Those who attempted
to take up the challenge of the Quran
A Brief History Of People Who
Attemped To Take Up The Qur'ānic Challenge
Ibn Al-Mukaffa': In the
Encyclopedia Of Islam we see that:
One highly individual aspect of the
spiritual interests of this
[i.e., Ibn al-Mukaffa']
writer is finally revealed by the fragments (if they are
authentic, as we believe) of a religious work, a Manichaean
apologia, preserved in the refutation made a century later by
Zaydi Imam al Qasim b. Ibrahim, in a treatise published by M Guidi.
We are already familiar with the charges brought against Ibn al-Mukaffa'
of having attemped to make an "imitation" of the sacred book of
Islam: The work refuted by al-Qasim appears rather in our view, to
be an attack on Muhammad, the Kuran and Islam in the name of
another faith, namely the Manichaean faith which several of the
friends of Ibn al-Mukaffa' had adopted and of which the writer
himself was suspected.[1]
The reference 2 gives a brief review
of his work:
The prominent Arabic prose writer
of Iranian descent who was cruelly put to death in 139/756, is
said to have tried to imitate the Qur'ān at the behest of the
group of heretics, but he had to abandon this endeavour because it
proved too difficult. This is of course a legend. But Ibn al-Mukaffa'
did compose a polemic in which he took issue with Islam, and
especially with the Qur'ān from a Manichaean standpoint. Fragments
of this polemic have come down to us in a refuation written by
Zaydi Imam, al-Qasim b. Ibrahim (d. 246/860). The first four words
of this polemic - and they alone - are obviously modelled on the
first our words of the Qur'ān. They read: "In the name of
Compassionate and Merciful light - a Manichaean variation of the
familiar Islamic basmalah which must strike any Muslim as
blasphemy.[2]
Now does that strike any of us as
copying from the Qur'ān or producing a better verse than that of the
Qur'ān?
and to complete the thoughts on Ibn
al-Mukaffa':
It is possible that the celebrated
Iranian convert, the great stylist Ibn al-Mukaffa', actually try
his hand at such a mu'arada, but found it impossible to complete
his task - a fate shared by some other writers to whom tradition
imputes the same ambition.[3]
On Ibn al-Mukaffa''s attempt to match
the Qur'ān, we read:
When Ibn al-Muqaffa' arrived at the
passage Sura 11:42-46 he realized that it was impossible for any
human being to equal the book. So, he desisted from his mu'arada
and tore up what he had done.[4]
Musaylimah: During the time of
Prophet Muhammad(P)
there arose a man called Musaylimah who started claiming the
Prophethood. So, he also started saying "revelatory pronouncements".
His revelatory pronouncements resembled:
The form of these sayings
correspond to a large extent with that of the earliest surahs, and
they are in part prefaced by strange oaths, just like the surahs.
It is however questionable whether Musaylimah was in fact the
source of any of these sayings. Perhaps they were all invented at
a later date and ascribed to him as a clumsy imitator of Muhammad.
One of the sayings is modelled in a particularly obvious fashion
on the mode of expression of the Qur'ān. it runs:
"The elephant. What is the
elephant? And who shall tell you what is the elephant? He has a
ropy tail and a long trunk. this is a [mere] trifle of our Lord's
creations."[5]
Concerning the style of his speech:
He followed the kahin style
of rhymed prose, and of the pronouncing of oaths. One such,
swearing by mountain goat, the black smooth-skinned wolf and dark
night are suggestive of animals symbolic of the pagan gods.[6]
And
When Musaylimah met the Prophetess
Sajah they parleyed in rhymed prose, Musaylimah being credited
with the use of "Islamic" turns of phrase such as 'Alay-na min
salawati ma'shari abrar, ... yaqumuna 'l-layla wa-yasumuna 'l-nahar,
li-rabbi-kumu'l-kubbar, rabbi 'l-ghuyumi wa 'l-amtar (Upon us
are the blessings from a company of dutful men ... The night they
spend in vigil; during the day they fast for your great Lord, Lord
of the cloud and rains).[7]
Al-Baqillanī, who systematically
analyzed the poetry of Musaylimah (apart from Imru' al-Qais and
others) has been quoted:
The pieces reported to have been
composed by Musaylimah are so ridiculously poor in style that
nobody could seriously compare them with the Qur'ān.[8]
Abu'l-'Ala Al-Marri: According
to cAlī Dashti:
It is widely held that the blind
Syrian poet Abu'l-'Ala ol-Ma'arri wrote his Ketab ol-Fosul
wa'l-Ghayat, of which part survives, in imitation of the
Qor'an.[9]
This statement is an unfinished
thought. If we look at Rudy Peret's article, we see that:
It was also reported of a sceptic
and writer of the 5th/11th century, the blind Abu'l-'Ala' al-Ma'arri
who died in 449/1057, that he tried to produce the imitation of
the Qur'ān. The accusation refers to his compendious work al-Fusul
wa-'l-Ghayat, only the first seventh of which has survived, a
supreme example of the art of poetry and rhyme that was based on
the classical Arabic literary language, and of which the author
was the master. It is written in elaborate rhyming prose, and
individual sections of stanzas occasionally open with archiac
oaths such as: "I swear by him who created horses and the
yellowish white [camels] who lope along in ar-Ruhayl............."
