On Literary Miracles and Social Credibility: The Epistemology of an Islamic Argument

Abstract

The idea that the Qur’an is miraculous is common in Islamic apologetics, but has received little attention in Western philosophy of religion. Despite the common claim that the supposed miracle of the Qur’an is distinct in not requiring testimonial support, testimonial considerations are central for many claims about Qur’anic inimitability. This article clarifies and evaluates the logic of such arguments for the purpose of fostering inter-religious understanding and raising the intellectual level of discourse. The analysis focuses on three different versions of the literary miracle claim: (1) arguments from early Muslim history, (2) arguments from Muslim aesthetic experience, and (3) arguments from Qur’anic literary features. Using recent advances in social epistemology and critical Islamic studies, the article explores how religious testimonial inferences can be evaluated and the difficulties involved in arguing for a literary miracle.

1. Introduction

The purpose of this article is to provide a comparative philosophical analysis and evaluation of several Islamic testimonial arguments for the miraculousness of the Qur’an. Focusing on testimonial consideration might seem surprising to some readers, because Muslim scholars sometimes argue that the “miracle of the Qur’an” is superior to the miracles of other religions, precisely because belief in this miracle is not dependent on testimony. According to al-Bāqillānī (d. 1013),

In the miracle of the Qurʾān there is another outstanding feature not present in any other of the miracles of the Apostles. This is its remaining a perpetual challenge to the adversaries of Muhammad’s prophetic mission to bring its like and their inability to do that.

Thus it is a perduring sign, ever present, with no need, for the knowledge of its existence, to be related and handed on by people who might possibly be supposed to be guilty of lying and collusion and conspiracy and the forging of traditions without foundation.

(Al-Bāqillānī 2015, p. 172)

This way of contrasting the testimonial dependence of other religions and the ever-present miracle of the Qur’an continues to be commonplace. For instance, Yasir Qadhi asserts that “the beauty and the power of the i’jaaz [inimitability] of the Qu’raan is that it removes the constraints of time and place upon the miracle”, and Shoaib A. Malik (2018, p. 36) notes that “unlike the Bible, which is premised on the miracle of a historical event, the Qur’an is not a time-bound miracle.”

Nevertheless, often in the same works, Muslim writers also recognise the importance of testimonial considerations. For instance, Qadhi (1999, p. 265) argues that those who do not know Arabic rely mostly on testimony to know about the miracle, and Malik (2018, p. 37n196) says that even “most Muslims […] rely on the argument of authority even if they themselves haven’t ever ‘witnessed’ the miraculousness of the Qur’an.” According to these authors, not everyone has the requisite knowledge of Arabic to be able to appreciate the miracle themselves. Translations, after all, are not believed to retain the miraculous eloquence of the original Arabic. Likewise, the pioneering developers of the idea of literary inimitability, such as al-Bāqillānī and al-Jurjānī (d. 1078), argue for the Qur’anic miracle partly based on the testimony of the 7th-century Arabs.

Jewish philosopher of religion Samuel Lebens (2023, p. 79) helpfully summarises the argument for Islam from Qur’anic inimitability in three steps:

• The Qur’an is inimitable.
• If the Qur’an is inimitable, then Islam (in some form or other) is true.
• Conclusion: Islam (in some form or other) is true.

As Lebens recognises, many arguments for premise 1 depend on testimony, and considerations of “what constitutes a ‘competent authority’” (Lebens 2023, p. 81) are central. Premise 2 is more philosophical in nature and depends on how to understand miracle claims and their evidential value (e.g., Bonevac 2011; McGrew and Larmer 2024).

Reliance on testimony is not in itself problematic, since testimony plays a central role in justifying most of our beliefs. We rely on others for the vast majority of what we think we know, from news about current events to the facts of history and even scientific theories (Kojonen 2024). The epistemological role of testimony is recognised in religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (e.g., Benevich 2024; Johnson 2018). However, testimonial reasoning can fail, and philosophical social epistemology helps further analyse when trusting in others is advisable, also in religious matters.

However, social epistemology has only infrequently been applied across religious boundaries. The idea of the literary miracle is highly influential among Muslims and provides an interesting comparative test case of how to evaluate religious testimonial arguments. In this article, I thus examine the role of testimony in three influential arguments for the inimitability of the Qur’an. These are (1) arguments from early Muslim history, (2) arguments from aesthetic experience, and (3) arguments from specific literary features of the Qur’an. Not all arguments for a Qur’anic miracle are assessed here—for instance, not all Muslims locate the miracle in literary features (Qureshi 2023; Harvey forthcoming). However, the analysis utilises a large variety of both Muslim and non-Muslim scholarship relevant to the topic.

This article is a philosophical and academic exploration, the goal being to examine the arguments using the toolkit of philosophy of religion to identify their core features, concepts, argumentative structure, and problems. I then relate these to existing theories and models of religious rationality. An assumption throughout the article is that an effective argument for inimitability should provide at least some reason for believing that Islam is true, akin to the argument structure set out by Lebens, without assuming the truth of Muslim beliefs beforehand. In the process, I also briefly consider views that merely defend the rational permissibility of believing in inimitability for Muslims, but this is not the focus of the article.

