SOURCE: Richard Bell, "The Structure and Style of the Qur'an," in Introduction to the Qur'an, Edinburgh University Press, 1953, pp. 67-81.

[In the following excerpt, Bell offers a detailed analysis of the structure and stylistic elements of the Koran, including discussion of the text's use of rhyme, strophes, similes, metaphors, and homiletic dramatic scenes, narratives, and parables.]

Rhymes.

—The Qur'an, … presents itself in the form of surahs divided into verses. The questions arise whether the surahs are unities, and, if so, whether they show any organic structure; or, if they are not unities, whether we can discern how they have been built up. In approaching these questions, if we follow the method of starting from externals, it will be well to be clear as to the nature of the rhyme which marks the close of verses.

There is no attempt in the Qur'an to produce the strict rhyme of poetry. In an Arabic poem each verse had to end in the same rhyme-consonant surrounded by the same vowels—an interchange of i and u was allowed, though considered a weakness. Short inflectional vowels following the rhyme-consonant were usually retained, and, if retained, were pronounced long at the end of the line. Only in very exceptional cases is it possible to find this type of rhyme in the Qur'an. What we find is, rather, assonance, in which short inflectional vowels at the end of a verse are disregarded, and for the rest, the vowels, particularly their length, and the fall of the accent, that is the form of the end-word of the verse, are of more importance than the consonants. Of course the consonant may remain the same, but that is not essential. Thus in cxii the four verses rhyme in -ad, if we disregard the inflections; in cv we have the rhyme in -il, if we disregard end-vowels and allow u in place of i in the last verse. In ciii r is rhyme-consonant, but the inflections vary and have to be disregarded, though, for pronunciation, we require a short vowel sound of some kind after the r, or, alternatively, a short vowel before it which is not in the form. In LIV, where r as rhyme-consonant is carried through 55 verses, we have not only to disregard the end-vowels but to accept variations of the preceding vowel, i and u and even a occurring in that position; the assonance is -fa'il, that is, an open syllable with short vowel which takes the accent, followed by a syllable with short vowel closed by r which thus becomes a rhyme-consonant. On the other hand, the accusative termination -an is often retained, being probably pronounced as -a; for example in XVIII, LXXII and c, where the accusative termination seems to be essential to the rhyme. Further, the feminine termination -atun dropped not only its inflections but also its t sound; cf. civ, where, if we drop end-vowels and pronounce the feminine termination as a or ah, we get a consistent assonance formed by an accented syllable followed by a short unaccented syllable and the ending, that is fi 'alah, in which both vowels and consonants are variable, but the place of the accent and the ending -ah remain the same. The actual rhyme-words are: limazah, 'addadah, akhladah, al-hzutamah, al-hzitamah, al-mziqadah, al-'af'idah, mu'sadah, mumaddadah; this illustrates the retention of the same sound formation with variation of consonant, and even of vowel. In xcix we have a similar assonance, formed by a long accented a, followed by a short syllable, and the feminine suffix -h, that is -alaha, the -ha being in one verse replaced by the plural suffix -hum. The assonance of XLVII is the same, but with greater variation of suffix.

The structure of the Arabic language, in which words fall into definite types of forms, was favourable to the production of such assonances. But even in the short surahs we find a tendency to rely for the assonance on grammatical terminations, for example the suffix -ha as in xcix above, and in xci assonance -iha. In the longer surahs this tendency increases. Thus in LV the assonance depends very largely upon the dual-ending -an. Fairly often in the longer surahs, though hardly ever carried through unbroken, we find the assonance -a(l), that is, a long a vowel followed by a (variable) consonant; so in parts of ii, III, xiv, xxxviii (almost complete), XXXIX, XL, and sporadically elsewhere. But in the great majority of the surahs of any length, and even in some of the short ones, the prevailing assonance is -i(l), that is, a long i or u sound (these interchange freely) followed by a consonant. This depends very largely on the plural endings of nouns and verbs, -un and -in, varied by words of the form fa 'il, one of the commonest forms in Arabic. By far the greater part of the Qur'an shows this assonance.

