Departure from Communicative Norms

in the Qur'an: Insights from al-Jurjäm

and al-Zamakhshan
Badri Najib Zubir
INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA

In an article entitled 'Grammatical Shift for Rhetorical Purposes: Iltifät and Related
Features in the Qur'an',1 Abdel Haleem brought to attention that the Qur'an quite fre-
quently uses grammatical shift as an effective device to accomplish certain points of
signification. The instances which he personally recorded are more than 500 and this
undoubtedly shows that grammatical shift is an important feature of Qur'anic style.
He divides the grammatical shift into six categories:

i. Change in person: between first, second and third persons.

ii. Change in number: between singular, dual and plural.
iii. Change in addressee.
iv. Change in the tense of the verb or the mood.
v. Change in case marker.
vi. Using noun in place of pronoun.
To give an example which belongs to the first category, the following verse may be
cited (Q. 10:22-3):
Huwa 'lladhlyusayyirukum fi 'l-barri wa'l-bahri hattä idhä kuntumfi
'l-fulki wa-jarayna bihim bi-rlhin tayyibatin wa-farihü bihä jä'atha
rihun cäsifun.. .fa-lammä anjähum idhä hum yabghüna fi 'l-ardi bi-
ghayri 'l-haqqi...
'It is He who conveys you on the land and the sea; and when you are
on the ship and the ships run with them with a fair breeze, and they
-

in
rejoice it, there comes upon them a strong wind, and waves come

on them from every side, and they think they are encompassed; they

call upon God, making their religion His sincerely... Nevertheless

when He has delivered them behold, they are insolent in the earth,
wrongfully.'2
70 Journal of Qur'anic Studies

It can be seen clearly in the passage that there is a sudden pronominal shift from the
second person to the third person although the referents remain the same, thus vio-
lating normal convention with regard to the use of pronouns.
In post-Sakkäkl textbooks of balägha, all cases which belong to the categories laid
down by Abdel Haleem above are regarded as cases of ikhräj al-kaläm calä khiläf
muqtadä 'l-zähir? Muqtadä 'l-zähir is the conventions and principles which are nor-
mally followed in using language as a form of communication; in short, the norms of
grammar and communication. Therefore ikhräj al-kaläm °alä khiläfmuqtadä 'l-zähir
means, literally, 'producing a locution not according to the norms of grammar and
communication'. But, to render it more idiomatically, this can be described simply as
'departure from norms'. It should be noted however that the treatment of this phe-
nomenon as a topic in its own right was initiated by al-Sakkäki (d. 626/1229). He was

indeed the first person to coin the term muqtadä 'l-zähir, and he described the viola-
tion of it as nafih al-kaläm lä calä muqtadä 'l-zähir,4 which was refined by later
rhetoricians to the version mentioned above. Al-Sakkäki coined the term muqtadä 'I-
zahir as a general classification to distinguish between the composition which in one
way or another departs from the norms and that which does not. However, some text
extracts containing that sort of departure had already been individually discussed by
al-Jurjäni in some chapters of Dalä'il al-i°jäz. In the last chapter, for instance, he dis-
cusses a number of samples from the Qur'an and Arabic poetry where noun is put in

place of pronoun and he draws attention to the fact that certain effects are produced
by the use of that particular style in their respective contexts.5 Undoubtedly, this was
to some extent influential in moulding al-Sakkäki's global perspective of the phe-
nomenon.

The kind of departures from norms that obtain in the example above can be described
as 'textual'. By that I mean that it can be detected solely by observing the formal

aspect of the linguistic environment preceding the departure. It is not necessary to

reconstruct the context of the utterance to realise that a departure has occurred. In the
example above, one just has to notice that the speaker initially uses the second person
pronoun to refer to a particular group of people and then uses the third person pro-
noun to refer to that very same group of people. So while it might be crucial to know

the context of the piece of discourse which contains that phenomenon in order to
make a proper interpretation of it, a formal linguistic analysis is sufficient to detect
the phenomenon.
Departure from norms, however, is not understood by the Arab rhetoricians to be con-
fined to grammatical shift. In fact, it also includes departure from what is normally
expected in a given context, that is, departure from the norms of communication. It is
the aim of this paper to investigate the occurrence of this phenomenon in the Qur'an
 Departure from Communicative Norms in the Qur'an 71