These incantations are reminiscent of early Qur'ānic texts (e.g.
lxxv. 1-2) which in turn go back to ancient Arabic oracles;
presumably they are indeen modelled on the Qur'ānic texts.[10]
And further more the author went on
to say:
But this is not to say that al-Ma'arri
intended his work as a whole to be an imitation of the Qur'ān, let
alone surpass it. Furthermore, by the time al-Ma'arri was writing,
rhyming prose had long since being accepted as a stylistic device
characteristic of elevated language, so that it could be employed
without second thoughts. If we look beyond the elaborate torrent
of words and try to estabhlish the theme of the work, the subject
matter amounts to little more than songs of praise of God and
religious and ethical admonitions (with pessimistic
undercurrents).[11]
In another reference:
Kremer endeavoured to disprove in
his latest writing about the noble free-thinkers, and to explain
as a misunderstanding of later literary historians, the assumption
that Abu'l-'Ala' al-Ma'arri wrote an imitation of the Koran. For
the sake of completion it may be pointed out that al-Zamakhshari
also presupposes that Abu'l 'Ala' intended to imitate the Koran.
It is likely that he has the title of Abu'l 'Ala's work in mind
when he says in the introduction to his Kashshaf: wa-mayyaza
baynahunna bi fusul wa-ghayat. In his commentary to Sura
77:30-3 he expresses the opinion that Abu'l 'Ala' wished to excel
the beauties of this passage in a verse which he wrote in order to
compete with God's word. In those verses of the Koran the infidels
are addressed:
"Go then in shade (of the smoke of
hell) which rises in three columns, verily it is not shady there
and there is no protection from the hell fire. Verily, it throws
sparks as big as palaces, as if they were reddish-yellow camels."
Abu'l 'Ala' in the verse in which
he is said to imitate this passage of the Koran does not speak of
the hell fire but of the fires burning in hospitable houses in
order to invite the tired traveller. Of this fire he says:
"A red one, with hair (rays) which
float far in the darkness, and throws sparks as big as tents."
This verse is in fact contained in
a dirge and consolation which the poet addressed to the family of
the 'Alid Abu Ahmad al-Musawi after his death. Fakhr al-din al-Razi
reproves al-Zamakhshari for suggesting that Abu'l-'Ala' intended
this as an imitation of the Koran; but he declares that, as a
parallel was suggested, he is obliged to show in how many respects
the expression of the Koran is superior to that of the poet. After
giving twelve proofs he concludes:
"These points came to me in a
flash, but if we were to beseech God to help us in search for
more, he would undoubtedly offer us as many more as we could
desire."[12]
Yahya b. Al-Hakam al-Ghazal:
He was a belletrist in Andalus, Spain in 3rd century.
...the Andalusian belletrist Yahya
b. al-Hakam al-Ghazal, called by his biographers the 'The sage of
al-Andalus, its poet and oracle', dared to attempt to produce a
pendant to surah 112 containing the Islamic credo. 'But he has
overcome by terrible fear and shuddering when he embarked upon
this work and thus returned to God.'[13]
Sayyid 'Ali Muhammad (Also known
as Bab): A work from the middle of the nineteenth century by
Sayyid 'Ali Muhammad from Shiraz, known as Bab, the founder of the
Babi sect (which survives to this day in the Bahai sect) deserves to
be mentioned.
Bab felt that he had been caled
upon to replace Muhammad as a Prophet and to replace the outmoded
Islam with a new religion. In the Bayan he summed up his doctrine.
The mode of expression is prosaic, the arrangement of the material
unsystematic despite the division into eleven units (Wahid)
of the nineteen chapters (bab) each. The work was designed
not to outdo the Qur'ān in rhetorical power but to supercede it as
a sober statement of the new faith. Yet it accords with the Qur'ān
in one respect - that the revelations derive from God himself.
