I: The Psalms as background (Joseph Kenny)
II: The Qur'ân (Michel Cuypers)
III: The question of i`jâz (Joseph Kenny)
I: THE PSALMS AS BACKGROUND —Joseph Kenny
Rhetorical structure is one feature of the
Qur’ân which does not figure in the lengthy discussion of i`jâz al-qur’ân
by classical authors. For instance, Abû-Bakr al-Bâqilânî explains that the i`jâz of the Qur’ân consists of
foretelling future events, telling of unknown past events and in its literary
style.[1] His
description of its style is limited to its unique character differing somewhat
from poetry, saj` (rhymed prose) etc.
He entitles one : فصل البديع
من الكلام,[2] in which he points out examples of the
originality or beautiful phrases in the Qur’ân. Similarly, Jalâladdîn as-Suyûtî, in his التقان في
علوم القرآن, devotes a chapter to the originality of the Qur’ân (في
بدائع القرآن),[3] in which he discusses similar turns of
phrases and rhetorical devices, “numbering near 100 types”. But none of these have to do with the
structure of passages.
Traditional micro-analysis of Hebrew poetry
For a long time Biblical scholars have used
the pattern of parallelism in Hebrew poetry as an indispensable guide for
understanding the text and for interpreting obscure words. As put by Callan and McHugh, this consists
of “one line set over against another, the second line either repeating, or
reversing, or expanding the thought of the preceding line... There are three
principal kinds of Hebrew parallelism: synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic.”[4] These patterns can be illustrated in Psalm 6
(my translation based on Michel Dahood’s reading of the Hebrew[5]). Verse 1 has two repetitive lines:
Yahweh, do not in your anger rebuke me,
Nor in your annoyance punish me.
Verse 2 has two repetitive lines which contrast with verse 1:
Have pity on me, Yahweh, for I am spent.
Heal me, Yahweh, for my bones are racked.
Verse 3 has two lines which are complementary to each other:
My spirit is greatly racked,
but you, Yahweh –how long?
Traditional macro-analysis of Hebrew poetry
Such analysis is on a rather simple
level. Yet there is an old tradition of analysing the structure of longer passages. Saints Jerome and Augustine, in their commentaries on the Psalms, do not
divide the Psalter or individual Psalms into sections or logical divisions. But
Cassiodorus (d. 570) does,[6] dividing the whole Psalter into 12 parts, and each Psalm, as he comments on it, into its
logical parts.
Thomas Aquinas goes much further, dividing the
Psalter first into three sections of 50 Psalms each, according to their stress
on penance, justice, and eternal glory.
He further subdivides each of these groups and, when he comes to
individual Psalms, divides them according to their logical parts. For instance, the first three verses of
Psalm 6, given above, with verse 4, are a request for forgiveness; verses 6 and
7 describe the penitent’s weeping; verses 8 to 10 describe God’s answer to the
prayer. All modern commentaries
likewise analyse the Psalms according to movement of thought or logic. The various editions, however, do not
venture to introduce subtitles into the Psalms, since that would chop up their
flow, especially when used as prayer.
Traditional Qur’ânic analysis
Classical and modern Qur’ân interpreters have
not analyzed Qur’ânic passages according to parallelism, contrast and
complementarity, although these feature clearly exist in the Qur’ân.
As for macro-analysis, the whole Qur’ân is
divided into sixty أحزاب, with each حزب divided into quarters. These divisions are purely
quantitative, patterned after similar Masoretic divisions of the Hebrew Bible,
and have no relation to the natural divisions of the volume. Arabic editions have kept the tradition of printing
each individual sûra as a single paragraph; a page layout distinguishing sections would greatly enhance legibility.
Most commentators, both classical and modern,
do not introduce the sûras with any division of their parts, but merely point
out points of transition from one topic to another when they come to them in
the text. Only Yusuf Ali introduces subtitles which are unexplained numbered “sections”.
One problem about any search for order or
progression of thought in a Biblical or a Qur’ânic text is that some Biblical
books or Qur’ânic sûras seem to follow an obvious plan which is easy to
outline, while others, such as Paul’s letter to the Romans or Sûrat-al-Baqara,
appear to be a patchwork of thoughts written at different sittings and stitched
together without regard to any overall plan. Any commentator’s attempt to outline such documents appears more like
reading meaning into the text (eisagesis) rather than reading meaning
from the text (exegesis).