I begin from a generally sympathetic standpoint towards the use of testimonial arguments in religious matters. Seeing as our knowledge typically depends on social collaboration with others, it would be strange if religious rationality were the exception (Kojonen 2024). Nevertheless, this does not mean being predisposed to accept all testimony, particularly given contradictions between religions (Baker-Hytch 2018). Somehow, we must find ways to evaluate testimonial arguments is to do so in a way that is consistent across religions, rather than applying extreme scepticism towards testimony in one case, and extreme credulity in the other. Although it can be reasonable to side with the epistemic authorities of one’s own community (Zagzebski 2012, pp. 204–28; Bogardus 2013), inconsistency in criteria would be an example of bias and thus a form of self-deception (see further Krstić 2025; Qu 2021; Wood 2013, pp. 121–45).

My examination of arguments from literary miracles is that of an outsider, seeing as my own religious background is Christian. The results as reported in this article thus come from an attempt to understand and evaluate the ideas of another tradition charitably—a process in which I have also benefited from discussions with thoughtful scholars from both Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds, for which I wish to express my gratefulness. This process has also highlighted the diversity of the Islamic tradition itself on the inimitability. I hope my Muslim readers will also find my outsider’s perspective helpful in showing what some popular arguments for a literary miracle look like from the perspective of those they are supposed to convince, and what sort of problems are involved in making them credible in a way that does not depend on pre-existing Islamic beliefs.

2. Arguments from Early Muslim History

The idea of inimitability is rooted in several Qur’anic verses, such as Q. 17:88: “If mankind and the jinn gathered in order to produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce the like of it, even if they were to each other assistants.” (Sahih International Version). According to traditional interpretations, such verses were revealed in response to early opponents of Islam, who had dismissed the credibility of Muhammad’s preaching. For instance, al-Nadr bin al-Harith, one of the Quraysh leaders, is said to have followed Muhammad in Mecca, exclaiming, “by God, Muhammad cannot tell a better story than I, and his talk is only of old fables which he has copied as I have.” (Ibn Ishaq 1955, p. 162/235), The traditional narrative states that such opponents were then silenced by the challenge, being unable to produce anything equal to even one surah (chapter) of the Qur’an.

Such narratives ground one popular type of testimonial argument for the inimitability of the Qur’an: the argument from early Muslim history. Appeal to the (claimed) testimony of the initial audience of the Qur’an continues to be prominent also in modern and contemporary defences of the inimitability of the Qur’an (e.g., Tzortzis 2020; Saeh 2015; see further Kojonen forthcoming). The argument can already be found in the work of the pioneers of i’jaz discourse, such as rhetorical scholars Al-Bāqillānī (2015) and Al-Jurjānī (2015).

Al-Bāqillānī (2015, p. 172) argues that the Arab opponents of Islam during the 7th century would have produced a composition like the Qur’an if they had been able to, since this would have (he argues) been an excellent way of “counteracting the Apostle’s argument and detaching people from his allegiance.” These Arabs, he claims, were “the greatest and most skilful in the exercise of the arts of speech” (Al-Bāqillānī 2015, p. 170). Thus, their failure to produce something like the Qur’an shows that the Qur’an is indeed a literary miracle beyond human ability.

Similarly, Al-Jurjānī (2015, p. 91) argues,

Having seen the circumstances and the reports and witnessed those who clearly surrendered because of their inability [to imitate the Qur’an] and their knowledge of its great and evident virtues which, when compared with all kinds of composition they could achieve, made them realize it was a distance they could not bridge and a height they could not hope to climb, you will have to determine that it [the Qur’an] is inimitable.

Thus formulated, the argument does not appeal to features of the Qur’anic text itself, but to testimony about the early reception of the Qur’an. As with other such arguments, these require that those who testify have sufficient knowledge to be reliable, and that their testimony has been accurately passed on to us. Both authors thus claim that 7th-century Arabs are known to have possessed superior poetic expertise not merely in comparison to later Arabs, but also to all other civilisations.

These Arabs are also thought to provide us both direct and implicit testimony in favour of Qur’anic inimitability. Implicit testimony is provided by the claimed failure of critics to rebut the Qur’anic challenge. Direct testimony is provided, these authors argue, by traditions relating to the early reception of the Qur’an. For example, Al-Jurjānī (2015, p. 90) quotes testimony attributed to ‘Utba ibn Rabi’a, another member of the Quraysh. He reports that ‘Utba, after listening to Sura 41, went back and told his fellows:

I heard speech, the like of which I have never heard, by God. It is neither poetry, nor magic, nor soothsaying. O people of Quraysh, obey me. Let this man do what he is doing, and leave him alone.

The claim, then, is that the early audience was in the best position to evaluate the claim, and this audience recognised the inimitable nature of the Qur’an. Seeing that testimony by experts typically provides a strong reason to believe in claims, the testimony of 7th-century Arabs should also be persuasive to us, it is argued. Rather than seeing testimony as a somehow inferior reason to believe, proponents of the argument both authors also emphasise the great strength of the testimonial case. For Al-Jurjānī (2015, p. 92), it suffices to make “doubt non-existent” and “provide soul-comforting certainty.”

In sum, the arguments require both that (A) 7th-century Arabs give us testimony for the inimitability of the Qur’an, and (B) that their testimony is authoritative or definitive, as is usual with expert testimony. The argument is also not directed merely to Muslims, but is meant to provide non-circular justification for belief in the miraculous nature of the Qur’an.

2.1. Evaluating Historical Reliability

Turning to evaluation, I will argue that both premises of the argument from early Muslim history are questionable. Regarding the credibility of (A), from a non-Muslim standpoint, there is reason to be sceptical about the historical reliability of the traditional Islamic narrative and hadith traditions, particularly down to such details. Typical presentations of the argument simply assume that the traditions are reliable and represent the actual views of 7th-century thinkers. But in a sceptical environment, this common Islamic assumption will not be taken for granted. Moreover, even if the traditions were found to date reliably back to the 7th century, this would not automatically make them accurate representations of what Arab non-Muslims believed. This is the intellectual “lay of the land” that a defender of the argument must recognise.

