Iʿjāz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Iʿjāz ( Arabic إعجاز, DMG Iʿǧāz  'incapacitation, incapacity-setting') is a technical terminus of Islamic theology, which describes the linguistic and content-related inimitability and unsurpassability of the Koran . The Idjāz concept, which is already laid out in the Koran itself, is closely linked to the Islamic understanding of Muhammad's prophethood , the main proof of which is the miraculousness of the Koran. Belief in the Ijāz of the Koran represents one of the most important dogmas of Islam across all denominations and determines in a decisive way the aesthetic reception of this book by Muslims.

The Arabic term iʿǧāz is the infinitive of the causative stem of the Arabic verb ʿaǧaza , which in the basic stem means "to be incapable, incapable of being". In relation to the Koran, this term means the “incapacity” of the Prophet's opponents to face the “challenge” ( taḥaddī ) to compete and to produce a “counterpart” ( muʿāraḍa ) to the Koran that is linguistically equal.

The Idjāz concept emerged in Muʿtazila circles in the 9th century and became the subject of lively theological and literary theoretical discussions around the turn of the 11th century. In modern times, the concept of idjaz has been extended beyond the linguistic area to various other areas. It is not yet clear who first used the term terminologically. The earliest established evidence comes from a work by the Zaidite imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm (d. 860), who was close to the Muʿtazila.

The Arabic literature of Iʿjāz

The first monographic treatises on the Iʿjāz of the Koran were written around the turn of the 10th century by the two Muʿtazilites Muhammad ibn ʿUmar al-Bāhilī (d. 913) and Muhammad ibn Zaid al-Wāsitī (d. 918). Both works are lost, however. According to Ibn an-Nadīm , the title of al-Wāsitī was: "The I Derjāz of the Koran in its composition and drafting" ( Iʿǧāz al-qurʾān fī naẓmi-hī wa-taʾlīfi-hī ). The earliest surviving monographs on the subject are:

  • the treatise on "The subtleties of the Iʿjāz of the Koran" ( an-Nukat fī Iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān ) by ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā ar-Rummānī (d. 994), who belonged to the Ischīdhitic school of the Muʿtazila. It was translated into English in 1992 by Andrew Rippin and Jan Knappert.
  • the " Explanation of the Iʿjāz of the Koran" ( Bayān fī iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān ) by the traditional and jurist Abū Sulaimān al-Chattābī (931-998), which was translated into French by Claude-France Audebert,
  • and the considerably more extensive systematic treatise "The Iʿjāz of the Koran" ( Iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān ) by the Ashʿaritic Qādī Abū Bakr Muhammad al-Bāqillānī (d. 1013), which was translated into English by Gustav Edmund von Grunebaum .

In addition, the Ijāz doctrine was dealt with in the Kalām manuals . The Muʿtazilite theologian ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Ahmad (d. 1025), for example, discussed the Idjāz dogma in detail in the 16th part of his “Summa on the Issues of the Confession of Unity and Justice” ( al-Muġnī fī abwāb at-tauḥīd wa-l -ʿAdl ) in connection with the evidence of prophethood. And the Andalusian Zahirit Ibn Hazm (d. 1064) dedicated a separate section to him in his doxographic work “The distinction with regard to religious communities” ( al-Faṣl fī l-milal ), in which he problematized a total of five questions and based on them his own position developed into Iʿjāz.

One of the most respected Isjāz works of the later period is the "Book on the Evidence of the Iʿjāz of the Koran" ( Kitāb Dalāʾil Iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān ) by the Ashʿarite literary theorist ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurdschānī (d. 1078). As Margaret Larkin has shown, on the theological level it is a refutation of ʿAbd al-Jabbār's view of the Idjāz. Navid Kermani , who compared the book with the treatise of al-Bāqillānīs in his dissertation, comes to the conclusion that, unlike al-Bāqillāni, al-Jurdjānī is not about a foundation, but rather a "sublimation" and deepening of the Isjāz- Concept.

The Ismaili Shiites have also dealt with the Iʿjāz. So wrote the Yemeni da'i as-Sultan al-Khattab (d. 1138), who after the death of the Fatimid Caliph al-Aamir 's second highest rank in the da'wa of Musta'li-Taiyibiten held, a private treaty for i'jaz that Ismail K. Poonawala was edited.

