فصلنامه پژوهش های ادبی - قرآنی
سال هشتم شماره 4 (پیاپی 32، زمستان 1399)

Proper realization of the surah structure is a key component in the constant understanding of the atmosphere of ayahs in the semantic system of the Holy Qur’an. Each surah's beginning and ending, as its main components, have significant relationships with other concepts used in the text. The wise proportionality of these two parts is indicative of a sage and prudent Creator. Therefore, this study aimed to discover and extract the connections between the opening and closing of surahs, which leads to a more coherent and comprehensive understanding of their main structures. To this end, it was an attempt to present a model adapted from the Holy Qur’an based on structuralism to respond to the question of how it is possible to understand the harmonic and systemic nature of the surah structure by examining the main elements of its beginning and ending. Therefore, it adopted a new approach by depicting the cohesive relation between the elements of a surah through ideation from fractal geometry whose important feature, highlighting the meaningful repetition of the same components, is concordant in creating the main structure of a design. It thus analyzed the structural links between the beginning and ending of Surah Ar-Rum relying on this model. The use of intra- and inter- componential lexical-semantic evidence leads to a cohesive reading of the concepts of the surah. The features of the two groups of believers and infidels concerning liqā'-Allāh (meeting God), mentioning the components of patience, persistence in the path of faith, jihad and servitude along with the concept of divine command in the inward and outward of existence, and explaining real and conventional relations constitute the conceptual chain connecting the beginning and ending parts, around which this surah is formed.

In some anecdotes, Saadi himself has clarified the existence of a different level of meaning by telling stories and interpreting them. However, there are also anecdotes that can be considered to have another level of possible meaning, which can be found via interpretation. The story of "the Pious and the King" from the second chapter of Saadi's Golestan has signs of such stories in terms of characters, speeches, actions and events. This descriptive-analytical research concerned answering the questions of the meaning of the unusual actions of the characters and how the understanding of the hidden meaning becomes possible through the works having the same horizon of expectation. In this study, the hermeneutics and specifically the "hermeneutic cycle" as well as the theory of intertextuality were used. In other words, through the grid of Qur’anic signs and texts that overlap with Saadi's "mental horizon" and has emphasized common concepts through simile or description, as well as Saadi's own interpretations of other stories, another level of meaning of the text was specified. The findings show that at its deeper level, this story suggests the relationship between man and the devil, who seeks to mislead humans with various tricks. Saadi's anecdote seems to be an extension of ayah 64 of Surah Al-Isra as is the case with the order of the ayah.

Formalistic analysis is one of the new methods in studying a text by examining the characteristics of the text in phonetic, lexical and syntactic layers, which leads to the discovery of the main topic and the worldview dominant in the text. It can be said that formalist analysis in the lexical layer of Qur’anic surahs is a way to discover the relation between the form and content of the surah and an approach to discover the main topic of the surah. The current study, as a formalistic analysis of the lexical layer of Surah Al-Aḥzāb, aimed to answer the question of what the main topic of SurahAl-Aḥzāb is and how the words used in this surah relate to the main topic. In order to discover the main topic, the contexts of this surah, and the key ayahs and words in each of them were examined. Moreover, in the lexical layer, the characteristics of the words used in the text and their connection with the main topic of this surah were explored. The findings show that obedience is the main topic of SurahAl-Aḥzāb and it was found that the meaningful use of other key words such as piety, covenant, Ahl al-Bayt, Yaʿṣi and Sallimū confirms and strengthens the main topic.

Polysemy has had a special place among translators and interpreters from the far past. Analyzing semantic relations, including polysemy, is also important among linguists. Understanding the Qur’an requires understanding its various components. If the semantic relations of Qur’anic concepts are ignored, the understanding of the Qur’an will be incomplete because of being linear and partial. But understanding the semantic relations of the Qur’an based on radial networks and Qur’anic phenomena and concepts provides readers of the Qur’an with a holistic and process-like understanding. The present study aimed to study the radial network of the word "Qara'a" in all surahs taking a social cognitive approach. As a result, the usage of the radial meanings and the prototypical meaning of the aforementioned word were examined in two translations of the Qur’an by Fooladvand and Elahi Ghomshei. To this end, first, different meanings of Qara'a in three important dictionaries namely Farhang Abjadi Alefbaee Arabi Farsi, the Full Translation of Almonjad Alabjadi, Ghamous-e Qur’an, and Tarjomeh Va Tahghigh-e Mofradat Alfaz-e Qur’an Ba Tafsire Loghavi Va Adabi Qur’an, were obtained. In the next step to determine the radial meanings and the prototypical meaning of the word under study, Tyler and Evans (2003)’s criteria including confirmation of meaning, predominance in meaning network, being used in combined constructions, and grammatical prediction were used. In the final stage, how radial meanings are derived from the prototypical meaning was explained. The analysis showed that devices such as metaphorical expansion and image schema play the main role in expanding the prototypical meaning of the word "Qara'a". Meanwhile, metaphorical expansion plays the main role in expanding the prototypical meaning. Additionally, it was found that variation in finding equivalents for the word "Qara'a" based on the radial meanings and the prototypical meaning is very low and restricted.

