Prophetic Clarity: A Comparative Approach to al-Ṭabarī's Theory of Qur'anic Language, Rhetoric, and Composition

Abstract

The article is a comparative study of Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī's (d. 310/923) concepts of Qur'anic language, rhetoric, and composition. Al-Ṭabarī identified the Qur'an semantically and generically with the Biblical scriptures, as prophecy, and with Arabic rhetoric ( balāgha and khaṭāba). At the same time, he claimed that the Qur'an superseded them all in terms of how its forms convey God's intended message about Covenant, through its clarity of distinctions between universals and particulars, its persuasive proof, and innovative composition. Based on a comparative analysis of al-Ṭabarī's concepts, I conclude that he theorised Qur'anic language, rhetoric, and composition in ways that offer new insights into their relationship to the Biblical scriptures and Arabic rhetoric. His theory confirms and adds to parts of current research, opening up new paths for further research, also of a comparative theoretical kind. The study consists of four parts. Part 1 surveys recent research into theories of language and rhetoric in the Qur'an, as a necessary background to al-Ṭabarī. The survey will also show the relevance of Greek paradigms for the Qur'an. Developing the outcomes of this survey, Part 2 describes theories of language and rhetoric in Plato, Aristotle, the Biblical scriptures, and the Qur'an, and models the relationship between language, rhetoric, and scripture with reference to covenant and the concept of ‘belief’. Part 3 applies the model to al-Ṭabarī's theory of Qur'anic language, rhetoric, and composition. In Part 4, I develop al-Ṭabarī's definition of al-Fātiḥa (Q. 1) as a paradigm of covenantal terms that suffuses the entire Qur'anic canon, into a framework for analysing composition as the level of sura structure and genre, intertextual references and concepts, and overarching meaning.