Retribution in Qur’anic Texts: A Stylistic Analysis (Published)
Divine retribution is both a teaching and a core-tenet in Islam. A large portion of Qur’anic texts come to embody the righteous judgment of the Almighty Allah, His gracious as well as wrath character. This paper is an attempt to pinpoint the stylistic devices and features of retribution in Qur’anic texts. It aims to identify the stylistic phonological, syntactic, and semantic devices of retribution in Qur’anic texts and find out the functions of each. Furthermore, it aims to explain the overall functions the Qur’anic texts of retribution perform and how the overall function of these texts and the functions of the utilized stylistic devices work as a unit to produce a stylistic interpretation to these texts. It is hypothesized that Qur’anic texts of retribution utilize specific stylistic phonological, syntactic, and semantic devices. Besides, it is hypothesized that the functions these devices perform fall in line with the overall functions the Qur’anic texts of retribution have. A model is developed to analyze the Qur’anic texts of retribution. The findings of the analysis validate the hypotheses mentioned above.
Keywords: Conative Function, Emotive Function, Qur'anic Texts, Referential Function, Retribution, Stylistic Devices