There are Muslim scholars, such as Jonathan Brown (2018), who continue to defend the general reliability of hadith and early Islamic historiography. Mainstream scholarship also acknowledges the possibility of establishing an early provenance for individual hadith traditions, using the ICMA method following the work of Harald Motzki (2004; cf. Little 2022, pp. 32–72). However, the mainstream perspective regards hadith as overall quite unreliable. One reason for this is that there is a substantial time gap between the writing down of the traditions and the events, which gives time for distortions to occur, even in widely spread hadith. As Joshua Little summarizes: “that Hadith are unreliable—that any given matn [main text of the hadith] cannot be taken at face value as an accurate datum from the 1st Islamic Century, and that any given ʾisnād [testimonial chain of transmission] cannot be taken at face value as an accurate record of a matn’s provenance—cannot be seriously contested, for multiple reasons.”(Little 2022, p. 22; see further Lindstedt 2023a, pp. 27–41; Cole 2025, pp. 6–21). Even if a tradition can be traced to the 7th century to the “companions of the Prophet”, from an outsider’s perspective this does not guarantee accuracy. Early Muslims could also tell the narrative in a biased way, after all. This means that statements such as that attributed to ‘Utba, quoted above, would not be seen as reliably representing the actual views of opponents, but might more plausibly represent later Islamic apologetics (Vasalou 2002, p. 28).

Critical scholars generally regard the Qur’an as giving much closer access to the 7th-century situation, but it is not expected to provide a complete picture. Instead, Angelika Neuwirth (2022, p. 8) argues, it “can be compared to a kind of telephone conversation in which only one voice can be heard.” For example, she argues that we do not know the precise historical situation and early reception of the challenge verses (Neuwirth 2022, p. 463; see further Reynolds 2023).

However, critical scholars do not merely claim that there is insufficient evidence for the reliability of early Islamic narratives and methods. Instead, they argue that in many cases, evidence closer to the time, and sometimes the Qur’an itself, contradicts later narratives. For instance, Ilkka Lindstedt contends that the culture of pre-Islamic Arabia was far less polytheistic (Lindstedt 2023a) and that female infanticide was far less common than many later Muslim writers claimed (Lindstedt 2023b).

More closely related to inimitability, critical scholars argue that there are significant parallels between Qur’anic style and content with existing literature in the cultural milieu. Paul Neuenkirchen compares the Qur’an and the Syriac homilies of Late Antiquity, exemplified by writers such as Jacob of Serugh (d. 521). Neuenkirchen (2022) concludes that “it is the sum of all its parts that makes the Syriac homily a very close match not to the entirety of the quranic corpus, but to a substantial part of it.” Others have found similarities to the Late Antique context in facets such as Qur’anic style, genres, theology, and cosmology (e.g., Reynolds 2010; Witztum 2011; Stewart 2022; Decharneux 2023; Tesei 2023). According to Stewart (2016), surviving fragments suggest that,

[T]he pre-Islamic Arabs had substantial bodies of religious poetry, most of which was probably suppressed because it was too obviously pagan. The imagined completeness of the changes involved in moving from pre-Islamic to Qur’anic modes of expression may thus be exaggerated.

Nevertheless, in recent years, evidence from pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions has provided further evidence of the linguistic background of the Qur’an. According to Ahmed Al-Jallad (2020, p. 121), “The few poetic texts discovered so far exhibit striking structural parallels with the Qur’an, especially the shorter, mystical suras which are assumed to be of an earlier provenance.”

Such similarities, documented in contemporary scholarship, make it probable that instead of recognising Qur’anic uniqueness (as asserted by many later hadith narrations and Muslim historians), the 7th-century opponents of Islam more likely argued that the Qur’an repeats existing legends or corresponds to existing styles. This corresponds quite well with how the opponent’s views are portrayed in the Qur’an itself (cf. Q. 6:25; 8:31; 16:24; 23:83; 25:4–6; 37:36; 46:17; 52:29; 68:15; 69:42; 83:13).

The narratives about the Quraysh secretly recognising the supernatural nature of the Qur’an also correspond to a general pattern of unreliable narrations about prominent non-Muslims recognising truths of Islam. This happens, for example, in tales about the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (d. 641) (Anthony 2020, pp. 181–203). Such narratives would not generally be thought of as historical, particularly in their details, so the same would also apply to the tales about (for example) the Quraysh leaders secretly admitting the inimitability of the Qur’an.

Thus, the testimony of contemporary scholars provides reasons to question the reliability of premise A. Although it is difficult to know precisely what the initial audience thought, it seems likely that opinions about the Qur’an were divided already in 7th-century Arabia. The ambiguity is further increased by the fact that the detailed doctrine of literary inimitability only emerged later, and early Muslim interpretations of the challenge were more diverse (Qureshi 2023; Vasalou 2002; Martin 1980). Defending premise A (thus providing a “defeater-defeater”) would require substantial engagement with critical scholarship, as is done in the case of historical arguments for religious belief in other religious contexts (e.g., Loke 2020; Keener 2019). It would not be sufficient, for example, to argue that any scholarship following methodological naturalism is necessarily misleading (Kojonen 2017a; Donahue 2025). Most of the modern scholars’ critical arguments do not depend on an a priori exclusion of miracles, but on generally plausible standards of historical evidence.