based on the of two eminent Qur'anic scholars, namely cAbd al-Qahir al-
insights
Jurjäni (d. 471/1078) and Mahmud ibn cUmar al-Zamakhshari (d. 538/1144). Now, as
there are countless situations in which communication occurs and there can be vari-
ous standpoints from which one particular situation is viewed, there are various ways

also of perceiving what is normally expected in a given situation. Although it was al-
Sakkäki who paved the way for the violation of grammatical or communicative norms
to be called ikhräj al-kaläm calä khiläf muqtadä 'l-zähir, instances of this type of
departure had already been dealt with by al-Jurjäni in his analysis of individual text
extracts which he cited as examples in various chapters of Dalä'il al-icjäz and Asrär
al-balägha. One of those extracts is the second sentence (highlighted below) of
Q.10:59:
Qul a-ra'aytum mä anzala 'llähu lakum min rizqin fa-jacaltum minhu
haräman wa-halälan qul a-Allähu adhina lakum...
'Say:"Tell me about what God has sent down for you as provision,
some of which you have made lawful, and some unlawful!" Say: "Has
God given you leave?".

The extract is cited in his chapter on fronting and postpositioning (taqdim wa-ta 'khir)
in Dalä 'il, as the departure from norms in this particular instance involves transpos-
ing the noun (i.e. Allah) to a position in front of the verb while what is normally
expected in this context is that the verb be placed immediately after the interrogative
particle. According to al-Jurjäni, the context here is that the polytheists who are
referred to in the verse had made their own regulations, based on superstitions, as to
which food was prohibited for consumption and which was not. So the purpose of
communication with them would be to deny that there had been any permission from
God at all for them to make those regulations. To achieve this purpose, the verb must
be placed immediately after the interrogative particle because in this way the effect
would be something like: 'has there been any permission from God for you to do
that?' But, as can be observed in the Qur'anic version, it is the noun which is placed
after the interrogative particle, in which case the effect would be something like: 'is
it God who gave you permission to do that or someone else?'6 In this way, another
party is implicated by fronting the noun, while by fronting the verb it is not. Al-Jurjäni
analyses this situation by saying that the intention here is to deny the existence of any
permission from God but the utterance is produced in a way that would normally have
been produced in a context where the intention is to deny that it was God who gave
the permission. This gives the impression that permission had indeed been given, but
by someone else. In this respect, if we follow al-Sakkäki, we would have an easier
task of analysing the situation. We would say that in this context, the intention would
be to deny the existence of any permission from God; what is normally expected in
72 Journal of Qur'anic Studies

such a situation is the placing of the verb immediately after the noun; therefore, trans-
posing the noun to a position in front of the verb would be a departure from what is
normally expected. Having had the phenomenon analysed, we should now ask: what
is the rhetorical purpose behind this departure? Al-Jurjänl explains that it is to depict
the polytheists as though they ascribed to God, by mistake, the permission to prohib-
it the consumption of certain foods while in fact the permission came from someone
else. So this puts them in an embarrassing situation where they were portrayed as
nai've in their thinking, having failed to realise that nobody has the right to give per-
mission in these matters but God alone.7

The rhetorical observations of al-Jurjäni on Q. 10:59 and similar cases were very
much added to by al-Zamakhsharl in his exegetical undertaking. With the insight that
desirable effects could materialise from the use of an utterance in a context for which
it is not normally considered appropriate, Qur'anic passages which contain this kind
of departure from norms were no longer taken for granted, and as a result of a better
understanding of this phenomenon, another level of interpretation was introduced in
addition to the normal level of interpretation on which sense and reference are
explained. There is actually an interesting example of how differently someone who
is aware of these rhetorical principles reads a particular situation of communication
from someone who reads it solely from a grammatical standpoint. A comparison
between al-Jushami's reading of Q.92:14-17 and al-Zamakhshari's illustrates this
point quite clearly. The verses read:
Fa-andhartukum näran talaziä lä yaslähä ülä 'l-ashqä 'üadhi kadhd-
haba wa-tawcdlä wa-sa-yujannabuhä 'l-atqä...

