فصلنامه پژوهش های ادبی - قرآنی
سال نهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 34، تابستان 1400)

In surahs of the Holy Qur’an, there is an interplay between meaning and the means of expression. One example of this can be seen in Surah Ash-Shams. This short surah with a beautiful rhyme and music, and with numerous oaths to the most beautiful elements of nature and to the human soul, and the oath to the creator of these phenomena and by using rhetorical and literary interpretations has tried to reflect the beauty of self-purification. The present article aims to articulate the relationship between rhetoric and self-purification, which is the theme of this surah. Among the findings of this research are the existence of verb-initial sentences and the predominance of the transitive verbs in this surah and the (in)definiteness of some elements of the oath and the succession of oaths in order to convey the meaning of self-purification. The long syllables at the beginning of the ayahs and the repetition of the vowel (ا) and the type of rhyme and inner music of this surah have made the role of rhetoric and literality in conveying this theme more colorful. These findings indicate that the sub-branches of rhetoric are in line with the theme of the surah. Considering the question of the role of rhetoric in conveying the meaning of self-purification in this surah, the present descriptive and analytical study intended to prove this reality by relying on the text of this surah and by extracting examples and evidences depict the interaction of rhetoric and music in the transmission of meaning.

In recent times, a lot of research has been done on the human mind and language and its various functions in the Holy Qur’an. In addition, the theory of image schema is one of the most important conceptual constructs in cognitive semantics that is closely related to the human mind and language. In the Holy Qur’an, many abstract concepts are expressed in the form of a set of objective concepts based on image schemata. Such a function in the metaphorical structure of the ayahs allows the understanding of abstract phenomena of the Qur’anic teachings through the metaphorical adaptation of physical phenomena of a perceptible nature. According to Johnson, our experiences of the outside world create constructs in our minds that we transmit into our own language. In fact, image schema is a kind of conceptual construct that man builds based on his physical experiences in the outside world. These objective experiences enable humans to understand other concepts in more abstract areas such as language. The present study with an analytical-descriptive method aimed to identify the image schemata in Surah Yusuf, which help understand meanings and concepts, and to determine their frequency. In other words, the authors sought to semantically decode Surah Yusuf by using image schemata as the most important concept of cognitive linguistics. The findings show that the schemata of Surah Yusuf are based on three spatial, transformational, and force axes, with force schema being the most frequent.

Allusion is one of the oldest and most widely used rhetorical devices, which because of, among others, compactness and linguistic brevity, the inclusion of a part of an absent text in a present text and the prominent role of the audience in merging and receiving this textual interference, has attracted the attention of poets in all periods and has added to the semantic richness and beauty of poetry. This literary device has been used in the poems of contemporary poets in more complex ways and with more variety of form and content, the analysis of which requires more detailed studies taking new approaches. On the other hand, Qur’anic stories are among the first texts that classical and contemporary Persian poets refer to in their allusions. Accordingly, in this study, the narrative-Qur’anic allusions in Fazel Nazari poetry were studied placing emphasis on the structural and formal diversity of his allusions to identify the most frequent narrative allusions as well as the methods and techniques using which he has employed the narrative allusions of the Qur’an in his poetry. A descriptive-analytical study of all six poetry books of Nazari showed that in terms of content, the stories of Adam (AS) and Yusuf (AS) are the most frequent Qur’anic allusions in his sonnets. Furthermore, structurally speaking, there are all kinds of combinational, multimodal, echoic, ironic, etc. allusions in his poems, which indicates the variety of applications and the complexities and artistic delicacies of this device in the poems of this poet.

