“You Were Not There,” The Creation of Humility and Knowledge in Qurʾanic Stories: A Rhetorical and  Narratological Analysis

doi:10.1558/cis.28486

Comparative Islamic Studies, Vol 11, No 1 (2015)

“You Were Not There,” The Creation of Humility and Knowledge in Qurʾanic Stories: A Rhetorical and Narratological Analysis

Leyla Ozgur Alhassen

Issued Date: 6 Sep 2017

Abstract

In this study, I explore verses in the Qurʾan that come towards the end of stories and use a second-person address to say, “you were not there” when this happened. I seek to understand what literary function in the story it serves to address the second person and her/ his lack of knowledge, whomever s/he is. I locate all of these verses (3:44, 11:49, 12:102 and 28:44–46) and analyze them in order to obtain a better understanding and analysis of Qurʾanic literary style. I focus on what these stories have in common and how the verses function. In addition, I analyze the verses and their roles in their respective stories. Through this analysis, we see that these verses are generally seen by commentators and modern scholars as asserting the Prophet’s authority and the Qurʾan’s authenticity. However, I argue that these verses function as a sophisticated Qurʾanic literary and rhetorical device that works to put people in their place: Prophet Muḥammad, his contemporaries, and all of the Qurʾan’s audience, by showing them their lack of knowledge and their temporality.

Download Media

PDF (Price: £17.50 ) Restricted Access

DOI: 10.1558/cis.28486

References

Abboud, Hosn. 2006. “Mary, Mother of Jesus and the Qurʾanic Text: A Feminist Literary Study,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto.

Abdel Haleem, Muhammad. 2010. The Qurʾan: English Translation and Parallel Arabic Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://www.islamawakened.com/Quran/default.htm.

———. 2010. “Qurʾanic ‘jihād’: A linguistic and contextual analysis.” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 12: 147–166.

———. 1999. Understanding the Qurʾan: Themes and Style. New York: I.B. Tauris.

Abūʾ l-Suʿūd, Muḥammad b. Muḥyiʾ l-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-ʿImād Muṣṭafā al-ʿImādī. 1994. Irshād al-ʿaql al-salīm ilā mazāyā al-Qurʾan al-karīm. 9 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Ḥayāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī.

Afsar, Ayaz. 2006. “A discourse and linguistic approach to Biblical and Qurʾānic narrative.” Islamic Studies 45(4): 493–517.

Alter, Robert. 1981. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic Books.

Asad, Muhammad. 2003. The Message of the Qurʾan. 6 vols. Bristol: The Book Foundation.

Austin, J. L. 1975. How To Do Things With Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

El-Awa, Salwa. 2006. Textual Relations in the Qurʾan: Relevance, Coherence and Structure. New York: Routledge.

Ben Nabi, Malik. 1983. The Qurʾanic Phenomenon: An Attempt at a Theory of Understanding the Holy Qurʾan. Translated by Abu Bilal Kirkary. Indianapolis, IN: American Trust Publications.

Bodman, Whitney S. 2011. The Poetics of Iblīs: Narrative Theology in the Qurʾan. MA: Harvard Theological Studies.

Boisliveau, Anne-Sylvie. 2013. “Polemics in the Koran: The Koran’s negative argumentation over its own origin.” Arabica 60: 131–145.

Booth, Wayne C. 1983. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Chatman, Seymour. 1978. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Cuypers, Michel. 2009. The Banquet: A Reading of the Fifth Sura of the Qurʾan. Edited by Rafael Luciani, translated by Patricia Kelly. Miami, FL: Convivium Press.

———. 2011. “Semitic rhetoric as a key to the question of the naẓm of the Qurʾanic text.” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 13(1): 1–24.

Ernst, Carl W. 2011. How to Read the Qurʾan: A New Guide, with Select Translations. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

al-Ghazālī, Muḥammad. 2000. A Thematic Commentary on the Qurʾan. Translated by Ashur A. Shamis. Revised by Zaynab Alawiye. Herndon, VA: The International Institute of Islamic Thought.

Johns, Anthony H. 1981. “Joseph in the Qurʾan: Dramatic dialogue, human emotion and prophetic wisdom.” Islamochristiana 7: 29–55.

———. 1999. “Narrative, intertext and allusion in the Qurʾanic presentation of Job.” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 1(1): 1–25.

———. 2000. “Reflections on the dynamics and spirituality of Sūrat al-Furqān.” Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qurʾan, edited by Issa J. Boullata, 188–227. London: Curzon.

Kamuf, Peggy. 2002. “Derrida and Gender: The other sexual difference.” In Jacques Derrida and the Humanities: A Critical Reader, edited by Tom Cohen, 82–107. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kermani, Navid. 2004. “From revelation to interpretation: Nasr Hamid Abū Zayd and the literary study of the Qurʾan.” In Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qurʾan, edited by Suha Taji-Farouki, 168–182. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

———. 2015. God Is Beautiful: The Aesthetic Experience of the Quran. Malden, MA: Polity.

Lybarger, Loren D. 2000. “Prophetic authority in the Qurʾanic story of Maryam: A literary approach.” The Journal of Religion 80(2): 240–270. https://doi.org/10.1086/490608

al-Maḥallī, Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad bin Aḥmad and Jalāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān bin Abī Bakr al-Suyūṭī. 2002. Tafsīr al-Īmamayn al-Jalālayn. Beirut: Dar El-Marefah.

Martensson, Ulrika. 2008. ‘“The persuasive proof”: A study of Aristotle’s politics and rhetoric in the Qurʾan and in al-Ṭabarī’s commentary.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 34: 363–420.