2.2. Evaluating Deference to Authority

Regarding the credibility of (B), the testimony of experts can indeed, in general, provide strong evidence or reasons for belief. However, epistemic authority may sometimes not be sufficient to determine belief on its own and may even be overruled by other reasons. Particularly in the case of broad claims, one may also need to consult authorities from a variety of fields. To determine whether (B) holds, we must thus examine the degree of authoritativeness of the putative 7th-century testimony.

I will begin by considering general reasons that might motivate not trusting an epistemic authority. Adam Elga (2007, p. 483) points out that “upon finding out that my forecaster is confident that it will snow tomorrow, I will follow suit. But upon finding out that my forecaster is confident that it will rain eggplants tomorrow, I will not follow suit. I will conclude that my forecaster is crazy.” Elga’s point is that while there should be a presumption to trust experts, there are nevertheless situations in which such trust needs to be withheld. This problem of “outrageous expert judgments” has created substantial discussion in social epistemology. Jennifer Lackey (2021) adds to this the “problem of the predatory expert”, arguing that accounts which overemphasize deference cannot adequately safeguard against abuses of authority.

Since it is desirable to avoid following any authority that falls into error, even those who generally defend deferential attitudes towards epistemic authority make some room for dissent. For instance, Thomas Grundmann (2021, p. 419) argues that there can be a “domain-independent basis for a rational rejection of an individual expert judgment.” He argues that such reasons can be based on (1) social information, meaning our knowledge of the disagreement of other experts on the topic, (2) analytic evidence, the identification of a logical flaw or contradiction in the expert’s argument, or (3) evidence from domain-independent disciplines, contradictions between the expert’s testimony and what we know from other fields. I will be referencing these three categories of reasons in my own evaluation.

Defining the miraculous is a complex matter that significantly impacts how to move from the claim that a text is high quality to the conclusion that the text is beyond human ability (see further Kojonen, forthcoming). Some might argue that the mere fact that the testimony concerns a supposedly miraculous matter, as in the case of Qur’anic inimitability, is sufficient for making the claim “outrageous” in the sense of requiring further evaluation. This is a common interpretation of David Hume’s (d. 1776) celebrated argument against the rationality of believing in miracles. However, the Humean standards of evidence for miracles are rejected by many philosophers and would also not be accepted by followers of many other religions. It seems that sufficiently credible testimony can, in principle, support belief even in improbable events and miracles (McGrew and Larmer 2024; Wahlberg 2014, pp. 172–212). However, defenders of the in-principle possibility of believing in miracles commonly recognise that the degree of evidence required does depend to some extent on worldview. Miracle claims are, in any case, more surprising than claims about ordinary events.

But setting aside the degree to which miracles are a priori improbable, there are also other ways in which social information, analytic evidence, and evidence from domain-independent disciplines give reason to question testimony about Qur’anic inimitability.

At this point, the ambitious nature of many inimitability arguments contributes to the problem. It is typically claimed that the Qur’an is a literary miracle for all ages, surpassing the capabilities of all humanity and even supposed non-human intelligent beings such as djinn. Because of this, it makes sense that the challenge should call for comparison with all of the world’s literary cultures, requiring expertise beyond that of the 7th-century Arabs. Even if 7th-century Arabs believed the Qur’an to be beyond human capacity, its qualities would not constitute a universal miracle unless the Qur’an also surpasses the literary features commonly found in other world cultures’ highly developed literary traditions. But this means that the testimony of 7th-century Arabs will then no longer be solely determinative, since the claim goes well beyond the domains in which they might have a privileged epistemic position. Instead, the claim can be evaluated based on Grundmann’s factors 1, 2, and 3, and through what other cultures know of relevant disciplines.

I do not mean to argue that the expertise of 7th-century Arabs would not be highly relevant for determining what constitutes excellent work according to the linguistic standards of 7th-century Arabia. The claim is merely that their expertise is not the sole relevant factor in assessing the miracle claim. Even the linguistic practices of the 7th-century Arabia are hardly isolated from the rest of humanity. Arabic, too, is a human language with similar linguistic features to other languages and has been influenced by other cultures, making this knowledge applicable. Moreover, the evaluation of the miracle claim involves complex theological and philosophical issues, such as how to recognise a miracle reliably. Likewise, for the Arabs themselves, as for most cultures, evaluation of the merits of a literary work’s ideas would be considered necessary for evaluating rhetorical excellence. This makes it difficult to argue that competence in the Arabic language should be the sole determining factor of relevant expertise.

Influentially, Aristotle (d. 322 B.C.) argued that a good speech is created by the interaction of the ethos (the character of the speaker), pathos (emotional state), and logos (reasoning), all coming together appropriately (Rapp 2023). Both Aristotle and his teacher, Plato (d. 347 B.C.), argued that mere eloquence is insufficient for creating a truly excellent speech. Instead, excellent speech should also be truthful and advance justice. They thus criticised those “sophists” who used their rhetorical skills in pursuit of worldly success. As Aristotle claims,

the art of the sophist is the semblance of wisdom without the reality, and the sophist is one who makes money from an apparent but unreal wisdom.

(Aristotle 2014, 276/165a21–22.)

Based on this classical understanding, truthful and meaningful content are also great-making features of speech. Many Muslim writers this intuition about literary excellence, and so it is also internal to the Arab rhetorical tradition. For instance, al-Khaṭṭābī (d. 998), another pioneering rhetorician, argues that the Qur’an contains “the most eloquent words compounded in the most eloquent composition containing the most valid ideas” (Al-Khaṭṭābī 2015, p. 15). He also focuses on the evaluation of ideas when arguing that other works are of lesser quality, as when he criticises ideas about elephants in verses (probably falsely) attributed to rival prophetic claimant Musaylima (Al-Khaṭṭābī 2015, 43; cf. Stewart 2012; Hawting 2017). It would, on such an understanding, be strange to argue that some work has supreme literary quality without claiming that it also has supremely good ideas.

