Quran imitations
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Quran imitations represent literary attempts to replicate the style, form and content of the Quran. Historically, they emerge in a dialectic with the doctrine of the i'jaz (inimitability) of the Quran, which asserts that the literary and/or semantic nature of the Quran cannot be reproduced by a human. Both Muslims and non-Muslims have written Quran imitations for various reasons, including as literary exercises, means to express one's admiration for the Quran, or attempts to meet the Quran challenge (the Islamic challenge for someone who doubts the Quran to create something that is like it).
Reasons
[edit]Quran itself has challenged opponents to produce something like it (the concept is known as al-taḥaddī) and Muslims employ the term muʿāraḍāt ("assaults [against the Quran]") to attempts to contest inimitability of the Quran.[1] Islamic traditions suggest that the first attempts at imitation were blasphemous or aimed at asserting claims of divine revelation.[2] However, historically, not all imitations were meant to contest the Quran's preeminence or supremacy; some were simply literary exercises.[3] There are also instances of authors who intended to admire the Quran by imitating it.[1]
History
[edit]Towards the end of Muhammad's life and after his death several men and a woman appeared in various parts of Arabia and claimed to be prophets. Musaylimah, a contemporary of Muhammad, claimed that he received revelations; some of his revelations are recorded.[1] Ibn al-Muqaffa' was a critic of the Qur'an and reportedly made attempts to imitate it. Bashshar ibn Burd (d. 784), Abul Atahiya (d. 828), Al-Mutanabbi (d. 965), and Al-Maʿarri (d. 1058) claimed that their writings surpassed Qur'an in eloquence.[1]
List of works
[edit] |
Arabic
[edit]- Muʿāraḍat al-Qur'ān attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffa' (8th century)[4]
- Diwan al-Mutanabbī (10th century)[4]
- al-Fuṣūl wa al-ghāyāt [Paragraphs and Periods] (11th century)[3]
- Muʿāraḍat al-Qur'ān attributed to al-Ḥillī (12/13th century)[3]
- Qayyūm al-asmā [The Self-Subsisting of All Names] (1844)[3]
- al-Bayān al-ʿarabī [The Arabic Elucidation] (1848)[3]
- Awlād ḥāritinā [Children of Gebelawi] (1959)[4]
- Āyat Jīm [The Verses of Gimel] (1992)[4]
- al-Furqān al-ḥaqq [The True Criterion] (1999)[4]
Other languages
[edit]- Cent noms de Déu [The One Hundred Names of God] by Ramon Llull (14th century); in Catalan[4]
- Khayr al-Bayān [The Best Exposition] by Pir Roshan (1651); multilingual but mainly in Urdu[4]
- Imitations of the Koran by Alexander Pushkin (19th century); in Russian[5]
- Al Aaraaf by Edgar Allan Poe (1829); in English
- Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (1939); in English[4]
Citations
[edit]- ^ a b c d Gharaibeh Simonović 2024.
- ^ Lawson 2012, p. 25.
- ^ a b c d e Lawson 2012, p. 26.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Sherman 2024.
- ^ Pushkin 1972.
References
[edit]- Gharaibeh Simonović, Meysun (2024). "Emergence of the Discourse on the Imitability of the Qur'an". Glasnik Etnografskog instituta. 72 (1): 17–41. doi:10.2298/GEI2401017G.
- Lawson, Todd (2012). Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam: Qur'an, Exegesis, Messianism, and the Literary Origins of the Babi Religion. Routledge. ISBN 9781136622885.
- Pushkin, Alexander (1972). "Imitations of the Koran [Poem]". The Sewanee Review. 80 (2). Translated by Ants Oras. The Johns Hopkins University Press: 276–283. JSTOR 27542634.
- Sherman, William (2024). "Finding the Qur'an in Imitation: Critical Mimesis from Musaylima to Finnegans Wake". ReOrient. 9 (1). Pluto Journals: 50–69. doi:10.13169/reorient.9.1.0050.