With an assonance depending thus upon grammatical endings there may occasionally be doubt as to whether it was really intended. The varying systems of verse-numbering depend to some extent, though not entirely, upon varying judgment as to where the rhyme was intended to fall in particular cases. But that assonance at the end of verses was intended and deliberately sought for can hardly be questioned. In passages with short verses and frequently recurring assonances the intention is unmistakable. But even in surahs in which the verses are long, we find special turns of phrase employed in order to produce the assonance. Thus the preposition min with a plural participle is often used where a participle in the singular would have sufficiently given the sense; so that we get phrases like "one of the unbelievers" instead of simply "an unbeliever" because the former gives the rhyming plural-ending, while the latter does not: for example III, 53, 75, VII, 103. Kanu with an imperfect or participle in the plural often takes the place of a simple perfect plural; for example in ii, 54, VII, 35. Or an imperfect plural may be used where a perfect might have been expected, as in v, 74. Occasionally a phrase is added at the end of a verse which is really otiose as regards sense but supplies the assonance, as in xii, 10, xxi, 68, 79, 104. Sometimes the sense is strained in order to produce the rhyme, for instance in iv, where statements regarding Allah are inappropriately thrown into the past by the use of kana in front of them, the accusative ending on which the rhyme depends being thereby obtained. The form of a proper name is occasionally modified for the sake of rhyme, as Sinin, xcv, Ilyasin, xxxvii, 130.

Rhyme-phrases.

—Statements regarding Allah occur frequently at the end of verses, especially in the long surahs, where the verses also are of some length. Where the verses are short, the word or phrase which carries the rhyme forms as a rule an integral part of the grammatical structure and is necessary to the sense. But in some passages we find that the phrases which carry the rhyme can be detached without dislocating the structure of what remains, as in XLI, 8 ff. Sometimes, in fact, the rhyme-phrase interrupts the sense, as in vi, 142 ff.; but this is exceptional. Usually the phrase is appropriate enough but stands apart from the rest of the verse. These detachable rhyme-phrases—most of which carry the assonance in -i(i)—tend to be repeated, and to assume a set form which recurs either verbally or with slight changes in wording. Thus inna fi dhalika la-'ayatan li-l-mu 'minin often closes the account of a 'sign'. 'Ala llahi fa-l-yatawakkal il-mu'minun (il-mutawakkilun) occurs 9 times. Wa-llahu 'alim hakim occurs 12 times, or, if we include slight modifications, 18 times. There are other combinations of adjectives referring to Allah which are frequently used in the same way. Perhaps the most frequent of all such phrases is inna llaha 'ala kulli shai'in qadir, "verily Allah over everything hath power", which is used 6 times in II, 4 times in iii, 4 times in v and some 18 times in other surahs. To have a stock of such phrases was no doubt a convenience for a busy man who had adopted a rhyming style of utterance. But there is also a certain effectiveness in their use. These sententious phrases regarding Allah are most often used to close a deliverance, and serve at once to press home a truth by repetition and to clinch the authority of what is laid down. They act as a kind of refrain.

Refrains.

—The use of actual refrain, in the sense of the same words occurring at more or less regular intervals, is sparse in the Qur'an. It is anything but effectively used in LV, where the same words "Which then of the benefits of your Lord will ye twain count false?" occur in vv. 12, 15, 18, 21, 23, 25, 28, and from there on in practically each alternate verse, without regard to the sense, which they frequently interrupt. The same tendency to increasing frequency and disregard of sense appears in the use of the words, "Woe that day to those who count false!" as a kind of refrain before sections of surah LXXVII. Didactically effective, on the other hand, is the use of refrain in the groups of stories of former prophets which occur in various surahs. The stories in these groups not only show similarities of wording throughout, but are often closed by the same formula; cf. those in xi, xxvI, xxxvii and LIV.

Internal Rhymes.

