Textual Relations in the Qur'an

Relevance, Coherence and Structure

Salwa M. El-Awa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781134227464
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Representing a new development in the study of Qur'anic text, this book tackles the issue of Qur'anic text structure by fusing the fields of linguistics and Qur'anic studies.

The Qur'an contains many long suras covering diverse topics but with no apparent common context within which such variety can be explained. This book proposes a new explanation of Qur'anic text structure, arguing that the long suras have structure that are explicable within a framework for the mechanisms of human verbal communication. Through a systematic step-by-step analysis of the cognitive process involved in verbal communication and comprehension of text, this work provides interesting and useful insights into methods of analysis, mechanisms and dynamics of the Qur'anic text structure.

The unique application of a sophisticated linguistic theory to the Qur'an introduces an entirely new way of reading the Qur'an and with detailed analysis of two Qur'anic passages the book presents a solid working out of the theory that will be accessible to both linguists and scholars of the Qur'an.

1
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Introduction

Although much literature has been produced during the twentieth century, partly in response to modern linguistic theories, the study of text relations in the Qur’ān actually dates back to a relatively early stage in the history of Qur’anic studies. The earliest published commentary known to have paid special attention to this aspect of the meaning of the Qur’anic text is the tafsīr of al-Fakhr al-Rāzī (d. 604 AH).

A reference definition of the early exegetes’ understanding of these relations attributes the relation between two successive verses to

A meaning that links them together, which could be general or specific, intellectual, sensuous or imaginative, or other types of relationship. It could be that two things are mentally associated such as cause and effect, reason and consequence or analogous and opposite entities. Or, it could be a propositional concomitance such as that connecting subject to predicates.¹

This definition encompasses physical and non-physical relations, and it covers both inter-verse and inter-sentence relations.

In the present research, only the relations between verses, when they represent separate sentences, concern us. These types of relations are part of the study of linguistic coherence and cohesion, as defined by Halliday and Hassan in their pioneering study of linguistic cohesion.² This excludes grammatical relations within single sentences, which fall into a different domain of research.

Scholars whose view of text relations in the Qur’an is summarized by the definition given previously, agree that a great deal of the meaning of the Qur’an lies in the arrangement of verses, that is, meaning is expressed through this particular order of verses.

However, not all Qur’anic exegetes agree that relations should be sought between Qur’anic verses, not even between successive verses within one sūra. The main argument used by those who held this view is that

Coherence should only be expected in a unified text whose beginning connects to the end. Otherwise, if it [the text] has more than one purpose, coherence is not a necessity. In the case of the Qur’ān this is impossible as it was revealed over more than twenty years touching upon various matters for various reasons. Such a text could not possibly possess coherence.³

But it seems difficult to find many scholars, in that period of Islamic scholarship, who support this view. The main ground for the rejection of this argument was that, although the Qur’ān was revealed piecemeal, it was meant to be in the form of sūras each of which is arranged in accordance with the Prophet’s instructions, and that it was the Prophet’s will to arrange the verses the way they are and not according to chronological considerations. This is a strongly founded argument based on historical evidence. Hence it was concluded that this form and order of the text expresses the intended meaning of the Qur’ān, regardless of the times and occasions of revelation.

The current chapter is a brief historical introduction, in which I intend to examine the most influential works previously done on coherence of the Qur’an, and discuss what text relations in the Qur’ān meant to the writers of those works, and their methods of analysis. There are three different types of works on the subject:

1 Theoretical works in the Qur’anic studies literature, which describe the way interpreters and commentators deal with the issue.

2 Qur’anic commentaries which enumerate relations between verses as part of their explanation of meanings.

3 Modern works, which are, to a certain extent, a production of a different culture and hence differ from the first two types in some major points.

The first of these three types actually comes at a later historical stage than the second because of the nature of Islamic scholarship which was established through works aiming to increase the understanding of the Qur’ān and to make it more accessible to its recipients. Scholars began to comment on the Qur’ān as part of teaching it to their students and so various fields of Qur’anic studies commenced from explanations and discussions in study circles. After a few centuries of interpretation and commentary on the Qur’ān with discussions of controversial issues, among which were the history of how it was written down and its coherence, scholars attempted to describe theoretically the works of former Qur’anic scholars towards the eighth century AH/fourteenth century CE. The first of these books was al-Burhān fī ^cUlūm al-Qur’ān by Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī, whose method subsequently became a model for Qur’anic studies text books. Accordingly, it could be said that applied works in Islamic studies in many cases preceded the theoretical ones.

