Skip navigation
Sidebar -

Advanced search options →
↑ ↓
CEMB → Forum → Life, The Universe & Everything → Religions and Gods → The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted

Welcome

Welcome to CEMB forum.
Please login or register. Did you miss your activation email?

Donations

Help keep the Forum going!
Click on Kitty to donate:

Kitty is lost

Recent Posts

Do humans have needed kno...
Today at 03:29 AM
The origins of Judaism
by zeca
June 25, 2025, 03:06 PM
What music are you listen...
by zeca
June 23, 2025, 08:28 PM
Qur'anic studies today
by zeca
June 22, 2025, 03:34 PM
الحبيب من يشبه اكثر؟؟؟
by akay
June 21, 2025, 01:05 PM
Lights on the way
by akay
June 21, 2025, 07:37 AM
New Britain
June 20, 2025, 09:26 PM
Is Iran/Persia going to b...
by zeca
June 17, 2025, 10:20 PM
News From Syria
June 17, 2025, 05:58 PM
Muslim grooming gangs sti...
June 17, 2025, 10:47 AM
ماذا يحدث هذه الايام؟؟؟.
by akay
June 02, 2025, 10:25 AM
What happens in these day...
June 02, 2025, 09:27 AM

Theme Changer

 Topic: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted

 (Read 17045 times)
  • 12 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »
  • The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     OP - June 21, 2011, 04:45 PM
    According to Hamza Tzortzis, even the shortest chapter in the quran contains an inhuman frequency of rhetorical features. Only god could have done this, and is one reason why the quran cannot be imitated.

    "Verily We have given to you the abundance, So pray to your Lord and sacrifice, Indeed your enemy is the one who is cut off"

    in these 25 (English) words, Tzortzis spots the following 16 rhetorical devices:

    Quote

    • Emphasis
    • Multiple Meaning
    • Iltifaat – Grammatical shift
    • Word order and Arrangement
    • Ellipsis
    • Conceptual Relatedness (Intertextuality)
    • Intensification
    • Choice of words & Particles
    • Phonetics
    • Semantically Orientated Repetition
    • Intimacy
    • Exaggeration
    • Rebuke and contempt
    • Conciseness
    • Flexibility
    • Prophesy/Factual

    http://www.theinimitablequran.com/eloquencechapteralkawthar.pdf


    My response is a verse with the same number of (English) words, and a higher number of rhetorical devices. I have not only matched the quran, but surpassed it:

    "It certainly does not take an Einstein to realise, the (very) very stupid suggestion that the quran cannot be imitated is a not light clanger."

    Following Tzortzis's lead, i have spotted 17 rhetorical devices in my proposed sentence, and if I was desperate enough, I am sure I could find plenty more:

    • alliteration (stupid suggestion)
    • emphasis (certainly)  
    • Eponym (einstein)
    • metaphor (clanger)
    • Parenthesis ((very))
    • Intensification (not a light clanger)
    • factual (it is true)
    • Conceptual Relatedness (Intertextuality) (talking about the quran)
    • Parody (ridicule of tzortzis argument by overstated imitation)
    • Epizeuxis (very very)
    • Exemplum (example of a sentence that matches the qurans frequency)
    • Pleonasm (stupid + clanger together)
    • assonance (einstein + realise) ei + ei +i
    • Litotes ('not a light' as opposed to heavy)
    • conciseness
    • word arrangement  (if the words were arranged differently, it would have a different meaning)
    • multiple meaning (the word clanger can be given multiple meanings)


    He has some other similar arguments, but without knowing Arabic, I cant really say much about them
    http://www.theinimitablequran.com/fivemajorarguments.html
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #1 - August 26, 2011, 03:58 PM
    i have revised this to have fewer words, and a few more devices, and therefore a higher frequency.

    i am looking for suggestions for any more rhetorical devices. I know that hamza would be able to spot/invent a few more.




    It certainly does not require an Einstein to realise; the (very) very stupid suggestion of quranic inimitability, is no light clanger.


    alliteration (stupid suggestion)
    emphasis (certainly)  
    Eponym (einstein)
    metaphor (clanger)
    Parenthesis ((very))
    Intensification (not a light clanger)
    factual (it is true)
    Conceptual Relatedness (Intertextuality) (talking about the quran)
    Parody (ridicule by overstated imitation)
    Epizeuxis (very very)
    Exemplum (example of a sentence that matches/surpasses the quran's frequency of devices)
    Pleonasm (stupid + clanger together)
    assonance (require + einstein + realise) i+ ei + ei +i
    Litotes ('no light' as opposed to a heavy)
    conciseness
    word arrangement  (if the words were arranged differently, it would have a different meaning)
    multiple meaning (the word clanger can be given multiple meanings)
    certainty (certainly)
    word choice (if i has used different words, it would have meant something different)
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #2 - August 27, 2011, 08:17 AM
     clap
    Quote from: yeezevee on February 11, 2016, 02:05 PM
    how fuck works without shit??