Storytelling and methods of narration in the Holy Qur’an help readers to better understand the themes and concepts intended to be conveyed by God. Qur’anic stories have been narrated in different ways. The story of Prophet Musa (AS) has not only been narrated more often than the story of other prophets, but has been narrated for different reasons and in different narrative structures. The narrative of the story of Prophet Musa (AS) in Surah Ṭā Hā is one of the most different Qur’anic narratives. In fiction, there are different structures including classical, modern, postmodern, stream of consciousness, and so on. Modern narrative is one of the most important structures that became popular after the advent of modernity, especially in twentieth century fiction. Given that this method of narration is based on the philosophical and social principles of modern human society, it does not follow traditional and classical rules. Some of the most important elements of modern narrative are the presence of more than one narrator, multiple points of view, character-centeredness, and the ambiguity or relativity of time, place, and causality. The present study, done using a descriptive-analytical method and by studying library documents, tries to answer the question that what the narrative of the story of Prophet Musa (AS) in Surah Ṭā Hā is like. It seems that the narrative of the story of Musa (AS) in Surah Ṭā Hā is modernist. This research thus attempted to prove this hypothesis by analyzing the structure of the narrative in this story.

One of the literary structures of the Qur’an is the phrase Mā Adrākawhich was used in the age of revelation and the people of that time were familiar with its functions. It was not much common later, however. One of the miraculous aspects of the Qur’an is its verbal aspect and Mā Adrākaisa structure serving several important rhetorical functions in the Qur’an. Therefore, explaining the meaning of this structure, mentioned only in Makki ayahs of the Qur’an thirteen times, shows the importance of this research. This study, with an analytical-descriptive method, examines Mā Adrāka and its Qur’anic frequency, as well as the views of exegetes on various dimensions of such ayahs, including whether it is addressed to the Prophet (PBUH) or to mankind in general, etc. Exegetes consider it as a literary term specific to the Qur’an used to attract the attention of the listener, to magnify the topic or event, when expressing very important topics and emphasizing them, such as Resurrection and the Qadr Night. It is one of the signs of the literary miracle of the Qur’an, which has used the best Arabic rhetorical methods according to its goals.

Cognitive linguistics is a science that offers the possibility of new analyses of the various dimensions of linguistic activities and their close relationship with human thought, and its entry into the field of interpretation and semantics of the Qur’an has created an evolution in the understanding of Qur’anic texts. One of the branches of cognitive linguistics is cognitive semantics which is based on the relationship between language and mind and which considers metaphors as conceptual metaphors. In view of the metaphorical nature of the Qur’an, to acquire religious knowledge and reach Islamic worldview, it should be known that the metaphors of the Qur’an follow a special conceptual structure in identifying the ontological and epistemological teachings of human thought, and the Holy Qur’an, using this metaphorical nature, connects various fields and worlds based on which Qur’anic worldviews are formed. Therefore, applying the conceptual metaphor approach in understanding Qur’anic concepts can be important and effective. Using a descriptive-analytical approach, the present study aimed to examine the name-mappings of the life in life in the Hereafter in the Holy Qur’an using the conceptual metaphor theory first proposed by Lakoff and Johnson. By using conceptual metaphors in the interpretation of the life in the Hereafter, the Qur’an creates a great revolution in the knowledge of the world after death. The findings of this study in the form of recognizing the conceptual metaphors of the life in the Hereafter in the Qur’an, by transferring from tangible and recognizable spaces to mental and unfamiliar spaces, open new windows of systematic structure and intertwined networks of Qur’anic epistemological concepts on researchers of the Qur’an.