ABSTRACT
O ne may examine the language of the Qur'an and appreciate its style or its rhetorical means as they are presented objectively in the text.
If it seems of interest, one may also argue whether the Qur'an is of divine beauty, as Muslims think, or whether Mul;lammad was a "mediocre stylist", as Noldeke and Schwally thought. l Yet, there can hardly be any doubt that throughout its history of reception, the Qur'an has been reported to have an aesthetic effect uncontested by any other text in world literature. Until today, declarations of fascination with the language of the Qur' an, reports about various situations in which its recitation caused ecstatic reactions, or praise for particular reciters are known throughout Muslim - and especially Arabic-speaking - literary and theological history. They surface in the most diverse genres, contexts and epochs, and every scholar of Islamic studies will inevitably and regularly encounter them in his work (and as much when travelling). Thus, it can hardly be denied that the Muslims' experience of the Qur'an, as a poetically structured text and recital, is also aesthetic in its nature. At least in the Arabic-speaking world, the treatment of the Holy Book as an aesthetic phenomenon should be seen as an important part of Islamic religious practice.