    Let's Play Chess!

    harakaat, friend, RIP
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #3 - August 27, 2011, 06:26 PM
    I have always found that to be a week argument don't know why hamza thinks its the best argument for islam Tongue

    Nice work  Wink



    Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. [carl sagan]
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #4 - October 29, 2012, 03:30 PM
    just found another rhetorical device in my sentence:

    double negative  (not require + no light)

    so mine has 21 words, and at least 20 rhetorical devices. frequency of 0.95 devices per word

    Hamza has 25 words, and 16 devices.  frequency of 0.64 devices per word
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #5 - October 29, 2012, 05:29 PM

    Good stuff sloth.
    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #6 - October 29, 2012, 05:41 PM
    ^ really is, great thread.   Afro Also what do these people say when you mention things like moon split? sun setting in the ground? shooting stars used as missiles? All out of context?

     I can't stand when these verses are ignored and they claim Qur'an has scientific miracles!! It just does ok?  Tongue
    "In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion"

    "The intellectual runs away, afraid of drowning; the whole business of love is to drown in the sea." - Rumi
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #7 - October 29, 2012, 06:31 PM
    Quote
    what do these people say when you mention things like moon split? sun setting in the ground? shooting stars used as missiles?


    The options are:

    1. some excuse about Arabic
    2. some excuse about classical Arabic
    3. some excuse about needing to read the hadiths, tafsirs, asking a scholar etc
    4. some excuse about context
    5. a misunderstanding of science that allows you to consider them accurate
    6. a lie about science that allows you to pretend they are accurate
    7. a wishful insistence that science will one day catch up to the amazing science in the quran
    8. ridicule science as the product of indecisive homosexual zionist atheists who hate god/ cant make up their minds anyway
    9. call you a hater
    10. change the subject

  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #8 - October 29, 2012, 07:16 PM
    ^  Grin That about sums it up! I've come across some that when presented with multiple verses that state unbelievers (billions of their fellow human beings today) just for not giving Allah attention all deserve to have their skin burned- they admit to me that this is just. They are perfectly fine with billions burning in hell and them sitting in heaven indifferent to it all.

    All the "miracles" aside I can't stand when they rationalize just about anything especially the most evil of acts.
    "In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion"

    "The intellectual runs away, afraid of drowning; the whole business of love is to drown in the sea." - Rumi
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #9 - October 29, 2012, 09:53 PM
    Quote from: dr_sloth on October 29, 2012, 06:31 PM
    ridicule science as the product of indecisive homosexual zionist atheists who hate god


    This made me chortle in mirth.
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #10 - October 30, 2012, 01:15 AM
    Contradiction in Koran:

    2:62 -  Lo! Those who believe (in that which is revealed unto thee, Muhammad), and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabaeans - whoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right - surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve.

    Contradicts

    4:150 -  Lo! those who disbelieve in Allah and His messengers, and seek to make distinction between Allah and His messengers, and say: We believe in some and disbelieve in others, and seek to choose a way in between;
    4:151 -  Such are disbelievers in truth; and for disbelievers We prepare a shameful doom.

  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #11 - October 30, 2012, 01:37 AM
    thats not a contradiction because you're just a jew and you need to read it in Arabic
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #12 - October 31, 2012, 12:59 AM
    Please provide a detailed explanation why it is not a contradiction?
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #13 - October 31, 2012, 01:04 AM
    ^

    dr.sloth is being sarcastic.
    In my opinion a life without curiosity is not a life worth living
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #14 - November 24, 2012, 08:11 PM
    Am I correct in saying that the so called challenge of the quran is supposed to be a personal challenge?
    it says see if you can produce something like it, with the impication that anybody who attempts it wil realise that they cant. They wil personally realise they cant.
    It doesnt say that you should go and ask Hamza Tzortzis, or anyone else, if he thinks you have met the challenge.
    It doesnt say produce something like it, and then see what the muslims think of it.
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #15 - November 24, 2012, 10:28 PM
    If I am to be the judge, then I will say that my masters dissertation is better than the quran. For the following reasons:

    1. It can be translated without losing the meaning.
    2. It is less ambiguous.
    3. It is more logical, better argued, better evidenced, and does not threaten the reader to accept any of it.
    4. It is less repetitive, and more concise.
    5. It is more scientifically accurate.
    6. It is more original.
    7. It is more interesting.
    8. It does not make a ludicrous challenge to produce something like it.
    9. it cannot possibly under any interpretation, be read as inciting, approving of, or tolerating violence or sexism.
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #16 - November 25, 2012, 01:27 AM
    Bravo Dr. Sloth! That is hilarious and yet so true. Muslims will just dismiss that as sarcasm, but the challenge of the Quran is so ridiculous that any attempt to meet the challenge will always seem sarcastic.

