The Revelation that had been made to the prophet Muhammad ﷺ was apropos to different circumstances. The context behind Revelation decides whether it should be superficial or need explanation. This might be why the same story in the Qur’an requires repetition in a unique and evocative way. Also, the Qur’an has been completely revealed in 23 years. This gradual process collectively reflects the exquisiteness and wisdom of the Qur’an. Qur’anic text is the main device used to perceive all kinds of denotations within it. So, we can delve into the text perspective of the Qur’an.
Texture¹ of the Qur’anic Text
The Qur’an has a rich linguistic legacy in its text. The literary work, the poetic and the prosaic essence, and one of the main attributes is its motif gives its prototype a linguistic and rhetorical texture. The structural arrangement of the Qur’anic verses is not as simple as an ordinary book. It mostly repeats the stories and some prominent verses throughout the Qur’an with different reiterations. Also, the chandelier, multi-tiered, and parallelistic structure of the Qur’an reflects its Semitic literary norms.
The Quranic texture constitutes the unobvious stylistic layer of the holy book that, imbued with certain phenomenological properties, specifically stimulates the faithful’s sensory and affective faculties. It thus turns the reception of God’s words into a fully lived “total experience”.²
Equivocacy in Reiteration and Locution
Polysemy refers to those words that have multiple related meanings. In the Qur’an, there are numerous polysemous words.³ The Arabic language has a rich legacy of rhetoric. From a linguistic perspective, we can perceive the various meanings of a single word in the Qur’an. For example, the word “Rab” has several meanings, such as Lord and Master; Sustainer, Provider, Supporter, Nourisher, and Guardian; and Sovereign, Ruler, He Who controls and directs. Similarly, the word “Deen” also has several meanings, including Islam as a complete way of life and the day of resurrection. There are ample words in the Qur’an which we can find as such, and the syntactic and grammatical features of the verse are crucial factors in identifying the intended meaning of the polysemous words in the Qurān.
The stories that are widely repeated in the Qur’an cover different perspectives of wisdom (Al-Hikmah) to explain the meaning of the same scenario. For instance, the narrative of the prophet Musaؑ in the surah A’araf is quite different from the explanation in surah Baqarah and surah Taha (There are superficial explanations of the circumstances of Bani-Israel in surah Baqarah i.e. about their tort and cruelty. In surah A’araf, the story begins with the scene when Prophet Musaؑ went to the Pharaoh and elucidates the whole scenario ranging from conversations to the drowning of Pharaoh). The perspectives of the explanations are the same but the nature of the explanation puts great emphasis on the multi-tiered structure. At some settings, there is only an outline of the story in the Qur’an but at some sites, the explanations lay a flawless perspective as per the prophetic paradigm. Also, the context, reasons for revelation, and perception of the verses influence the polysemy.
Also, “The Quran speaks of death and resurrection, of the end of this world, and of the world to come more than any other major scripture, and it does so in a remarkably explicit and evocative manner”.⁴
Conclusion
Due to the polysemy in the Qur’anic text, we could see the different interpretations of the Qur’an. We should delve into the different perspectives of the Qur’anic interpretation. The polysemy of the Qur’anic exegesis creates a wide space for diving and thinking, and that might be one of the reasons for the Qur’an to be eternal.
References
- The term has been used in the article.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/7/827#metrics
- Gonzalez, V. (2023). Phenomenology of Quranic Corporeality and Affect: A concrete sense of being Muslim in the world. Religions, 14(7), 827. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070827
- (PDF) TRANSLATING POLYSEMY IN THE HOLY QURĀN INTO ENGLISH. (2017, August 2). ResearchGate. Retrieved October 16, 2024, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318849076_TRANSLATING_POLYSEMY_IN_THE_HOLY_QURAN_INTO_ENGLISH
- Günther, S. (2017). The poetics of Islamic eschatology: Narrative, personification, and colors in Muslim discourse. In Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam (2 vols.) (pp. 181-217). Brill.