In addition, Iādchāz is also dealt with in philosophical works such as the "Decisive Treatise on the Relationship between Sharia and Philosophy" ( Faṣl al-maqāl fīmā baina š-šarīʿa wa-l-ḥikma min al-ittiṣāl ) by Ibn Ruschd (d. 1198 ).

The best-known Arabic works on Iʿjāz from modern times are the book “The Iʿjāz of the Koran and the prophetic rhetoric” ( Iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān wa-l-balāġa an-nabawīya ) by the Arabic poet Mustafā Sādiq ar-Rāfiʿī, published in 1922, and the one published in 1971 Treatise "The pictorial Iʿjāz of the Koran and the questions of Ibn al-Azraqs" ( al-Iʿǧāz al-bayānī li-l-Qurʾān: wa-Masāʾil Ibn-al-Azraq ) by the Egyptian literary scholar ʿĀʾischa bint ʿAbd ar-Rahmān.

In addition, one can find doctrinal statements on Iʿjāz in countless other works by modern Islamic scholars. Yusuf al-Qaradawi , for example, dealt with the subject in great detail in his book "The Education of the Islamic Missionary" ( Ṯaqāfat ad-dāʿiya ), because in his opinion every Dāʿī should have a basic knowledge of Isjāz.

The Old Arabic Background and the "Verses of Challenge"

The cultural-historical background of the Iʿjāz concept is the ancient Arabic practice of poetry competition. Al-Bāqillānī refers in his Iʿjāz work to the attempts by pre-Islamic Arab poets in the market of ʿUkāz to write a linguistically equivalent counterpart to the famous Muʿallaqa poem by Imruʾ al-Qais. It was assumed that Mohammed had challenged those of his opponents in Mecca who accused him of having invented the words of the Koran in an analogous way to a poets' contest, but that the persons concerned were unable to counter the Koran with anything of equal value. This notion is based on a number of verses of the Qur'an known as the "Verses of Challenge" ( āyāt at-taḥaddī ). They are quoted here in the translation by Hartmut Bobzin based on Nöldeke's chronology .

  • In sura 52 : 33f, those who accused Muhammad of inventing the words of the Koran are asked for the first time to bring up something of their own: "Or do they say: 'He just made it up?' No, they are not believers. So let them come with a speech of the same kind ( bi-ḥadīṯin miṯli-hī ) when they speak the truth ”.
  • In Sura 11 : 13 what the opponents are supposed to bring forward is concretized: “Or they say: 'He just made it up ( iftarā-hu )!' Say: Bring ten suras of this kind that you have thought up yourself! And call on God instead of whom you are capable of - if you tell the truth! "
  • Sura 10 : 38: “Or they say: 'He invented them (i.e. the reading = the Koran) freely!' Say: So bring about a sura of the same kind and call on those whom you could call on in God's place - if you tell the truth! "

The statements of sura 11:13 and sura 10:38 are usually related in the Koran exegesis in such a way that God first asked his opponent through Mohammed to teach ten identical suras, but then after this first challenge (ten suras) without The reply remained, lowered his demand to a sura, but the opposing side could not come forward with it either.

  • In sura 17 : 88, which is mentioned particularly frequently in connection with the Ischjāz, the idea that the opponents of Muhammad's superhuman beings could call for help is further elaborated: “Say: If man and jinn meet to teach something, what is equivalent to this reading (ie the Koran), they could not teach anything that is equivalent to it, even if they were helpers to one another. "
  • In Sura 2 : 23f, the invitation to imitate appears again, but this time with the threat of severe punishment in the event of failure: “If you are in doubt about what we have sent down on our servant, then bring about a sura of the same kind, and call on your witnesses on behalf of God when you speak the truth! But if you do not do it - and you will not do it - watch out for the fire of hell, the fuel of which is people and stones: it is prepared for the unbelievers. "

In connection with the Tahaddī verses mentioned, it is said that pagan contemporaries of Muhammad such as al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīra admired the linguistic excellence of the Koran, although they were hostile to Muhammad. Old Arabic poets who converted to Islam during Muhammad's lifetime, such as Kaʿb ibn Zuhair , Labīd ibn Rabīʿa and Hassān ibn Thābit, are also used as witnesses to the Iʿjāz.

