The Language of the Qur’ān

This article aims to reassess the registers of language used in the Qurʾān. I approach the reassessment in two ways: (a) by arguing that the traditional view that the language of the Qurʾān is identical with the ʿarabiyya of early poetry on the one hand and with the dialect of Quraysh, the spoken language of Muhammad, on the other, is both late and mistaken; and (b) by suggesting that other registers were in common use and to which the language of the Qurʾān has much greater natural affinities. These were the registers of the soothsayer (kāhin), the orator (ḫaṭīb) and the story-teller (qāṣṣ) and also, in Medinan material, that of the written documentary style.

The basic reason why attention has naturally focused on poetry is that the amount of evidence about each of these registers is minute. Nevertheless, it is highly improbable that it is all spurious, and what remains is so similar in form that it is not unreasonable to suggest that the overall impression it gives us is tolerably accurate.