Rhetorical Analysis of the Number of Prophets’ Names in the Qur'an

In several verses of the Holy Qur'an, a number of names of the prophets are mentioned respectively, which are sometimes in different orders. The rhetoric of enumeration and the wisdom of the difference in the arrangement of these names have raised some questions and doubts. This article, in pursuit of discovering the literary aspects and examining the patterns used in the arrangement of these names, has extracted and analyzed them rhetorically and aesthetically using the science of rhetoric. In some of the name-numberings, the technique of “iṭirād” (being in a proper order) is found, with the difference that in the Holy Qur'an, unlike the ṭirādof the poets, the order is not from the father towards the ancestors; because in it, each individual has his own independence and being pioneer in Shari'a and fatherhood, along with other hidden points, necessitates the fathers to be given priority over sons. Rank, temporal precedence, relevance to the context of the verses or the purpose of the surah, and in some cases, phonetic compatibility are among the factors that have led to the prioritizing of some prophets over others. Also, the name-numberings of the prophets are included in murā‘āt-i naẓīr (parallelism) and the semantic compatibility between them is taken into account, sometimes even excluding the chronological order. Techniques such as jam‘(adding up), ta‘dīd (uttering one by one) and tansīq (stringing together) that include literary and aesthetic aspects such as order, balance, repetition and simile are found in abundance in the arrangement of the names of the prophets. Ultimately, what is achieved through this research is that each of the names of the prophets is wisely arranged in its place and shows a prominent part of the sublime rhetoric of the Qur'an and its miraculous status.