A Linguistic Study of Parallelism in Arabic Religious Discourse: Evidence from Selected Verses of the Qur'an

Abstract

Background: Parallelism (al-tawāzī) and its principal sub-type, tarṣīʿ, are among the most frequently cited rhetorical devices in the classical Arabic balāgha tradition, where they are treated as markers of eloquence and, in the case of the Qur'an, as an aspect of its inimitability (iʿjāz). Although Arab rhetoricians from Al-'Askarī (10th century) to Al-Suyūṭī (15th century) described parallelism extensively, and a substantial comparative literature on parallelism exists in biblical and general linguistic scholarship, the two traditions are rarely brought into dialogue, and Qur'anic parallelism has seldom been analyzed through an explicit, verse-referenced typology.

Aim: This study identifies and classifies the types of parallelism operating in a purposively selected set of Qur'anic verses, and examines how phonological, syntactic, and semantic repetition contributes to rhythmic coordination and rhetorical emphasis.

Method: A qualitative, descriptive-analytical design was used. The corpus comprises sixteen verse-groups drawn from ten Suras (Nūḥ, al-Ghāshiyah, al-Infiṭār, Yā-Sīn, al-Muʾminūn, al-Aḥzāb, al-Raḥmān, Fuṣṣilat, al-Shūrā, and al-Nisāʾ), selected because they are the instances most frequently cited by classical rhetoricians as canonical examples of tawāzī. Each verse is presented with transliteration, a literal gloss, and a literary translation, and analyzed against a four-part typology developed from the classical taxonomy.

Findings: The analysis identifies four recurrent patterns: (a) lexical-phonological parallelism (tarṣīʿ), in which paired clause-final words match in morphological weight (wazn) and end-rhyme; (b) partial tunic (rhythmic) repetition, in which a fixed syntactic frame recurs across non-adjacent verses; (c) total tunic repetition, in which an entire refrain recurs verbatim, most saliently the sequential structure of Sūrat al-Raḥmān; and (d) temporal-aspectual parallelism, in which parallel clauses shift grammatical tense to mark a semantic transition. These patterns operate simultaneously at phonemic, syntactic, and semantic levels, consistent with Jakobson's (1960) account of linguistic parallelism as multi-level equivalence.

Conclusion: Qur'anic parallelism is not a single ornamental device but a layered rhetorical system in which sound, structure, and meaning are coordinated simultaneously. Reading this system alongside the comparative literature on biblical parallelism (Lowth, 1753; Kugel, 1981; Berlin, 1985) suggests a productive direction for future corpus-based and cross-Semitic research