Polysemy and parallels (al-wujuh wa-l-naza'ir)

Polysemy and parallels is the fourth type of the Qur'anic sciences in al-Zarkashi's al-Burhan. ¹ He notes that Muqatil ibn Sulayman wrote on it early, and among later scholars Ibn al-Zaghuni, Abu al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi, the preacher al-Damaghani and Abu al-Husayn ibn Faris, who called his book al-Afrad. ¹

For al-Zarkashi a wajh is a homonymous word used in several meanings, like 'umma', and naza'ir are like synonymous words. ¹ He judges weak the view that naza'ir concern wording and wujuh meanings, since the authors of these books list a word with one meaning across many places, treating wujuh as one kind and naza'ir as another. ¹ Some, he says, counted this among the Qur'an's inimitable features, since one word may turn to twenty meanings or more or fewer, which is not found in human speech. ¹

He reports from Muqatil that the word 'huda' (guidance) occurs in seventeen senses, among them clarification, religion, faith, one who calls, the messengers and the books, knowledge, right conduct, the Qur'an, the Torah, saying 'to God we return', proof, God's oneness, the Sunna, setting right, inspiration and repentance. ^{1 2} He cites Ibn Faris in al-Afrad that every 'asaf' in the Qur'an means grief except one place where it means angering. ² Muqatil opened his book with a hadith ascribed to the Prophet ﷺ that a man is not fully learned until he sees many aspects in the Qur'an; the editor's note says it is not sound as the Prophet's word and is rather a saying of Abu al-Darda'. ¹