Who believed, who believes and the believers –the aspectual differences of such structural types in the Qurʾān

ABSTRACT

This article presents a novel, tripartite division of three seemingly identical structure types in terms of their aspectual differences: who believed, who believe and the believers. The debate on these three structures (a relative pronoun followed by a verb in the past or in the present and the agentive noun) pits the opposing views of those who advocate for their similarity and congruence (Reuschel 1996), and those who firmly believe that phonemic or syntactic differences definitely bring about differences at various levels (Bloomfield 1933). The contexts, exegeses and the relationship between 438 utterance components are analysed here. The results help disentangle the tight knot of long-standing sameness of these three types of structures. The who believed type is shown to express shades of aspect such as a) the constancy of the occurrence of an action, b) progressive actions explored retrospectively in the future such as Judgement Day and c) an action that was completed in the past. The who believe type is shown to go hand in hand with habitual or iterative aspects. The believers type allows for greater flexibility to combine the first two.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Wolfgang Reuschel, Aspekt und Tempus in der Sprache des Korans (Franfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, New Zork, Paris, Wien: Peter Lang, 1996), 143–145. Izutsu also argues that the structure allaḏīna kafarū “who disbelievedˮ corresponds to kāfir “disbelieverˮ. See Izutsu Toshihiko, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qurʾān (Montreal; Ithaca, NY: McGill-Queen’s University Press 2002), 106.

² Sonia, Colina, Fundamentals of Translation (Cambridge: CUP, 2015), 32

³ Leonard Bloomfield, Language (London: George Allen &Unwin LTD, 1933), 157.

⁴ Abū Bišr ʿAmr Ibn ʿUṯmān Ibn Qanbar Sībawayhi, al-Kitab (Cairo: al-Ḫanǧī, 1988), vol. 2, 215.

⁵ Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Mubarrad, al-Kāmil (Cairo: Maktabat Muṣṭafā al-bābī, 1936), vol. 1, 76.

⁶ Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, al-Furūq al-luġawiyya (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsī, 1934), 13.

⁷ al-Mubarrad, al-Kāmil, vol. 1, 79.

⁸ Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum, A University Grammar of English (Delhi: Pearson Education, 1973), 40

⁹ Amina Wadud, Qurʼan and woman: rereading the sacred text from a woman’s perspective (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 35.

¹⁰ The corpus is based on 438 instances compiled from the Qurʾān.

¹¹ Christian Lehmann, ʽOn the typology of relative clauses’, Linguistics, 24 no. 4 (1986): 640. See also Andrews Avery. D., ʽRelative clauses’, in Language typology and syntactic description, ed. Sh. Timothy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), vol. 2, 206; Mark, De Vries, ʽPatterns of relative clauses’, Linguistics in the Netherlands 18, no. 1 (2001): 231.

¹² See Bruce K. Waltke and Michael Patrick O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 621–2.

¹³ See for example Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad Ibn Yazīd al-Mubarrad, al-Muqtaḍab (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1994) vol. 3, 197.

¹⁴ For the pronoun referring to the qualified noun (al-ʿāʾid) see Yehudit Dror, ʽThe Syntactic Structure of the Relative Clauses in Arabic’, Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik 64(2016): 77–80.

¹⁵ According to Aryeh Levin, ʽThe Distinction between Nominal and Verbal Sentences according to the Arab Grammarians’, Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik 15(1985): 119, Arab grammarians state that a nominative 3^rd person pronoun is denoted by the suffixes appended to the verbal forms, while others are unexpressed, yet implicit in the verb form.

¹⁶ Andrew D. Avery, ʽRelative clauses’ in Language typology and syntactic description, ed. Sh. Timothy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), vol. 3, 206.

¹⁷ For examples of each see: Yehudit Dror, ʽThe Suffix-Conjugation Designating Eschatological Events in the Qurʾān’, Bibliotheca Orientalis 70 no. 1(2013):42–44; Mrad Lamia provides an in-depth review of debates on tense and aspect among Western scholars such as Brockelmann and Reckendorf. See Lamia Mrad, Tempus, Aspekt oder Modus? Die Verbalformen und ihre Bedeutungen im Arabischen: Eine Untersuchung anhand von Beispielen aus dem Koran und ausgewählten deutschen und französischen Koranübersetzungen (PhD diss, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2012), 75–99.

¹⁸ This term is taken from Alan Timberlake, ʽAspect, Tense, mood’, in Language Typology and Syntactic Description, ed. Sh. Timothy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), vol. 3, 282.

¹⁹ Additional example is Q 24:62.

²⁰ The translations of the Qurʾānic verses are taken from Muhammad A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qurʾān: A new Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). The translation is reproduced verbatim, however in the analysis we suggest supplemental interpretation of the structure.