—In addition to the rhymes which occur at the end of the verses, we can occasionally detect rhymes, different from the end-rhymes, occurring in the middle, or elsewhere, in the verse. These give the impression of a varied arrangement of rhymes. R. Geyer pointed out some of these in an article in the Gottinger Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1909, and argued that stanzas with such varied rhymes were sometimes deliberately intended in the Qur'an. If that were so, we should expect the same form to recur. But in going through Geyer's examples we do not get the impression that any pre-existing forms of stanza were being reproduced, or that any fixed forms of stanza at all were being used. There are no fixed patterns. All that can be said is that in some passages we do find such mixtures of rhymes, just as, quite often, we find, within a surah, breaks in the regular recurring rhyme at the end of the verses. But, as we shall see, these facts are to be otherwise explained.

Strophes.

—A similar argument applies to the contention of D. H. Mueller in his book, Die Propheten in ihrer ursprunglichen Form, Vienna, 1895. He sought to show that composition in strophes was characteristic of prophetic literature, in the Old Testament as well as in the Qur'an. From the Qur'an he adduced many passages which appear to support such a view, for example LVI. But if we are to speak of strophic form, we expect some regularity in the length and arrangement of the strophes. Mueller, however, failed to show that there was any such regularity. What his evidence does show is that many surahs of the Qur'an fall into short sections or paragraphs. But these are not of fixed length, nor do they seem to follow any pattern of length. Their length is determined not by any consideration of form, but by the subject or incident treated in each.

Short Pieces.

—Interpreted in this way, Mueller's contention brings out a real characteristic of Qur'an style. It is disjointed. Only very seldom do we find in it evidence of sustained unified composition at any great length. The longest such pieces are the addresses found in some of the later surahs. The address before Uhud has become broken up and is now difficult to unravel from the middle of m. But the address after the Day of the Trench and the overthrow of the Quraizah, XXXIII; 9-27, and the assurance to the disappointed Moslems after the truce of Hudaibiyah, XLVIII, 18-29, may be taken as examples of fairly lengthy pieces evidently composed for one special purpose. Some of the narratives, too, in the Qur'an, especially accounts of Moses and of Abraham, run to considerable length. But they tend to fall into separate incidents, instead of being recounted straightforwardly. This is particularly true of the longest of all, the story of Joseph in XII. In other surahs, even where we can trace some connection in thought, this paragraph arrangement is very evident. In LXXX, for instance, we can persuade ourselves that a line of thought governs the collection of the separate pieces, running from the Prophet's dissatisfaction with his cajoling of the wealthy, through the sublimity of the message which ought to commend itself, but is thwarted by man's ingratitude for religious and temporal benefits, up to the description of the final Judgment-day. But one has a stronger impression of the distinctness of the separate pieces than of their unity; and one of them, vv. 24-32, bears evident traces of having been fitted into a context to which it did not originally belong. In the longer surahs devoted largely to political and legal matters we find, as is natural enough, that subjects vary, and, while we do find here and there considerable blocks of legislation devoted to one subject, for example the rules regarding divorce in ii, 228 ff., we do not get the impression that an effort has been made to produce a surah dealing systematically with any subject. One surah may contain passages dealing with many different subjects, and the same subject may be treated in several different surahs.

The Qur'an itself tells us that it was delivered in separate pieces, xvii, 107, xxv, 34. Neither of these passages tells us anything as to the length of the pieces. But Moslem Tradition, which assigns different 'occasions' to passages consisting of a verse or two, favours the assumption that the pieces were short. We were led to this by consideration of Muhammad's method of composition… It corresponds to what we actually find in the Qur'an. Not only are there a considerable number of short pieces standing alone as separate surahs, but the longer surahs contain many short pieces which are complete in themselves, and could be removed without serious derangement of the context. Consideration of the passages introduced by formulae of direct address … will show that, n, 173-175, for instance, deals with retaliation; it comes indeed amongst other passages addressed to the believers and dealing with other subjects, but it has no necessary connection with them. v, 14 stands quite by itself, clear enough, if only we knew the event to which it refers, but if it had been absent we should never have suspected that something had fallen out. XLIX, 13 may be quoted as illustrating the form of these passages: "O ye people, We have created you of male and female and made you races and tribes, that ye may show mutual recognition; verily, the most noble of you in Allah's eyes is the most pious; verily Allah is knowing, well-informed". Here, following the address, we have an indication of the subject that has called for treatment, then comes a declaration regarding it, and finally the passage is closed by a sententious maxim. This form is found not only in passages with direct address, but in a multitude of others. They begin by stating their occasion; a question has been asked, the unbelievers have said or done something, something has happened, or some situation has arisen. The matter is dealt with shortly, in usually not more than three or four verses; at the end comes a general statement, often about Allah, which rounds off the passage. Once we have caught this lilt of Qur'an style it becomes fairly easy to separate the surahs into the separate pieces of which they have been built up, and this is a great step towards the interpretation of the Qur'an. It is not, of course, to be too readily assumed that there is no connection between these separate pieces. There may, or there may not, be a connection in subject and thought, and where that is absent there may still be a connection in time. On the other hand, there may be no connection in thought between contiguous pieces, or the surah may have been built up of pieces of different dates that have been fitted into a sort of scheme.

