The Critique of John Burton's View on Syntactic Difficulties of The Qur'an

Due to their linguistic and semantic complexities, some verses of the Qur'an have always been a subject of reflection for Islamic scholars, who have offered various interpretations. The diversity of opinions among commentators on the grammatical challenges of certain Qur'anic words has provided a basis for Western researchers to focus their studies on these difficulties, particularly in recent centuries. John Burton is one of the Orientalist Qur'an scholars who, in an article titled "Linguistic Errors in the Qur'an" considers some of the challenging words in the Qur'an to be linguistic errors made by the Prophet. He dismisses reports attributing the grammatical difficulties of certain verses—such as verses ۱۷۷ of Surah Al-Baqarah, ۱۶۲ of Surah An-Nisa, ۶۹ of Surah Al-Ma'idah, and ۶۴ of Surah Taha—to the mistakes of the scribes of revelation, and instead assigns these so-called linguistic errors to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). This article aims to examine John Burton's approach both in terms of content and structure, using a descriptive-analytical method, and to ultimately highlight that his perspective arises from a lack of attention to the historical development of linguistic sciences after the compilation of the Qur'an and disregard for the sources of Qur'anic readings and the views of grammarians.

کلیدواژه ها:

Orientalism ، John Burton ، Qur'anic Language ، Qur'anic Readings ، Grammar