In this review, I shall start by examining what the theoretical approach provides us with and follow with the applications of tafsīr literature selecting two master commentaries on the Qur’ān as representatives of the text relations approach in tafsīr. Following the discussion of the contributions of those earlier works, I shall speak of modern writers and the change they made to the study of coherence, or text relations in the Qur’ān, which will leave us at the point where the present research begins.

The notion of textual relations in Classical Qur’anic Studies text books

In this section I shall take the work of Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī as representative of the view of the majority of scholars regarding relations between verses within a sūra. Zarkashī’s work is known for the authenticity and comprehensive coverage of the subject and is therefore a prime source with wide authority in the field of Qur’anic studies. Hence my choice of his chapter on verse relations to represent early Muslim scholars’ view of the subject.

Definition and classification by Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī

The definition and domain of the notion of coherence in the Qur’ān could be sought under the title: al-Munāsaba bayna Āy al- Qur’ān or Munāsabāt al-Āy in the text books of Qur’anic studies (^cUlūm al-Qur’ān), such as al-Burhān fi ^cUlūm al-Qur’ān by al-Zarkashī and the like. This title is based on the term used by Qur’anic scholars to refer to the relations that connect verses of the Qur’ān. Scholars seek those relations at two main levels: first, an inter-verse level that is, between verses of each sūra and second, an inter-sūra level, that is, between consecutive sūra and throughout the Qur’ān as a book. In the present research, I am only concerned with the first.

The term munāsaba is taken from the Arabic homonymic word for occasion, relation, concordance or relevance. Zarkashi introduces the concept of text relations in the Qur’ān and highlights the important role of understanding them in understanding meanings of the text.

He distinguishes two different types of relations:

1 When coherence and cohesion are ‘clear enough, since parts of the speech are tied to one another so that the meaning cannot be considered complete from the first part only’. When this is the case, relations are ‘obvious’ and so need not be discussed.

2 When ‘connectedness is not apparent, and it seems that, superficially, each sentence is independent of the following one’. Zarkashī devotes his chapter on text relations in the Qur’ān to the analysis of the second type, from a grammatical/meaning point of view, and does not mention the first type any further. Thus, it could be concluded, that the study of relations between verses at that historical stage was directed towards the discussion of ambiguous and controversial relations rather than the analysis of clear and explicit ones.

However, this is not to say that only the underlying coherence relations were within the scope of the research. A skim through Zarkashī’s examples of type (b) shows that he discussed both coherence and cohesion relations, without introducing a clear-cut definition of the difference between the two notions. Under the same type of relations Zarkashī studied numerous cases each of which he considered to be a separate category, probably because of their widely spread occurrence throughout the Qur’ān. These categories were

1 Sentences connected by the conjunction and (wāw):

1. Sentences connected by virtue of the ambiguous conjunction and (wāw) whose relations could be explained in terms of elaboration, affirmation, contrast or ‘subjects which tend to follow each other, as a speech habit, of this particular text’.⁴ Notably, the first three explanations are of a different kind from the last one. The earlier are explanatory analytical relations whereas the latter is of a descriptive nature, which does not explain the relation but is content to make observations of the textual preferences of the book under question.
2. Sentences connected by virtue of the ambiguous connective and (wāw) whose ‘relations are still puzzling and hence need to be explained’.⁵ In his explanation of these types of relations, Zarkashī relies mainly on providing contextual information which somehow fills in the gaps of what is not made explicit in the text that is, by answering relevant questions which the verse analysed does not answer, because it is concerned with another point, he meets the reader’s need for particular information which is necessary for the process of comprehension.

