Majaz: Fig Lang in Quran Ptry

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course is aimed at graduate students in the fields of Qur’anic studies, Arabic poetry, and Arabic linguistics. The first part of the course will focus on the close reading and interpretation selections from key texts concerning the theorization of majāz (approx. “figurative language”) in Qur’anic hermeneutics and Classical Arabic Rhetoric. Selected texts will range, for example, from Abū ʿUbayda’s Kitāb Majāz al-Ḳurʾān, Ibn Qutayba’s Taʾwīl mushkil al-Qurʾān, and al-Jurjānī’s Asrār al-Balāgha and Dalāʾīl al- ʿIjāz fi-l-Qurʾān to later scholars such as al-Rāzī, al-Sakkākī, and al-Suyūṭī. The second part of the course will include comparative and disciplinary studies and be devoted to seminar-format presentation and discussion of individual research projects. Pre-requisite: reading knowledge of Classical Arabic. Class presentations and discussions will be in Arabic and/or English.