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The Interaction of Sound and Meaning in Qur’ānic Words: A Tonal Approach
Muslims believe that the Qur’ān is the Speech of God with all its sound and sense. The association of the sound with Divine speech triggers the anticipation that the sound and meaning in the Qur’ān have to be intertwined. This expectation is heightened since according to a vast majority of Muslim sc...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Religious Studies
2020
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| _version_ | 1867613922282962944 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Ömer, Faruk Es |
| author2 | Tayob, Abdulkader |
| author_browse | Tayob, Abdulkader Ömer, Faruk Es |
| author_facet | Tayob, Abdulkader Ömer, Faruk Es |
| author_sort | Ömer, Faruk Es |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Muslims believe that the Qur’ān is the Speech of God with all its sound and sense. The association of the sound with Divine speech triggers the anticipation that the sound and meaning in the Qur’ān have to be intertwined. This expectation is heightened since according to a vast majority of Muslim scholars, the most powerful facet of the miraculousness and inimitability of the Qur’ān (iʻjāz) is the aesthetic excellence of its eloquence (balāḡah) and articulacy (fasāḥah). And intriguingly, in parallel to the intricate relationship of sound and meaning, the attempts of Muslim rhetoricians to identify the source and enchantment of Qur’ānic eloquence have been developed around, and challenged by the distinction of meaning (maʻnā) and expression (lafẓ), which has long continued to be a most elusive problem. In this connection, there are several signi2icant contemporary studies such as of Michael Sells and Kristina Nelson, which develop the traditional analysis further by charting the aural structures of Qur’ānic passages on the basis of the parallelisms and divergencies of syntactic, phonological, and rhythmic features, which are interpreted through the musical tonal dynamics. And the ways in which the aural structures become distinct of each other are read in parallel with the generation of Qur’ānic meanings. These studies construct a fertile formal framework for sound-meaning interaction, without, however, focusing upon how they are instantaneously correlated. In this regard, we encounter a unique work of Sayyid Quṭb, Artistic Imagery in the Qur’ān, in which Quṭb propounds that the fundamental principle and the most valuable stylistic quality of Qur’ānic language is artistic imagery (taswīr), through which the meanings are depicted and portrayed in a vividly evocative way kindling the feeling that the Qur’ānic expression is “alive”. As a crucial dimension of taswīr, Quṭb suggests that the tonal and articulatory features of the letters depict the meanings of the words, and the ways in which they are sequenced generate unique styles of inner musicality that portray the moods and atmospheres of the passages. However, in his cursory discussion, Quṭb does not explain what these tonal qualities are, and how they work. This dissertation develops the concept of taswīr around the concept of tonality and investigates the sound-meaning relationship by meticulously dissecting the articulatory dynamics of the letters and their expressive and evocative qualities. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/30772 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:43:50.644Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publishDateRange | 2020 |
| publishDateSort | 2020 |
| publisher | Department of Religious Studies |
| publisherStr | Department of Religious Studies |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/30772 The Interaction of Sound and Meaning in Qur’ānic Words: A Tonal Approach Ömer, Faruk Es Tayob, Abdulkader Muslims believe that the Qur’ān is the Speech of God with all its sound and sense. The association of the sound with Divine speech triggers the anticipation that the sound and meaning in the Qur’ān have to be intertwined. This expectation is heightened since according to a vast majority of Muslim scholars, the most powerful facet of the miraculousness and inimitability of the Qur’ān (iʻjāz) is the aesthetic excellence of its eloquence (balāḡah) and articulacy (fasāḥah). And intriguingly, in parallel to the intricate relationship of sound and meaning, the attempts of Muslim rhetoricians to identify the source and enchantment of Qur’ānic eloquence have been developed around, and challenged by the distinction of meaning (maʻnā) and expression (lafẓ), which has long continued to be a most elusive problem. In this connection, there are several signi2icant contemporary studies such as of Michael Sells and Kristina Nelson, which develop the traditional analysis further by charting the aural structures of Qur’ānic passages on the basis of the parallelisms and divergencies of syntactic, phonological, and rhythmic features, which are interpreted through the musical tonal dynamics. And the ways in which the aural structures become distinct of each other are read in parallel with the generation of Qur’ānic meanings. These studies construct a fertile formal framework for sound-meaning interaction, without, however, focusing upon how they are instantaneously correlated. In this regard, we encounter a unique work of Sayyid Quṭb, Artistic Imagery in the Qur’ān, in which Quṭb propounds that the fundamental principle and the most valuable stylistic quality of Qur’ānic language is artistic imagery (taswīr), through which the meanings are depicted and portrayed in a vividly evocative way kindling the feeling that the Qur’ānic expression is “alive”. As a crucial dimension of taswīr, Quṭb suggests that the tonal and articulatory features of the letters depict the meanings of the words, and the ways in which they are sequenced generate unique styles of inner musicality that portray the moods and atmospheres of the passages. However, in his cursory discussion, Quṭb does not explain what these tonal qualities are, and how they work. This dissertation develops the concept of taswīr around the concept of tonality and investigates the sound-meaning relationship by meticulously dissecting the articulatory dynamics of the letters and their expressive and evocative qualities. 2020-01-22T08:33:54Z 2020-01-22T08:33:54Z 2018 Master Thesis Masters http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30772 en application/pdf Department of Religious Studies Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Ömer, Faruk Es The Interaction of Sound and Meaning in Qur’ānic Words: A Tonal Approach |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | The Interaction of Sound and Meaning in Qur’ānic Words: A Tonal Approach |
| title_full | The Interaction of Sound and Meaning in Qur’ānic Words: A Tonal Approach |
| title_fullStr | The Interaction of Sound and Meaning in Qur’ānic Words: A Tonal Approach |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Interaction of Sound and Meaning in Qur’ānic Words: A Tonal Approach |
| title_short | The Interaction of Sound and Meaning in Qur’ānic Words: A Tonal Approach |
| title_sort | interaction of sound and meaning in qur anic words a tonal approach |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30772 |
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