Theologians like ʿAbd al-Jabbār were convinced that the counter- prophet Musailima had already written an imitation of the Qur'an during Muhammad's lifetime , but in their view this imitation did not refute the doctrine of Isaiah because it was too weak and defective to be an equal counterpart to be able to apply to the Koran.

Historical reasons for the development of the Isaiah doctrine

Angelika Neuwirth names seven historical factors which have led to the development of the Iʿjāz doctrine: 1) the special role of the Koran in the life of the religious community and the spiritual and aesthetic experiences associated with it; 2) the need to explain the tahaddī verses in the Koranic exegesis; 3) the emergence of the theory of “proofs of prophethood” (d alāʾil an-nubūwa ) in Islamic theology; 4) the theological controversy over the nature of the Koran (created or uncreated?); 5) the polemical argument with Jews and Christians, during which it was necessary to prove that Mohammed was a worthy end to the story of the prophets; 6) Arab national pride and the conflict with the Persian Shuʿūbīya movement; 7. The interest in literary theory in connection with the emergence of “modern” poetry at the beginning of the Abbasid period . Heinz Grotzfeld added as an additional factor the advantage of greater interpretability of a language recognized as poetic, which could now be interpreted for metaphorical interpretations in the sense of the majāz .

Differences in the teachings of Isjaz

The Sarfa theory and its opponents

There was controversy among theologians who discussed the Isaiah doctrine over the question of what it was that prevented the contemporaries of Muhammad from doing anything equal to the Koran. While one camp attributed this inability to the rhetorical qualities of the Koran, others said that contemporaries were only unable to respond to the Koran because God had prevented them from doing so. For example, al-Asharī speaks of the Muʿtazilite theologian an-Nazzām : “Human beings would also have been able to compose and type of writing (sc. The Koran) if God had not created them by creating an inability ( ʿaǧz ) in them would have prevented it. "

With this view, An-Nazzām is regarded as the creator of the theory of the so-called Sarfa (صرفة / ṣarfa  / 'turning away'), which is so called because, according to it, God miraculously prevented people ( ṣarafa ) from opposing the Koran with something equal. In an anonymous Muʿtazilite manuscript from a later period it is explained:

“The meaning of ṣarfa is that by the time the Prophet was called, the Arabs had the ability to produce speech that had the purity of language ( faṣāḥa ) and eloquence ( balāġa ) like the Quran. When the Prophet was called, this eloquence was taken from them and they lost their knowledge of it, so that they were unable to produce speech like the Koran. "

In the context of the Sarfa theory, the interest was not so much in emphasizing the rhetorical superiority of the Koran, but rather the large number of eloquent contemporaries of Muhammad who could have easily accepted his challenge if God had not stopped them.

Those theologians who explicitly rejected the Sarfa theory included al-Chattābī, al-Bāqillānī, and ʿAbd al-Jabbār. Al-Chattābī understood the sarfa to mean "averting efforts in competition" and accordingly saw in the wording of Sura 17:88 a counter-evidence for its existence, because it says that people and jinn have made such efforts. Al-Bāqillānīs argument was that if the Sarfa theory had been used as a basis, the miracle would have been prevention and no longer in the Koranic style itself, which he could not accept because the preference of the Koranic language over the language of the Torah and the Gospel could be directly experienced be. ʿAbd al-Jabbār combined both arguments in his discussion of the problem in order to reject the Sarfa theory.

The Iraqi scholar Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī (d. After 1015) formulated a sharp criticism of the Sarfa theory from a literary theoretical point of view. He believed that this theory led to a primitive understanding of the miraculous nature of the Koran, and he urged his contemporaries to cultivate the language and study grammar, rhetoric and poetics so that they could see the true inimitability of the Koran. In the foreword to his "Book of the Two Arts: Stylistics and Poetry" ( Kitāb aṣ-Ṣināʿatain al-kitāba wa-š-šiʿr ) he wrote:

