Repetitive Elements in Qur’anic Stories

Abstract

In the Qur’an, especially in its stories, repetition of structural elements is not infrequent. This caused some Orientalists to speak about chaotic repetitions there in, and huge redundancy respectively. A careful analysis, however, shows that it is these repetitions – present in the story about Moses – which are the principle of the text structuring, of its aesthetic functioning, ameans of its connexion and style-marking.

The story is not told in continuo and linearly, but is divided into basic segments and motifs over alarge number of loci. The procedure of such distribution affirms the principle of structuring which is dominant in the Oriental Islamic tradition and is known as the arabesque.

Repetitions in this story are found at the phonetic and phonological levels, starting from conjunctions, building certain stylistic figures, then the repetitions at the sentence level, to the repetitions of complete motifs, but always in a different context. Apart from the building of certain stylistic figures by repetitions, they also function as connectives. This leads us to an unexpected knowledge – the whole motifs act as connectives although stylistics knows the highest connectives being those at the sentence level.

The motif-connective plays an important rhetoricrole in addition to the rhythm and melody function: the repetitive figures, in addition to the aesthetic, also have the argumentative function. By being repeated, amotif draws attention to itself doubly. On the one hand, it warns of its aesthetic effects, of the relevance of connectives, and on the other hand it has an argumentative function, in full compliance with the sacral style.

As the ultimate research effect, a conclusion offers itself that similarities and repetitions of certain parts of the Qur’an are construction elements of its beauty with which the text affects the reader: this sacred text is primarily argumentative, but its argumentativeness is strongly underpinned by its aesthetic factor. This is why the statement about the chaos of repetition or redundancy of the Qur’anictext is unscientific.