Knowing the Criterion of Similitude in the Qur’ān’s Verses of Challenge

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Fatḥullāh Najjārzādigan
• Muḥammad Mahdī Shāhmurādī

10.22067/naqhs.v44i1.11576

Abstract

The Qur’ān’s Verses of Challenge (āyāt al-taḥaddī), consisting of form and content, concerns their Divinity, and the similitude in the taḥaddī verses of the Qur’ān means the equivalence and identicalness to the Qur’ān verses of what is brought up.
The perspectives of the polytheists (and all the addressees) towards
the Qur’ān interferes in the taḥaddī of the Qur’ān; and claiming taḥaddī from the Qur’ān cannot be interpreted as free from the occasions of Revelation and the addressee’s viewpoints.
From among the four criteria of similitude, i.e. “giving guidance”, “new order and novel content”, “orderliness”, and “efficacy”, the “new order and novel content of the Qur’ān” seems to be the most significant of all. In this criterion, the attribute of ḥadīth (unprecedented) is used for the Qur’ān and refers to the innovations of this Book in form and content and has probably been of concern to the rhetoricians and theologians, who have been more interested in the rhetorical aspects of the Qur’ān. If there is no innovation in the Qur’ān, taḥaddī to it would be meaningless.
Imitation of the referent (madlūl) and content of the Qur’ān and also of its word form in response to taḥaddī of the Qur’ān, is lack of knowledge and unawareness of the principles of antilogy, as by fully imitating the order and synthesis of the Qur’ān and alteration of some of its words as well as plagiarizing from the Qur’ān, the proponents of the Qur’ān think they have responded to the taḥaddī of the Qur’ān.

Keywords

• challenge
• similitude
• new order
• novel content
• imitation

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