ABSTRACT
This "theologization" of the literary aspect of the Qur'an was unfortunate in two ways. First, it made appreciation of literature contingent upon subscription to dogma, an unwarranted precondition since it was the unbelievers, not the believers, who had been challenged by the Qur'an to produce the like of it - something they could not be expected to attempt if they had not recognized any literary excellence in the Qur'an. Second, it obscured the very merit and beauty of the Qur'an which, it had sought to prove, could not be matched or even approximated. This is evident from many of the works that were written to establish that the literary beauty of the Qur'an is unsurpassable. One of the standard texts on the subject of the inimitability of the Qur'an is the I)ilz al-Qur'iln2 of Abu Bakr MUQammad ibn al-Tayyib al-Baqillani (950-1013). But while this book presents a theological doctrine with a vengeance, it can hardly be described as offering a keen analysis of the literary and rhetorical aspects of the Qur'an.3
