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Linguistic Structure of the Quran Part
II
Hamza
Tzortzis vs. Ali Sina
2006/03/08
<< go to part I
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Hello Mr Sina,
First and foremost the issue is the Quran as an
inimitable text. Your "maths" issue relating to
inheritance is a way for you to run away from the topic. Lets take
one topic at a time, otherwise it will be counter productive. Your
"maths" issue is dealt with on this site www.answering-christianity.com
and many other sites. This does not relate to my discussion so I
will focus on the Quran as an inimitable text.
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That was just an example of clarity. I did not want
to talk about the errors of the Quran. If you read carefully this point is
clear in my last paragraph. Many
Muslims have tried to explain this error and they all have failed. But let
us leave the errors of the Quran for another time. Let us concentrate on
your list of the unique linguistic features of the Quran and see what do
Chandelier Structures, Multi-Tiered Structures, Long Argumentative
Structures, Hysteron and Proteron and other gobbledygook you enumerated
mean and in what ways they make the Quran an inimitable piece of
literature.
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I will take your first paragraph as irrelevant
as it is your way of trying to contextualise your argument which has
no evidence or basis.
The linguistic features will obviously make no
sense to you because you have no idea about literature or
linguistics. That is why I laugh when I read your site as it is so
unacademic when it comes to the Quranic discourse.
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Keep your laughter for the end. Now try to explain
what those “linguistic features” mean and how they make the Quran
superior to other books.
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Also, if you say that you can make a list of
linguistic features in any book, then show me a list with textual
examples, try and use my list. I am not saying that you can not
provide a list, you can - however I am just trying to highlight a
contradiction as you said you do not even know what linguistic
features are. You obviously failed to read the "Intoduction to
the Qurans Linguistic and Literary excellence" article - so I
suggest you read it as it will provide you with examples and a
western scholarly point of view. Please try and read all the
information I have given you as it will save me time. It also deals
with your "subjective" argument.
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You claimed that the Quran has unique linguistic
features and you gave me a long list of them. I asked you to go over that
list one item at a time, explain what they mean and tell us why the Qurna
is different. You are asking me to go and read other articles. Let me
remind you that this debate will be read by others and you must keep them
in mind when you write. People don’t have time to go and read long
articles to understand you. You must concisely explain everything. Please
don’t be verbose. You are not going to win by boring people to death.
Limit your responses to around 500 words. We do not want to bore our
readers.
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As for the list I will give you a very simple
small taster (below), the extensive explanations will have to wait
as you can imagine it will take sometime. At the end of the example
I have provided you with a list of western perspectives, I am sure
you wil appreciate that most of these Arabists have actually
translated the Quran and are probably in a better position than you
in realising the reality of the Quranic discourse. Furthermore I
have provided you with a few more simple examples of the Quranic
discourse as you have to wait for my explanations to the more
complex list I sent you.:
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Stop right here. Argumentum ad verecundiam or appeal
to authority is not a valid argument especially when some of these
“authorities” were believers themselves. And if they were not
believers then why not? Were they sincere or did they have other motives?
If they sincerely believed the Quran is miraculous why they did not
convert? I am not interested to hear the opinion of the third parties. You
must show us why Islam is superior to other books in a clear and
convincing way the way I have shown the errors of the Quran. I am not
saying so and so says the Quran is mistaken, I show you that it is. So
please show us the superiority of the Quran to other books.
Writing in rhyme is not a miracle but rather a
symptom of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and a very strong proof that Muhammad
suffered from this disease. See this
There are other symptoms associated with TLE and most
of them were present in Muhammad as I have shown in this
article:
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Genre
Please also see:
Neal Robinson. 2004. Discovering the Qur'an: A
Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text.
Georgetown University Press.
Hussein Abdul-Raof.The linguistic Architecture
of the Qur'an. Journal of Quranic studies Vol. 2, Issue 2.
Edinburgh
University
Press.
M. Abdullah Draz. 2001.The Qur'an an Eternal
Challenge (al-Naba' al-'Azim).The Islamic Foundation.
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As I said argumentum ad verecundiam and opinions are
not valid arguments. All these people could easily be wrong. Foe every
person who thinks the Quran is great there are at least four who thinks it
is a very stupid book. You promised to prove that the Quran has linguistic
features that are not seen in any other book. Give us that proof.
I am going to publish these quotes in smaller fonts
for those who don’t want to waste their time reading them. They are
worthless as proof. In future, I will simply delete them. You are welcome
to give us links but please don’t bore the readers by quoting people's
opinions.
They are not valid arguments.
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[Small
example]
"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.
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This is not unique to the Quran. Every book that you
can think of has arguments that are rhetoric. Every person can speak in rhetoric.
This is no proof that the Quran is from God. As for cohesiveness, the
Quran fails that criterion. This book is a mishmash of different verses
and a hodgepodge of deliriums of a sick mind written during 23 years and
they are jumbled together with no connection to each other. No other book
is as confused as the Quran. Without tafseer (interpretation) no one can
understand it. Why should a book that claims to be clear need so many
tafseers? This is the most
incohesive and incoherent book that is ever compiled. Various ideas are
scattered all over. Each sentence says something different and they often
contradict each other. Hence the “science” of nasekh
val mansookh was invented to make sense of the book.
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