“The science that is most justified to study is - next to knowledge of God - the science of elaborate speech ( balāġa ) and pure language ( faṣāḥa ) through which the iʿǧāz of God's book is recognized ... We know that men If they do not strive for the science of artistic language and disregard the knowledge of pure language, they do not recognize the iʿǧāz of the Qur'an by the qualities with which God has distinguished it, such as the beauty of the words, etc. but only because the Arabs are incapable of doing this. But what a shame for the legal scholar ( faqīh ), whose example others follow, for the Qur'an reciter whose instructions are obeyed, for the proud Arab and for the ancestral Quraishite , if he can only recognize the miracle of the holy book like a negro or a Nabataean if he needs the same indirect evidence as an uneducated person. "

All later Sunni theologians also rejected the Sarfa theory. The modern Egyptian scholar Abū Zahra suspected that this theory had been imported from India. His contemporary, the poet Mustafā Sādiq ar-Rāfiʿī , put on an-Nazzām for his authorship of this theory the derisive name "Satan among the Kalām scholars" ( šaiṭān al-mutakallimīn ).

Dedicated defenders of the Sarfa theory, however, were the Imamite Shiites al-Sheikh al-Mufid (d. 1022) and al-Sharif al-Murtadā (d. 1044), the latter head of the Imamites in Baghdad at the time, and the Zahirit Ibn Hazm. The latter mentions the controversy about this question under his fourth point, speaks very clearly against the argumentation with the rhetorical qualities of the Koran and refutes the objections to the Sarfa theory. If the miracle of the Koran consisted in its rhetorical superiority, he explains, this would not be evidence of Muhammad's prophethood, because there is rhetorical superiority even with many non-prophets. With regard to the rhetorical quality of the Koran, he stated that it could not be measured against the standard of human rhetoric. The advocates of the Sarfa theory, however, have become fewer and fewer over time. They completely disappeared by the 12th century.

In addition, there were various scholars who took a balancing position in this controversy and established the Iājāz both through the sarfa and the rhetorical qualities of the Koran. This included in particular ar-Rummānī. Even an-Nazzām himself did not deny the linguistic beauty of the Koran, despite his later demonization as the author of the Sarfa theory, but he did not consider it to be miraculous evidence.

Interpretations of the rhetorical isjāz

The theory of the rhetorical Iʿjāz had the most supporters and also strongly influenced Arabic literary theory. For some of the later scholars, the idjaz term was so clearly defined in the rhetorical domain that they no longer mentioned other meanings. According to ʿAlī ibn Muhammad al-Jurdschānī (d. 1413), for example, who wrote a book on definitions of Islamic technical terms, the Ijāz in speech ( kalām ) consists in that “the meaning is given in a form that is rhetorically more valuable than all other forms. "

Within the circle of those who discussed the rhetorical Ischjāz of the Qur'an, there were again different views as to where it actually lies. In this regard, Ar-Rummānī put forward the view that the Qur'an was not, as is generally assumed, in Sajj (rhyming prose), because in Sajj the content is subordinate to the rhyme, whereas in the Koran the rhyming parts follow the content. In the fact that the Koran had a completely different form from the stylistic categories known up to then such as poetry, sajj, prose, he saw what was actually wonderful about the Koran. In addition, he divided the rhetoric contained in the Koran into ten different elements. Three of them were rhetorical figures: comparison ( tašbīh ), metaphor ( istiʿāra ), paronomasia ( taǧānus ) and hyperbola ( mubālaġa ). Three more corresponded to rhetorical demands of his time for linguistic discipline: conciseness ( īǧāz ), clarity of speech ( bayān ) and euphony ( talāʾum ). And the last three elements were developed by Rummānī itself, namely the free modification of subjects ( Tasrif al-Ma'aanee ), the Implikationsgehalt ( tAdmin ) of the terms used and the rhyming Versschlüsse ( fawāṣil ).

Al-Chattābī, on the other hand, saw the linguistic superiority of the Koran as being based primarily on the fact that it has the right proportion of different ways of speaking (highly solemn, purely obvious, permitted casual), so that in his language “splendor and sweetness are combined, although they are combined mutually exclusive. "

Muslim scholars also expressed different views on the level at which - whole suras or individual Koranic verses - the iʿǧāz becomes visible. From the quantities given in sura 11:13 and 10:38 "Ten suras" and "one sura" one could deduce that the smallest inimitable part of the Koran must have the length of a sura. Al-Chattābī looked at the overall structure of the suras and tried to show that on this level the mental contents ( maʿānī ) enter into a harmonious composition and that they support each other in their evidential value. With this argument he defended the polythematic character of the suras and countered claims that it would have made more sense to distribute the various subjects dealt with in them to separate suras.