This is similar to Thomas Aquinas’ outline of
the whole Psalter, where each Psalm falls into place according to one grand
design, whereas the editor of the Psalter may never have had such a fine sense
of logic when he assembled the Psalms.
New trends in macro-analysis
After a phase of rationalism
in Biblical interpretation, emphasizing dissection and minute analysis of texts
and words, there is now a tendency to recognize the broader, synthetic
intentions of the author, and to see some logical process in the whole, even
though this may sometimes have loose transition points.
A new factor in this analysis of whole
documents is rhetorical structure. This
is not the same as outlining the progression of thought, as classical Christian
commentators have so ably done, but includes in addition attention to the
arrangement of words, phrases and larger units according to long-recognized
patterns of Hebrew poetry as well as newly highlighted patterns. Thus in Biblical studies, A. Vanhoye has
shown how the entire Letter to the Hebrews is constructed in a chiastic
pattern.[7] And
R. Meynet has extended this method to apply throughout the Bible.[8]
The three types of parallelism, synonymy,
antithesis, and synthesis, Meynet examines at many different levels,
starting from simple terms (or words), then members, then segments
(roughly = verses, of two or three members), then pieces (or strophes,
of two or three segments), then parts, passages, sequences, sections,
until the level of the whole text.
Michel Cuypers has tried to apply this method
or rhetorical analysis to the Qur’ân.
In the first of several articles in the Dominican publication, Mélanges
de l’Institut Dominicain du Caire,[9] he applied it to several short sûras and,
notably, to the whole of Sûrat Yûsuf (12).
This method amounts to an extension of the
traditional analysis of parallelism, antithesis and complementarity in Hebrew
poetry, along with the well known feature of chiasm (inclusion or concentrism),
so frequently observed by Michel Dahood.[10] It is
an extension from its traditional application to single verses or short
strophes to longer passages or entire books of the Bible or sûras of the
Qur’ân.
Psalm 141 as an example
Before applying this method to the Qur’ân, let
us see how it works with Psalm 141. I
use my own translation based on Michel Dahood’s reading of the Hebrew text:
This Psalm consists of three strophes. The
first and the last, each of 6 lines, are basically prayers never to take part
in the “assembly of the wicked” (Psalm 1).
The central strophe is the Psalmist's oath calling on God to punish him should he ever do so.
In the first strophe the last two lines are
complementary to the first two, specifying the object of the prayer, namely, to
keep away from evil in thought, word and deed.
In contrast to this evil, the focal two lines in the centre ask God to
manifest the Psalmist’s innocence by accepting his prayer offering.
The central strophe consists of two lines,
with the curse in the central line doing “double duty” in response to both the
first and the third lines. The curse also serves to affirm loyalty to Yahweh
The
last strophe is mathematically of the same format as the first, and has a
similar structure of meaning. The
situation is one of reprisals threatened by the wicked. The first and last two lines are prayers
against these, with the first and last line requesting punishment of the wicked,
and the second and fourth requesting protection of the Psalmist. In the central two lines he asks God to
receive his prayer, mirroring the central two lines of the first strophe. We can summarize the Psalm thus:
A1 Hear my prayer.
Am Accept my prayer (proving that I am innocent).
A2 Preserve me from sin.
M1 If I join their feasts,
Mm –may God punish me–
M2 if I let them anoint my head.
A’1 Let them be punished, since they have laid me low.
A’m Accept my prayer and preserve me.
A’2 Preserve me from their traps; let them be trapped, while I escape.
We can observe that, besides the chiastic logic outlined thus far, there is also a
linear logic, with an initial petition developed first to renounce sin,
secondly to declare loyalty to Yahweh, thirdly to ward off reprisals from the
wicked, until the conclusion in the last line: May God punish them and let me
escape.
In the concurrent two types of logic, the last line is the most important for the
linear logic and contains the conclusion of the Psalm. But in chiastic logic the centre of the
Psalm and of each of its sections contains focal “punch lines”.
II: THE QUR’ÂN —Michel Cuypers
Anyone who reads the Qur’ân cannot fail
to notice how different is its style from that of the Bible, apart from some
passages of the Prophets or Psalms. The
Qur’ân can appear to be a jumble of disconnected ideas, many of them enigmatic
or half-explained, that were thrown together without logical order.
