makes frequent use of stories and parables. Some of the best known of these are the stories of earlier prophets, such as Noah, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus, scattered throughout the text. Other examples of stories are those of the Companions of the Cave and others in Sūrah 18; Korah (28:76–83); the owners of the garden (68:17–32); the man with two gardens (18:32–43); Solomon and the ant, and Solomon and the queen of Sheba (27:15–44); and the people of Sheba (34:15–21). These are always used to illustrate arguments and ideas.
IMAGERY
The use of symbolic imagery has been recognized as one of the most frequent, marked, and effective literary and rhetorical devices in the Quran. 27 One of the most famous aggregations of images and symbols is to be found in the Light Verse and the verse that follows:
God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His Light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as a shining star kindled from a blessed olive tree, neither of the East nor of the West. Its oil would well-nigh shine forth, even if no fire had touched it. Light upon light. . . . [It is] in houses . . . wherein His Name is remembered. (24:35–36)
Comparison is made between the deeds of good people and those of people who disbelieve, which are
like a mirage upon a desert plain which a thirsty man supposes is water, till when he comes upon it, he does not find it to be anything, but finds God there. He will then pay him his reckoning in full. . . . Or like the darkness of a fathomless sea, covered by waves with waves above them and clouds above them—darknesses, one above the other. When one puts out one’s hand, he can hardly see it. He for whom God has not appointed any light has no light. (24:39–40)
To give but one more example: That Day We shall roll up the sky like the rolling of scrolls for writings (21:104).
RHYTHM
Rhythm is a very obvious feature of the language of the Quran, not only in the early, short sūrahs, such as 79, 92, 99, and 100, but even in the longest sūrah, 2. Take 79:1–5, for example: Wa’l-nāziʿāti gharqā, wa’l-nāshiṭāti nashṭā, wa’lsābiḥāti sabḥā, fa’l-sābiqāti sabqā, fa’l-mudabbirāti amrā. Try sounding it out. Even if you do not pronounce the Arabic syllables correctly, you will hear an unmistakable rhythm. Tammām Ḥassān (d. 1432/2011) analyzed the stress patterns in the Quran and showed that the distance between each two successive major stresses is equal or nearly so, and this produces a marked rhythm. For instance:
Aw ka-ṣayyibin min al-samāʾi fīhi ẓulumātun wa-raʿdun wa-barqun yajʿalūna aṣābiʿahum fī ādhānihim min al-ṣawāʿiqi ḥadhara’lmawti wa’Llāhu muḥīṭun bi’l-kāfirīn. (2:19)
RHYME
Rhyme at the end of verses is a consistent stylistic feature in the Quran, which has an aesthetic effect. It also gives finality to the statements and accords with the general feature of classification and generalization, frequently using the plural endings -ūn and -īn. The ending of the verse can be an integral part of it (as in Sūrah 1) or a related comment (4:34–35: Inna’Llāha kāna ʿāliyy an kabīra. . . . Inna’Llāha kāna ʿalīman khabīra; Truly God is Exalted, Great. . . . Truly God is Knowing, Aware); both form part of the total meaning of the verse and are not just for embellishment. 29 In addition to the rhyme, the frequent occurrence of long vowels and diphthongs, and nasalization add further to the sound effect.
THE ENDURING QURAN
These linguistic and stylistic qualities characteristic of the language of the Quran have been seen as the marks of great eloquence and used in Arabic literature throughout the ages. As noted above, the Quran was the starting point for all the branches of Arabic language scholarship. It was seen as a main source of literary language and style. All books on rhetoric (balāghah) take their examples mainly from the Quran. Oratory in Arabic relies for its effective quotations on the Quran. Quranic quotations occur not only in the works of classical writers, but also in modern ones. Nobel Prize–winner Naguib Mahfouz (d. 1427/2006), who learned the Quran as a child and continued to read it throughout his life, employed Quranic words and phrases verbatim in his early novels, where scores and even hundreds occur, and continued to do so, if more subtly, toward the end of his career.
The Effects of Quranic Arabic on Other Muslim Languages and Literatures
It was the Quran that took Arabic outside the Arabian Peninsula, making it an international language that displaced local languages in what are now the Arab countries and for several centuries in Muslim Spain. In Persia, Arabic became the dominant written language for several centuries, until Persian was reintroduced as the official language under the Samanids.
In fact, what is called the Persian language today was born from the introduction of Quranic Arabic terms into Middle Persian (prevalent during the Sassanid period up to the seventh century). During the Islamic period after the conquest of Persia by the Arab armies, Persians played a major role in the exposition of Arabic grammar; they also wrote numerous works in nearly every field in Arabic and continued to do so even after Persian became the literary and scholarly language of the eastern regions of the Islamic world. It was mostly these scholars, who were masters of Quranic Arabic, who introduced so many words and expressions from the Quran into Persian. The formal structure of the Quran even influenced Persian prosody. And it was mostly through Persian that Arabic words penetrated into languages of the Indian subcontinent such as Sindhi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, and Urdu, not to speak of Iranian languages such as Kurdish and Pashto.
