The Qur’an An Abiding Wonder
The Qur’an —The Prophet’s Miracle
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revealed, no one has been able to produce a work
that excelled it. Its standard has never been
improved upon and Arabic has remained on the
course set for it by the Qur’an. The impact that the
Qur’an has had on Arabic is like that of a writer
who produces a work of unsurpassable literary
excellence at the very beginning of a language’s
history. After such a figure has made his mark, no
lesser writer can change the face of the language.
The Qur’an, revealed in the Arabic current at the
time was cast in a more elevated literary mould
than had ever been seen before or afterwards.
By making vital additions to traditional modes of
expression, the Qur’an opened the way for
expansion of the Arabic language. The use of the
word ‘one’
(ahad)
in the 112th chapter of the Qur’an,
entitled ‘Oneness’, is a good example. Previously it
had been used in the genitive to express ‘one of us’
for example, or for the ‘first day’ of the week,
Saturday or Yaum al Ahad. It was used for general
negations, as in ‘Ma Ja’ni ahadun’ ‘no one came to
see me.’ But in using
ahad
as an attribute of
Almighty God, the Qur’an put the word to an
entirely novel use. The Qur’an brought many
