‘Alī b. ‘Īsā al-Rummānī (d. 384/994) and His Understanding of I‘jaz

While its readers and listeners accepted the unparalleled literary power and beauty of the Qur’an at the time of its revelation, several theologians and philologists have begun to discuss its i‘jaz beginning from the early third century of the Islamic calendar. Abū’l-Ḥasan ‘Alī b. ‘Īsā al-Rummānī, a leading authority in Arabic grammar, philology, and tafsīr as well as a scholar of rational sciences, was one of the Mu‘tazilite authors who wrote a treatise (risāle) on the topic. In his al-Nukat fī I‘jāz al-Qur’ān, al-Rummānī listed seven features to demonstrate the miraculous nature of the Qur’an: its rhetorical beauty, its challenge with respect to Arabic proce and poetry, the inability of the Arabs to produce a similar text, the general extent of the challenge, its sarf, its prophecy of future events, the use of words and letters in a harmonious way, and comparison with other miracles. In the most part of his work, al-Rummānī discoursed on balagha or the aesthetic effectiveness of the Qur’an on the verbal level and showed how it contributed to its i’jaz. While discussing the balagha, the author analyzed the internal and external structures of the Qur’an as well as its style and expression. In his analysis of the internal structure, he put the emphasis on tashbih (analogy), isti‘arah (metaphor), and mubalaghah (hyperbole). In defining the external structure, he highlighted i‘jaz, telâum, jinas (paranomasia), and fasila (Qurʾānic rhyme). As for the style and expression, he considered tasrîf, tadmîn, and beyan. For each of these literary arts, al-Rummānī brought examples from the Qur’anic verses and compared them with profone speech of the Arabs at the time of the revelation to demonstrate the inimitability and stylistic unsurpassedneds of the Holy Book.