Comparative Constructions in the Language of the Holy Qur’an

Abstract

The focus of the present paper is the expression of comparison in the language of the Qur’an, the language of the Divine Book of the Muslim nation. It investigates the two classes of inequality comparisons: comparative constructions and superlative constructions. It aims to provide a syntactic scrutinization of the two classes of comparison constructions and points out any similarities and distinctions that may be present between the two classes. The paper also sheds light on some recurrent rhetorical aspects of the construction as found in the instances of comparison constructions in the language of the Qur’an. The study shows that there are three types of each class, two of which are present in the two classes of comparison constructions. Deletion of an element(s), coordination of parameters or of construction(s) and comparison of items not sharing the same property of the comparison or of two distinct events are characterizing aspects of comparative constructions in the language of the Qur’an. To the best of my knowledge, the topic of comparison constructions in the language of the Qur’an has not been tackled before and hence the characterization provided in this paper is the original contribution of the current research.