'Now I have warned you of a Fire that flames, whereat none but the
most wretched shall be roasted, [he who] cried lies, and turned away;
while from it the most godfearing one shall be kept away...' (adapted)

Here al-Jushami (d. 494/1101) senses that some readers might be intrigued by the use
of the circumscription style in the passage because with it, the passage would suggest
that only 'the most wretched' which he interprets as the most notorious disbeliev-
-

ers will be burnt in Hell. But, it is commonly held that Hell is the place of punish-
-

ment for the sinners among the believers as well, and if that is the case, then the
circumscription becomes meaningless. So, why then is it used? The best answer to
this, according to al-Jushami, is that there is a specific section in Hell for the most
notorious sinners, and it is in this particular section that the most wretched will be
burnt. (The sections in Hell are seen in terms of levels, and linguistically speaking,
each level could be referred to as a unit in its own right, which explains why there is
a plural form for när in Arabic: nirän.) The use of the indefinite form for när in this

context shows, says al-Jushami, that what is intended is a specific section in Hell
 Departure from Communicative Norms in the Qur'an 73

rather than Hell in its totality.8 Al-Zamakhshari also asks the same question, but he
gives a different answer. According to him, the verses are actually meant to show the
stark contrast between the fates which await both the leading figure from among the
disbelievers who were hostile to the Prophet Muhammad (in Mecca), and the leading
figure from among the believers who followed him.9
Here it can be that to both exegetes, the use of the circumscription style in the
seen

Qur'anic passage requires an explanation, but relying on what is offered by gram-

matical scholarship, al-Jushami sets out to make the phrasing perfectly correct
according to the rules of grammar. Obviously, according to the rules of grammar,
when a negative verb is used before an exceptive particle (adät istithnä') and its noun
comes after it, the sentence denotes two things at once: a) the ascription of the act rep-

resented by the verb to the referent of the noun is affirmed, and b) the involvement of
others with the act is negated.10 Following this, Q.92:15 apparently indicates that the
most wretched the most notorious opponents of the faith are doomed to face the
- -

punishment of burning and others, who include the less insolent disbelievers and the
sinners among the believers, are denied that particular punishment. As mentioned ear-
lier, al-Jushami finds this problematic, and in quest of something to remove this par-
adox he finds that när is in the indefinite form, so he argues that när in this particu-
lar context refers to a particular section in Hell which is specified for the most noto-
rious sinners. This way, the circumscription definitely becomes grammatically correct
and the paradox is removed, but the question is: is his reading correct? Now if that is
the case, then one must surely interpret Q.92:17 as saying that the most godfearing
ones will be spared from that particular section in Hell. This obviously makes it as

though they are still not totally safe from Hell because the reading leaves the possi-
bility that they might still be burnt in the other sections. This is extremely odd, and
on this basis, we can obviously say that al-Jushami actually renders Q.92:17 totally

out of place.

From al-Jurjäni's textual analysis of Q. 10:59 which was discussed above, we can see
that he was aware that departure from norms is a device which may be used in phras-
ing to meet a more subtle consideration which would not have been met through
straightforward use of language. Now with regard to the reading of Q.92:14-17, al-
Zamakhshari indeed manifests similar understanding to al-Jurjäni's because when he
saw that the phrasing is rather unusual with the circumscription and the use of the
-

nouns of preeminence (ism al-tqfdil) he took it upon himself to investigate the sub-
-

tle consideration which underpins such a phrasing, instead of offering some ready-
made answer which would satisfy the grammatical purists. To do so, he considered
the maqäm (context) in which the phrases were spoken (i.e. at the height of the feud
between the Prophet's camp and the Quraysh camp) and posited that only the fate of
the fiercest opponent of the faith and that of the best follower were meant to be
74 Journal of Qur'anic Studies

specified here, and that the circumscription style is used to accentuate God's dis-
pleasure with the leading opponent of the faith because this is what implies that Hell
was created only for that most wretched person.11 So, unlike al-Jushami, he did not