However, he does not make clear the sources of his contextual additions or the rules governing his choice and his use of this contextual information. On many occasions, the explanations he makes depend merely on his intuitive assumptions of what the relation could be, and so he provides contextual interpretations, albeit based on his knowledge of Islamic fundamentals, rather than information.⁶

In addition to contextual assumptions which are provided to fill in the comprehension gaps, Zarkashī assigns stylistic and rhetorical functions to verses whose relations are hard to explain at the explicit level. He may assume that a verse or even a section functions as a parenthesis or a parable or even an intended subject-shift, takhalluṣ.⁷

2 Sentences which are not connected by a conjunction but where there is some kind of ‘support or evidence’ indicating continuity of the speech. In such cases the relation is ‘abstract or implicit’. This type, Zarkashī remarks, is complementary to the first type, where the connection is physical. He points out three situations in which the connection is to be implied:

1. When the intention is to draw the recipient’s attention to the similarity of some apparently different situations, persons or human actions.⁸
2. When the intention is to highlight a case of contrast between some, seemingly, unrelated persons or things. Or, if it is meant to bring up the contrast between a subject and another one in order to enhance the recipient’s understanding of the earlier (e.g. patterns of behavior of nonbelievers as opposed to that of believers, the fate of each of these two groups etc.).
3. Parenthesis, which often occurs in long Arabic texts, in order to raise a sub-point that is not central to the major subject but is of equal importance.

In the course of discussing his examples, Zarkashī relies essentially on the method of providing contextual assumptions as a basis for his interpretation. Such assumptions may be derived or concluded from verses occurring in different places of the Qur’ān, or may be based on historical events or principles of Islam or the teachings of Prophet Muḥammad.

Finally, Zarkashī draws a link between this study of linguistic and non-linguistic connectedness, and another phenomenon, which relates to both grammar and stylistics that is, when explicit linguistic connectives seem to link some parts of the text that are actually unrelated. It is then, according to Zarkashī, a question of grammatical order and reference to determine the meaning and the appropriateness of that interpretation.⁹

In sum, Zarkashī classifies text relations within the Qur’anic sūras, and provides detailed discussion of numerous examples. However, it does not seem that he is concerned with providing any further theoretical definitions, or with referring to philosophical backgrounds of his analysis.

In this, Zarkashī’s work does not differ from the early tafsīr literature in general since those works were devoted to providing explanations and clarifications for the puzzling parts of the Qur’ān, without raising any theoretical debates regarding methodology. In that historical period, tafsīr was, in the first place, an applied field of Qur’anic studies, as a result of which the question of methodology was left unanswered until later times, when Qur’anic scholars attempted to study the early tafsīr literature, discuss its features and detect the underlying theoretical conventions of the first exegetes.

In the case of the present research, the unanswered question is that of the principles and mechanisms adopted in analysing coherence and cohesion relations in the way that Zarkashī did. Nevertheless, there are a number of sources which seem to have contributed to his work. It is apparent that the tools he used in analysing his examples were derived from three theoretical fields of study in his time. First, Arabic grammar that provides a large number of articulated rules for explicitness and implicitness of particles and connectives and their impact on the production of meaning. Second, the study of meaning, ^′cilm al-ma′ānī, which is a branch of Arabic rhetoric. This provided Zarkashī with the main source for his explanation of both his linguistic and non-linguistic relations in terms of categorical relations such as elaboration, affirmation, contrast etc. Finally, and most importantly, some tafsīr principles which emphasize that the role of different parts of the Qur’ān is to support the understanding of the meaning of one another. Accordingly, contextual information should be sought first within the text, and then within its complementary text that is, Sunna literature.¹⁰

Throughout his work, Zarkashī aimed at showing how important understanding the inter-verse relations is to understanding the Qur’anic meaning. However, for the purpose of the book in question, he did not attempt to deal with one complete sūra to show its relations. He relied on selected examples whose analysis helped in illustrating his main point, that is, in highlighting both the general importance of inter-verse relations as a vital aspect of the meaning and in classifying those relations grammatically in terms of explicitness and implicitness of connectives.

Other scholars, however, attempted the production of complete munāsababased exegeses of the Qur’ān. In the following section of this historical review, I shall examine the contribut...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Historical Overview
• 2 The Linguistic Study of Textual Relations
• 3 Textual Relations and Section Division in Sūra 33 (Al-Aḥzāb)
• 4 Textual Relations and Paragraph Division in Sūra 75 (Al-Qiyāma)
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography