فصلنامه پژوهش های ادبی - قرآنی
سال نهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 36، زمستان 1400)

Semiotics is a science that deals with the analysis of linguistic signs and codes in literary texts in order to reach a new reading by recognizing their hidden meanings and discovering hidden layers. The Holy Qur’an, which is the most important source of Islamic education, requires the extraction of educational principles based on new educational issues, and for its specialized educational interpretation, the semantic layers of its signs must be studied. One of the significant educational approaches of the Qur’an is using persuasion, encouragement, intimidation and threats to attract the attention of the audience. The semiotics of codes of encouragement and threats, as the most used educational methods in the Holy Qur’an, are thus very important. The current research, using a descriptive-analytical method and based on library sources, has investigated the semiotics of encouragement and threats in Surah Al Qalam to explain its educational approach. In this surah, cultural, hermeneutic, and symbolic codes are used to express the reasons for the Asbab al-Nuzul (occasions or circumstances of revelation) and resilience of the Prophet against the persecution and harassment of the polytheists as well as the comparison of the virtues of the Messenger of God (PBUH) against the vices of the polytheists, in line with the education of the inviter by means of encouragement. Also, to punish the opponents, threats are used in order to calm the heart of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and to steady his steps in the path of calling to Islam.

One of the theories about the Holy Qur’an is the theory of Michel Cuypers. He believes that by using Semitic rhetoric and symmetrical and reverse orders, he has taken a new approach to the the Qur’anic text. Using the Semitic rhetoric, he divides the text into different levels, then presents and studies different forms of symmetry consisting of synonymous parallel, antonymous parallel, evolutionary parallel, order-based or circular composition, reverse order or mirror-like composition by means of the writing indicators of proximity, binarism, synonymy, antonymy, similarity, tautology, consonance, syntactic similarities, and the use of same syntactic structures. This article aimed to study the rules of Semitic rhetoric presented by Cuypers with the method of applying these rules in Sura As-Saf. Following an explanation of the above-mentioned theory, its comprehensiveness and function was analyzed. It was found that the rules of Semitic rhetoric in this surah are applicable at the level of maqta', the chain, but at the level of articulation, branch, qism, and juz', they are not applicable in a number of ayahs.

One of the rhetorical methods is the use of allegory. The Holy Qur’an has used a lot of allegories. The allegory of the spider is one of the most famous, simple, and tangible Qur’anic allegories for reasoning and persuasion. In the Holy Qur’an, the actions of those who rely on others (including the idols) but God are compared to a spider's web, which is the weakest house. The allegory of the spider's house has had many reflections in Persian literature as well, and Persian orators have used this Qur’anic allegory a lot and used it in various ways in creating rhetorical images. In this article, which aims to familiarize the readers with the reflection of this allegory in Persian literature and to understand how poets use it, we have analyzed more than forty literary works and the role of spider in them. In this analysis, the research data has been categorized according to the main function, and the use of spiders in symbolic roles, as vehicles, and their presence in popular culture and astronomy have been investigated. The result of the research shows that poets have used the simile of a spider's web or the name of a spider in praise, description, advice, and description of people, animals, and various situations. The spider has both positive and negative aspects in the language of poets and orators. On the positive side, the spider is the vehicle for and a symbol of concealment, striving for sustenance, an example of a weak creature that eats food, content and aloof, and is likened to love. From a negative point of view, the spider is a symbol of laziness and weakness, being inferior in achieving one's purpose, the embodiment of this world and its belongings, a deceitful and tyrannical creature, and a symbol of desire and greed. Poets have also used the name and appearance of the spider in the illustration and considered it like the sun and broken glass and believed that it is an example to analogize different moods of humans, and the cause of learning a lesson and avoiding arrogance. In popular culture, there are also beliefs about spiders and their webs in Iran and other nations.

