An Analysis of the Narrative Organization of the Story of the Prophet Musa in Surah Al-Araf

In recent approaches to language, the essential aim of language studies is to describe communication via communicative events at different levels of language including text. The Quranic language has been studied from different perspectives and at some language levels. Yet, the study of Quranic text organization within recent linguistics theories has been ignored. This paper attempts to investigate the narrative organization of the story of the Prophet Musa (PBUH) in Surah Al-Araf based on Hoey's (2001) problem-solution pattern. Three main problems as the elements of this story are Pharaoh's tyranny and infidelity, Musa's reaching certainty from the heart, the disobedience and idolatry of Bani Israil. In this narrative, different responses are proposed to the first problem by the Almighty Allah and the Prophet Musa, some of which are positively evaluated though have negative results. The final plan to resolve the problem, after a rather long cycle, is to kill Pharaoh and his followers, which is performed successfully. The result of this plan is positive and can be supposed as the solution. The second problem, which does not experience a long cycle, is successfully resolved only by two responses. However, in resolving the third problem, unsuccessful responses are proposed, which are negatively evaluated and end in some positive and some negative results. This problem is followed by other problems, some of which remain unresolved or as the consequences of the character's deeds. The results show that although Hoey's (2001) problem-solution pattern can predict the text organization, but in some stories like religious narratives the problem is not definitely resolved.