However, this leads to problems for the testimonial argument, because evaluating the goodness of Qur’anic ideas is hardly an area in which early Arabs had greater expertise. For example, they had far less knowledge in philosophy, theology, ethics, psychology, and the natural sciences. The earliest audience did not even have the entire text in written form, and overall had access to a far smaller variety of texts and ideas. Knowledge from such areas is important for assessing the quality of the Qur’anic text and the feasibility of inimitability arguments. Thus, in possessing more knowledge about such issues, it seems we are actually in a better position to evaluate the argument than the Qur’an’s initial audience.

Moreover, the importance of content raises concerns about circularity. Suppose good content is essential for superior quality. In that case, it seems one would have to first conclude that the Qur’an’s ideas are better than any other text before being able to affirm its supremely good literary quality. However, then one would probably already be a Muslim and would no longer need the inimitability argument. Non-Muslims typically find some or many Qur’anic teachings beautiful and good, but would not regard these parts as particularly unique. Meanwhile, they would also disagree with other parts, and believe that other texts present superior ideas as well. Dependence on content would thus seem to limit the claimed miracle’s persuasiveness to those who are already at least largely convinced of Islam on other grounds. It would also threaten to make the idea of a literary miracle depend on an argument for inimitable contents (cf. Qureshi 2023; Harvey forthcoming).

Thus, there are also grounds to dissent from premise B of the testimonial argument. These criticisms do not mean that 7th-century testimony (insofar as we have reliable access to it) does not provide relevant evidence for assessing claims of a literary miracle. However, suppose the critique of premise B stands. In that case, it does mean that the testimonial argument is by far insufficient for establishing the kind of “soul-confirming certainty” claimed by Al-Jurjānī (2015, p. 92). Particularly when considered in conjunction with the ambiguous and historically unreliable nature of the testimony itself (contra premise A), the argument from early Muslim history faces severe problems.

One way to address these difficulties would be to narrow down the miracle claim to make it more situational. For instance, some proponents of ṣarfa claimed that the Qur’an was inimitable only for its initial audience, and this was only because of special divine action which prevented the Arabs from using their rhetorical skills in a usual manner (Martin 2002; cf. Al-Jurjānī 2015, pp. 105–11). The miracle would then be that only the Qur’anic rhetoric retained these qualities. This, then, would put the Arabs of the 7th century in a clearly epistemically privileged position for assessing the miracle claim. However, this would also entail making the miracle itself less impressive, and the problems with historical ambiguity would remain.

The arguments from early Muslim history analysed here explicitly make testimony the foundation for belief in inimitability. However, as I will argue next, testimony also plays a role in other arguments, which creates a need to examine the degree to which the problems are generalizable.

3. Arguments from Muslim Aesthetic Experience

Islamic studies scholar Navid Kermani’s (b. 1967) book God is Beautiful: The Aesthetic Experience of the Qur’an (1999/2015) argues that the aesthetic power of the Qur’an has been important for Muslims from the 7th century to the present day. The book begins with tales about the 7th-century reception of the Qur’an,

stories that tell of the overwhelming effect of Quran recitation on Muhammad’s contemporaries, of people who converted on hearing a verse of the Quran, or who wept, cried out, were enraptured or fainted.

(Kermani 2015)

However, in contrast to arguments from early Muslim history, Kermani acknowledges that reports about the early reception of the Qur’an are not necessarily historical. He writes already at the outset that “the authenticity of such conversion stories is dubious, if not altogether impossible” (Kermani 2015, p. 2), and elsewhere confirms that the later the sources are, “the more embellished the aesthetic power of the Qur’an looks.” (Kermani 2006 p. 110) Kermani even agrees that the Qur’anic challenge verses did not originally refer to stylistic perfection, a conclusion “inescapable upon a close reading of the passages concerned.” (Kermani 2015, p. 5) Although reviewers have argued that Kermani should take historical-critical studies into account even further (Stewart 2016; Reynolds 2016), these already represent giving up the argument from early Muslim history.

Regardless of historical unreliability, however, for Kermani, such stories illustrate the way later Muslims have widely experienced the aesthetic power of the Qur’an. It is, Kermani concludes, not primarily the understanding of its contemporary audience, but rather the response of the later generations, which makes “the language of the Qur’an, a miracle.” (Kermani 2015, p. 345) In comparison to all of world literature, Kermani states he “could not name any other text that is ascribed an attraction as strong and as musical as that of the Quran in these episodes […] There may be differences of opinion as to whether the Quran is the world’s most beautiful text, as Muslims claim, but there can be little doubt that the beauty they attribute to it is claimed for no other poetic or revealed text.” (Kermani 2015, p. 344)

Kermani’s discussion thus provides ingredients for an argument from aesthetic experience that is not dependent on the historical reliability of testimony about early Muslim history. However, this requires some constructive work, as Kermani himself does not provide a formalised argument. Since this is an argument from a specific type of experience, the arguments from religious experience as analysed in contemporary philosophy of religion are a useful parallel. The common ways to defend the usefulness of religious experience for religious rationality are externalist accounts (reformed epistemology) and internalist accounts (evidentialism). In the rest of this section, I will consider what an argument from aesthetic experience of the Qur’an might look like, the importance of testimonial considerations, and some problems this involves.

