Documents of the Right Word

Mu’tazila say that the fear of losing worldly advantages
prevented them. [The author of the book Husniyya] Ali
Murtadâ, a Shî’ite scholar, says that Allâhu ta’âlâ made them
forget their knowledge which would have enabled them to
compete with Qur’ân al-kerîm.
Those who do not accept that Qur’ân al-kerîm is mu’jiz say,
“I’jâz must be obvious. The fact that there are various
explanations of i’jâz shows that its meaning is not known for
certain. In answer to this, scholars have said that the explanations
in some respects does not show that the whole Qur’ân al-kerîm is
not mu’jiz. Eloquence of Qur’ân al-kerîm, its unequalled poetry,
the information describing the unknown and the wisdom it
contains about knowledge and practices and many other elements
of i’jâz, like those mentioned above, are quite manifest. Differing
explanations, which originate from the differences in men’s views
and understandings, should not indicate that it is not mu’jiz. If one
of the qualities we have mentioned above is not found by
someone to be a cause for it being mu’jiz, this should not come to
mean that all of them are not causes for it being mu’jiz. Many a
poet can produce extremely eloquent prose and verse, but cannot
do it at another given time. That is, achieving it once does not
mean that one can do it any time. A group does not necessarily
have to have the properties of each of the units within it. This
answer implies that Qur’ân al-kerîm is mu’jiz as a whole but its
short sûras may not be mu’jiz. But this is not true; as we have
previously explained, its shortest sûra is also mu’jiz. It might be
said that the answer means that the whole Qur’ân al-kerîm is
mu’jiz in every respect but its sûras are mu’jiz only in some
respects. However, this would not be the answer to the question
above. The question demands a clear explanation of the cause of
the i’jâz. So, such interpretation of the answer would not uncover
the cause of the i’jâz.
Their second antithesis states: “The Sahâba were in doubt
about some parts of Qur’ân al-kerîm. ’Abdullah ibn Mas’ûd [radiy-
Allâhu ’anh] said that sûrat al-Fâtiha and the sûras of
Mu’awwizatain [1]
did not belong in the Qur’ân. However, these
three sûras are the most renowned sûras of the Qur’ân. If the
eloquence in them were in a degree of i’jâz, they would not so
manifestly resemble texts other than that of the Qur’ân, and no
one would doubt that they belonged to the Qur’ân.”
[1] The two sûras beginning with “Qul-a’ûdhu.”
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