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Litterary miracle?

"Turns the rifles into silver"

(From On the Border by Al Stewart)

It's a visual image (moonlight, mentioned in the previous line, is reflecting off of a boat's cargo of smuggled guns), a metaphor (the arms will be sold for money), and a wordplay transformation ("rifles" and "silver" are near anagrams of each other, the imperfection being the letters f/v which are very closely related in English pronunciation).

In addition, the phrase fits the meter of the line, the line continues the alliteration on the letter s from the previous line in "the ghost moon sails" (which itself has multiple visual and metaphorical meanings), and the meter itself emphasizes (as the only two trochees in the latter half of the entire stanza) the key words "rifles" and "silver."

Most of those devices relate directly to the theme of movement and transformation that pervades the entire song, so that itself should count as a device.

That's, let's see, seven stylistic/rhetorical devices so far, in five words. Given the number of dimensions to search for patterns and associations -- word and letter sounds, word construction, meter, rhyme, word origin, alternate meanings, wordplay such as anagrams or changing word divisions (mans laughter <-> manslaughter), and any number of levels of metaphor or meaning that can be ascribed to any associations found, getting to sixteen in three lines with a dozen words (especially in a language that saves words by omitting pronouns and articles or embedding those in inflection; note that the English translation has twice as many words) should not be too hard.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
Okay, let's try it with the entire final three lines of the stanza, which have 23 words, fewer than the 25 in the English translation of the shortest surah.

The wind whips up the waves so loud
The ghost moon sails among the clouds
Turns the rifles into silver on the border

In addition to the seven stylistic devices already counted, we can find:

(8) Alliteration in "The wind whips up the waves."
(9) Alliteration and assonance of m and o in "ghost moon... among the clouds."
(10) Metaphorical visual image, the wind making waves is a metaphor for impending unrest or war.
(11) Parallel imagery; the moon sails among the clouds like the boat among the waves.
(12) Metaphorical imagery: the "ghost" moon suggest stealth, like the smugglers.
(13) Rhyme scheme: "loud" and "clouds."
(14) Rhyme scheme: "border" repeats an earlier "border" and rhymes with "water" from the previous lines (the rhymes are not perfect, but they're acceptable for a song).
(15) The tonality of the song reaches a high point with the word "sails"; overall, the rising and falling melody takes us from the surface of the water, up into the sky where the moon and clouds are, and then back down to the boat to focus on the weapons, giving the verses a cinematic quality.
(16) Just as "rifles" and "silver" are emphasized in their associations by being the only trochaic words, "border" is the only spondaic word, its evenly stressed syllables emphasizing the thematic idea of being balanced on the brink of change as the stanza (and later the entire song, when the stanza is repeated at the end) concludes. That verge of change, of course, is the metaphorical meaning of the word "border" itself throughout the song, in addition to referring to the literal border the boat is crossing to smuggle the arms. So this should really be two or three devices but I'll keep it as one.


Number 15 might not count because the comparison is to a passage that need not be sung, though the Koran can be and often is sung, so pitch patterns should be a quality applicable to both texts. Even if that is rule out, though, number 16 should count as at least two, so I still claim 16. Also, I wrapped up all of the many different types of references to the theme of movement and change as counting as only one device. I would be perfectly justified in listing and counting each one separately. Finally, one could argue that my number 9 is forced. But do we know for sure that all of Tzortzis's instances are unforced?

Is this Al Stewart song divinely perfect, then? Not hardly. In my opinion, the words "so loud" stick out as a bit of a forced rhyme that also clashes a bit with the overall mood of silence and stealth (though actual wind-whipped waves would indeed be noisy), and the rhyme of "border" and "water" is too rough for my liking. (But it's a darn good song.)

And how many examples did I search through to find this one? None, although I had noticed the triple meaning of the "rifles into silver" phrase in passing while listening to the song before. So I just looked for what else I could find in those lines.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
Of course. Even setting aside the language barrier, it's obvious that the "inimitable" features of the Qur'an are, in reality, entirely imitable.

The problem is the old "you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into in the first place" thing. No one who doesn't already believe in the divinity of the Qur'an is going to be convinced by this argument, and no one who already believes in the divinity of the Qur'an is going to be convinced otherwise by being shown other examples of short poetry lines that contain all the same ostensible features (Tsortzis' essay even mocks the effort supposedly made by Musaylimah to meet the Challenge Verses).

Pretty much by definition, anyone who accepts this argument cannot accept that any person has written anything equivalent to part of the Qur'an, because they aren't actually looking for an equivalent to be written and shown to them, but instead stating an article of faith that's incontestable and self-evident to them.
 
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Too true ANTPogo. The greatest difficulty comes when thee believer tries to use such arguments to convert the heathens. It is remarkable how even when faced with confused or outright laughing heathens the faithful never seem to rethink their argument. I guess the cognitive dissonance is too painful.
 
I stumbled into an another website dedicated to those so-called inimitable litterary features of the Quran, called linguisticmiracle.com
that one really takes the cake.

They quote an extract of verse 40, surah 36


kulun fy falakin yasbahoon
They[celestial bodies] all float in an orbit.

those guys identify a palindrome: " kulun fy falakin "
the center of symetry being the letter "y".

So far, nothing miraculous to them.

But they notice that the very verb refering to the motion of celestial bodies in their circle (yasbahoon, in english: they float) begins with the same letter as that of the said center of symetry.
In this way, the "floating" of colored letters around the center of palindrome is supposed to represent planets motion, which is the very subject of this verse!

At best, this feature is nice and well-thought, nothing more, but their conclusion is:
Only the speech of Allah can be perfect in style and content!

All their dogma of inimitability seems to rely on a confusion between well-handled literary devices and miraculous features.
 
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I found another linguistic miracle while browsing YouTube the other day!



"Hi, it's Vince with ShamWOW! You'll be saying 'WOW' every time you use this towel!" - 15 words

1. Assonance in the first sentence, i - i - i
2. Vince/with is simply brilliant, as v/c and w/th are very similar consonants.
3. "ShamWow" is a proper noun, but also evokes imagery of an amazing rug, without stating it outright."
4. "You'll be saying 'wow!'" displays great skill in language use, tethering on the edge between exaggeration and truth.
5. ShamWOW - WOW - towel. Need I say any more?
6. this towel = allitteration
7. time you - use this (alliterative chiasmus)
8. Add every/towel for a round of consonant chiasmus.
9. The second sentence has the powerfully rhetorical subject - action - subject - action - object structure.
10. "this towel" - synecdoche!
11. The whole line is strongly euphonic, avoiding cacaphonic syllables.
12. sayin' wow - shamwow (Parallels soundwise, especially wtih the n/m sound and the s/sh)
13. Second sentence follows an Mm/Mm/Mm/mM/mM/mM/ scheme, inverting after the strongly emphasized "WOW!"
14. Generally evocative. Why will we be saying "wow" when using a towel? It really tickles imagination.
15. You'll be saying wow/every time you = chiasmus wrt "you".
16. "Hi, it's Vince" making himself familiar with the reader/listener, making it easier to trust what he says.


Well, that was easy. How do I become a ShamWOW apologist?
 
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