3.1. Reformed Epistemology and the Aesthetic Argument

Externalist accounts of rationality focus on the reliability of cognitive mechanisms, rather than on the internal reasons that a person can evaluate. The idea is that religious belief can be rational even without arguments, as long as it is based on properly functioning cognitive mechanisms. William Alston (d. 2009) and Alvin Plantinga (b. 1932), two primary proponents of reformed epistemology, applied it extensively to defend the reliability of Christian religious experience. Alston (1991) argues that Christian religious experience, as experienced in “Christian Mystical Practice” through the ages, provides a prima facie reliable way of acquiring beliefs about God. Just as we do not require an external justification before believing in our ordinary senses, such as sight or memory, we also do not require an external justification before trusting in the deliverances of this mystical practice, he claims. Plantinga (2000) argues that God has created humanity with a sense of divinity, which can, when properly functioning, provide us with true beliefs about God. According to Plantinga, this sense has been damaged by the effects of human sin, but can be restored by the Holy Spirit. This will then allow believers to come to reliably know truths such as that God exists, that human beings need salvation, that the Bible is the Word of God, and so on.

Plantinga elaborates on the kind of circumstances in which such warranted Christian beliefs might emerge without requiring inferential reasoning:

When I have done something I see as cheap or wrong, I may form the belie[f] that God disapproves of what I have done; upon asking for forgiveness, I may feel forgiven and I may form the belief that God forgives me. Upon beholding the majesty of the mountains, or the glories of the starry heavens above, or the power of the ocean, or the marvelous, highly articulate beauty of a tiny flower, I may form the belief that it was good of God to have created all this. Upon reading and reflecting on the Bible, I may find myself convinced, e.g., that God really was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. Overwhelmed by the dark splendor of Mozart’s D Minor piano concerto, you may find yourself exulting in the beauty and power of the music; and you may see God as the source of that beauty and power.

(Plantinga 1991, p. 304)

As can be seen from Plantinga’s examples, his epistemic framework is Christian. Applying reformed epistemology to the Islamic context thus requires some changes (e.g., Turner 2021). Many of the experiences described by Plantinga, such as perceiving God through the signs of the creation, would also be plausible in an Islamic framework. Indeed, the Islamic concept of God’s signs in nature repeats historically Christian ideas (Decharneux 2023). In other cases, such as the conviction that “God really was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”, it seems Muslims would have to conclude that Plantinga’s experience is misleading.

Related to aesthetic experience, Plantinga claims that God, as the source of all goodness and beauty, can be recognised in phenomena such as the wonders of the cosmos and the splendour of Mozart’s music. In the context of the argument from Muslim aesthetic experience, Muslims might similarly argue that they intuitively recognise divine action in the beauty of the Qur’an. Suppose that the Qur’an really is inimitably beautiful, and God has given human beings reliable aesthetic faculties. Then, perhaps properly functioning aesthetic faculties might reliably recognise the inimitable nature of the Qur’an. And so, they would have warranted true beliefs in the Plantingan sense. Likewise, using terms inspired by Alston, Kermani’s book might be seen as an argument for the existence of a robust tradition of “Islamic Aesthetic Practice”, which Kermani might see as prima facie justified.

The analysis of underlying epistemology also affects the pragmatic question of how one might best persuade others. For instance, for those who believe that belief in God as Creator arises primarily as a perceptual-like experience, fostering that belief in others would require placing them in appropriate circumstances, such as meditation of the wonders of nature (Ratzsch 2003; Kojonen 2021, pp. 34–44). Similarly, if one views belief in the inimitable nature of the Qur’an as primarily the result of an aesthetic experience, one should seek to foster that experience in others.

The critical discussion of reformed epistemology is ongoing, and what one thinks about the viability of this argument depends greatly on one’s overall view of epistemology. But even for supporters of reformed epistemology, the inherent limits of reformed epistemology would also apply to formulating a Muslim aesthetic argument in these terms. First, (1) a prima facie justification still requires responding to objections and benefits from additional supporting arguments. Second, (2) merely defending the possible rationality of religious beliefs for insiders will not yet show why the miracle claim should also be persuasive to outsiders.

On the first limit, supporters of reformed epistemology acknowledge that this sort of prima facie justification does not suffice to end deliberation. Instead, one must still be able to successfully respond to objections (potential defeaters) to the prima facie justified beliefs. Defeaters can, for example, provide evidence against the beliefs themselves (rebutting defeaters) or give reason to doubt the reliability of the rational faculties responsible for the belief (undercutting defeaters) (Sudduth 2008). The rationality of prima facie justified beliefs can also benefit from additional supporting arguments, as Plantinga recognises: “even if such arguments are not needed for theistic belief to have warrant […] it doesn’t follow that they cannot play the role of increasing warrant, and significantly increasing warrant.” (Plantinga 1991, p. 311; see further Mascord 2007; Kojonen 2017b; Walls and Dougherty 2018). As Olli-Pekka Vainio (2024, p. 87) summarises, beliefs that are merely prima facie justified do not yet provide a robust basis for epistemic certainty. For reflective religious belief, it is essential also to address objections and develop supporting arguments (Baker-Hytch 2018).

Both points also apply to arguments from Muslim aesthetic experience. Supposing an aesthetic experience can establish prima facie rationality for the beliefs of the individual reader, answering defeaters is still needed to retain warrant, and additional supporting reasons would help make the belief more robust. For instance, as a rebutting defeater, one might come to believe that other texts appear equally good (or better) than the Qur’an, meaning that the quality of the Qur’an does not exceed the limits of human ability. As an undercutting defeater, one might come to doubt the objectivity of one’s aesthetic sense upon finding out that other seemingly reasonable observers disagree.

