The Binary Structure of the Qur'anic World

Formulation of the claim

The Qur’anic world rests on decisive symbolic dualities.

Explanation

In Arkoun’s thought, the Qur’anic world is presented as a field structured more by clear-cut polar oppositions than by wide gradients. Recurring semantic pairs draw the boundaries of meaning, destiny, and conduct, such as belief and unbelief, and obedience and disobedience.

This binary structure is not understood here as a mere stylistic ornament, but as a way of organizing one’s vision of the world and human choice. Through it, the opposing poles in the text are determined: high and low, salvation and ruin, the people of the right and the people of the left.

Its place in the book’s argument

This atom appears within Arkoun’s analysis of symbolic structure in Qur’anic discourse, where he highlights that meaning is formed not only through vocabulary, but through a network of oppositions that give the world its internal order. It is close to the book’s theses that trace how religious discourse shapes its representations of the world and of the human being through dividing classifications.

Limits of the claim

This atom should not be taken to mean that the Qur’anic text as a whole is reduced to simplified dualities, or that all of its semantic levels are governed by the same rigor. It points to a dominant structure in symbolic representation, not to the negation of any complexity or diversity in the discourse.

Brief evidence

Here, figurative expression does not operate on a level detached from reality, but in a direct relation to what it corresponds to or signifies. Thus, metaphorical representation imposes a specific mode of understanding and preserves a clear distinction between legislative prose expression and Meccan poetic expression. Some scholars establish this opposition between the Medinan suras, with their legislative character, and the Meccan suras, with their poetic character.

Related links

Readings in the Qur’an