ABSTRACT
The school of linguistic Qur’anic exegesis has been the most robust exegetical technique that has evolved since the formative phase in the first/seventh century, spanning to the twenty-first century. This chapter provides a detailed and explicated discussion of the evolution of linguistic exegesis and how it was linked to the notion of inimitability of Qur’anic discourse. The inimitability-oriented analysis of Qur’anic genre is hinged upon linguistic and para-linguistic levels of analysis. Although the levels of numerical inimitability and scientific inimitability are para-linguistic, i.e. not purely linguistic, we believe they are relevant to our discussion at this stage while we are investigating the stylistic notion of inimitability. Through expounded discussion, the present chapter provides an insight in the syntactic, semantic, stylistic, and phonetic features of Qur’anic genre which are employed by linguist exegetes in their exegetical analysis. The present account also investigates the different approaches of the linguistic school of exegesis, what it has been primarily concerned with, the analysis by the linguist exegetes of grammatical, semantic, rhetorical, and phonetic problems involved in Qur’anic discourse and their impact on the meaning of the āyah, the evolution of modes of reading as a major exegetical technique in Qur’anic exegesis, the distinction between the phonetically oriented and semantically oriented modes of reading, the overlap between the seven dialectal differences and modes of reading, and the impact of modes of reading on Qur’anic exegesis and theological cleavages. The use of the curly brackets applies only to the āyahs and expressions that are not compatible with the cUthmanic master codex. The exegetes of the school of linguistic exegesis involve both mainstream and non-mainstream schools of thought. Most importantly, the linguistic approach to Qur’anic exegesis is based on linguistic facts which are applied to the Qur’anic text. However, exegetes have expressed wide-ranging rational linguistic analyses to various Qur’anic expressions and āyahs. For this reason, we classify the school of linguistic exegesis as non-mainstream due to the following reasons:
The grammatical analysis is, at times, hinged upon linguistic personal opinion where different grammarians appoint different grammatical functions to the same grammatical constituent. Thus, Arabic grammar has not regulated grammar-based Qur’anic exegesis. There is always room for grammatical maneuverability through which an exegete can prove a given theological point of view which may be contrary to the canons of exegesis.
The stylistic analysis of the modern phase is based on hypothetical judgement (al-dirāyah) and textual artistic taste.
The consonance-based analysis of the modern phase is purely hypothetical. Different linguist exegetes appoint distinct units and themes to the same sūrah.
