The Quantity-Orientation trace in Noldeke's theory of descending order

Noldeke’s theory of “descending order” is one of the most important views among Orientalists and his own, which, due to being detailed and having influence on other Orientalists’ Quranic studies, has ascended to a special position in the field of Qur’anic studies. However, among the scientific endeavors about Noldeke’s views and his theories, there is no writing that surveys and criticizes his method. Because of the importance of this theory and lack of researches regarding the pathology of it, the present paper aims to identify one of its methodological characteristics, i.e. “the extreme use of the length of the verse in discovering the order of descending”, then by tracking it through symmetrizing and collecting signs, it would find the causes and factors of this method of using the length of the verse. In this descriptive-analytic essay two factors of Noldeke’s Quantity-Orientation basis and being affected by German scientific discourse in the 19th and 20th centuries, are introduced as main causes of the extreme use of the length of the verse. As the intellectual principle of Quantity-Orientation leads the studies to quantitative and numerical elements such as the length of the verse, and the scientific discourse undoubtedly will have its effect on the trend of science