A closer look, however, reveals a logic
that is foreign to modern literature and to the standards set by ancient Greek
and Roman treatises on rhetoric, but belongs to the Semitic world which is home
also to the Bible. The style of
symetrical phrases that underlies Hebrew poetry can be seen also in the
Qur’ân. Once the rhetorical structure
of a sûra is analysed, its components no longer seem scattered, but fit into a
tightly woven logical pattern.
Sûra 101
To
illustrate this, let us begin with Sûra 101, identified from its style and
content as belonging to the first period of Muhammad’s preaching. It is a
dramatic prophet announcement of the last Judgement.
A 1 – THE CRASH!
B 2 = What a crash!
3 = What can you compare with such a crash?
C 4 + The day people are like moths scattered about,
5 + and mountains are like wool blown about.
C’ 6-7 + Whoever scores
heavy on the scale
will have a life of bliss,
8-9 + Whoever scores light on the scale
will have as his mother the abyss.
10 = What can you compare with such a thing?
A’ 11 – A FIRE BLAZING!
A- الْقَارِعَةُ
(1)
B = مَا
الْقَارِعَةُ (2)
= وَمَا
أَدْرَاكَ
مَا
الْقَارِعَةُ (3)
C + يَوْمَ
يَكُونُ
النَّاسُ
كَالْفَرَاشِ
الْمَبْثُوثِ (4)
+ وَتَكُونُ
الْجِبَالُ
كَالْعِهْنِ
الْمَنْفُوشِ
(5)
C’ + فَأَمَّا
مَنْ
ثَقُلَتْ
مَوَازِينُهُ
(6) فَهُوَ فِي
عِيشَةٍ
رَاضِيَةٍ (7)
+ وَأَمَّا
مَنْ خَفَّتْ
مَوَازِينُهُ
(8) فَأُمُّهُ
هَاوِيَةٌ (9)
B’ = وَمَا
أَدْرَاكَ
مَا هِيَهْ (10)
A’-
نَارٌ
حَامِيَةٌ (11)
Apart from verses 1, 10 and 11, the
verses line up in parallel pairs. The first two are synomymous, the third is antithetic.
On a higher level, the whole sûra has a chiastic pattern:
- The two extremes (A & A’) are apocalyptic words of terror: “the crash”, “a fire
blazing”.
- On the next
level (B & B’) are questions in the same format. The phrase “What can you compare with” (literally, “What makes
you know”) is a common Qur’ânic means of calling attention to the deeper
meaning of certain obscure words.
- On the central level, each section (C & C`) has two parallel statements on the Day
of Judgment, the first (C) on the cosmic level, and the second (C’) on the
moral level.
The rhetorical structure set out above
brings out the logic of the Sûra which, in the first section (ABC), describes
the shake-up on the last day (“crash – moths scattered – wool blown”), while
the second (C’B’A’) describes the judgment following the universal cataclysm
(“life of bliss, abyss, fire blazing”).
Sûra 5
In Arabic, the symetry of the Sûra is
more evident, with a play on words and sounds that cannot be conveyed in
translation.
In later sûras the Qur’ân has longer verses with a more flowing style, but the
principle of symetrical structure is retained.
In Sûra 5 (“The Table”), which is one of the latest, we can point to
verses 9-10, which resemble the format of Sûra 101, but present a more
developed message:
God has promised those who believe and do good works
they will have pardon and a great reward,
but those who disbelieve and deny our signs
they will be tenants of Hell.
وَعَدَ
اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ
ءَامَنُوا
وَعَمِلُوا
الصَّالِحَاتِ
لَهُمْ
مَغْفِرَةٌ
وَأَجْرٌ
عَظِيمٌ (9)
وَالَّذِينَ
كَفَرُوا
وَكَذَّبُوا
بِآيَاتِنَا
أُولَئِكَ
أَصْحَابُ
الْجَحِيمِ (10)
Sûra 1
The Christian Our Father
corresponds to the Islamic FâtiŒ, the “opening” or first sûra of the Qur’ân, constantly used
in Muslim ªalât. The sûra has a
polished rhetorical structure, and, like the Our Father, has a concentric format:
1 – In the name of GOD, the Beneficent and Merciful
2 = Praise to GOD, the Lord of the universe,
3 – the Beneficent and Merciful,
4 = Master of the Day of Judgment.