Moreover, there are several points, both in the subject matter and
in the formulation, which are not only inspired by the Qur'ān but
modelled on it, consciously or unconsciouly.[14]
Ibn al-Rawandi: He was a
Mu'atazili and a heretic, born in the beginning of 3rd/9th century.
At first he was an adherent of Mutazilism, then left his friends and
attacked them mercilessly.
In the Encyclopedia Of Islam we read:
The plentiful extracts from the K.
al-Zumurraudh provide a fairly clear indication off the most
heterodox doctrine of Ibn al-Rawandi, that or which posterity has
been least willing to forgive him: a biting criticism of prophecy
in general and of the prophecy of Muhammad in particular; he
maintains in addition that religious dogmas the not acceptable to
reason and must, therefore be rejected; the miracles attributed to
the Prophets, persons who may reasonably be compared to sorcerers
and magicians, are pure invention, and the greatest of the
miracles in the eyes of orthodox Muslims, the Kuran, gets no
better treatment: it is neither a revealed book nor even an
inimitable literary masterpiece. In order to cloak his thesis,
which attacks the root of all types of religion, Ibn al-Rawandi
used the fiction that they were uttered by Brahmans. His
reputation as irreligious iconoclast spread in the 4th/10th
century beyond the borders of Muslim literature.[15]
Very tersely, Ibn al-Rawandi's
attitude has been put as:
He resembled somewhat the so-called
free lance journalist of these days and could write for or against
the same cause without any scruple.[16]
Bassar bin Burd, Sahib Ibn 'Abbad
& Abu'l - 'Atahiya: I am clubbing all of them together because
they both seem to have claimed that their composition is better or
slight less better than the Qur'ān. I crossed checked their work in
the Encyclopedia Of Islam but there is no mention of their
composition against the Qur'ān.
Bassar bin Burd rates some of his
verses superior to surah 59. Towards the end of the 10th century
the Sahib Ibn 'Abbad could still publicly accept the compliment
made to him by a Jew from Isfahan that the style of the Koran was
only slightly superior to his own.[17]
Or in another reference:
Bashshar b. Burb is quoted as
freely comparing to its disadvantage Kur'anic with contemporary
verse and as having boasted of having personally surpassed surah
LIX; a similar statement is attributed to Abu'l-'Atahiya with
reference to surah LXXVII.[18]
Bashar did in fact praise one of
his own poetic products when he heard recited by a singing girl in
Baghdad as being better than the Surah al-Hashr.[19]
But the surprising thing is that al-Baqillani
in his I'jaz al-Qur'ān compares the work of Bassar bin Burd and
others with the Qur'ān and there is no mention of Bassar bin Burd's
work being better than the Qur'ān!! Reference [2], which is a rather
comprehensive book on Arabic literature pre-Islamic as well as
post-Islamic, also mentions about Bassar bin Burd being a great
post-Islamic poet who introduced new ideas in the poetry. Again
there is no mention by Rudy Paret about he surpassing the style of
the Qur'ān.
In the article Rhetorical
Interpretation of the Qur'ān: I'jaz and related topics, Issa J
Boullata deals with the modern writers who dealt the Qur'ān from a
literary point of view. One such work of A'isha cAbd al-Rahmān
who goes by the pseudonym of Bint Shacati has received a
lot of attention. It is said that her work will provide new insights
on the concept of I'jaz of the Qur'ān. Issa Boullata says:
A'isha cAbd
al-Rahmān studies inductively other aspects of Qur'ānic
usage and offers fresh ideas and new interpretation, uncovering
certain consistencies never observed before, such as those
regarding the use of passive voice in the Qur'ānic scenes of the
day of resurrection, which in her view, emphasize the passivity of
the universe and the spontaneity of all creation in obeying the
overwhelming events of the day. These and other observations of
hers transcend traditional Arabic syntax and rhetoric as she
attempts to capture the reality that lies behind Quranic
expression. Her conclusion is that the Qur'ān, being neither prose
nor verse, is a literary genre of its own that is of the highest
eloquence and of matchless stylistic perfection.[20]
cAlī bin Rabbān at-Tabarī
who was Nestorian Christian, and at the age of 70 converted to
Islam, asserts that he has never in any language found stylistic
perfection equaling that of the Qur'ān:
When I was a Christian I used to
say, as did an uncle of mine who was one of the learned and
eloquent men, that eloquence is not one of the signs of
prophethood because it is common to all the peoples; but when I
discarded (blind) imitation and (old) customs and gave up adhering
to (mere) habit and training and reflected upon the meanings of
the Qur'ān I came to know that what the followers of the Qur'ān
claimed for it was true. The fact is that I have not found any
book, be it by an Arab or a Persian, an Indian or a Greek, right
from the beginning of the world up to now, which contains at the
same time praises of God, belief in the prophets and apostles,
exhortations to good, everlasting deeds, command to do good and
prohibition against doing evil, inspiration to the desire of
paradise and to avoidance of hell-fire as this Qur'ān does. So
when a person brings to us a book of such qualities, which
inspires such reverence and sweetness in the hearts and which has
achieved such an overlasting success and he is (at the same time)
an illiterate person who did never learnt the art of writing or
rhetoric, that book is without any doubt one of the signs of his
Prophethood.[21]
What Do Orientalists Say About The
Arab Grammarians?
