Sūrah al-Qaṣaṣ (Part 1)
Sūrah al-Qaṣaṣ (Part 1)
Part 1 of observations on how Sūrah al-Qaṣaṣ is organized in the Quran
Sūrah al-Qaṣaṣ (The Story) is focused on the life of the Prophet Moses ﷺ. Sūrah al-Qaṣaṣ is one of the longer suwar of the Quran so the breakdown will be split between multiple parts.
For our first installment, we’ll look at the macro-structuring of the sūrah and then dive a bit into the micro-structuring.
Macro-Level Structures
On a macro-level, the sūrah appears to be organized into a ring structure with the stories of Moses [A] and Qaroon [A’] sandwiching a transition section discussing belief and disbelief [B].
Each of these sections can then be split into their own separate ring structures as depicted below. For the sake of brevity, the Arabic has been omitted, so please consult the translation and original text for the full context. The relevant āyah numbers are given in parenthesis.
[A] - Story of Moses Ring Structure; Āyāt 1-52
[B] - Belief versus Disbelief Ring Structure; Āyāt 53-68
[A’] - Story of Qaroon Ring Structure; Āyāt 69-88
Micro-Level Structures
When we observe the sūrah on a micro-level, we find that there are many, many rings making up the internals of the sūrah. We will only go over the first of these rings for this entry. In shā’ Allah (If God wills) we’ll continue our observations in the next parts of this series.
Ring Structure of Āyāt 1-6 (Prologue)
وَاللّهُ أَعلَم - And Allah knows best
Sources
Thanks to Hasan M. for help on the macro-level labels
The micro-level observations are from personal notes and research