I’jaz al-Qur’ān al-Karim (An Evaluation of Historical Discourse and Dimensions)

Abstract

This paper aims at an evaluation of various approaches to define and redefine the classical theory of the I‘jaz (the inimitability of the Qur’ān) in the perspective of the challenges and problems faced by the Muslim society emphasising a need to cope with the rational thinking, modernity, scientific progress, psychological advancement and civilizational development, though there has been a comparatively lesser description of the rhetoricism of the Qur’ān too. It provides an account of scholarship exploring some novel dimensions of the matchlessness of the Qur’ān in the contemporaneous context. They have justified rationally and psychologically the Qur’ānic historic challenge of producing a book or its some surahs or few verses similar to the Qur’ān that has offered the irresistible call to the whole mankind: “Say: “If the whole of mankind and Jinns were to gather together to produce the like of this Qur’ān, they could not produce the like thereof, even if they backed up each other with help and support”. (Al-Isra 17: 88) The same challenge occurs in the Qur’ān on three previous occasions (Al-Baqarah, 2: 23-24; Yunus 10: 38, and Hūd 11:13) and later also in al-Tūr (52: 33-34). The content of all the verses referred to above is in response to the allegation of the unbelievers that the Qur’ān had been composed by the Prophet (peace be on him) and then falsely ascribed to God. All this was refuted. This refutation of the Qur’ān was logically established by the modern Arabic scholars through their sound arguments.