On this issue two quotes will
suffice, Inshallah:
The Arab grammarians were excellent
linguists in both the realm of phonetics and in that of grammar
and syntax. Jonathan Owens' The Foundation of Grammar (1988) as
well as a new book just completed by him on medieval Arabic
grammar have convincingly demonstrated that, in many ways, the
Arab grammarians were way ahead of their time.[22]
Guillaume in his preface of the book
The Legacy Of Islam writes:
Since the beginning of the
nineteenth century there has been a constant recourse to Arabic
for the explanation of rare words and forms in Hebrew; for Arabic
though more than a thousand years junior as a literary language,
is the senior philosophically by countless centuries. Perplexing
phenomenon in Hebrew can often be explained as solitary and
archaic survivals of the form which are frequent and common in the
cognate Arabic. Words and idioms whose precise sense had been lost
in Jewish tradition, receive a ready and convincing explanation
from the same source. Indeed no serious student of the Old
Testament can afford to dispense with a first-hand knowledge in
Arabic. The pages of any critical commentary on the Old Testament
will illustrate the debt of the Biblical exegesis owes to Arabic.[23]
Actually this phenomenon of the use
of Arabic words and grammar by Jews goes back to the times of Saadia
Gaon.
The Qur'ān: How It Influenced The
Jews and What They Say About it?
The Jews were greatly influenced by
the work of Arab grammarians who analysed the Qur'ān. Their
influence was primarily on the linguistic and contextual
interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Most of the quotes are self
explanatory. According to the Jewish scholars:
Jewish scholars in Arab lands for
the first time in history acquired the tools for proper contexual
study of the scriptures. Islam had spread the tenets of
rationalism, mediating in part the philosophical teachings of
classical Greece.[24]
In addition, Arab grammarians
had developed a systematic method for analyzing the style and the
structure of classical Arabic, the language of the Koran. This
enabled them not only to interpret the Koran but also to compose
new works in the strict standards of the classical idiom.[25]
Jews in Arab lands had the
potential to become comparative semitic linguists.[26]
Jews who studied Arabic language
and literature, as well as other academic disciplines, learned the
new linguistic science and desired to exploit it in their exegesis
of the Bible and the analysis of Hebrew grammar. Only those who
knew Arabic grammar developed the proper understanding of the
Hebrew verb as the stem built upon three consonants. Hebrew
verb stems in which the letters alef, vav and yod appear for
example, do not display these weak consonants in all forms. These
weak consonants do appear in the various forms of Arabic verb,
However. Jewish scholars with linguistic sophistication realized
that the weak consonants were part of the Hebrew verb even where
they are not evident. Jewish exegetes, such as those in France,
who did not read Arabic, failed to comprehend the triconsonantal
basis of the Hebrew verb-stem and as a result, confused certain
stems and misinterpreted them. C'est la vie. Characteristic of the
Spanish Jewish scholars was their superior interest and training
in linguistic analysis, a benefit of having grown up in an Arabic
milieu.[27]
His (Rabbi Saadiah) Arabic
translation of the Bible, however continues in use as the official
version of Jews from Arab lands. It is also a mine of original
insight into the meaning of difficult Hebrew words and phrases in
the Bible, of which the modern scholars have barely taken
advantage.[28]
(Ibn Janah's) two-volume analysis
of biblical vocabulary, grammar, and style remains the most
brilliant and valuable contribution of all time to the study of
biblical language. The two volumes The Book of Roots and The Book
of Embroidery (his figure for grammar) exist only in the original
Arabic and a medieval Hebrew translation.[29]
In the words of the famous Hebrew
linguist Saadia Gaon:
Saadia expresses himself
unreservedly about his indebtness to Arabic authors, who served
him as models in the composition of his work. "It is reported,"
he says, "that one of the worthies among the Ishmaelites,
realizing to his sorrow that the people do not use the Arabic
language correctly, wrote a short treatise for them. From which
they might learn proper usages. Similarly, I have noticed that
many of the Israelites even the common rules for the correct usage
of our (Hebrew) language, much less the more difficult rules, so
that when they speak in prose most of it is faulty, and when they
write poetry only a few of the ancient rules are observed, and
majority of them are neglected. This has induced me to compose a
work in two parts containing most of the (Hebrew) words."
