Delving into the Manifestations of Expressive and Aesthetic Inimitability of Repeating Stories in the Qur'an

The repetition of stories in the Qur'an is one of the issues that have prompted questions and doubts from some non-Muslim orientalists and Muslim neo-thinkers. They have, in their illusion, considered the repetition of the stories in the Qur'an as futile and in confliction and incompatibility with rhetoric and inimitability (i‘jāz), and have regarded the repetition as a cause of confusion and instability in the style, and as a result, they have concluded that the Qur'an is non-revealed and made up in the mind of the Prophet (S.A.W.) himself. Organized research proves that repetitions in the Qur'an, especially the repetition of stories, are not only not futile, boring, and incompatible with rhetoric and inimitability, but are considered as among the literary arts and merits of speech. The repetitions of the Qur'an are wise and are realized with specific reasons and purposes in accordance with the goals of the sūras. In examining the cases of repetition of stories from the point of view of the expressive inimitability, we achieve the following results: inimitability at the highest level of rhetoric, the beauties of repetition, completing the images of a story, looking at the story from different angles, diversifying the methods of conveying messages, the existence of strong order and coherence in repeated stories and explaining a subject with different words, etc. In every repetition in the stories of the Qur'an, there is at least one purpose or more that justify the repetition beautifully.