In conditional modes, the condition must be compatible with the result. In other words, the condition must be a condition for the result, that is to say, the first should be the introduction to the second, such as the relation of the introduction with the result, or a causal relationship. However, in the Holy Qur’an, there are instances where apparently the conditions do not entail the results, which require examination and explanation. Some scholars believe that in conditional sentences the occurrence of the result hinges on the occurrence of a conditional verb and sometimes the conditional modes deviate from this rule so that the result is not caused by the conditional verb. In this article, we tried to show that there is a proportion between the condition and the result, and the result is caused by the conditional verb. In the Qur'anic ayahs where the conditional verb does not cause the result, the result might have been implied, or that such ayahs need to be analyzed more meticulously. The findings indicate that there should necessarily be some relation between the condition and the result in conditional modes and the view held by some syntacticians that sometimes the condition deviate from this rule disregards semantics. In the Qur’anic ayahs that the conditional verb is not seemingly the cause of the result, the result might be implicit and deliberately deleted for the sake of brevity and in some sentential ayahs that the conditional verb is in the position of the result, the sentence is causative.

The divine word as a text that has been presented to its audience in the process of conveying the meaning takes diverse forms depending on situational and textual contexts as well as the addressees. The condition of the receiver of messages in Madani surahs is different from that of Makki surahs. A difference that has made distinction in meanings. That said, it is possible to scientifically illuminate this distinction using new linguistic approaches. According to Jakobson’s communication theory, when the concentration of the discourse is on each one of its elements, it finds a different function. The present study aimed at comprehending the themes of ayahs from an addressing viewpoint. Considering the language functions based on Jakobson's model and with the aim of opening up a new horizon for the reception and comprehension of the Holy Qur’an and the distinction between Makki and Madani surahs, the question of the present descriptive-analytical article concerned the effect of difference in the audience and context on language functions and addressing direction. Therefore, the difference in the audience and receiver and their impact on the linguistic function of message were examined. To this end, surahs Maryam and Ṭā ḥā as Makki surahs with a clear mutual interaction in their text, and surahs Al-Nur and Al-Ahzab as Madani surahs were purposefully selected as the corpus of the study and for the explication of different types of address in a comparative manner. Given the instructional and informational feature of the persuasive function of the language, the application of this function as compared with other ones is prevalent in the Holy Qur’an particularly in Madani ayahs. The message being directed towards the subject with the characteristic of verifiability and falsifiability of the truth of the expressions, that is, the referential function of language, was another widely used role among the ayahs in question. Much of the address in these surahs are indirect sermons for the servants, and God conveys the message to all the audience through the words of His prophets.

Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) is a functional-structural theory in which syntactic structures are combined with semantic structures but the core part is the semantic structure. This paper aimed to analyze and describe different types of static structures in Arabic within the RRG and by using examples from the Holy Qur’an. Therefore, the data of this descriptive-analytic study was gathered from native speakers of Arabic and the text of the Holy Qur’an. First, different types of static structures in Arabic were explained using the evidence of the ayahs of the Holy Qur’an. Then, employing the means available in this grammar, that is, Van Valin and Lapolla's (1997) verb classification tests, static structures were determined. The results demonstrated that static structures in Arabic are divided into the following nine categories: attributives, possessives, defective verbs, emotive verbs, modal verbs, verbs to express wishes and hopes, exclamatory verbs, and verbs for praise or dispraise. Furthermore, it was found that out of the five tests in RRG, four have the required efficiency for identifying static structures. In other words, except for the test of progressive structure, other four tests including the application of adverbs related to the force of the action, application of adverbs having to do with speed, accompanying the adverb, e.g. for an hour, and accompanying the adverbs of time are efficient in Arabic.

Using theories from modern linguistics that in recent years have paved the ground for novel insights into analyzing literary texts, which have recently found much application in comprehending and interpreting Qur’anic ayahs, the present paper analyzed the degree of textual coherence in surahs Ad-Dhuha and Ash-Sharh. Additionally, this analytical-descriptive study employed the three ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions in Halliday's functionalist theory in order to find an answer to the question of the extent of tenability of the view held by some exegetes regarding the sameness of these two surahs. The findings show that the unity and integrity of the two surahs, which successively and with a consoling tone refer to the material and spiritual blessings as well as the divine grace bestowed on the Prophet, together with the integrated extra-textual references clearly indicate the unity of the texts of both surahs and confirms the opinion of many exegetes who have considered the two surahs of Ad-Dhuha and Ash-Sharh, as one surah.