Style of the Qur'an.

—It is only when we have unravelled these short units of composition which enter into the structure of the surahs that we can speak of the style of the Qur'an. The insistence so frequently met with on its disjointedness, its formlessness, its excited, unpremeditated, rhapsodical character, rests too much on a failure to discern the natural divisions into which the surahs fall, and also to take account of the displacements and undesigned breaks in connection, which, as we shall see, are numerous. We have to remember, too, that Muhammad disclaimed being a poet, and evidently had no ear for poetry.' He claimed that he had messages to convey. We have to seek, therefore, for didactic, rather than for poetic or artistic, forms.

Slogans.

—One of these forms, the prevailing one in later surahs, has been spoken of above. But the simplest form of the kind is the short statement introduced by the word "Say" There are about 250 of these scattered throughout the Qur'an. Sometimes they stand singly; here and there we find groups of them standing together, though really quite distinct from each other, for instance in vi, 56 ff.; sometimes they are worked into the context of a passage. These statements are of various kinds, answers to questions, retorts to arguments or jeers of his opponents, statements of Muhammad's own position; there are one or two prayers, for example III, 25; there are two credal statements for his followers to repeat, the word "Say" being in the plural, IX, 130, XXIX, 45, to which may be added CXII, though the verb is singular; finally, there are a number of phrases suitable for repetition in various circumstances, such as, "Allah's guidance is the guidance", II, 114, "Allah is my portion; on Him let the trusting set their trust", XXXIX, 39.

It is evident that these phrases were designed for repetition; they were not composed originally as parts of surahs, they were of the nature of slogans devised for public use, and found their way into surahs later. Where a context is given, usually in the later parts of the Qur'an, we get a hint of how they were produced. A question has been asked, ii, 185, 211, v, 6, viii, 1, etc., or some argument or jeer has come to the Prophet's knowledge, and he has thought over it until the 'suggestion' of the answer has come. He has 'sought guidance' and has been told what to say. The statement thus becomes a part of one of the paragraphs already described as characteristic of Qur'an style.

These slogans are difficult to date, and it is doubtful if any of those which appear in the Qur'an are very early, though some of them may quite well be so. But they are so common that the presumption is that they were a constant element in Muhammad's methods of propaganda, and that from the first he made use of carefully prepared formulae for repetition.

The use of assonance in such formulae would be natural. But those which actually occur hardly support the idea that it was by this route that assonance became a feature of Muhammad's deliverances. Most of them fall naturally enough into the rhyme of the surah in which they occur, but few of them rhyme within themselves, xxxiv, 45 and XLI, 44 possibly do, and en, 1, 2 looks like an early rhymed slogan, though not preceded by "Say". It is more likely that the suggestion of rhyme came from the saj of the soothsayers.

Kahin-Form.