———. forthcoming. “Ibn Isḥāq’s and al-Ṭabarī’s Historical Contexts for the Quran:
Implications for Contemporary Research.” ed. Sebastian Günther.

Martin, Richard C. 1982. “Understanding the Qurʾan in text and context.” History of Religions 21(4): 361–384. https://doi.org/10.1086/462906

Maybudī, Rashīd al-Dīn. Kashf al-Asrār Unveiling of the Mysteries, Abridged Version, Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Fons Vitae, translated by William C. Chittick. http://main.altafsir.com/Books/kashf.pdf

McComiskey, Bruce. 2002. Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric. Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Mir, Mustansir. 1986. “The Qurʾanic story of Joseph: Plot, themes, and characters.” The Muslim World 76(1): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-1913.1986.tb02766.x

———. 2009. “Some aspects of narration in the Qurʾan.” In Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qurʾan as Literature and Culture, edited by Roberta Sterman Sabbath, 93–106. Leiden: Brill.

Morris, James W. 1994. “Dramatizing the Sura of Joseph: An introduction to the Islamic humanities.” Annemarie Schimmel Festschrift, special issue of Journal of Turkish Studies 18: 201–224.

Mourad, Suleiman A. 1999. “On the Qurʾanic stories about Mary and Jesus.” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-faith Studies 1(2): 13–24.

Muqātil, Abū al-Ḥasan. 2003. Tafsīr Muqātil b. Sulaymān. Beirut: Dar al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah.

Neuwirth, Angelika. 2007. “Orientalism in Oriental Studies? Qurʾanic studies as a case in point.” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 9(2): 115–127.

———. 2003. “Qurʾan and history: A disputed relationship some reflections on Qurʾanic history and history in the Qurʾan.” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 5(1): 1–18.

———. 2000. “Referentiality and textuality in Sūrat al-Ḥijr: Some observations on the Qurʾanic “canonical process” and the emergence of a community.” Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qurʾan, edited by Issa J. Boullata, 143–172. London: Curzon.

———. 2014. Scripture, Poetry, and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qurʾan as a Literary Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

———. 2008. “Two views of history and human future: Qurʾanic and Biblical renderings of divine promises.” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 10(1): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.3366/e1465359109000217

Quṭb, Sayyid. 2007. Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾan. Cairo: Dar al-Shorouk.

Reynolds, Gabriel Said. 2010. The Qurʾan and Its Biblical Subtext. New York: Routledge.

Robinson, Neal. 2003. Discovering the Qurʾan: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text. 2nd edition. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Robson, James. 1950. “Stories of Jesus and Mary.” The Muslim World 40: 236–243.

Ruf, Frederick J. 1994. “The consequences of genre: Narrative, lyric, and dramatic intelligibility.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62(3): 799–818. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/LXII.3.799

Sakaedani, Haruko. 2004. “The correlation between definite noun phrases and verb forms in Qurʾanic narrative texts.” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 6(2): 56–68.

Saleh, Walid. 2004. The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾan Commentary of al-Thaʿālibī (d. 427/1035). Leiden: Brill.

———. 2006. “‘What if you refuse, when ordered to fight?’ King Saul (Ṭālūt) in the Qurʾan and post-Quranic literature.” Saul in Story and Tradition, edited by Carl S. Ehrlich, 261–283. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Smith, Jane I. and Yvonne Y. Haddad. 1989. “The Virgin Mary in Islamic tradition and commentary.” The Muslim World 79(3–4): 161–187.

Spencer, Beth. 2006. “The body as fiction / fiction as a way of thinking.” Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Ballarat, Australia. http://www.bethspencer.com/BethSpencer-chapter2.pdf .

al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr. 2007. Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl al-Qurʾan. 10 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Salām.

al-Thaʿālibī, Abū Zayd ʿAbd al-Rahmān b. Muḥammad b. Makhlūf. 1996. al-Jawāhir al-Ḥisān. 3 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya.

Tlili, Sarra. 2012. Animals in the Qurʾan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

al-Tustarī, Abī Muḥammad Sahl bin ʿAbd Allah. 2002. Tafsīr al-Tustarī. Beirut: Dar al-Kotob al-Ilmiyah.

Walker, Carol S. 2012. “Reading the Bible and the Qurʾan together.” http://www.martynmission.cam.ac.uk/pages/centre/archive-seminar-papers.php.

Ward Gwynne, Rosalind. 2004. Logic, Rhetoric, and Legal Reasoning in the Qurʾan: God’s Arguments. New York: RoutledgeCurzon.

Wheeler, Brannon M. 2002. Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis. New York: RoutledgeCurzon.

Yazicioglu, Isra. 2013. Understanding the Qurʾanic Miracle Stories in the Modern Age. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Zadeh, Travis. 2015. “Quranic studies and the literary turn.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 135(2): 329–342. https://doi.org/10.7817/jameroriesoci.135.2.329

Zahniser, A. H. Mathias. 1991. “The Word of God and the Apostleship of ʿIsa: A narrative analysis of Al-ʿImrān.” Journal of Semitic Studies 36(3): 33–62.

al-Zamakhsharī, Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn ʿUmar. 2006. Al-Kashshāf. Beirut: Dār El-Fikr.

Zebiri, Kate. 2003. “Towards a rhetorical criticism of the Qurʾan.” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 5(2): 95–120.

Equinox Publishing Ltd - 415 The Workstation 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)114 221-0285 - Email: [email protected]