actually look at the verses as a general statement about who would be burnt in Hell
and who would be spared. I have argued above that al-Jushami's interpretation is
incorrect, but is al-Zamakhshari's reading itself probable? In my opinion it is, for sev-
eral reasons. First, given that the feud between the two camps was intense, it is quite
probable that the most faithful believer would be most disliked by the opponents of
the faith while the leading figure among the latter would be the one most resented by
the believers. Therefore, it is quite logical that only the individual fates of the leading
figures at the opposite ends of the feud are meant to be stated in this particular con-
text: the leading figure of the disbelievers will be burnt in Hell and the leading figure
of the believers will be saved. Second, al-Zamakhshari's reading does not implicate
the less insolent disbelievers or the sinners among the believers, directly or indirect-
ly, as it does in al-Jushami's reading. This way, it does not leave the impression that
something has been left unclarified. Third, the irony that al-Zamakhshari's reading
associates with the circumscription style is consistent with the sarcastic tone of the
verses, for they point out that while the leading opponent of the faith is going to be
burnt in Hell, the one he disliked most will specifically be spared from it! And final-
ly, our observation regarding the interpretation of när in al-Jushami's reading above
does not apply to al-Zamakhshari's because the latter does not interpret när in its
indefinite form as referring to a specific section in Hell. For these reasons, it is evi-
dent that al-Zamakhshari's interpretation is quite convincing.

Let us now look at other examples. Q.26:69-71 present an interesting case. The
verses read:

Wa-tlu calayhim naba'a Ibrähima idh qäla li-ablhi wa-qawmihi mä

tacbudüna? Qälü nacbudu asnäman fa-nazcdlu lahä cäkifina.

'And recite to them the story of Abraham when he said to his father
and his people, "What do you worship?" They said, "We worship
idols; and continue cleaving to them!".' (adapted)
Al-Zamakhshari notices that the answer to the question posed in the second verse
exceeds what is required, so he conjures up an observation from his normal imaginary
interlocutor:

'mä tacbudünaT is a question about the object of worship only, so

according to convention, what they should have said is (only)

'asnäman' ('idols')...
He then remarks:
 Departure from Communicative Norms in the Qur'an 75

Those people narrated the story of their pre-occupation in full as

though they were rejoicing over this story and priding themselves with
it. So it includes the answer to Abraham's question and at the same
time shows that they were pleased and proud with themselves, which
is what they intended to do. Do you not see that they linked the phrase
'fa-nazallu lahä cäkifln' to 'nacbud' and were not content with the
addition of 'nacbua" alone? Equivalent to this is your saying to some
rascal, 'What do you wear in your country?' to which he answered, T
wear robes from Ahtam and I drag their tails along the alleys of the

neighbourhood.'12
The significance of this remark is that it makes clear that the Qur'an is depicting the
attitude of the people to whom Abraham was sent as a prophet. Indeed, one could dis-
cern the logic behind their answer being reflective of their pride and celebration of

the status quo which is symptomatic of their mentality and attitude because that
-
-

is what makes them similar to the Quraysh who opposed the Prophet Muhammad.
One of the purposes of Süra 26 is to console the Prophet by making him aware that
the previous prophets were also opposed by people with a similar mentality and atti-
tude to that of his own people; thus, it can be seen now how crucial it is to understand
the reply to Abraham's question in the way presented by al-Zamakhshari in his
comment.

Here, al-Zamakhshari the term qlyäs (which I translate as 'convention') to

uses

describe what would normally be done in that particular situation. The use of this
term would probably be appreciated by Grice whose investigation into communica-
tive acts enabled him to formulate certain maxims which participants conventionally
adhere to in communication. One of the maxims is that of quantity, which is as fol-
lows: make your contribution as informative as (but not more informative than) is
required.13 Violation of a maxim, to him, is not done without good reason.14 Q.26:71
above apparently violates this maxim, but interestingly, al-Zamakhshari did not pass
by it without explaining what the 'good reason' is therein.
There aremany instances in the Qur'an where other maxims apparently seem to be
violated, and indeed in many such instances, al-Zamakhshari would provide some
form of explanation, although obviously he approaches those passages from the point
of view of what is expected in each individual context, rather than viewing them from
a global perspective as Grice does. In Q.7:75, for example, al-Zamakhshari detects a

kind of departure from norms which would be described in Gricean terminology as a

violation of the maxim of relevance which Grice states as 'Be relevant!'15 The verse
reads:
 76 Journal of Qur'anic Studies

Qäla 'l-mala'u 'lladhlna stakbarü min qawmihi li'lladhina studcifü

liman ämana minhum a-ta damüna anna sälihan mursalun min rabbi-
hi. Qälü innä bimä ursila bihi mu 'minüna.