—Muhammad protested against being classed as a soothsayer, LII, 29, LXIX, 42, and, as the form and content of his deliverances developed, the disclaimer was justified; but to begin with, his position was similar enough to that of a kahin to suggest that he may have taken a hint from the soothsayers as to the form of his utterances. Actually, there are five passages in the Qur'an which are quite in kahin-manner, Xxxvii, 1-4, (5), LI, 1-6, LXXVII, 1-7, LXXIX, 1-14, c, 1-6. In these we have a number of oaths by females of some kind, forming a jingle, leading up to a statement which does not rhyme with the oaths. The statement is mostly quite short; but in LXXIX it is of some length and may have been extended. The feminine participles are usually thought to apply to angels; the Qur'an itself gives some support to this, xxxvii, 165. But this is probably an afterthought, and it may be doubted if originally any definite meaning was attached to these asseverations. The soothsayers, no doubt, often used a string of cryptic oaths without much sense, simply to prepare the way for the statement and make it impressive.

Asseverative Passages.

—Muhammad apparently found these random oaths unsatisfactory. LXXXIX, 1-4, which is so cryptic as to be unintelligible, may indicate this. LLL, 1-8 still shows the same device of making the statement stand out by having a different assonance from the oaths, but the oaths, though still difficult to interpret, had evidently a clear enough sense in the Prophet's own mind. In other asseverative passages, of which there are not a few,² the oaths are chosen as having some bearing on the statement to which they lead up, and this statement in the same assonance makes an effective close to the passage. The best example is perhaps xci, 1-10, where four pairs of oaths by contrasted things, sun and moon, day and night, heaven and earth, and what formed the soul and implanted in it its wickedness and piety, lead up to the statement of the contrast between him who purifies his soul and him who corrupts it. This asseverative style seems to have gradually been discarded. There are a number of passages where a single oath appears at the beginning, but in passages certainly Medinan oaths hardly appear at all.

'When '-Passages.

—A modification of the asseverative passage is seen in the use of a number of temporal clauses, introduced by idha or yawma, leading up to a statement pressing home the fact of the Judgment upon the conscience. In one passage, LXXV, 26-30, it is a death-scene which is described in the temporal clauses, but usually it is the Last Day which is conjured up by a selection from its awe-inspiring phenomena. In LXXXIV, 1-6 the statement of the main clause is left unrhymed, but in all the others it has the same rhyme as the clauses which lead up to it. The longest of these passages is LXXXI, 1-14, where twelve idha-clauses lead up to the statement: "A soul will know what it has presented", that is, the deeds laid to its account. The effectiveness of such a form is even more evident in some of the shorter pieces, and there can be no doubt that they were carefully designed for repetition to impress the conscience of hearers.³

Dramatic Scenes.

—This homiletic purpose is evident throughout the Qur'an. The piling up of temporal clauses did not continue, but at all stages of the Qur'an the scenes of the Judgment and the future life are evoked, not for any speculative purpose, but in order to impress the conscience and clinch an argument. With all the details which the Qur'an gives of the future abodes of the blessed and the damned, we powhere get a complete description. Where such a picture seems to have been attempted, as in LV, LXXVI and LXXXIII, the attempt appears to break down in confusion. On the other hand we get short well-polished pieces describing luscious attractions or lurid terrors. The same applies to the descriptions of the Judgment; Muhammad evidently is interested in these scenes not for their own sake but for their homiletic value. Only once or twice does he make any attempt to describe the theophany, and it is not sustained, XXXIX, 67 ff., LXXXIX, 23 f. Attention should, however, be called to the dramatic quality of many of these scenes, which is often unrecognised, but which is really very effective. Some of them are difficult to understand, because, being designed for oral recitation, they do not indicate by whom the various speeches are made; that was left to be made clear by gesture or change of voice as the passage was delivered. As examples may be cited, L, 19-25 and xxxvii, 48-59; in both of these passages we have to use our imagination to supply the accompanying action of the speeches, but are rewarded by little dramatic scenes which must have been very telling if delivered with dramatic action. This dramatic quality is, in fact, a pervading characteristic of Qur'an style. Direct speech is apt to be 'interjected' at any point, and we have to imagine the personages spoken of in the narrative as expressing themselves in words. If, for instance, we look at the story of Moses in xx, we find that more space is occupied by the spoken words of the actors than by actual narrative. Even where narrative does predominate, the story is hardly ever told straightforwardly, but tends to fall into a series of short word-pictures, the story advancing incident by incident, and the intervening links being left to the imagination of the hearers.