Deconstruction manifests itself in various forms: sometimes it is a philosophical position, sometimes it is a political and intellectual strategy, and sometimes it is a way of reading, but in general it can be examined from two angles: 1- deconstruction as a tool for textual analysis which separates the basic elements of a structure from each other in order to discover the relationships of these elements and to identify the contradictions and strengths and weaknesses of that structure, in a pyramidal manner and from whole to part. 2- deconstruction as a critical school and a philosophical and ideological current in response to structuralism. From Derrida's point of view, this critical-philosophical current is a constant exploration of the context of the text and hesitation and separation in all meanings, especially the meaning of truth, which derives its origin from Logos, and reveals contradiction, relativism, plurality, multiplicity of meanings, and the complete openness of the text to all possibilities and meanings, and accordingly, by emptying the text of external components such as context, author, history, etc., it removes any boundaries, sacredness, and stability from the text and ignores dualities and fixed principles and its truth. This method of reading the text, despite its fundamental and wide differences in origin with the cultural context and special conditions of Islamic societies, is used by some Islamic thinkers in reading Islamic texts. The present article, using descriptive-analytical method, employs an epistemological approach, in addition to the methodology of deconstruction reading and its philosophical and linguistic foundations, deals with the important issue of unbridling the relationship between the signifier and the signified, creates a great challenge in the field of Qur’anic text (here Surah Tawhid) which is due to the stark difference between two types of worldviews. Deconstruction is a human ideology that is not in harmony with the centralism and absolutism of monotheism, but is exactly the opposite of monotheistic and religious thought. Thus, contrary to the deconstructionist view that the value of "writing" takes precedence over "speech" and the death of the author and the multiplicity of meanings, in the text of the Holy Qur’an, as both the divine "book" and "word", rather than observing the multiplicity of meaning, we see the depth, breadth, and layers of meaning that are expressed through a specific and deliberate system, and in contrast to the precedence of "absence" in deconstruction, "presence" and "absence" in the centralist text of the Qur’an are simultaneously and proportionate to readers' level of perception noticeable.

Optimality theory is a fundamental constraint approach in the field of modern linguistics that was proposed in 1993 by Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky. Based on this theory, linguistic forms originate from the interaction between mutual and opposite restrictions that are the yardstick to distinguish the output arising from the original input. In this descriptive-analytical research, conformity of the criteria of optimality theory in documentary issues of some ayahs of Surah Al-Fatihah and Surah al- Baqarah centering on the book Maani al-Qur’an by Fara was analyzed. The results indicate that Qur’anic readings as well-founded and reference texts enjoy optimality at the level of lexical usage and representation. However, in accordance with common syntactic criteria, they have different levels of optimality. In examining the evidence of these two surahs, it became clear that the limitations of the reliability are observed and the marked infrangible limitation of fatal violations (*!) rarely occur. Also, most violations of restrictions are located at the places of non-fatal infrangible marked restrictions (*) and optimal outputs from the point of view of Fara are the outputs that justify the marfū reading of the evidence (shāhīd) of the ayah, which is influenced by Fara's tendency for marfū diacritic and his approach to the agency of the subject when it is used in the marfū form. Therefore, in predicative formations, he is more likely to use implicitation, deletion, and interpretation of the predicate. The non-fatal marked limitation of deletion and implicitation show the highest number of violations among the evidences of the ayahs.

The twenty-third ayah of Surah Ash Shura, known as the ayah of Mavaddat (amity or friendship), in its middle part, asks the audience to show attachment to their relatives and friends. In the interpretation of this part of the ayah, various views have been proposed but the dominant one is narrative and extratextual. And there are few cases referring to intratextual clues. This fact encouraged the authors to evaluate the ability of the text in providing such clues. As a result of the investigation of this element, according to the opinion of the theologian's norm-evading action in establishing the relationship between the two categories of mavaddat and qurba (relatives and friends), by using the preposition fi’, it may be able to play a part as an intratextual clue. Therefore, the present article was organized by referring to library sources and using a descriptive-analytical method with the aim of investigating the consequences that this comparison brings to the phrase in terms of semantic load. Since it was necessary to know the meaning of the preposition fi’ in order to understand the meaning of this comparison, a cognitive model was used. The model provides a more expressive explanation of conceptual structures due to the clarification of their empirical bases. By studying the cognitive model and how it is used in the semantics of the preposition fi’, this hypothesis gradually gained strength in the mind that considering the functional capabilities that the cognitive schemata recognizes about the meaning of this preposition,   the view of showing attachment to the Imams can be presented as a point of view with intratextual relatability. Thus, in this article, we tried to propose and strengthen this hypothesis that if the theologian was trying to express affection to the Imams, he would most likely have used an interpretation similar to the phrase of the same ayah, "Al-Mavaddata fi’ Al-Qurba" in formulating his intention.