Al-Bāqillānī, on the other hand, wanted to tie the Idjāz to considerably smaller linguistic units in the Koran. He came to this understanding through a special interpretation of the quantity “a sura” in sura 10:38. Since the sura was not specified, he used the length of the shortest sura as a basis, namely the Kauthar sura (108), which consists of ten words. On this he based the doctrine that those rhetorical units in the Qur'an that are suitable in length for recitation and usually also syntactically independent are the actual level of Iʿjāz. These units, which are in many cases even smaller than the Quranic verses, he called kalimāt (sing. Kalima ). The Arabic term kalima actually means “word”, but in this context it corresponds more to the concept of the colon of rhetoric.

Ibn Hazm based it on an even smaller unit of meaning. He spoke out against the view of al-Bāqillānī, according to which the shortest sura 108 (al-Kauthar) must be taken as the smallest measure of the miraculous, and other similar views, and affirmed that the smallest unit of meaning in which one knows that it comes from the Koran, already has the miraculous character.

Muʿtazilite and Ashʿarite Iʿjāz

A fundamental difference between the Ischjāz theories of the Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites was that the former concentrated on the composition of words and phrases, while the latter regarded the meanings behind them as essential. Particularly evident this opposition was in the confrontation of Ash'arite Abd al-Qahir al-Dschurdschānī with the Mu'tazilites' Abd al-Jabbar, of the i'jaz to the order of the sound groups ( Tartib al-Alfaz ) moored, the meanings ( Ma'aanee ) but no part in it had measured. ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurdschānī rejected this view and taught that the syntactically combined meanings ( maʿānī an-naḥw ) are the actual level of the Isaiah. Here he relied on the Ashari distinction between the “inner speech” ( kalām nafsī ) of God, which is with God and only includes the meanings ( maʿānī ), and the “ spoken speech” ( kalām lafẓī ) of God, which is revealed in the and recited Quran manifested. Al-Jurjani agreed with ʿAbd al-Jabbār that the Isaiah can be recognized by the composition ( naẓm ) of the revealed Quran, but insisted that this was only a reflection of the meanings put together on the level of God's “inner speech” ( maʿānī ) is. In this respect, the idjaz can only be recognized with regard to these meanings.

Ibn Hazm also dealt with a similar Ashʿaritic Iʿjāz teaching, which he had apparently only known in a shortened or distorted form. According to this teaching, the Isaiah only refers to the divine original of the Koran, which was not revealed. Ibn Hazm dismissed this view as nonsense, arguing that people could not possibly be charged with responding to something they did not know and could not hear, and declared that the Isaiah could only refer to the recited text of the Quran .

The different aspects of i'jāz

What exactly is the basis of the Isaiah in the Koran? Abū l-Hasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 931), who mentions a dispute on this question in his doxographic work Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn , explains there that most of the Muʿtazilites assumed that there was composition ( naẓm ) and style of drafting ( taʾlīf ) are the founding of the i'jāz because humans cannot bring them forth any more than they can bring the dead to life. Accordingly, the composition and drafting of the Koran are hallmarks ( ʿalam ) of the Messenger of God. In contrast, however, an-Nazzām took the view that the real miracle in the Koran was the communication of hidden things ( al-iḫbār ʿan al-ġuyūb ). Regarding linguistic qualities, an-Nazzām is said to have taught that they do not exceed ordinary human speaking skills. This doctrine of an-Nazzāms was firmly rejected by al-Chattābī and Ibn Hazm. They argued that, as is well known, the Tahaddī only concerned an unspecified sura from the Koran (cf. sura 10:38 above), but not all suras contain such prophecies.