Narratives and Parables.

—In narratives, too, the homiletic element is apt to intrude. Thus in the story of Joseph in xii, we find every now and then an aside introduced to make clear the intention of Allah in what happened. This homiletic element is also apt to intrude unduly into Qur'an mathals or parables. The best of these is the parable of the Blighted Garden in LXVIII; that of the Two Owners of Gardens is less clear and more didactic, xviii, 31-42. Others are little more than expanded similes, xiv, 29 ff., xvi, 77 f., XVIII, 43 f., xxx, 27, XXXIX, 30. That of the Unbelieving Town, xxxvI, 12 ff., is difficult to classify; it is perhaps a simile expanded into a story.

Similes.

—The Qur'an contains a good number of similes. These occur in all contexts. In descriptions of the Last Day, when the heavens are rolled up like a scroll, xxi, 104, when the people are like moths blown about, and the mountains are like carded wool, Ci, 3, 4, the similes are sometimes borrowed with the rest of the material, but the Prophet had at all stages of his career a gift of coining vivid and sometimes grimly humorous comparisons. Jews who have the Torah but do not profit by it are compared to an ass loaded with books, LXII, 5. Some who in the early days in Medinah made advances to Muhammad and then drew back are likened to those who have lit a fire which has then gone out and left them more bewildered in the darkness than ever, II, 16; cf. 18 f. Polytheists who imagine other gods besides Allah are like the spider weaving its own frail house, xxIx, 40. The works of unbelievers, from which they hope to benefit at the Judgment, are like ashes blown away by the wind, xIv, 21, or like a mirage which appears to be water, but, when one comes to it, turns out to be nothing, xxIv, 39. People who pray to gods other than Allah are like those who stretch out their hands to water, which, however, never reaches their mouth, xiii, 15; the prayer of unbelieving Quraish at the Ka'bah is only whistling and clapping of hands, Viii, 35. Lukewarm supporters, asked for their opinion and getting up to speak, no doubt hesitatingly, are compared to logs of wood propped up, LXIII, 4. For other comparisons, see II, 166, 263, 266, 267, m, 113, vii, 175, x, 25, XVIII, 43, LVII, 19, LXXIV, 51. Where the simile is complicated by an attempt at allegory, the result is not so happy, xxx, 27, xxxix, 30.

Metaphors.

—Metaphors are still more common. T. Sabbagh⁴ has collected well over four hundred metaphorical uses of words. Many of these, however, were, no doubt, already so much a matter of course as to be no longer felt as metaphorical. It is not easy to say how far the Qur'an added new metaphors to the language. The number of commercial terms transferred to the religious sphere is noteworthy.⁵ It is, of course, only what might be expected from Muhammad's upbringing, and his taking up his mission in a commercial town, but it did help to stamp its legalistic character upon Islam. The deeds of men are recorded in a book; the Judgment is the reckoning; each person receives his account; the balance is set up, and men's deeds are weighed; each soul is held in pledge for the deeds committed; if a man's actions are approved, he receives his reward, or his hire; to support the Prophet's cause is to lend to Allah. From Bedouin life come the designation of the delights of Paradise as nuzul, 'reception-feast', and the application of the verb dalla, 'to go astray', to those who follow false gods. The application of bodily functions to spiritual matters is almost unavoidable; thus unbelievers are deaf, unable to hear, blind, unable to see; they cannot discern the truth; they have veils over their hearts, heaviness in their ears; they are in darknesses. The revelation is guidance and light, and the function of a messenger is to lead people out of the darknesses into the light. Doubtful supporters are said to have disease in their hearts; after their conduct at Uhud they are dubbed munafiqin, 'jinkers', 'those who dodge back into their holes like mice'.

Borrowed Metaphors and Words.

