The Dilemma of Critics of Na Ẓ M ( Coherence ) of the Qur ‘ An

The rules and principles of sciences naturally exist within their manifestations.¹ These are the facts that organize and shape these phenomena. They are not external but internal factors. Scholars and experts derive those rules from those manifestations and other relevant factors and organize them efficiently for their audience in a specific order. The main purpose of this practice is understanding and simplification.

It is the reality that has certain established outcomes that follow:

Firstly, applications and implications in the realm of events are contingent upon principles and rules. Considering the necessity of education and learning, they are presented as a preamble.

Secondly, there exists an inherent relationship between principles and applications.

Principles are derived from applications, and applications are comprehended from principles. Both cannot be understood or explained separately.²

Thirdly, if the scientific principles of a manifestation are not organized, it does not imply freedom from adhering to principles and rules. It simply means that scholars have not adopted its principles through deliberation.

It is appropriate to understand this with a few examples:

‘Arūḍ (versification) is a discipline of knowledge that covers the rhythm of poetry.

Scholars of literature know that this knowledge is not superior to poetry but is contingent upon it. It implies that the principles of ‘arūḍ were not established so as to be employed to create poetry. The fact is that poetry has always existed, been read, understood, and the distinction between its harmonious and non-harmonious elements was comprehensible.

In the second century AH, Khalil Bin Ahmad laid out the words of Arabic poets and based on that established 15 defined meters. Later, in Iran, a few more meters were added considering Persian poetry.

The sciences of ‘language and literature,’ namely syntax, rhetoric, and stylistics, have derived all their principles and rules from language and literature themselves.

Linguistic experts have highlighted the literature genres of poetry and prose, speeches, and conversations. They have defined various and diverse principles of terms like noun, verb, preposition, adverb, subject, object, simile, metaphor, metonymy, antonyms (taḍād), hyperbole (mubālaghah), qualification (ta‘līl), and gender (tajnīs)³. None of these things were introduced from outside the realm of language and literature.

The same rule applies to the discipline of Islamic sciences.⁴ The commentaries came first, and the principles of the commentary were devised later. Rather, most of them have been published in the modern era. The collections of Hadith were compiled earlier, and the principles of acceptance, rejection, and understanding came later.

This is also the case in jurisprudence, history, and biography. Therefore, the priMaryam significance in these sciences lies in the texts of interpretation, Hadith, jurisprudence, and biography, which serve as a source on one side and are applied on the other side according to principles. Therefore, it is not possible to understand the principles of these sciences separately from their sources and applications.

In these sciences, instead of principles, there are assumptions, analogies, probabilities, and imaginations. These are presented in place of principles for the sake of clarification, persuasion in arguments, or for educational purposes. Using this method for investigating and exploring unclear matters is not incorrect. Even in pure empirical sciences like physics, when researching unknown facts, assumptions and hypotheses are similarly established. Concepts such as evolution in biology and the concept of quantum mechanics in physics are examples of this approach.

The sumMaryam of this detail is that the sources of knowledge in the world of observation (empirical sciences) and the sources of knowledge in the world of imagination (abstract sciences) are fundamentally different from each other.

One relies on observable sources while the other relies on non-observable ones.

One’s knowledge is based on principles and rules, whereas the other is based on assumptions and analogies. Therefore, they cannot be compared, one cannot be inferred from the other, one’s principles cannot be applied to the other, one’s perspective cannot be used to understand the other, and one cannot be judged in the context of the other.

The dilemma of the critics of “Nazm-e-Quran” (Coherence of the Quran) is that they stand in the realm of later mentioned and criticize a science based on its methodology that is the precursor to the earlier mentioned style of knowledge. This is why they do not adopt the traditional methods and established principles of

Islamic sciences in their criticism. In their arguments, they do not present texts from the Quran and Hadith, nor do they refer to historical accounts or biographies, neither do they cite linguistic or literary evidence, nor do they echo the esteemed opinions of renowned scholars in Islamic sciences as a form of testimony. Each discussion, conversation, and piece of writing begins and ends with abstractions. For these reasons, it is deemed irrelevant for scholars of Islamic sciences and meaningless for students.

They should comprehend this essence and acknowledge the reality that their criticism of Ghulam Ahmed Pervez’s conception of “Nazm-e-Quran” will only be pertinent and understandable if they present it within the context of the tradition of

Islamic sciences. They will demonstrate its applicability by aligning it with the contents of Al-Bayān.

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