Other scholars took a mediating position and believed that the two were not mutually exclusive. For al-Bāqillānī, for example, the miraculous character of the Koran proves to be threefold: firstly, the Koran contains information about hidden things such as the victory of Islam over all other religions announced in Sura 9:33; secondly, the Koran brings news about things in the past such as creation of man, the deeds of Adam , Abraham , etc., which Mohammed as an ummī could not know, and thirdly, the words of the Koran reached a level of eloquence that experience has shown cannot be achieved by other people. ʿAbd al-Jabbār also mentions rhetoric and the communication of hidden things, but mentions the third quality in which the Iʿjāz of the Qur'an is to be inconsistent. He derives this from sura 4:82: “Don't you worry about the Koran? If he were from someone other than God, they would certainly find a lot of contradictions in him ”(transl. H. Bobzin).

From the 10th century onwards, the various "aspects of Iʿjāz " ( wuǧūh al-iʿǧāz ) were collected. In addition to the rhetorical quality, the correct prediction of future events and the sarfa, Ar-Rummānī mentions four other points that make up the Iājāz of the Koran. In the 12th century, Qādī ʿIyād (d. 1149) noted that the "aspects of Iʿjāz" cited by scholars were already so numerous that they could no longer be listed individually. Most of them, however, concerned the art of rhetoric.

In the 20th century, the isjāz was expanded to include some new aspects. For example, the Egyptian scholar as-Saiyid al-Jumailī wrote a book about "the medical Iʿjāz" ( al-iʿǧāz aṭ-ṭibbī ) before 1980 , in which he tried to prove that the knowledge of modern medicine is already contained in the Koran. Yusuf al-Qaradawi divided the Iʿjāz into three main aspects:

  1. the "pictorial idjaz" ( al-iʿǧāz al-bayānī ), which is related to the rhetoric, composition, style, expressions and words of the Koran and has already been discussed by the classical scholars;
  2. the "thematic Iʿjāz" ( al-iʿǧāz al-mauḍūʿi ). By this he means “that the Koran combines different types of guidance ( hidāya ), wisdom ( ḥikma ) and good teaching ( mauʿiẓa ḥasana ) as well as various aspects of promoting, educational and legislative improvement, which people as individuals, families, communities and makes states happy in religious and worldly matters. ”As important works that deal with this type of ijāz, he mentions the book“ The Mohammedan Revelation ”( al-Waḥy al-Muḥammadī ) by Raschīd Ridā and the books“ The Koran and the military struggle ”( al-Qurʾān wa-l-qitāl ) and“ The Koran and the Woman ”( al-Qurʾān wa-l-marʾa ) by Mahmūd Schaltūt .
  3. the "scientific Iʿjāz" ( al-iʿǧāz al-ʿilmī ). By this he understands "that which is related to the fact that in many verses of the Koran reference is made to scientific facts that modern science has only discovered." In his opinion, these predictions of scientific discoveries also point to the divine origin of the Koran, although al- In this regard, Qaradāwī protects against exaggerated and absurd interpretations of the text and recommends adhering to a middle path.