²¹ Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad Ibn ʿUmar al-Zamaḫšarī, al-Kaššāf (Beirut: Dār al-kātib al-ʿarabī, 1986), vol. 4, 377. Compare Abu Ǧaʿfar Muḥammad Ibn Ǧarīr al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān fī taʾwīl al-Qurʾān (Beirut: Dār al-fikr li-l-ṭibāʿa wa-l-našr wa-l-tawzīʿ, 1992), vol. 26, 186.

²² Abū al-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl Ibn ʿUmar Ibn Kaṯīr, Tafsīr Ibn Kaṯīr (Riyad: Dār Ṭība li-l-našr wa-l-tawzīʿ, 1999), vol. 7, 390.

²³ Timberlake, ʽAspect, tense, mood’, 285.

²⁴ See for example, Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān fī taʾwīl al-Qurʾān, vol. 4, 440. Compare, Muḥammad Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Mafātīḥ al-ġayb. Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ al-ʿarabī, 1999), vol. 11, 244

²⁵ Additional examples for this indication are: Q 2:165; 3:196; 4:84; 4:168; 10:103; 11:29; 13:31; 16:102; 29:12; 45:21.

²⁶ See for example: Q 2:178; 2:267; 3:118; 4:19; 4:135; 5:2; 5:87; 8:20; 9:23; 18:30.

²⁷ See Angelika Neuwirth, ʽStructural, Linguistic and Literary Features’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Qurʾān, ed. J.D. McAuliffe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007,) 111; Neal Robinson, Discovering the Qur’an (London: SCM Press LTD, 1996), 211; Hussein Abdul-Raof, New Horizons in Qur’anic Linguistics: A Syntactic, Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 257.

²⁸ Badr al-Dīn al- Zarkašī, al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān (Cairo: Dār iḥyāʾ al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya, 1957), vol. I, 187, 189, 191.

²⁹ See Muḥmmad Ḥusayn al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, al-Mīzān fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān. Teheran Maṭbaʿat al-Ḥaydarī, 1966.

https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=3&tSoraNo=2&tAyahNo=172&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 (Accesed on 12.4.2020)

³⁰ According to Comrie the perfect is retrospective, in that it establishes a relation between a state at one time and a situation at an earlier time. See Bernard Comrie, Aspect (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 64. According to Vit Bubenik, John Hewson and Omara Osami, ʽTense, Aspect and Aktionsart in Arabic’, Folia Orientalia 50(2013), 14, ‘a retrospective look at the completed event from its result phase was traditionally called Perfect.’

³¹ Bernard Comrie, Tense (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 122–123.

³² Other examples of this type can be found in: Q 2:25; 3:57; 4:152; 4:173; 7:32; 10:4; 12:57; 42:45.

³³ Comrie, Tense, 41; Timberlake, ʽAspect, Tense, Mood’, 290.

³⁴ Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum, A University Grammar of English (Delhi: Pearson Education, 1973), 42.

³⁵ Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ġayb, 12, 411.

³⁶ Other examples can be found in: Q 5:110; 7:66; 7:88; 9:88; 11:66; 11:94; 14:13; 27:53; 64:5.

³⁷ Comrie, Tense, 37–39; Comrie, Aspect, 27–28.

³⁸ Other examples can be found in: 2:3–4; 9:29; 9:45; 11:121; 16:60; 16:104–105; 24:62.

³⁹ Zamaḫšarī, al-Kaššāf, vol. 2, 245. See also ʻAbdallāh Ibn ʿUmar al-Bayḍāwī, Anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-taʾwīl (Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ al-ʿarabī, 1996), vol. 3, 82.

Verbs in the present tense occurring in relative clauses and indicating frequentative repetition can be found in classical Arabic prose. See Micahl Marmorstein, Tense and Text in Classical Arabic: A Discourse-Oriented Study of the Classical Arabic Tense System (Leiden: Boston: Brill, 2016), 97.

⁴⁰ Additional example is: Q 3:21–22.

⁴¹ Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ġayb, vol. 11, 255.

⁴² Abū ʻAlī al-Faḍl Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabarṣī, Mağmaʻ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān

https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=3&tSoraNo=4&tAyahNo=150&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 (accesed April 12, 2020)

⁴³ For other examples, see: Q 2:261; 2:262; 2:265; 3:134; 4:38.

⁴⁴ For the differences between habituality and iterativity see Comrie, Aspect, 26–27.

⁴⁵ Abū al-Faḍl Šihāb al-Dīn al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʻānī fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-ʻaẓīm wa-l-sabʻ al-maṯānī.

https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=52&tSoraNo=2&tAyahNo=26&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 (accessed April 12, 2020)

⁴⁶ Other examples can be found in: Q 2:105; 2:212; 6:1; 8:55; 15:2; 16:98–100; 18:56; 40:10; 42:18; 84:22.

⁴⁷ Other examples can be found in: Q 8:3; 27:3; 27:3.