5 + YOU we worship
+ and YOU we ask for help.
6 – Guide us on the way that’s straight,
7 – the way of those you have favoured,
= NOT those you are angry with,
= NOR those who have gone astray.
- بِسْمِ
اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ
الرَّحِيمِ (1)
=
الْحَمْدُ
لِلَّهِ رَبِّ
الْعَالَمِينَ
(2)
- الرَّحْمَنِ
الرَّحِيمِ (3)
= مَالِكِ
يَوْمِ
الدِّينِ(4)
إِيَّاكَ
نَعْبُدُ
وَإِيَّاكَ
نَسْتَعِينُ
(5)
- اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ
الْمُسْتَقِيمَ (6)
- صِرَاطَ
الَّذِينَ
أَنْعَمْتَ
عَلَيْهِمْ
=
غَيْرِ
الْمَغْضُوبِ
عَلَيْهِمْ
=
وَلاَ
الضَّالِّينَ
(7)
The first part (verses 1-4), which has no
verb, is composed of two parallel doublets, whose first and second lines match
(1 with 3, 2 with 4).
Symetrical
with these are the two parallel doublets of the third part (6-7a and 7b-7c), in
this case introduced by a verb (“guide us”).
Apart from the contrast between these two doublets, the four lines make
a chiasm, with “straight” of line 1 contrasting with “astray” of line 4, and
“favoured” of line 2 contrasting with “angry” of line 3.
In the centre (verse 5) are two parallel lines, each introduced by a solemn “You”
and followed by a verb expressing one of the two basic attitudes of prayer:
adoration and petition. As is normal
for centrepieces, these two verses play a pivotal role. The
first verb (“we worship”) refers to all the preceding verses, while the second
(“we ask your help”) introduces the petition of the following verses. These verses also state the theme of the
sûra, since the Fâtiha is essentially a prayer of adoration and petition
of the believer (“we”) to God (“You”).
The whole sûra is framed in the antithesis between “God” and “those who have gone
astray”. Compare with “your name” and “the Evil one” in the Our Father. Only in the Fâtiha it is not Satan,
the Evil one, who is the antithesis of God, but the unbeliever, who has
wandered far from the straight way of Islamic faith. The only real danger for
the believer is to allow himself to follow those who have gone
astray. The Fâtiha has greater
resemblance to Psalm 1, which ends with almost the same words: “But Yahweh
shall safekeep the assembly of the just, while the assembly of the wicked shall
perish.
Sûra 12
When the Qur’ân echoes Biblical stories
(such as of Noah, Moses, Jesus), these stories are usually abbreviated and
sometimes reduced to a simple reference (to Job, for example). The only exception is the story of Joseph
(son of Jacob). Although shorter than the
Biblical story, it is continuous and complete, taking up an entire sûra of 111
verses. As the Qur’ân itself states,
“it is the most beautiful story” (12:3).
This relatively long text is wonderfully constructed, but in its least
details and in its totality. Its
overall structure is that of a huge chiasm, as can be seen in the following
table:
A Prologue (verses 1-3)
B Joseph’s vision (4-7)
C Joseph’s struggle with his brothers; they send him away (8-18)
D Joseph gets a good position in Egypt (19-22)
E His master’s wife tries to seduce him (23-34)
F In prison, Joseph interprets dreams of his mates
The prophet of monotheism (35-42)
F’ In prison, Joseph interprets the king’s dream (43-49)
E’ Joseph found innocent (50-53)
D’ Joseph given the highest position (54-57)
C’ Joseph struggles with his brothers, sends them away (58-98)
B’ Joseph’s vision is fulfilled (99-101)
A’ Epilogue
Whenever the Qur’ân takes up Biblical
stories it gives them a very different meaning, casting them in an Islamic
theological mould. The story of Joseph,
the closest of any to a Biblical story, is no exception. The principal difference comes at the
central point of the story and before the successive concluding episodes. There we find the insertion of an episode
which is not in the Bible. While Joseph
is in prison, two other prisoners ask him to interpret their dreams. In the Bible, he simply gives them his
interpretation, they are freed, and the prophesy is vindicated (Gen 39:20-
40:23). In the Qur’ân, however, before
giving his interpretation, Joseph gives his prison mates a little sermon on
monotheism, inviting them to turn from idols and embrace the true faith in one
God (37b-40). The plan of this sermon
will give an idea of the rhetorical art with which the whole sûra is
constructed:
37b– I left the sect of people who do not believe in God,
– and, as for the After-life, they disbelieve in it.