literature

Arabic sources
  • Muḥammad Aḥmad Ḫalafallāh: Ṯalāṯ rasāʾil fī iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān li-r-Rummānī wa-l-Ḫaṭṭābī wa-ʿAbd-al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī fi d-dirāsāt al-qurʾ-adabīya . 3rd ed. Cairo, Dār al-Maʿārif, 1976. (Contains the three Isjāz works by ar-Rummānī, al-Chattābī and al-Jurdschānī).
  • Ibn Ḥazm : al-Faṣl fi-l-milal wa-l-ahwāʾ wa-n-niḥal. Ed. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Naṣr; ʿAbd-ar-Raḥmān ʿUmaira. 5 Vols. Beirut: Dār al-ǧīl, 1985. Vol. III, pp. 25–31.
  • Abū-Bakr Muḥammad Ibn-aṭ-Ṭaiyib al-Bāqillānī : Iʿǧāz al-Qur'ān . Ed. Aḥmad Ṣaqar. Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1963.
  • Faḫr-ad-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn-ʿUmar ar-Rāzī: Nihāyat al-īǧāz fī dirāyat al-iʿǧāz . ʿAmmān: Dār al-Fikr 1985.
  • Muṣṭafā Ṣādiq ar-Rāfiʿī : Iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān wa-l-balāġa an-nabawīya . Ed. ʿAbdallāh al-Minšāwī. Maktabat al-Īmān, Cairo, 1997.
Secondary literature
  • Abdul Aleem: '“Ijazu'l-Qur'an” in Islamic Culture 7 (1933) 64–82, 215–233.
  • Tor Andræ : The person of Muhammad in the teaching and belief of his community . Stockholm 1918. pp. 94-100.
  • Claude-France Audebert: Al-Ḫaṭṭābī et l'inimitabilité du Coran: traduction et introduction au Bayān iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān . Damascus: Inst. Français de Damas 1996.
  • Abdessamad Belhaj: “Ce que distinguer veut dire: ʿAbd al-Jabbār et l'inimitabilité du Coran” in Acta Orientalia 60 (2007) 455-465.
  • IJ Boullata: “The rhetorical interpretation of the Qur'an. i'jaz and related topics ”in A. Rippin: Approaches to the history of the interpretation of the Qur'an . Oxford, 1988, 139-157.
  • Josef van Ess : Theology and society in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra. A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam . 6 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter 1991–1997. Vol. IV, pp. 607-612.
  • Heinz Grotzfeld: “The concept of the inimitability of the Koran in its creation and further training” in Archive for Conceptual History 13 (1969) 58–72.
  • Gustave E. von Grunebaum : A tenth-century document of Arabic literary theory and criticism: the sections on poetry of al-Bâqillânî's I'jāz al-Qur'ān translated and annotated . Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill., 1950.
  • GE von Grunebaum: Art. "Iʿ dj āz" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. III, pp. 1018a-1020b.
  • Navid Kermani : God is beautiful. The aesthetic experience of the Koran . Beck, Munich, 1999. pp. 233-314.
  • M. Larkin: “The Inimitability of the Qur'an: Two Perspectives in The Literature of Islam” in Religion and Literature 20/1 (1988) 31-47.
  • RC Martin: Art. "Inimitability" in Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.): Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an . 6 vols. Leiden 2001-2006. Vol. II, pp. 526-536.
  • Angelika Neuwirth : “The Islamic dogma of the 'inimitability of the Koran' from a literary perspective” in Der Islam 60 (1983) 166-183.
  • Angelika Neuwirth: "Koran" in Helmut Gätje (Ed.): Grundriss der Arabischen Philologie Vol. II. Wiesbaden 1987. S. 97-135. Here pp. 126–128.
  • Ismail K. Poonawala: "Al-Sulṭān al-Ḫaṭṭāb's treatise on the 'iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān'" in Arabica 41 (1994) 84-126.
  • Matthias Radscheit: The Koranic Challenge. The taḥaddī verses in the context of the polemic passages of the Koran. Klaus Schwarz Verlag, Berlin, 1996. pp. 1-8.
  • Matthias Radscheit: “Iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān in the Koran?” In Stefan Wild (ed.): The Qurʾan as text . EJ Brill, Leiden u. a., 1996. pp. 113-124.
  • Y. Rahman: “The miraculous nature of Muslim scripture, A study of 'Abdal-Jabbar's I'jaz al-Qur'an” in Islamic Studies 35 (1996) 409-426.
  • Martin Schreiner : “On the history of the polemics between Jews and Mohammedans” in the magazine of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft 42 (1888) 591–675. Here pp. 663–675 .
  • Max Weisweiler : “'Abdalqahir al-Curcani's work on the inimitability of the Koran and its syntactic-stylistic teachings” in Oriens 11 (1958) 77–121.

