The Process of Coherence between the Conceptual Metaphors of the Holy Quran

Order and coherence in the Holy Qur'an have long been considered by many thinkers in the Islamic world, and theories such as "Theory of Order" and "Theory of Thematic Unity of the Qur'an" have been developed in this regard. Even today, based on the theory of textual coherence, in the methodological studies of the text, we can examine the factors that connect the components of the text and cause its coherence and coordination. Accordingly, in the present article, the relationship between the metaphorical expressions of the Qur'an based on the theory of conceptual metaphor was examined and the cognitive analysis of the conceptual metaphors of distance, size and motion, three types of coherence: coherence under one macro metaphor, coherence between several aspects of a concept. Individual and combined coherence showed metaphors. Then, based on the theory of text coherence, it was found that these metaphors, as cohesive nodes, represent a kind of semantic connection between the components of the text that protects them from disruption, inconsistency in the subject. The overlap between the goals of the metaphors showed how the metaphorical language of the Qur'an has integrated all its concepts and ideas in the direction of its main goal. This metaphorical coherence extends the continuity of the verses from the scope of the suras to the whole text and expresses the literary miracle of the text from a new angle.