[30]
The author went on to say:
The rules of the Hebrew grammer
adverted to in the fragments of this work possessed by us - only a
little more than the introduction has been preserved - like wise
reveal the influence of the school of Arabic grammarians.[31]
And in another place in the same
book, we read:
In all probability the language
of the Koran had become the vernacular of most of the Jews and the
Samaritans soon after the Hegrah. This being the case, it is
obvious that Saadia could make use of the literature of the Arabs
as well as the works of Judeo-Arabic authors.[32]
In this document, I tried to deal
with I'jaz al-Qur'ān, Arab grammarians who worked on the Qur'ān and
their influence on the Jews. There are, of course, many other
references which I have not yet dealt with. I will be dealing with
them as soon as I get them, Inshallah.
References
[1] The Encyclopedia Of Islam, 1971,
Volume 3, E J Brill, Leiden, p. 885.
[2] A F L Beeston, T M Johnstone, R B Serjeant and G R Smith (Ed.),
Arabic Literature To The End Of The Ummayyad Period, 1983, Cambridge
University Press, p.
[3] The Encyclopedia Of Islam, Op. Cit., p. 1019.
[4] Gustave E Von Grunebaum, A Tenth-Century Document Of Arabic
Literary Theory and Criticism, 1950, The University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, p. xiv.
[5] A F L Beeston, T M Johnstone, R B Serjeant and G R Smith (Ed.),
Arabic Literature To The End Of The Ummayyad Period, Op. Cit.,
p. 212.
[6] Ibid., pp. 127-128.
[7] Ibid., p. 128.
[8] cAbdul Aleem, I'jaz ul Qur'ān, 1933, Islamic Culture,
Volume VII, Hyderabad Deccan, p. 221.
[9] cAlī Dashti (Translated from the Persian by F R C
Bagley), Twenty Three Years: A Study Of The Prophetic Career Of
Mohammad, 1985, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, p. 48.
[10] A F L Beeston, T M Johnstone, R B Serjeant and G R Smith (Ed.),
Arabic Literature To The End Of The Ummayyad Period, Op. Cit.,
p. 213.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ignaz Goldziher, Ed. S M Stern, Muslim Studies (Muhammedanische
Studien) II, 1971, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, pp. 364-365.
[13] Ibid., p. 364.
[14] A F L Beeston, T M Johnstone, R B Serjeant and G R Smith (Ed.),
Arabic Literature To The End Of The Ummayyad Period, Op. Cit.,
p. 213.
[15] The Encyclopedia Of Islam, Op. Cit., p. 905.
[16] cAbdul Aleem, I'jaz ul Qur'ān, Islamic Culture,
Op. Cit., p. 232.
[17] Gustave E Von Grunebaum, A Tenth-Century Document Of Arabic
Literary Theory and Criticism, Op. Cit., p. xiv.
[18] The Encyclopedia Of Islam, Op. Cit., p. 1019.
[19] Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies (Muhammedanische Studien) II,
Op. Cit., p. 363.
[20] Andrew Rippin (Ed.), Approaches of The History of
Interpretation of The Qur'ān, 1988, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 154.
[21] cAbdul Aleem, I'jaz ul Qur'ān, Islamic Culture,
Op. Cit., pp. 222-223.
[22] Review of Grammaire Fonctionnelle de l'arabe du Coran
(Bahmani Nedger) by Alan S Kaye,
1990, The Canadian Journal of Linguistics, Volume 35(4), The
Canadian Linguistic Association, p. 381
[23] Alfred Guillaume, The Legacy Of Islam, 1931, Oxford, p. ix.
[24] Barry W Holtz (Ed.), Back to the Sources: Reading The Classic
Jewish Texts: The First Complete Modern Guide To The Great Books of
Jewish Tradition: What They Are And How To Read Them, 1992, Simon
and Schuster, p. 221.
[25] Ibid., p. 222.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid., pp. 222-223.
[29] Ibid., p. 223.
[30] Henry Malter, Saadia Gaon: His Life And Works, 1921, The Jewish
Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, pp. 39-40.
[31] Ibid., p. 40.
[32] Ibid., p. 37 |
