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Terms of Personal Prayer in the Qurʼān: a Contextual and Emotional Analysis
 
PIIS086919080021348-9-1
DOI10.31857/S086919080021348-9
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Vladimir Rozov 
Occupation: Senior Lecturer
Affiliation: Saint-Petersburg State University, The Department of Asian and African Studies
Address: Russian Federation, Saint-Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 11
Journal nameVostok. Afro-Aziatskie obshchestva: istoriia i sovremennost
EditionIssue 6
Pages201-209
Abstract

This article is dedicated to the terms for personal prayer (duʻāʼ and other derivative forms) in the Qurʼān. Occurrence of these terms in the text is analyzed quantitatively with regard to the chronology of the Qurʼānic text. They appear mainly in the sūras of the II and III Meccan periods, and more rarely in the Medinan period, contrary to the term for communal prayer ṣalāt which is frequent in the Medinan sūras. The study shows that they are used in a close number of interrelated contexts. These contexts could be described as follows: people’s ingratitude towards the Almighty God and their inclination towards pagan deities; their appeal to  God in the time of danger; Allāh’s mercy to the righteous calling Him, including His response to them and helping a righteous man, like Zakarīyā and Ibrāhīm, to have a child. Emotional aspect of these fragments was analyzed as well. The Qurʼānic fragments, containing terms for the personal prayer, are emotionally intense and their modality varies from positive to negative, often containing both of these contrast evaluations. These traits and the variety of related topics and their emotional modality could be explained by diverse circumstances of Muḥammad’s prophetic mission, as his social role evolved from an outcast preacher to a head of the theocratic state. The variety of topics and their emotional modality could be a consequence of the different character of audiences during the different stages of monotheistic preach delivered by Prophet Muhammad.

KeywordsQurʼān, chronology, prayer, duʻāʼ, revelation, preach, Qurʼānic terminology, emotional analysis
AcknowledgmentThe research was supported by Russian Science Foundation (project no. 22-28-01046, https://rscf.ru/en/project/22-28-01046/).
Received28.11.2022
Publication date31.12.2022
Number of characters28098
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1 INTRODUCTION
2 Prayer is one of the main practices in the religious systems of the world. Prayer can be personal or collective; it could be performed spoken aloud or silently. The text of a prayer can be an improvisation or a rigidly established canonic pattern, besides that it can also occupy a transitional position, being built more or less arbitrarily from established and generally accepted formulas. Typologically, there is a wide variety of prayers and here I refer to both the circumstances of their reproduction and their text structure. The fact that the prayer presupposses a text or an addressee makes it sui generis a communicative act. Therefore, “A common characteristic of prayer is its narrative quality – its potential as a sense-making discursive act” [Baquedano-López 1998, p. 198]. However, the prayer does not necessarily implies addressing to a deity with a request – important is the contact itself, the close personal and emotional connection with supreme forces: “the meaning of prayer as a religious act consists … in transcending” [Pylaev 2008, p. 55]. According to W. James, one of the establishers of the phenomenology of religion, “the prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion” [James 2002, p. 358]. Taking into account/ in light of the aforementioned, one can say that the prayer is an important factor in a person’s spiritual life and one of the strongest emotional experiences, especially for those who share the same traditional worldviews.
3 This paper contributes to the analysis of narrative structures, being devoted to the emotional side of passages from the Qurʼān, where the prayer is described. Moreover, the research focus also constitutes the personal prayer as a call to the God (or pagan deities). The subject of the study represents the contexts of the Qurʼānic passages where the terms ṣalāt and duʻāʼ (with derivative forms) are used and could be correlated with the concept of ‘prayer’. The relevance of the paper consists not only in the emotional plan of the corresponding Qurʼānic narratives, but also in their correlation with specific periods within Muḥammad’s prophetic mission, since the style and tone of the Qurʼānic message largely changes, depending on the circumstances of its revelation. At the same time, studying the meaning and the context evolution of the landmark words and concepts of the Qurʼān usage in time, could benefit in tracing the formation and development of the basic ideas and concepts of Islam in the first Muslim community.
4 OVERVIEW OF PREVIOUS RESEARCHES AND METHODOLOGY
5 In the past years researchers have already studied the relation between the change in the emotional ‘coloring’ of Qurʼānic text in accordance with the chronology of its revelation. So, Th. Nöldeke devoted a significant part of his book to the psychological aspects of Muḥammadʼs revelations. He also connected the changes in the style of sūras in depending the stage of the prophet’s mission, and, consequently, with the specific circumstances of their revelation [Nöldeke et al. 2013]. In addition, the stylistic peculiarities of the Qurʼānic text in relation to its chronology were studied by W. Muir, H. Grimme and R. Bell; a summary table of their chronological classification of sūras and verses of the Qurʼān can be found in R. Bell’s generalizing work, later revised and supplemented by M. Watt [Watt 1970, p. 205-213]. As for the Russian scholars, E.A. Rezvan studies the changes of style and emotional overtones of the Qurʼān in connection with the change of social roles played by Muhammad [Rezvan 2001].
6 Ideas concerning relationships between a man and higher forces in pre-Islamic Arabia were extensively discussed by T. Izutsu in his monography [Izutsu 2002]. A study on the intertextual links between the Qurʼān and biblical liturgical texts, namely psalms, was also disclosed [Neuwirth 2010]. However, the prayer, its description and conceptualization in the text of the Qurʼān, as well as the relationship and intersections between various terms with the meaning of ‘prayer’ have to be further studied [Böwering 2004, p. 228]. Some issues associated with the emotive analysis of the Qurʼānic text were already studied in previous works [Bauer 2017; Bernikova, Redkin 2018]. Nevertheless, The term ‘(personal) prayer’ duʻāʼ and its derivatives are used in Qurʼānic text both with positive and negative emotional connotations [Böwering 2004, p. 229] and this fact leaves a wide field for the study of its occurrence and usage by applying the methods of contextual and emotive analysis.
7 Such a study can be accomplished predominantly by using computer methods and modern data technologies which process the Arabic text and analyse the quantitative data. Comparing the quantitative indicators of individual verses and sūras helps one to accurately periodize the text of the Qurʼān, and also to identify patterns of Qurʼānic text ‘construction’ related to the chronology of its revelation [Schmid 2010]. The author of the article used the Qurʼān Corpus [The Quranic Arabic Corpus] as a main source of the quantitative data, unless indicated in the corresponding reference. A part of the calculations was carried out jointly with N.A. Kizhaeva on the text of the Qurʼān using a Python script using the CAMel Tools library.

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