    Anyway I think that this should be saved as one of the best quotes of the CEMB forum, someone is compiling a list I believe.
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #17 - November 25, 2012, 08:17 PM
    The point is not that it is ‘better’, but that you cannot produce something like it because it came from god itself, and is therefore not able to be copied.
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #18 - November 25, 2012, 11:06 PM
    Quote from: dr_sloth on June 21, 2011, 04:45 PM
    According to Hamza Tzortzis, ...................
     ..........................
    http://www.theinimitablequran.com/fivemajorarguments.html

    boy i wasted  3 mts of time reading that  pdf file   of that Child with beard

    What nonsense is that?

    That fool need to go  back to school to learn  about simple things such as   "Book" .. Books are written by some person., and once he comes out of kindergarten  .. he should be moved in to  a school where children are taught in  critical thinking .

    It is better to watch these tubes than read that pdf  silly files in that link..
    Quote
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8QQDY4AVHM
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxBHwKD4Orc
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiRvsUd89U8
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2rOmMUogN8
     

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim     
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #19 - November 26, 2012, 01:56 PM
    could anyone actually explain to a non-arabic speaker what Hamza is talking about and why it's a load of rubbish?
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #20 - November 26, 2012, 01:59 PM
    monstart:

    http://www.councilofexmuslims.com/index.php?topic=18331.0
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #21 - November 26, 2012, 02:22 PM
    Thanks sloth.

    From what i gather then, mohammed made up his own rules with grammar and people still understood what he meant but anyone can do this and it all just subjective if somone feels they have 'matched' it or not.
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #22 - November 26, 2012, 02:50 PM
    Quote from: monstart on November 26, 2012, 02:22 PM
    Thanks sloth.

    From what i gather then, mohammed made up his own rules with grammar and people still understood what he meant but anyone can do this and it all just subjective if somone feels they have 'matched' it or not.


    Hamza knows it is subjective. That is what he is trying to remedy.
    He is trying his hardest to make it objective, by appealing to objective countable things like 'frequency of rhetorical devices', which is the particular aspect of his argument that this thread addresses.


    Btw. I really like how you did not capiltalise the 'M' in Mohammed. The existin rules of grammar say that you are supposed to capitalise the first letter or names, but you chose instead to create a style of writing that breaks the rules. This was such a great linguistic feature of your sentence.
    and then , the next word in your sentence  "made". WOW. "mohammed made". Such great alliteration. How did you do it?
    Are you sure you are not a prophet?

  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #23 - November 26, 2012, 03:06 PM
    now that you mention it, Gabriel did mention somthing about me being the final prophet of the final prophets last night  grin12
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #24 - November 26, 2012, 03:52 PM
    You have at least one more reference - clanger refers to a children's programme.  Another grouping might be literary references...
    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #25 - November 26, 2012, 04:01 PM
    thanks. how did i miss that.

    If it is "not a light clanger", then it can't be "Tiny Clanger", or "Small Clanger"

    Quote
    Small Clanger

    Small and Tiny Clanger their playing and exploring are the primary focus of the Clangers series. Small Clangers being notable for his experiments by which he learns and pushes back the boundaries of his world.

    Tiny Clangers is the compassionate side of the Small / Tiny Clangers double act, and it is her who often finds solutions to the Clangers problems by her friendliness.


    So Small Clanger and and Tiny clanger are basically the scientists who explore, experiment, and find solutions.

     It must be "Major Clanger"



    Quote
    His coat is made of beaten brass like armour but he does not fight. His armour is to protect him from things that fall from the sky.


    Sounds like a bloody idiot to me.
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #26 - November 26, 2012, 06:55 PM
    On protecting oneself from things that fall from the sky, it is logical for everyone to wear bicycle helmets when outside to protect their heads from meteorites....

    How do I make that a hadith?
    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #27 - November 26, 2012, 07:00 PM
    On short sentences with a myriad meanings, what of

    Quote
    Elephant's eggs in a rhubarb tree

    .

    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #28 - November 26, 2012, 07:30 PM
    I love this thread
    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: The challenge of the Quran: Challenge accepted
     Reply #29 - November 26, 2012, 09:10 PM
    I think it would be good if somone put together statments from scholars etc who do not call the Quran miracle like al-razi etc.
  • 12 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »