UNIQUE

 

UNIQUE

Disclaimer: This writing is not tafsir. This is a short description on the uniqueness of  linguistic facts I find in the Surat Maryam. I do not have any capacity to write the tafsir of Qur'an verses.

Guys, what appears in your mind whenever you hear the term unique? In a simple term, unique means unusual and special. If something is unique, it means that it has special and unusual characteristics.

 I am sure you all are familiar with Surat Maryam (Mary), one of the surats in the Holy Book Al-Qur’an. To my view, this surat is unique. The first uniqueness of is its opening expression. Different from other surats whose opener is either praises to Allah, oaths, information, or commands, this surat is opened with a series of single Arabic letters (muqaththa’ah letters): Kaf-Ha-Ya-‘Ain-Shad. The series of the letters sound unique since the message is not conveyed as clearly as in other opening expressions. The series of those letters do not form a word, so that it looks superficially meaningless.

Regarding the meaninglessness of those letters, some ulamas opine that it is the miracle of the Qur’an and none but Allah alone knows the meaning. Other ulamas, however, are in the opinion that the series of letters is the strategy to attract the attention of mankind. This belief sounds plausible since addressees might easily get tuned in to a new topic if it is introduced in an uncommon way such as silence for a moment. Keeping silent for a while, an addresser might attract his/her addressees’ attention. In the context of this surat, the readers’ and listeners ‘ attention will be easily directed to the surat as it proceeds from a series of letters, rather than words or phrases whose meanings are easily understood.

The second uniqueness of this surat is that it is womanish. The title of the surat is the name of a holy lady, Maryam or Mary. It is unique since out of 114 surats, this is the only surat using a female name. Names other than Maryam perpetuated in the Qur’an are Ali Imran and Lukman, but they are male names. In addition, the surat depicts the holy lady with feminine properties: her way of clothing, her pregnancy, and her relation with her son (the baby Isa). In short, the state of being womanish is traceable from the name of the surat and the description of Maryam. 

The surat gets more unique as it is recited by Syaikh Hicham Lharraz, a Moroccan Qur’an reciter. His recitation is unique. He is never monotonous in reciting Qur’an verses. The same surat might sound differently when he recites it in different prayers on different days. His recitation is zig zag. At one time, his tune is stomping with high pitch, and then he could move to the gentle and soft rhythm with low voice. The movement between high-stomping tune and gentle tune in low voice makes his recitation unique and cool. Awesome. You can enjoy his recitation on the Surat Maryam in the following video, Guys. 

In a nutshell, the opening expression, the name of the surat, and the description of the holy lady Maryam or Mary are the uniqueness of the Surat Maryam. The beauty of the surat incorporated with the beauty of the reciter's voice makes the Qur'an verses more enjoyable. It is nice to listen to them in while working, reading, driving, and others. The Holy Book Al-Qur’an indeed contains countless of supremacies

Malang, November 10, 2022