38 = I follow the religion of my Fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
= We would never associate with God anything at all.
+ THAT is by God’s favour on us and on mankind,
+ BUT MOST OF MANKIND IS NOT THANKFUL.
[My companions in prison:]
39: Are disparate masters better?
: Or God, the one and almighty?
40 – What you worship besides him are only names,
– as you named them, you and your fathers.
= God sent down to them no power.
= Judgment belongs only to God.
+ He ordered you to worship only Him.
+ THAT is religion, the correct one.
BUT MOST OF MANKIND DOES NOT KNOW.
-
إِنِّي
تَرَكْتُ
مِلَّةَ
قَوْمٍ لَا
يُؤْمِنُونَ
بِاللَّهِ
-
وَهُمْ
بِالْآخِرَةِ
هُمْ
كَافِرُونَ (37)
= وَاتَّبَعْتُ
مِلَّةَ
ءَابَائِي
إِبْرَاهِيمَ
وَإِسْحَاقَ
وَيَعْقُوبَ
=
مَا كَانَ
لَنَا أَنْ
نُشْرِكَ
بِاللَّهِ مِنْ
شَيْءٍ
+
ذَلِكَ مِنْ
فَضْلِ
اللَّهِ
عَلَيْنَا
وَعَلَى
النَّاسِ
+
وَلَكِنَّ
أَكْثَرَ
النَّاسِ لَا
يَشْكُرُونَ
(38)
يَا
صَاحِبَيِ
السِّجْنِ
:
ءَأَرْبَابٌ
مُتَفَرِّقُونَ
خَيْرٌ
: أَمِ
اللَّهُ
الْوَاحِدُ
الْقَهَّارُ
(39)
-
مَا
تَعْبُدُونَ
مِنْ دُونِهِ
إِلاَّ أَسْمَاءً
-
سَمَّيْتُمُوهَا
أَنْتُمْ
وَءَابَاؤُكُمْ
=
مَا أَنْزَلَ
اللَّهُ
بِهَا مِنْ
سُلْطَانٍ
=
إِنِ
الْحُكْمُ
إِلَّا
لِلَّهِ
+
أَمَرَ
أَلَّا
تَعْبُدُوا
إِلَّا
إِيَّاهُ
+
ذَلِكَ
الدِّينُ
الْقَيِّمُ
وَلَكِنَّ
أَكْثَرَ
النَّاسِ لَا
يَعْلَمُونَ
(40)
The structure of this sermon is also
concentric. In the first part, Joseph tells of his own conversion to the one God.
Then, after the capital question, emphasised by its central position, he
exhorts his companions to do the same.
The whole speech is framed by the antithesis between “the community of a
people which does not believe in God” (37b) and “religion, the correct one”
(40f). Each of the two symetrical parts
ends with the same “that”, followed by a statement regretting that “most of
mankind” is “not thankful” (38d) or “does not know” (40g).
The central part (39a –preceded by Joseph’s address to his prison mates, which is
not part of this rhetorical unit) is a question, as is often the case in
concentric structures. It also
expresses the theme or central point of the sermon.
Conclusion
It is surprising that Qur’ânic
commentaries, from the classical age until today, take no cognisance of the rhetorical structure we have described. It may be that the rapid
absorption of Greek culture into the Islamic world wiped out sensitivity to
this ancient way of speaking and writing.
The classical commentaries follow an atomistic method, analysing verse
by verse or word by word. Sometimes there is comment on the general meaning of a passage or a whole sûra, and even
on the connection between one sûra and the one following it. But much of that is intuition or
guesswork. It must be pointed out, however, that the way each sûra is printed as a single continuous paragraph
does not help to bring out the patterns we have pointed out.
Today many Muslims are dissatisfied with the limits of traditional commentaries, and
would like to introduce new rational and critical approaches. Others are afraid of that, because they see
it as disrespectful towards a revealed book.
