الصورة البصرية في الخطاب القرآني دراسة في آراء البلاغيين والنقاد القدماء

Visual Imagery in Qur'ānic Discourse: A Study in the Views of Long-Standing Authors and Traditional Critics

Abstract

This study investigates the function and significance of visual imagery in Qur’ānic discourse, with a particular emphasis on the interpretive frameworks developed by long-standing authors and classical as well as modern critics. The Qur'ān, as a sacred text, frequently employs vivid and dynamic visual images that transcend literal representation to evoke spiritual, moral, and eschatological realities. These images—ranging from scenes of Paradise and Hell to metaphors of light, darkness, gardens, and fire—serve as rhetorical devices aimed at engaging the imagination, evoking emotional responses, and facilitating cognitive understanding of metaphysical truths. The research traces the hermeneutical evolution of image analysis in Qur’ānic exegesis, highlighting the perspectives of classical commentators such as al-Zamakhsharī, al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, and Ibn ‘Āshūr, alongside modern literary theorists and Qur’ānic scholars like Muḥammad Aḥmad Khalafallāh and Amīn al-Khūlī. It also engages with relevant insights from contemporary literary criticism to uncover the layered aesthetic and didactic functions of visuality in the Qur'ānic narrative structure. By employing a multidisciplinary methodology that synthesizes literary analysis, rhetorical theory, and Islamic hermeneutics, this study reveals that visual imagery in the Qur’ān is not merely ornamental but deeply embedded in its epistemological and theological architecture. The findings underscore the Qur’ān's unique capacity to communicate abstract truths through concrete, often dramatic, imagery that resonates with the sensibilities of diverse audiences across time and culture. Ultimately, this research contributes to a richer understanding of the Qur'ān's stylistic inimitability (iʿjāz) and the pedagogical power of its visual discourse.