Repetition in Quranic Stories
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Repetition In Quranic Stories
التكرار فى القصص القرآنى
The enemies of this religion are still fighting it –the religion that makes them angry by it's power-, and they are still trying to make people misunderstand this religion through discussing the indirect issues which makes it unclear for the people. In spite of continuously answering it and continuously showing it's ineffectiveness using evidence and proofs. That could be because there are plenty of indirect issues that helped them in their arguments.
It is commonly asked about the wisdom behind the repetition in the Quran. This can be a gate for the enemies to destroy this religion through affecting people who don’t have enough knowledge about Islam, so they are being guided to the untruth. Some of the people who are trying to study the Arab world are taking part in this mission to weaken the Quran –especially through the historical stories which were mentioned in the Quran-.
Those people were bias and dishonest when they discussed those issues, but if you think carefully about their arguments you will find them untrue. For some people who might be honest – their arguments come from the lack of the knowledge-, but there is no way to think that they lack the basic knowledge. Though it shows great deal of hate in dishonest people, which can have an effect on people with little knowledge. The main problem is when there is lack in the knowledge of the language, and what is worst to know is that the standard Arabic language is not commonly used. The enemies use this factor to cause the misunderstanding, for sure the truth last and their arguments shall disappear. For us to be prepared to answer them we need to have great trust in our religion, need to be of great useful knowledge and finally we need to have careful and logical thinking as our God ordered us.
God says about knowledgeable people in this situation:
He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book: In it are verses basic or fundamental (of established meaning); they are the foundation of the Book: others are allegorical. But those in whose hearts is perversity follow the part thereof that is allegorical, seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings, but no one knows its hidden meanings except Allah. And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say: "We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:" and none will grasp the Message except men of understanding. "AAL-E-IMRAN. 7”
There is many repetitions in the Quran, and the enemies say that repetition are not of any use.
There are two says about the repetition issue in the Quran.
The first say is: Repetition is very important to use and it is part of the speech accuracy and it is commonly used by the Arabs in their speech especially in their poems, as you can find in Al- Mohalal Bin Rabeah's poems and Amro bin Kalthoom's poem.
Unless repetition is useless and would not bring new meanings, it would not be recommended to be used. The Quran does not use this kind of repetition.
Repetition is a factor in speech accuracy, and it is under the Al-Etnab category which is a language tool that deals with direct and indirect repetition, the indirect one such as saying the sentence then explaining it.
Repetition has many functions, such as making the meaning stronger, making the sentence longer, showing the importance of the issue and direct the intention, that can be seen in Al-Rahman chapter when God says: Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny?
This sentence was repeated 31 times, because each time God mention his favors, so he want to direct the intention toward it's importance.
The Quran uses repetition, as the accuracy of the speech requires showing a meaning in many different forms, and the repeated stories need to be introduced differently every time its mentioned so the reader does not get bored but rather than that he would find new meanings form the other repetitions.
Some of the ways Quran uses repetition is through showing the summarized version of the story then explore it, sometimes mention the end and the purpose of the story then starts exploring it. It has a feature is through the good use of the story through ignoring the unimportant parts, leaving the brain thinking about it while mentioning the important events.
One of the repetition functions is to break down the ideas of one story in a way that makes the overall meaning stronger with the addition of new words.
Two of the aims of the Quran are to direct people intention toward God and educate people, these two points need special care, as it not enough to mention them only for once, but it need continuous reminding, as God said: remind people as reminding is beneficial to the believers. And it is quite wise to remind people to do good.
The language knowledgeable Salah Abd Al-Tawab says: the importance of repetition was in reminding people and in increasing the effect of what was reminded. It is not easy for any one to understand the importance of repetition. The Quran use it very well that it looks perfect.
This is the first say in this issue, it concludes that it is the Arabic language that requires repetition and everything in the Quran was made by wisdom. With the repetition the meaning become stronger. and this points to that the Quran was not made by human.
The second say is:
Repetition is repeating the story with the same words and the same meaning and this can not be of any use. But if it was repeated in different way with different words and situation it is not considered repetition, but rather it is considered completing and a type of variation.
Here is some says from language and religion knowledgeable people;
The language knowledgeable Mohammed Qutb said: in fact it is not repetition but it is a matter of variation. You cant find two exactly same sentences in the Quran, though you can find similarities, as the relation between relatives, they are not repeated. Variation is also used to avoid make the reader bored.
Religion knowledgeable Abdull Rahaman Al-Maidani said: for any one who thinks there is a word by word repetition in the Quran he should find the wisdom behind this repetition and he should find the differences in the meanings for the repeated sentences even it had minor differences.
It can be thought that there is repetition for some subjects, but in reality there is no repetition, it is actually completing each other to deliver the overall meaning.
As examples for repetition and variation, the stories in the Quran are introduced differently each time, it is repeated to deliver the special purpose that the God want to deliver. Every time the story is repeated you would find differences in its words and parts and there is so much need to change the words positions and to mention stuff would be ignored in other situations, as require for the accuracy of the speech.
Said Qutb said in his famous book "Fe Dhelal Al-Quran" –the favor of the Quran-: The stories in the Quran come in different positions for different situations, and these situations determine the story properties. When ever the story is repeated it has different functions.
The language knowledgeable Fadhel Al-Samorai said: It would seem that the story is being repeated, but in fact in each time it would bring new ideas, as it required for the overall meaning.
The religion knowledgeable Muhammed Al-Butti said: It could happen that some stories are repeated as that is required to deliver the educational message held by the story. Each time the story comes in different ways and you would feel as you read it for the first time.
In Al-Butti explanations, he brought examples that happened in Moses –Peace Be Upon Him- story, that had many functions and teaching purposes. So when God wanted to make Mohammed –Peace Be Upon Him- and his friends feel strong, he would mention Moses's victory over pharaohs and his army. And when people think that they are the best, the Quran would mention what happened between Pharaohs and Moses –Peace Be Upon Him- including the conversations. And there are more to learn from Moses story.
In conclusion, In spite of the differences in the ideas around the Quran uses of repetition, they all agree that every situation requires different treatment and every situation would bring new meaning directly or indirectly through concluding it.
And these all show that the Quran is supernatural
