Religions, Vol. 17, Pages 22: A Comparative Analysis of Woman Imagery in Imruʾ al-Qays’ Muʿallaqa and the Qurʾānic Depiction of Ḥūr al-ʿĪn

Religions doi: 10.3390/rel17010022

Authors:
Ahmed Ali Hussein Al-Ezzi
Soner Aksoy
Sakin Taş

This study explores the Qurʾānic portrayal of ḥūr al-ʿīn in relation to pre-Islamic poetic traditions, with a particular focus on Imruʾ al-Qays’s Muʿallaqa—a foundational text in Arabic love poetry. It aims to examine how the Qurʾān reconfigures familiar expressions of female beauty—such as luʾluʾ al-maknūn, qāṣirātu al-ṭarf, kawāʿib atrāban, ʿuruban, and abkāran—within a spiritual and eschatological framework. The research problem centers on understanding the rhetorical and semantic shift from the sensual, body-centered depictions of women found in Imruʾ al-Qays’s couplet to the morally elevated and symbolically charged representations presented in the Qurʾān. Using a comparative textual analysis method, the study draws on classical tafsīr literature and selected passages from Muʿallaqa to trace the semantic transformation of key terms and metaphors. The findings demonstrate that while the Qurʾān retains the linguistic forms and imagery familiar to its audience—including poetic conventions of beauty from Imruʾ al-Qays—it redirects them toward a higher moral and theological purpose. Female beauty becomes not a site of fleeting desire, but a symbol of divine reward, integrating physical perfection with spiritual purity. Ultimately, the research argues that the Qurʾān does not reject the aesthetic legacy of pre-Islamic poetry, but absorbs and elevates it, establishing a new rhetorical paradigm grounded in revelation and ethical transcendence. This study encourages further comparative research between Qurʾānic discourse and early Arabic poetry to illuminate the cultural and expressive transformations shaped by Islam.

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Ahmed Ali Hussein Al-Ezzi www.mdpi.com