'Said the Council of those of his people who waxed proud to those that
were abased, to those of them who believed, "Do you know that Sälih

is an Envoy from his Lord?" They said, "In the Message he has been
sent with we are believers".'

Here the believers' answer is not apparently relevant to the question because the ques-
tion is about whether or not they knew, i.e. based their conclusion on solid evidence,
that Sälih was sent by God as a prophet. In this situation, the relevant answer would
be yes or no, and possibly with some elaboration on the reason for either one. Having
detected this, al-Zamakhshari comments:

'They [the disbelievers among Sälih's people] asked the believers

about (the status of) their knowledge of Sälih's prophethood but the
believers projected this prophethood as something already established,
self-evident, indisputable and unadulterated by any doubt. It is as
though they had said: "Knowledge of his prophethood and what he had
been sent with is not an issue; what is at issue is the obligation to
believe in him".'16

So, al-Zamakhsharl says, the reason why they did not answer in a way which
as

would conform to what is normally expected in that situation is to imply that the evi-
dence was more than convincing enough for anyone to derive that Sälih was a
prophet, it was just a matter of whether one would be willing to acknowledge it or
not. Thus, although they apparently ignored the question, they had in fact answered it
in such a way that not only did they confirm that their belief was based on solid evi-
dence but also adumbrated that the evidence was in fact clear enough for the ques-
tioners themselves to be convinced. This is indeed a perceptive interpretation, but
understanding the text as presented by al-Zamakhshari here is also crucial in under-
standing what the Qur'an does with regard to the believers. If the departure from
norms in Q.26:71 above is employed to depict the attitudes of the disbelievers, here

it is employed to depict the attitudes of the believers, for the answer reflects their
humility to truth, sense of commitment and whole-hearted acceptance of the religion
in its totality once it became clear to them that its propagator was indeed a prophet of
God, not someone who was making a false claim. Thus, God relays their truthful tes-
timony: 'We do, in fact, believe in the message which he has been sent with'.
It is
interesting to note that even the maxim of quality relating to truthfulness17 may
appear to be violated on certain occasions. One of the obvious examples is the
 Departure from Communicative Norms in the Qur'an 77

Qur'anic passage balfacalahu kabiruhum hädhä 'No; it was this great one of them
-

that did it!' (Q.21:63) which relates Abraham's reply to those who had asked him who
broke the idols. Commenting on this passage, al-Zamakhsharl says:
This is type of allusion in speech, one whose subtleties are not
one

penetrable except by the minds of the masters among the culamä' al-
macänl. Its explanation is as follows: Abraham's intention was not to
ascribe the act which he committed to the idol, instead his intention
was to affirm and establish that he was the one who did it by using an

allusive style, so that he would achieve his aim of imposing his argu-
ment upon them and confounding them comprehensively. This is like
the following situation: you are well-known as someone who has nice
handwriting, you produce a letter and someone asks you whether it is
you who have written the letter and he is an illiterate who cannot even
transcribe, or whose handwriting is totally unintelligible. Having been
asked, you reply: 'Indeed, you are the one who wrote it!' So your
intention here is actually to affirm yourself as the doer and mock him
at the same time, not to deny the writing from yourself and ascribe it
to that illiterate person.18

Now given the context, Abraham's reply in actual fact does not violate the maxim on
a subtler consideration because as al-Zamakhshari explains, Abraham was in fact

ascribing to himself the act of breaking the idols through allusion, rather than through
direct statement in order to confound the idolaters comprehensively with his argu-
ment. Many earlier exegetes were anxious to show that Abraham was not being
untruthful at all, not even on the surface level, and they said that this was because he
made his speech conditional, i.e. the great one of the idols would have done it if the
idols were able to speak.19 So as the idols could not speak, then the great one of them
did not break the minor ones. (In this reading, the phrase which is seen as the first
conditional clause is in känü yantiqüna ('if they were able to speak' adapted) which
-

comes after the phrase balfa'alahu kabiruhum hädhä fa-sa'alühum. What this means

is that those earlier exegetes effectively said that Abraham did not actually answer the
question, and hence, there is no question of whether he was being truthful or not. It
is not difficult to see that this interpretation came out of good intention, but if any-
thing, it indirectly suggests that Abraham was cunning enough to contrive a way to
make a misleading statement like that. This does not apply to al-Zamakhshari's inter-
pretation because al-Zamakhshari took into account that Abraham was being sarcas-
tic and that his addressees knew exactly what he was aiming at, so there was absolute-
ly no question of deception which was the whole point of lying.
Another example of this type can be found in Q.27:65 :
 78 Journal of Qur'anic Studies

Qul la yaclamu manfi 'l-samawati wa'l-ardi 'l-ghayba ilia 'llahu...