The same problem faced Christains over a hundred years ago with regard
to Biblical criticism. Some of it was excessive and later discredited, but the use of new critical methods in the end
produced much benefit. The method of rhetorical analysis set out in this article may be more acceptable to Muslims,
since its only aim is to bring out the inner logic of the Qur’ân. It does so not on the basis of subjective intuitions, but on the basis of the elements of
expression found in the Qur’ân itself.
III: THE QUESTION OF I`JÂZ —Joseph Kenny
Rhetorical
analysis certainly reveals much more balâgha, or literary style, in the
Qur’ân than was up to now realized.
Nevertheless, as Cuypers points out, the patterns that we have described
are not unique to the Qur’ân, but found also in the Bible and other ancient Semitic
literature. There they are stylistic
features, contributing to the beauty of the text and helping memorization, but
are not considered an instance of i`jâz.
I`jâz refers to the inimitability that
the Qur’ân claims for itself. The
Qur’ân challenges its opponents: “If men and jinn conspired to produce a Qur’ân
like this one they could not, even if they put all their forces together”
(17:88). “Tell them, ‘Bring a divine
scripture with better guidance than this one and I will follow it’“
(28:49). “If they say he invented it,
tell them, ‘Invent ten sûras like it.. if you are right’“ (11:13). This challenge was later simplified: “Bring
one sûra like it.. if you are right” (2:23).
Precisely
what aspect of the Qur’ân is supposed to be inimitable? Muslim authors give several answers. We have seen above the opinion of
al-Bâqillânî. The 15th century
theologian Muhammad ibn-Yûsuf as-Sanûsî[11] lists nine
different opinions and then opts for the opinion of Imâm-al-Haramayn and
al-Bâqillânî that the combination of eloquence with the word-pattern is the
miraculous aspect of the Qur’ân, since the masters of eloquence could imitate
either one separately. Al-Bâqillânî
added that telling absent events of the past and future is also a miraculous
aspect of the Qur’ân.[12]
By
nazm, “word-pattern”, is meant the arrangement of words (ترتيب
الكلمات),
or, according to `Abdalqâhir, the grammatical structuring of words to serve the
purposes of speech. As-Sanûsî elsewhere[13] restricts the
meaning of بلاغة, “eloquence” to excellence of speech (كلام), or meaning, and of the speaker (متكلم), whereas فصاحة,
also “eloquence”, is a wider term including also excellence in words (كلمات) or word-pattern. The highest degree of balâgha is
miraculosity (إعجاز), which is determined by taste (والحكم
في الذوق),
and the lowest degree is that which distinguishes speech from animal sounds.
What emerges from these authors’ discussion
of i`jâz is that it is difficult to give a precise objective definition
of what it consists of. The factor of
“taste” seems to be all important; thus the Qur’ân itself argues for its divine
origin on the basis of the impact it has on its hearers: “When those who
previously were given knowledge heard it recited to them, they fell on their
faces in worship, saying: ‘Our Lord be praised! The promise of our Lord is
accomplished.’ And they fell on their faces crying with increased reverence”
(Qur’ân 17:109). Elsewhere we hear:
“When they hear what was brought down to the Messenger you see their eyes
shedding tears because of the truth that they recognize, as they declare: ‘Our
Lord, we believe; inscribe us among the witnesses” (5:83).
Christian discussion of i`jâz with regard to the Bible
Nietsche, a
non-Christian philosopher and philologist, is said to have remarked that the
Holy Spirit wrote very bad Greek in the New Testament. In contrast to this
approach, the tone of any Christian discussion of Biblical eloquence is set by
the statement of Paul: “When I came you, brothers, I did not come with any
brilliance of oratory or wise argument to announce to you the mystery of God”
(1 Corinthians 2:1).
In the early sixth century, Cassiodorus
discussed the question of Biblical eloquence in the introduction to his
Commentary on the Psalms.[14] He says that it consists in the truth of its
author who speaks to the heart, judging everything with great truth and great
firmness of conscience, as was said of Jesus’ preaching: “He taught them with
authority, unlike their own scribes” (Matthew 7:29). This authority consists in the effective power to command the good
and forbid the evil in the lives of the hearers, turning them from earthly
things and drawing them to heavenly things.
