A history of the Qur'anic Challenges

particularly obvious fashion on the mode of expression of the Qur'ân. 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]AndWhen 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-Baqillanî, 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'ân.[8]Abu'l-'Ala Al-Marri: According to cAlî 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'ân. 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'ânic texts (e.g. lxxv. 1-2) which in turn go back to ancient Arabic oracles; presumably they are indeen modelled on the Qur'ânic 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'ân, 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'ân in rhetorical power but to supercede it as a sober statement of the new faith. Yet it accords with the Qur'ân 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'ân 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'ân. I crossed checked their work in the Encyclopedia Of Islam but there is no mention of their composition against the Qur'ân.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'ân compares the work of Bassar bin Burd and others with the Qur'ân and there is no mention of Bassar bin Burd's work being better than the Qur'ân!! 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'ân.In the article Rhetorical Interpretation of the Qur'ân: I'jaz and related topics, Issa J Boullata deals with the modern writers who dealt the Qur'ân from a literary point of view. One such work of A'isha cAbd al-Rahmân 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'ân. Issa Boullata says:A'isha cAbd al-Rahmân studies inductively other aspects of Qur'ânic 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'ânic 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 Qur'anic expression. Her conclusion is that the Qur'ân, being neither prose nor verse, is a literary genre of its own that is of the highest eloquence and of matchless stylistic perfection.[20]cAlî bin Rabbân at-Tabarî 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'ân: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'ân I came to know that what the followers of the Qur'ân 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'ân 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]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'ân, 1933, Islamic Culture, Volume VII, Hyderabad Deccan, p. 221.[9] cAlî 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'ân, 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'ân, 1988, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 154.[21] cAbdul Aleem, I'jaz ul Qur'ân, Islamic Culture, Op. Cit., pp. 222-223.