'Say: "None in the heavens and earth knows the Unseen except God".'
(adapted)
Here, on the face of it, it would have been sufficient to say either:

a) no one in the heavens and earth has the knowledge of the Unseen (al-
ghayb), without adding 'except God' because God does not exist within
-

the confines of heavens and earth, or

b) no one knows the Unseen save God, without mentioning 'those in the
heavens and earth'.

Infact, it is the addition of either phrase which apparently makes it as though the
Qur'an is suggesting that God exists within the confines of heavens and earth, which
is not the case, of course. So it seems as though the verse here gives a wrong impres-
sion. Aware of this, al-Zamakhsharl asks why the word Allah is in the nominative case
which apparently implies that God is part of the class of those in the heavens and
-

earth while God is actually beyond the confines of both. In reply he says that this
-

follows the style of the Tamim tribe with regard to the use of the particle ilia. He then
adds that the style is adopted in this particular context so that the effect would become
something like: 'if God is indeed one among those who reside within the boundaries
of heavens and earth, then it is conceivable that they could possess knowledge of the
Unseen!' To substantiate his interpretation, he compares this with the following line
of poetry:

Wa-baldatin laysa bihä anisu

lila 'l-yacäfiru wa-illä 'l-cJsu

'And piece of land, no boon companion exists thereabout except the

a

gazelles, and except the camels'20

saying that a similar effect has been achieved. As the gazelles do not belong to the
class of boon companions, the effect therefore becomes: 'if the gazelles can indeed
be considered boon companions, then there are boon companions in this place!'
Obviously, that is not the case. So, by adopting the same style of wording, al-
Zamakhshari concludes, the Qur'anic sentence should therefore be understood as: 'it
is simply impossible to conceive that anyone in the heavens and earth could have the
knowledge of the Unseen just as it is impossible to conceive that God is part of the
class of those who reside in heavens or on earth'.21

There are also instances where the departure from norms is perceived from the point
of view of collocation. An example of this is Q.82:6:
 Departure from Communicative Norms in the Qur'an 79

Yä ayyuhä 'l-insänu mä gharraka bi-rabbika 'l-karimi?

'O man! What deceived thee as to thy generous Lord?'

According to al-Zamakhsharl, the attribute al-Karim does not apparently collocate
with the verb gharra because it is quite expected that generosity misleads, so appar-
ently it does not make sense for someone to reproach another for being complacent by
pointing out the very quality in himself which has led the latter to be so. It would be
rather odd, for example, for someone to ask: 'Why have you been deceived when you
know he is generous and kind?' compared to: 'Why have you been deceived when you
know he will punish you if you do wrong?' Now, how then is this 'odd' juxtaposition
explained by al-Zamakhsharl? Al-Zamakhshari is aware that the depiction of this par-
ticular scene in the hereafter where a person is reproached by God serves a didactic
function, and the listener/reader is meant to be affected in a manner which would influ-
ence his subsequent behaviour. Such awareness is reflected in his remarks:

It that a person should be deceived neither by God's generosi-

means

ty toward him as He gave him life in order to benefit him, nor by what
God has lavished upon him. He should not be deceived by all this to
the extent that he comes to expect that God, having bestowed His
favours on him first time round, would bestow him rewards and for-
sake the retribution even when he has rebelled and showed no grati-
tude for all the favours bestowed upon him. This is abominable and
totally unwise.22
So with that awareness, al-Zamakhshari was able to see that by adding the qualicative
al-Karlm, the Qur'an is making a point that it is God's generosity in particular that
should not lead anyone into thinking that having been the beneficiary of His gen-
erosity in this world, he would continue to be lavished with similar generosity in the
hereafter despite all the crimes that have been committed.

A similar situation can be found in Q.50:32-3:

Hädhä mä tücadüna li-kulli awwäbin hafizin, man khashiya 7-
Rahmäna bi'l-ghaybi wa-jä'a bi-qalbin munTbin...