Thus Paul adds: “The kingdom of God consists not in spoken words but in
power” (1 Corinthians 4:20), and the Letter to the Hebrews states: “The word of
God is something alive and active: it cuts more incisively than any two-edged
sword: it can seek out the place where soul is divided from spirit, or joints
from marrow; it can pass judgement on secret emotions and thoughts”
(4:12). Thus Cassiodorus presents as a
miracle the fact that this word has been accepted all over the world, in
accordance with Psalm 19: “Through all the earth their call went forth, and
their words to the edge of the world.”
Besides this primary aspect of
eloquence, Cassiodorus maintains, in a agreement with Augustine, Jerome,
Ambrose and Hilary, that all the methods and devices of human eloquence
described in Greek treatises on the subject are contained in a superior way in
the Bible, in addition to other features of eloquence unique to the Bible.
Both the Muslim and the Christian
explanations we have seen of the eloquence of their respective Scriptures,
focus less on the text itself than on its impact on its hearers. Nonetheless, when it comes to the objective
characteristics of each Scripture, Muslims stress the verbal eloquence of the
Qur’ân, while Christians emphasize the power of the message and consider the
verbal expression secondary. Muslims
also take the Qur’ân as both the supreme miracle demonstrating the truth of
Islam and first authority in determining the content of Islamic faith. In this they resemble Protestant Christians
who take the Bible as self-evidently inspired and as the supreme and only rule
of faith.
Catholics, however, like Muslims, do not
consider the text of the Bible as self-evidently inspired, and they point out
that the Bible itself does not claim that it is the supreme and only rule of
faith. Rather, the living preaching of
the Church, believed and put into practice by its members, is the living
witness to the truth and power of God and the primary miracle demonstrating the
truth of Christianity. It is the
Church, guided by the Spirit, that judges which books form part of the Bible
and which do not.
Evidently,
the living preaching of the Church must be in agreement with the Bible, but it
goes beyond the bare text and addresses current issues of faith and morality
with divine authority. Apostolic
succession in the Catholic Church has some resemblance with the authority of
the inspired imâm in Shî`ism, but there is a difference. Papal infallibility is restricted to
official teaching on the faith, whereas the عصمة
of a Shî`ite imâm is understood to be an immunity from all error, even in personal opinions, and immunity from all sin as well.
Conclusion
The question of
i`jâz, whether of the Bible or the Qur’ân, is a secondary theme of this
compound article, maybe even a digression.
What I would like the discussion to focus on is the new method of
rhetorical analysis which, as an incidental consequence, throws light on much
beauty in the texts which was hitherto unobserved or not analysed.
NOTES
[1] إعجاز
القرآن
(القاهرة: المحلبي،
1951)
[2] Pp. 101 ff.
[3] نوع 58, II, pp. 83 ff.
[4] Charles J. Callan & John A. McHugh, The
Psalms explained (New York: Wagner, 1929), p. 17.
[5] The Psalms (Anchor
Bible. Garden City: Doubleday. v. 1: 1965; v.2, 3rd ed.: 1974; v. 3: 1970).
[6] Expositio Psalmorum, CCSL, 97-99 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1958).
[7] La structure de l’Epitre aux Hébreux (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1963 &
1976).
[8] L’Analyse rhétorique, une nouvelle méthode
pour comprendre la Bible (Paris: Cerf, 1989); Rhetorical analysis (a translation and revision
of the French; Sheffield: Jost S., 1998).
[9] In “Structures rhétoriques dans le Coran,” Mélanges
de l’Institut Dominicain du Caire, 22 (1995), 107-195; “Structures
rhétoriques des Sourates 105 à 114,” Ibid., 23 (1997), 157-196;
“Structures rhétoriques des sourates 99 à 104,” Annales Islamologiques, 33 (1999), 31-62.
[10] Psalms, Anchor Bible, 3 vols. (Garden City: Doubleday, I: 1965,
II, 3rd ed. 1974; III, 1970); in this he was followed by R. Meynet, L. Pouzet,
N. Farouki & A. Sinns, Rhétorique sémitique, textes de la Bible et de la
Tradition musulmane (Paris: Cerf, 1998).
[13] العقيدة
الكبرى
(Cairo, 1936), p. 479.
[14] Op. cit., pp. 18 ff.