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Noah and his people/their leaders in the Qur’an (Lecture)

AbdelMadjid Ben Habib

Noah and his people/their leaders in the Qur'an (Lecture)

Home > Methods/Debates > Linguistics > Noah and his people/their leaders in the Qur’an (Lecture)

Thursday, November 4, 2021. Time: 9:30-10:30 a.m. (US central time) / 3:30-4:30 p.m. (Algeria time) (UTC+1)

Abstract: Since the appearance of the Qur’anic text, until this day, emerged a challenge to understand this corpus from various sides. Our work falls within this challenge however, from a particular perspective, that is by studying the dialogical and socio-psychological dimensions that cross Al-Taqāwul (i.e., to influence/being influenced by speaking) between Noah and his people in the Qur’anic text by problematizing the logic of this activity and its semantico-social clues which revolve around the theme of "The Divinity". By this problematization we aim to overcome the crisis of dealing with the verbal interaction between Noah and his people in the Qur’an which is examined by the traditional Islamic exegesis (Tabari’s Exegesis; Al-Zamakhshari’s Exegesis, etc.) according to two theoretical models: The Arabic Linguistic sciences and the historical connection between the life of the messenger Muhammad with his people and what happened between Noah and his people. On the other hand, the modernist approach focuses on the historical interpretation (diversity and interplay of cultural versions -narratives-) about what happened between Noah and his people. It appears here that the traditional and modern perspectives are crossed by repetition and recurrence instead of originality and innovation via the implementation of human/social sciences tools in order to understand Al-Taqāwul between Noah and his people, in the Qur’an, by tools of Discourse Analysis to understand the Coherence and the Cohesion and the Perlocutionary act. This reveal, respectively, a thematic continuity and thematic discontinuities in Al-Taqāwul of Noah and his people. We also come back to Social Representations Theory to understand the psychosocial content that cross the activity of Al-Taqāwul between Noah and his people, so that in Noah’s Al-Taqāwul appears the supremacy of Cognitive activity over that of the Social [Allah] and the Present time on the Historical [centrality of the writing] and the Subjective dimension on the Objective one [Doubt on : The Belief/Social stratification] and the Interpretation with respect to Symbolization [Ideological challenge]. Whereas in Al-Taqāwul of Noah’s people appears the supremacy of the Social on Cognitive activity [Polytheism] and Historical time on the Present [centrality of orality] and the Objective dimension on the Subjective one [constancy of: Belief] and Symbolization with respect Interpretation [response reinforcement]. There is also a difference in connection with the moral orientation between Noah and his people respectively in speech [argumentation] vis-à-vis speech and action [coercion]. Finally, to connect between Discourse Analysis and Social Representations we invest, in the results, the current epistemological concept which is the "Dialogicality" on the basis of which appear crosses and differences throughout Al-Taqāwul between Noah and his people, where what is shared is in: natural language used; to believe in Allah; human aspect of Noah. While the difference is in: the focus of Noah on the unity of Allah and on the duality Faith [up]/Disbelief [down] and on Noah who defines himself as a messenger; in contrast, Noah’s people/their Leaders focus on the polytheistic view in Allah and on the duality The Leaders [up]/The Lowest [down] and that the messenger is an angel; also, they intend to harm Noah. In addition, we look for understanding why the process and outcome of the activity of Al-Taqāwul between Noah and his people are essentially characterized by the difference that is due to the source of Al-Taqāwul that comes from each parties mentioned. Noah returns to one written source in his activity of Al-Taqāwul, while Noah’s people/their Leaders come back to multiple oral sources in their activity of Al-Taqāwul. It is from there that we understand the weight of Al-Taqāwul’s differences that characterize Noah and his people, centered on the theme of “The Divinity”.
Keywords: The Qur’anicText ; Al-Taqāwul ; The Divinity ; Discourse Analysis ; Social Representations ; The Dialogicality

Presented by: AbdelMadjid Ben Habib – Psychology department – University of Tlemcen – Algeria.

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