To illustrate the potential impact of encountering high-quality literature, consider one example, Surah al-Masad (111), compared with text from the Divine Comedy (1321) of the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri (d. 1321). The Qura’nic text is transliterated to make the rhythm visible to non-Arabic readers.

Surah 111 (Sahih International Version)

1.

Tabbat yadaa abee Lahabinw-wa tabb

May the hands of Abu Lahab be ruined, and ruined is he.

2.

Maa aghnaa ‘anhu maaluhoo wa ma kasab

His wealth will not avail him or that which he gained.

3.

Sa-yaslaa naaran zaata lahab

He will [enter to] burn in a Fire of [blazing] flame

4.

Wamra-atuhoo hammaa latal-hatab

And his wife [as well]—the carrier of firewood.

5.

Fee jeedihaa hablum mim-masad

Around her neck is a rope of [twisted] fiber.

Muslims learn the Qur’an through oral recitation, guided by social structures that inform the interpretation and evaluation of the text. This particular text is among the shortest of the Qur’an, and so will be one of the ones learned early on by most Muslims. Those who understand Arabic might also ponder who the person being condemned is, and will learn the traditional interpretation. Abu Lahab, who is cursed here together with his wife, is understood to have been Muhammad’s uncle who refused to convert to Islam.

Nevertheless, even without immersion into Islamic practices, several rhetorical features of the text are recognisable. For instance, one can quickly see rhythm and parallelism in the endings of each verse, and the use of repetition, metaphor, and wordplay as tools that enhance the rhetorical effect. However, the problem is that one can also recognise similar rhetorical features commonly in other literature, making it intuitively difficult to see what might make the Qur’anic text distinctly better or even beyond human ability.

Compare, for example, with the rhetorical features and the handling of the theme of divine judgment in the opening of Canto III Dante’s Inferno (volume 1 of his Divine Comedy, 1321), in which the poet encounters the inscription on the gates of Hell. The text is presented in both the original Italian (making the rhythm visible) and in English.

Per me si va nella città dolente,

Through me one goes into the town of woe,

Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore,

Through me one goes into eternal pain,

Per me si va tra la perduta gente.

Through me among the people that are lost.

Giustizia mosse il mio alto Fattore;

Justice inspired my high exalted Maker;

Fecemi la divina Potestate,

I was created by the Might divine,

La somma Sapienza e il primo Amore.

The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.

Dinanzi a me non fur cose create,

Before me there was naught created,

Se non eterne ed io eterno duro;

Save eternal things, and I eternal last;

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’ entrate!

All hope abandon, ye that enter here!

(Dante 1918, pp. 26–27)

Of course, precise comparison of the virtues of different texts such as these is difficult. The rhyming, other literary conventions, length, and theology are not the same. A layperson will likely suspect that their understanding of the text is far diminished when compared to an expert in Qur’anic Arabic or Medieval Italian. However, the layperson can still see the use of many rhetorical features on the level accessible to a nonspecialist reader. For example, Dante’s text has melodical rhyming and repetition, surprising contrasts, and rich vocabulary, invoking deep themes. In these kinds of rhetorical features recognisable to a layperson, it is difficult to find any grounds for the superiority of the Qur’anic text. Thus, at least for one reading the text on this level, this might create a reasonable suspicion that one’s aesthetic capabilities are insufficient for perceiving inimitability in the Qur’anic text. It seems that such a wide-ranging claim would require more than merely perceiving rhetorical beauty in the text itself. Instead, going beyond one’s own limited experience seems to be needed—bringing us back to reliance on testimony.

As noted, encountering disagreement about the quality of the Qur’an might provide an undercutting defeater. Disagreement does not always give reason to change one’s beliefs—there are also cases in which “steadfastness” in one’s beliefs is clearly warranted (Bogardus 2013). Nevertheless, encountering disagreement often gives reason to reconsider the objective reliability of one’s own subjective judgment.

In addition to those who believe the quality of the Qur’anic text is ambiguous when compared with other works, many go further and see evidence of imperfection in the Qur’an. For instance, famed philosopher of religion Antony Flew reports that in his experience, “to read the Qur’an is a penance rather than a pleasure.” (Flew and Habermas 2004, p. 208). In explanation, Flew points particularly to the lack of an overall narrative structure in the Qur’an, which Flew believes would have made it more readable. In a similar vein, Orientalist scholar Theodor Nöldeke (d. 1930) opined that the rhetoric of the Qur’an shows imperfection, for example, when “the grammatical persons change from time to time in the Qur’an in an unusual and not beautiful way.” (Nöldeke 1910, p. 13; transl. Abdel Haleem 1992, p. 407)

There are also Muslims who have seen literary imperfection in the Qur’an, while nevertheless seeing it as a great work. For example, Persian scholar Ali Dashti (1985, p. 41) notes Qur’anic

sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without the aid of commentaries; foreign words, unfamiliar Arabic words, and words used with other than the normal meaning; adjectives and verbs inflected without observance of the concords of gender and number; illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns which sometimes have no referent; and predicates which in rhymed passages are often remote from the subjects.

For Dashti (1985, pp. 44–45), the miracle of the Qur’an is more about the impact the Qur’an had on its original audience than about its literary features.