Individual evidence

  1. See Kermani 233-314.
  2. See also Neuwirth 1983, 170.
  3. See Martin 533
  4. See Ess TuG IV 612
  5. See Ess TuG IV 610.
  6. See Martin 533b-534a.
  7. See your text collection Textual sources for the study of Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. pp. 49-59.
  8. See the essays by Rahman, Larkin and Belhadj.
  9. Cf. Ibn-Ḥazm: al-Faṣl fi-l-milal wa-l-ahwāʾ wa-n-niḥal . Ed. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Naṣr; ʿAbd-ar-Raḥmān ʿUmaira. 5 Vols. Beirut: Dār al-ǧīl, 1985. Vol. III, pp. 25–33 and the summary in Schreiner 668-670.
  10. See the studies by Weisweiler and Kermani.
  11. Cf. Kermani 291f.
  12. Cf. L. Gauthier: La théorie d'Ibn Rochd (Averroès) sur les rapports de la religion et de la philosophie. Paris 1909. p. 125. Available online here.
  13. Cf. Yūsuf ʿAbd Allāh al-Qaraḍāwī: Ṯaqāfat ad-dāʿiya . Beirut: Muʾassasat ar-Risāla 1978. pp. 14-16.
  14. See Martin 529a.
  15. See Radscheit 1996.
  16. See Grotzfeld 159 and Neuwirth 172.
  17. See Rahman 415 and Martin 528b.
  18. Cf. Kermani 293.
  19. See Rahman 415.
  20. See Neuwirth 172-175.
  21. See Grotzfeld 71 and Kermani 246.
  22. Cf. al-Ašʿarī: Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn wa-ḫtilāf al-muṣallīn . Ed. Hellmut Ritter. Istānbūl: Maṭbaʿat ad-daula 1929–1933. P. 225.
  23. See Ess TuG III 412f and Audebert 80-84.
  24. Ms. British Museum 8613, fol. 17b-18a, cit. at Martin 532b
  25. See e.g. B. the translated excerpt from the text “Proofs of Prophecy” ( Ḥuǧaǧ an-nubūwa ) by al-Jāhiz (d. 869) in Charles Pellat : Arabische Geisteswelt. Selected and translated texts by al-Ǧāḥiẓ (777–869). Based on the original Arabic texts, translated from French by Walter W. Müller. Artemis, Zurich and Stuttgart 1967. pp. 78–80.
  26. See Grotzfeld 66.
  27. See Grotzfeld 68.
  28. See Rahman 415.
  29. See Grotzfeld 71.
  30. Quoted from Grotzfeld 71f.
  31. See Martin 532b.
  32. Cf. Kermani 285 and 477.
  33. Cf. Kermani 247 and 472.
  34. See Martin 533a.
  35. See also Kermani 246.
  36. Cf. Ibn Hazm al-Fasl 27.
  37. See Kermani 247.
  38. See Grotzfeld 65 and Kermani 247.
  39. See Ess TuG III 412 and Kermani 247.
  40. Kitāb at-Taʿrīfāt . Ed. Gustav wing . Leipzig 1845. p. 32. Can be viewed online here.
  41. See Grotzfeld 65f.
  42. See Neuwirth 177 and Grotzfeld 65.
  43. Quoted from Grotzfeld 67.
  44. See Neuwirth 1983, 179.
  45. See Grotzfeld 59.
  46. See Neuwirth 1983, 181f and 1987, 127f.
  47. See Ibn Ḥazm 29 (5th question).
  48. See Larkin 41 and Rahman 418.
  49. See Larkin 32.
  50. See Larkin 42f and Kermani 256.
  51. Cf. Kermani 264.
  52. Cf. Ibn Ḥazm 25 ( al-muʿǧiz huwa l-matlūw ) and Schreiner 666.
  53. Cf. al-Ašʿarī: Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn wa-iḫtilāf al-muṣallīn . Ed. Hellmut Ritter. Istānbūl: Maṭbaʿat ad-daula 1929–1933. P. 225.
  54. See Martin 532a.
  55. See Grotzfeld 66 and Ibn Ḥazm al-Faṣl 26 (third point).
  56. See Grotzfeld 68.
  57. See Rahman 417.
  58. See Kermani 247.
  59. See Grotzfeld 65.
  60. Quoted in Kermani 247.
  61. Here are the bibliographical details of the second edition: as-Saiyid Ǧumailī: al-Iʿǧāz aṭ-ṭibbī fī l-Qurʾān . Al-Qāhira: Dār at-Turāt al-ʻArabī, 1980.
  62. Quoted from Yūsuf ʿAbd Allāh al-Qaraḍāwī: Ṯaqāfat ad-dāʿiya . Beirut: Muʾassasat ar-Risāla 1978. p. 15.
  63. Quoted from al-Qaraḍāwī 15.
  64. See al-Qaradāwī 16.