However, even when Arabic ceased to be the primary language of certain parts of the Muslim world, it remained a major source of vocabulary for many languages such as Berber, Swahili, Hausa, Malay, and Indonesian. “In all Islamic countries the influence of Arabic is pervasive, because of the highly language specific nature of Islam; since the revealed book was inimitable, it could not be translated.” 33 In Africa, “the expansion of Islam brought many of the cultures in the northern half of the continent under the Islamic sphere of influence, which resulted in hundreds of loanwords in the domain of religion, culture, and science.” 34 In Hausa, the Quranic and other Islamic elements show far-reaching effect, and songs of preaching (waʿazī, Arabic waʿẓ) constitute what is probably the biggest category in Hausa poetry.
Likewise, the influence of the Quran on Swahili literature in East Africa has been profound. The Quran in its text “with its sūrahs, formulas, etc., and the influence of Islam as a religion with its values, ethics, stories, and most effectively, poetry, are the areas that bear the most influence.” The name for the three genres of Swahili literature, the novel (riwāya), drama (tamthilia), and poetry (shairi), are all Arabic. Approximately 50 percent of the vocabulary of Swahili derives etymologically from Arabic.
In the Ottoman Empire, Turkish became the official language of the state, but at the same time Persian and Arabic were maintained as the languages of culture. “Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, the lexical material of Turkish was almost completely taken from Arabic and Persian.” Even after Ataturk’s attempt to purify the Turkish language of Arabic and Persian terms, a large number of loanwords from these languages (or from Arabic through Persian) are still present.
It can be said with certainty that “of all the languages with which Arabic came into contact, Persian is the one that was most influenced in this process.” As for the Indian subcontinent, “the impact of Arabic on Persian and other modern Indian languages strongly correlates with the degree of Islamization which their speakers underwent.” In Bangladesh “there is a strong tendency to replace older Sanskrit words with Arabic/Persian loans, especially in the domain of religion.” In Indonesia, where the vast majority are Muslims, Arabic is regarded as the sacred language of their religion, as it is elsewhere in the Islamic world, and its position as a religious language is unshaken. Most Indonesians and also Malaysians have a rudimentary knowledge of Arabic because of their Quranic training. In Malay literature, stories such as Hikayat Iskandar Dzulkarnain (from 18:83–98) as well as works of moral guidance and advice show the influence of the Quran and its language. One very obvious example of the influence of religious Arabic is the celebrated poem by Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Būṣīrī (d. 695/1294) in praise of the Prophet known as the Burdah. This has been adopted as part of the literature of nearly all Muslim peoples of Asia and Africa, has been repeatedly performed, and has gained much acclaim. Moreover, Quranic vocabulary is an important part of this celebrated poem.
The Quran in Daily Life and in Islamic Studies The Quran was, from the beginning, committed to memory by the first Muslims. Throughout Islamic history, many Muslims, both Arabic-speaking and non-Arabicspeaking, men, women, and children, have memorized and continued to memorize the whole Quran or large parts of it. Nowadays there are international Quranic recitation competitions held in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Iran, to name but a few countries, sometimes state-funded. The first sūrah of the Quran, al-Fātiḥah, which is an essential part of the ritual canonical prayers, is learned and read in Arabic by Muslims in all parts of the world. This particular sūrah is recited in Arabic by practicing Muslims at least seventeen times a day; moreover, other verses and phrases from the Quran in Arabic are incorporated into the everyday lives of not only Arabic-speaking, but also non-Arabic-speaking Muslims.
In addition to reciting al-Fātiḥah in Arabic, Muslims all over the world perform all their daily ritual prayers in Arabic in imitation of the Prophet’s example and in keeping with unbroken tradition. In recent times, Muslims have settled in every continent, including Europe and America. Mosque schools are set up for their children, where the Quran is taught in its original Arabic. It is remarkable that many Muslims from non-Arab areas such as South Asia, Turkey, and Africa insist on having a Friday sermon during the congregational prayers in Arabic from the pulpits of mosques in Europe and America, even if they have additional sermons in the local languages. Despite the growing body of Muslim writing on Islam in European languages, Arabic, the language of the Quran, still occupies a privileged position that cannot be replaced by any other language.
If a group of ten Muslims come together from differing linguistic backgrounds, with no common language, they can all pray together, as it is the same Arabic prayer that they all perform. Any of the men among them is, moreover, eligible to lead the prayer. They will also find that they share in common a large amount of Quranic vocabulary in Arabic. As the Quran and Ḥadīth are in Arabic and are the fundamental sources of Islamic Law and teachings, the main classical works of the different schools of law, which are followed to this day, were all written originally in Arabic. This means that advanced Quranic and Islamic studies in non-Arab Muslim countries are based on Arabic texts written by the followers of all the various schools, that is, Shāfiʿī in Egypt and Southeast Asia, for instance, Ḥanafī in South Asia and Turkey, Jaʿfarī in Iran and Iraq, Ḥanbalī in Saudi Arabia, and Mālikī in North and West Africa. Thus the Quran has kept Arabic alive in the religious scholarship of non-Arab Muslims.
