The i/u rhyme in pre-Islamic poetry and the Qurʾān studied from a phonetic and phonologic perspective

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that in the oldest Arabic poetry, i and u occasionally rhyme with each other. The phenomenon, which is called ʾiqwāʾ in Arabic, was considered as a fault, and later generations of poets would tend to avoid it. The Qurʾān, more or less contemporary of the archaic poetry, should also be mentioned in this context. The wording of the suras, which was eventually fixed, abounds with i/u rhymes and assonances. The word ʾiqwāʾ is the maṣdar of ʾaqwā (IV), “arm sein,” according to H. Wehr’s Arabic dictionary, art. qawiya, or “to be poor.” However, as will be seen, all scholars and lexicographers do not agree with Wehr about the meaning of the verb ʾaqwā. In any case, it ought to be possible to analyse this kind of rhyme and assonance in an objective manner. In the present essay, I propose an approach based on phonetic and phonological analysis in order to try to determine why i and u are able to rhyme with one another in pre-Islamic poetry and to be intertwined with each other in Quranic rhymes and assonances, whereas the vowel a is restricted to rhymes and assonances mainly involving itself.