Analysis of the Process of Meaning Production in Surah AlMulk (With an Emphasis on the Structuralist Approach)

A structural analysis, along with an assessment of the inherent levels of textual permanence, enables the possibility of attaining a new interpretation based on the system governing the text. This branch of analysis can provide a special position for Quranic studies alongside other linguistic knowledge. The structural examination of the chapters of the Quran and its explanation based on structural dualities of co-occurrence and substitution is the subject of the present research. Therefore, the authors seek to uncover the semantic conflicts in the text and its relationships in the verses based on substitution and co-occurrence using a descriptive-analytical method and theoretical concepts of Ferdinand de Saussure. The investigations indicate that in this chapter, linguistic and semantic elements have been interconnected in a linear chain and replaced, leading to coherence, continuity, diversity, and expansion of meaning in various dimensions of the chapter "Al-Mulk." The major conflict in this chapter is between the omnipotent creator and the owned creation, within which other conflicts such as between rebellious disbelievers and obedient believers, and the characteristics and attributes of each, the conflict between the powerful deity and the powerless deity, and also subsidiary conflicts such as the conflict between death and life, heaven and earth are found at lower levels. The fourfold semantic axes of the chapter are represented in various linguistic forms and levels, including continuity of meaning, novelty and imagery, the style of restriction, rhetorical interrogation, repetition, and so on.