'This is that you were promised; it is for every mindful penitent.

Whosoever fears the All-merciful while unseen, and comes with a pen-
itent heart...' (adapted)

Here al-Zamakhshari asks:

How come the notion of fear is juxtaposed with a divine name which
describes His quality of overwhelming graciousness?23
80 Journal of Qur'anic Studies

Apparently, he is suggesting that al-Rahmän does not seem to collocate with

khashiya, as would, say, al-Jabbär ('the Compeller') or al-Muntaqim ('the Avenger').
Again, he shows his awareness of the didactic function of the sentence by saying:
[The purpose] is praise those who are God-fearing in a most pro-
to
found manner because they still fear Him despite their knowledge of
His overwhelming graciousness.24

Hence it be seen here that the sentence effectively suggests that complacency is
can

not a quality of those God-conscious people, even when there is a compelling

temptation for them to be complacent, knowing that God's graciousness is beyond

limitation.

In conclusion, it can be said that the examples discussed above have shown that
there is still a strong case for rhetorical studies in Qur'anic interpretation, especially
when considering the fact that some of the modern linguistic studies have re-
emphasised the old findings as we have seen in the discussions of al-Jurjäni and
al-Zamakhshari.

NOTES
1 See M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, 'Grammatical Shift for Rhetorical Purposes: lltifät and Related
Features in the Qur'an', BSOAS, London, vol. LV (1992), pp. 407-8, 411-2.
2 Unless otherwise stated, all translations of Qur'anic passages are taken from A.J. Arberry,
The Koran Interpreted (Oxford: OUP, 1983).
3 See, for example, al-Sayyid al-Häshimi, Jawähir al-balägha (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1988), esp.
pp. 239-43.
4 See Miftäh al-culüm (Cairo: cIsä T-Bäbt '1-HalabI, 1938), p. 75.
5 See Dalä'il al-icjäz, ed. Mahmud M. Shäkir (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khänjl, 1989), pp. 554-7.
6 See Dalä'il, p. 115, and see also analyses of a similar nature on pp. 114-6.
7 Ibid.
8 See cAdnän Zarzür, al-Häklm al-Jushaml wa-manhajuhu fl 'l-tafsir (Beirut: Mu'assasat al-
Risäla, 1971), pp. 302-3.
9 Al-Kashshäf, ed. Mustafa Ahmad, 3rd edn (Cairo: Dar al-Rayyän HT-Turäth, 1987), 4:764.
10 See, for example, Kitäb Sibawayh, ed. cAbd al-Saläm Härün (Cairo: Där al-Qalam, 1966),
2:310.
11 Ibid.
12 Al-Kashshäf, 3:317-8.
13 See Paul Grice, Studies in the Ways of Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1989), p. 26.
14 Ibid, pp. 32-7.
15 Ibid, p. 27.
16 Al-Kashshäf, 2:213.
 Departure from Communicative Norms in the Qur'an 81

17 Grice states the maxim as follows: 'Try to make your contribution one that is true'. Grice,
Studies, p. 27.
18 Al-Kashshäf, 3:124.
19 See, for example, al-Qumml, Tafslr al-Qummi, ed. al-Sayyid al-Tayyib al-Musawi (Qumm:
Mu'assasat Dar al-Kitäb, 1886), 2:72; al-Zajjäj, Macänl 'l-Qur'än, ed. cAbd al-Jalll ShalabI
(Beirut: cÄlam al-Kutub, 1988), 3:383; al-Mäwardl, al-Nukat wa'l-cuyün, ed. Khidr M. Khidr
(Kuwait: Wizärat al-Awqäf wa'l-Shu'ün al-Islämiyya, 1982), 3:47; and al-Tüsi, al-Tibyän fl
tafsir al-Qur'än (al-Najaf: al-Matbaca al-Tlmiyya, 1957), 7:259.
20 Quoted in al-Zamakhshari, al-Kashshäf, 3:378. The line is also quoted by Slbawayh in his
Kitäb, 1:263. The poet as established by the editor of Kitab is Jirän al-cUd. (My translation.)
21 Al-Kashshäf, 3:378.
22 Ibid., 4:715.
23 Ibid., 4:390.
24 Ibid.