—Many of these metaphors can be paralleled in Jewish and Christian literature. It must not, however, be too readily assumed that that is proof of their having been borrowed. Some of them are so obvious that they may quite well have been employed independently. Borrowed words, on the other hand, generally show their foreign origin by some peculiarity. That the Qur'an contains a number of words which are not native Arabic was, a little reluctantly, recognised by Moslem scholars, though, in their lack of knowledge of other languages, they often failed to elucidate their origin. Modern scholarship has devoted a good deal of attention to these words, and with wider knowledge of the languages and dialects prevailing in the Near East in pre-Islamic times has for the most part succeeded in tracing their source. Here again, however, we must be on our guard against assuming that every word of foreign origin used in the Qur'an was by that use introduced into Arabic. Apart from proper names, Dr. Jeffery⁶ has collected some 275 words which have been regarded as of foreign origin. The majority of these, however, can be shown to have been in use in Arabic in pre-Islamic times, and many of them had become regular Arabic words. Of only about 70 can we say that the use was new, or that they were used in new senses. Of these 70, half come from Christian languages, many from Syriac and a few from Ethiopic; some 25 come from Hebrew or Jewish-Aramaic; the rest, of little religious importance for the most part, come from Persian, Greek or unknown sources. It must, however, be remembered that between Syriac and Jewish-Aramaic the decision is often difficult, and the exact provenance of some of these words is still in dispute.

Language.

—That there occur unfamiliar words and words used in an unfamiliar sense is shown by the fact that explanations are sometimes added. But it is only natural to assume that the Qur'an was delivered in the language of the people so far as possible, and that even these borrowed words were already known to Muhammad's followers from their intercourse with Jews and Christians. As a matter of fact, the language of the Qur'an, so far as we can judge, is on the whole the classical Arabic language. We have seen that in assonance at the end of verses inflectional vowels were dropped and the feminine ending modified, as in colloquial speech. How far this was done in the middle of the verses, we have no means of knowing. For, as the Qur'an is now pointed and recited, these vowels and terminations are strictly exhibited and pronounced. This may be due to later revision and assimilation to the classical poetry, as Vollers⁷ argues, and many dialectical forms may have been removed in the process. A few irregular forms, which we may perhaps assume to be colloquial or dialectical, still remain, for example, yazzakka for yatazakka (LXXX, 3, 7) yadhdhakkaru for yatadhakkaru (it, 272, m, 5, LXXX, 4), iddaraka for tadaraka (vii, 36, xxvii, 68).

The style of the Qur'an is held to be unique and inimitable. It certainly is characteristic and unmistakable, in spite of its variations from surah to surah and from section to section.⁸ Its artistic, dramatic, pictorial, imaginative qualities have often been lost sight of in theological treatment of the Ijaz, 'the inimitability' of the Qur'an, but they have always exercised a spell upon the Moslem worshipper.

Notes

¹ See the story in Ibn Hisham, p. 882.

² A list of the chief asseverative passages may here be given: XXXVI, l ff., xxxvii, 1-4, xxxviii, 1, XLIII, 1, XLIV, 1 ff., L, I ff., LI, 1-6, LLL, 1-8, LIII, 1 ff., LVI, 74 ff., LXVIII, 1 ff., LXIX, 38-43, LXXIV, 35-40, LXXV, 1-6, LXXVII, 1-7, LXXIX, 1-14, LXXXI, 15-19, 22, 24, 25, 27, LXXXIV, 16-19, LXXXV, 1-7, LXXXVI, 1, 4, 11-14, LXXXIX, 1-4, xc, 1-4 ff., XCI, 1-10, xcii, 1-4 ff., XCIII, 1-3 ff., xcv. 1-5. c, 1-6, ciii, 1 f.

³ 'When'-passages, introduced by idha: LVI, 1-9 LXIX, 13-17), LXXIV, 8-10, LXXV, 7-12, 26-30, LXXVII,. 8-13, LXXIX, 34-41, LXXXI, 1-14, LXXXII, 1-5, LXXXIV, 1-6, xcix, 1-6 (cx, 1-3); introduced by yawma: LXX, 8-14, LXXVIII, 18-26, LXXX, 34-37 (ci, 3-6).

⁴ T. Sabbagh, La Metaphore dans le Coran.

⁵ C. C. Torrey, The Commercial-Theological Terms in the Koran.

⁶ Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an.

⁷ K. Vollers, Volkssprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien.

⁸ For the use of these as evidence of date, see Ch. VI.