Theory Of Coherence In Quran In The Past 1400 Years
Walaikum Assalam, For starters I would recommend reading Imam Farahi’s book on the subject. It’s been translated and is available online in Urdu, English, and Arabic. In English It’s title is “Exordium to Coherence in the Quran”. In the book he details how for centuries scholars had been theorising about Nazm. He even gives excerpts from their books. Among the scholars who theorised about nazm or briefly touched upon it are, Imam ar Razi, Imam as Suyuti, Zamakhshari, Shah Waliullah etc. Imam Hamiduddin Farahi was able to analyse the Quran and through that was able to create a rough outline of coherence throughout the entire Quran not just coherence between small surahs in it. This in my opinion was his ground breaking discovery, as the idea of nazm had been around in the ummah for a long time. We even find ahadith regarding co-relation between Surahs. For example the narration, “Abu Umamah reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Recite the Quran, for on the Day of Resurrection it will come as an intercessor for its reciters. Recite the two brightly illuminated chapters, Surat al-Baqarah and Ali Imran, for on the Day of Resurrection they will come as two clouds, or two shades, or two flocks of birds pleading for their companions.” (Related by Muslim in Sahih Muslim; hadith no. 804) Imam Farahi’s discovery was revolutionary as he connected all of the dots so to speak. however my reply to your question would be was that he was able to make that discovery because God blessed him with an excellent understanding of the Arabic language (he was called the ‘ibn Taymiyyah’ of his era by Abdul Majid Daryabadi) furthermore God obviously willed for him to discover it. When an individual’s discovery comes before us we don’t ask why nobody before him arrived at it, we analyse the discovery in light of Divine Scripture (Quran), Sunnah, and reason if it seems acceptable in light of the above mentioned tools then we embrace the discovery wholeheartedly. I hope this was of help. Please forgive any grammatical errors (if there are any).
Please also refer to the video below from 20:25 to 25:51 https://youtu.be/UQpkSgaNs3Q?t=1225