From Ethico-Religious Exhortation to Legal Paraenesis: Functions of Qur’anic Waʿẓ

Abstract

This essay examines qur’anic “exhortation” and “legal paraenesis” in light of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and late antique biblical traditions. It analyzes the verb waʿaẓa and related forms in narrative and legal/legislative sections of suras that can be assigned to different chronological stages of the Qur’an’s textual genesis. Qur’anic exhortations initially occur in narratives about messengers sent to unbelieving peoples. The word mawʿiẓa then becomes part of the self-referential vocabulary of the Qur’an and is used to characterize the contents of Moses’ Tablets. This linguistic development anticipates a process of legal and regulatory actualization, specification, and exposition: in the Medinan period, legal discourse is framed with the verb waʿaẓa. The emerging Medinan legal paraenesis puts emphasis on social applicability, but it is neither parochial nor does it break with Meccan ethics. Instead, it connects the communication and implementation of laws, rulings, and commands to human volition in a specific social context.