A great service to the Arabic language and the study of the Quran and the Islamic sciences in general was actually rendered by non-Arab Muslims. The most striking example here is Sībawayh (Sībūyah in Persian; d. ca. 174/790), who was a Persian; his magnum opus, al-Kitāb, has been the first reference point for Arab grammarians throughout the ages. Muslims in the lands of Persia and beyond have rendered great service to Arabic grammar, phonology, tafsīr, and balāghah and have composed works that stand among the best writings in Arabic in Islam. One need only mention such names as al-Zamakhsharī, al-Jurjanī, al-Rāzī, and Ibn Jinnī for Quranic commentary; al-Bukhārī, al-Tirmidhī, and al-Nasāʾī for Ḥadīth literature; Abū ḥanīfah and al-Jaṣṣāṣ for jurisprudence (fiqh); and the likes of alFārābī, Ibn Sīnā, and al-Bīrūnī for other sciences. All these works were written to serve the Quran and Islam.
Even when the people of Persia returned to writing in Persian, the influence of the language of the Quran remained a very prominent feature of their language. It is estimated that even now between 50 and 60 percent of the Persian vocabulary is still derived from Arabic. Arabic affected not only the vocabulary of Persian, which is an Indo-European language, but also the grammar—a phenomenon that is almost an exception to the way contacts between languages work. The Persian science of balāghah was, from the beginning, modeled completely upon Arabic balāghah, which, as seen above, was developed for the study of the language of the Quran. The greatest Persian Sufi poet, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273), studied Arabic and religious sciences before turning to Sufism and even wrote a number of poems in Arabic. The great Persian poet Ḥāfiẓ of Shīrāz (d. 792/1389), as his name indicates, learned the Arabic Quran by heart and taught exegesis. Persian Sufi poets often employed Quranic themes in their writing. A striking example is ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s (d. 898/1492) treatment of the theme of Yūsuf and Zulaykhā. Even as late as the eleventh/seventeenth century we find such an important author as Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640) writing his greatest works on philosophy and Quranic commentary in Arabic. As already mentioned, to a great extent it was thanks to Persian that Arabic words, mostly of Quranic origin, found their way into other languages such as Urdu, Ottoman Turkish, and even Malay.
The Persians and the Turks, among others, continue to make a great contribution to Arabic calligraphy. Verses from the Quran form the main theme of calligraphy and have traditionally adorned mosques and other religious buildings as well as decorative items to hang in homes and offices. They bring the Quranic statements to the attention of Muslims in many situations. For example, on entering a court of justice, Muslims may read in Arabic calligraphy, If you judge between men, to do so with justice (4:58); in the parliament, Their affair being counsel among them (42:38); in a military academy, Prepare for them what you can of strength [of arms] (8:60); on a marriage certificate, Among His signs is that He created mates for you from among yourselves, that you might find rest in them, and He established af ection and mercy between you (30:21); on drinking cups, Their Lord shall give them to drink of a drink most pure (76:21); on a freight van in Cairo, the prayer said by Noah when his people boarded the ark, In the Name of God be its coursing and its mooring (11:41); at the Cairo airport, Joseph’s statement to his parents, Enter Egypt in security, if God wills! (12:99); in many mosques, Turn thy face toward the Sacred Mosque (2:144); and in schools, My Lord! Increase me in knowledge! (20:114). Such calligraphic works, written in Arabic and drawn from the Quran, are found in all parts of the Muslim world, which keeps Arabic visible, beautiful, and related to the Divine text of the Quran. It is the Quran that gives the Arabic language this unique position and makes Muslims return to it again and again.The recent Islamic resurgence has also had an effect on the teaching of Arabic in a number of Muslim countries. In Pakistan, in 1977, under President Zia alHaqq the study of Arabic was made compulsory in schools; although this has not been strictly maintained by later governments, Islamic studies (Islāmiyyāt) are still compulsory up to the level of the Bachelor of Arts degree in all Pakistani educational institutions, and this naturally involves knowledge of Quranic Arabic. The already compulsory study of Arabic in Iranian schools was given more emphasis following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and Arabic is also part of the curriculum of madrasahs throughout the Islamic world, both in the Middle East and elsewhere. Beyond this domain, reformers and preachers in the Arab and Muslim world now derive inspiration from the first command, “Read!” or “Recite!” in their campaigns for a new educational revival among Muslims. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the first word of the Quranic text to be revealed was iqraʾ. This first instruction, to Recite in the Name of thy Lord (96:1), lives on in the consciousness of Muslims and continues to influence their languages and literature. The impact of the Quran on Arabic and other Islamic languages is an enduring reality that continues to influence the life of Muslims on all levels.
(source: ‘The study Quran’ by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
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