Formulation of the Claim
The Qur’an makes the wondrous and astonishing a field for the manifestation of the divine person.
Explanation
Strangeness in the Qur’an is not understood as a narrative element or as ornamentation in discourse, but as a site in which the divine presence becomes manifest. The wondrous here is connected to the apprehension of religious meaning itself, not merely to arousal or dazzling effect.
For Arkoun, astonishment becomes part of the way meaning is formed within the Qur’anic text, because it opens the field for the appearance of the divine person in the experience of reading. Therefore, this wondrous element is not separate from the function of disclosure and suggestion in the discourse.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom comes within Arkoun’s reading of the Qur’an as a text that produces religious meaning through specific forms of expression and effect. It approaches other places where he connects the structure of Qur’anic discourse with the conditions of its reception as speech that awakens attention and calls for acknowledgment of the divine presence.
Limits of the Claim
The atom should not be made to bear more than its indication that the wondrous performs a revelatory function within the text. It does not set out an independent theory of divinity, nor does it reduce the entire Qur’an to the dimension of astonishment alone.