⁴⁸ Zamaḫšarī, al-Kaššāf, vol. 1, 649.

⁴⁹ Additional example is: Q 35:29.

⁵⁰ Ṭabarsī, Mağmaʻ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān

https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=3&tSoraNo=35&tAyahNo=18&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 (accesed April 12, 2020)

Compare: al-Bayḍāwī, Anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-taʾwīl, vol. 4, 257.

⁵¹ Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀšūr, Tafsīr al-taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr (Tunis: al-Dār al-tūnisiyya li-l-našr, 1984)

https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=52&tSoraNo=2&tAyahNo=26&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 (accessed April 18, 2020)

⁵² Keith Brown and Jim Miller, The Cambridge Dictionary of Linguistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 310.

⁵³ Bernard Comrie and Sandra A. Thompson, ʽLexical nominalization’, Language typology and syntactic description 3 (1985): 334–5.

⁵⁴ Comrie and Thompson, ʽLexical nominalization’, 336. Compare: Pieter C. Muysken, ʽNominalizations’ (1994): 2811.

https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/2066/14646/3980.pdf

⁵⁵ Comrie and Thompson, ʽLexical nominalization’, 337–8.

⁵⁶ The concept of a governing participle contrasts with English usage in that the agent-denoting nominalization cannot have a bare accusative object, as in *the finder the wallet”. See Mark C. Baker and Nadya Vinokurova, ʽOn agent nominalizations and why they are not like event nominalizations’, Language (2009): 519.

⁵⁷ Jonathan Owens, ʽParticiple’, in Encyclopaedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, ed. K. Versteegh, (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), Vol. 3, 542; Marmorstein, Tense and Text in Classical Arabic: A Discourse-Oriented Study of the Classical Arabic Tense System, 30; Kees Versteegh, ʽA perfect mess: The distinction of tense and aspect in grammatical traditions’, 48.

https://www.academia.edu/4570932/A_perfect_mess_The_distinction_of_tense_and_aspect_in_grammatical_traditions_2013_; Mahmoud Azab, ʽThe Concept of Time in the Quran and the Old Testament’ Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetic 9 (1989): 151.

Some traditional grammarians who referred to this issue are: Raḍī al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Astrābāḏī, Šarḥ kāfiyat Ibn al-Ḥāğib (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1998), vol. 3, 485; Abū Ḥasan Alī Ibn Muḥammad Ibn ʿAlī al-Išbilī Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ ğumal al-Zaǧǧāǧī (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1998), vol. 2, 3.

⁵⁸ Muṣṭafā al-Ġalāyīnī, Ǧāmiʿ al-drūs al-ʿarabiyya (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿaṣriyya, 2012), 114.

⁵⁹ In certain contexts, a noun such as al-muʾmin ‘the believer’ or al-muʾminūna ‘the believers’ can be regarded as a generic noun, while the definite article in this case is called in Arabic al al-ǧinsiyya ‘the generic al’, ‘al denoting the class/kind/genus/category’.

⁶⁰ al-Mubarrad, al-Muqtaḍab, vol. 4, 258–259.

⁶¹ Other examples can be found in: Q 5:43; 7:75.

⁶² For the term ‘state nominalizations’ see Muysken, ʽNominalizations’, 2812.

⁶³ According to Neuwirth, ʽStructural, linguistic and literary features’, 103: “Parts of the Qurʾān reflect an ancient Arabic linguistic pattern, termed sajʿ, a prose style marked by very short and concise sentences with frequently changing patterns of particular clear-cut, often expressive rhymes (…) with verses often exceeding one complete sentence, the rhyme end takes the form of simple -ūn or -īn pattern. Compare: Friedrun R Müller, Untersuchungen zur Reimprosa im Koran (Bonn: Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Seminars der Universität Bonn, 1969), 1–9.

⁶⁴ Other examples can be found in: Q 37:81; 61:8; 51:56.

⁶⁵ Waltke and O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 612.

⁶⁶ Muysken, ʽNominalizations’, 2814. Compare: Waltke and O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 581.

⁶⁷ This is also true for Hebrew. See for example Moshe Zewi Segal, Dikduk lashon ha-mishna (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1936), 129.

⁶⁸ Additional example is Q 29:52.

⁶⁹ Note that the particle iḏā, can be used as a temporal demonstrative or as a conditional particle. When iḏā functions as a temporal demonstrative, it usually denotes future tense, although the verbs in the protosis and in the apodosis are in the perfect, as in Q 82:1–5. Arabic grammarians identify two functions of this particle. See Ǧamāl al-Dīn al-Anṣārī Ibn Hišām, Muġnī al-labīb (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-azhariyya. 1991), vol. 1, 160.

⁷⁰ Waltke and O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 615. Compare: Hussein Abdul-Raof, New Horizons in Qur’anic Linguistics: A Syntactic, Semantic and Stylistic Analysis, 113.