The evaluation of the moral and theological quality of the Qur’an, mentioned in section two, is another locus of disagreement. In response to Kermani, Reynolds (2016) agrees that there are beautiful passages in the Qur’an, but questions if Kermani’s faith commitments would allow him to find anything in the book that is less than supremely beautiful. What about, for example, “passages which encourage violence, such as the permission to beat one’s wives in 4:34 or to crucify those who ‘make war on God and his messenger’ in 5:33?” Reynolds’ point is that seeing such texts as beautiful appears to be, to a large degree, dependent on Islamic faith commitments.

Responding to such objections seems to require going beyond the resources available to any one individual on their own. Going beyond an individualistic evaluation might provide a potential response, similar to Alston’s appeal to the tradition of Christian Mystical Practice. As Kermani (2015) argues, belief in Qur’anic inimitability has been held by many Muslims, both ordinary believers and scholars, for centuries. One could thus try to argue that the testimony of non-Muslims such as Flew or Nöldeke is outweighed by the testimony of the Muslim community, as well as by non-Muslim specialists who have agreed on the high literary merits of the Qur’an.

Many non-Muslim Arabic scholars also appreciate the beauty of the Qur’an. For example, consider orientalist Arthur J. Arberry (d. 1969). In his introduction to his translation to the Qur’an, Arberry considers a range of Western opinions, from essayist Thomas Carlyle’s (d. 1881) dictum that the Qu’ran is “as toilsome reading as I ever undertook, a wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite”, to English Muslim convert Marmaduke Pickthall’s (d. 1936) praise for “the Glorious Koran, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which moves men to tears and ecstasy.” (Arberry 1953, pp. 16–17). This presents a problem: how is such a variety of reactions to be explained? For Arberry, the explanation lies in the way Westerners often read the Qur’an without considering its differences from the Christian Bible:

The reader makes the fatal mistake of trying to take in too much at once […] he is bewildered by the rapid and seemingly illogical changes of subject, and he quickly wearies of the frequent repetitions of themes and formulas […] he compares it unfavourably with what he has known since childhood.

(Arberry 1953, p. 26)

Such an approach, Arberry claims, misses qualities that make the Qur’an exceptional, even if the text lacks the virtues specific to more sustained narratives. The Qur’an, Arberry argues, must be appreciated a little at a time, with meditation, like poetry. This then allows the reader to gain a better appreciation of it gradually. Arberry himself ranks the Qur’an as a significant literary work, concluding that “The Koran undeniably abounds in fine writing; it has its own extremely individual qualities; the language is highly idiomatic, yet for the most part delusively simple; the rhythms and rhymes are inseparable features of its impressive eloquence, and these are indeed inimitable.” (Arberry 1953, p. 28) In Arberry’s usage, this “inimitability” is of the same sort as is found in other literary works of great merit, with the psychology of inspiration left unexplained (Arberry 1953, p. 32).

In a similar vein, M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (1992) argues that Nöldeke’s opinion is contradicted by many Arab writers, who see the change in grammatical persons as a beautiful example of the rhetorical device of iltifat. Kermani (2015, p. 219) argues that while “numerous Orientalists in the wake of Nöldeke” have contested the claim of Qur’anic literary excellence, to Arabic rhetoricians (who, for Kermani, have superior expertise), the perfection of the text “was all an incontrovertible fact.” Medieval rhetoricians also attempted to provide explanations for claimed imperfect features of the Qur’an. For example, the structure of the Qur’an and its repetitiveness might be explained as helping oral recitation and learning, thus enhancing the “experience of discovery” (Harb 2020). Hence, Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar (2008, p. 144; quoted in Lebens 2023, p. 81) claims that

Even disbelieving Arabists eventually concede that the Quran’s Arabic is outstandingly stylish: most of them reverse, after a whole lifetime of study and reflection, their own earlier dismissive judgements made in the active heat of juvenile ‘scholarship’ and missionary zeal. All competent authorities agree that while a translation could successfully convey the sense and the learned nuances of its fecund and mysterious vocabulary, it can never register the sheer range of its emotional effect.

In response to Akhtar, Lebens (2023, p. 81) notes that it seems “difficult to assemble a jury that can’t be accused of prejudice, one way or another.” There is, Lebens argues, a certain arbitrariness in limiting the scope of “competent authorities” solely to those who agree on the inimitability of the Qur’an. Whereas Akhtar contends that those who do not see the outstanding merits of the Qur’an are merely inexperienced or blinded by missionary zeal, others might say that there are also sources of bias that influence Muslim scholars, and that the Arab and Muslim opinion themselves are hardly unanimous.

On sources of bias, the early formulation of inimitability as a dogma seems to provide a plausible factor directing later opinion. The doctrine, after all, required explaining away any perceived imperfection (Vasalou 2002; Stewart 1990). “Its fascination lies in its breach of norms”, even Kermani (2006, p. 117) himself argues. On diversity, consider the opinions on the Qur’an by Arab representatives of other religions and ex-Muslims (Lindstedt 2011), or the variety of early Muslim opinions (Qureshi 2023; Martin 1980), which have already been discussed. Later, in Section 4.1, we will also have the opportunity to consider the variety of Muslim and non-Muslim opinions further.

However, the main problem here does not seem to be whether “competent authorities” can agree that the Qur’an is eloquent. Many works are even “inimitable” in the milder sense Arberry notes, since the creative energy of literature is often the product of unique circumstances. The problem lies in whether the authorities are competent in making the shift from aesthetic judgments of high literary quality to “inimitable” quality in the theological sense. This means a quality that is miraculous and beyond human ability. As I have argued in Section 2.2, for such an ambitious claim, the relevant domains of expertise are much broader in scope. Evaluation of the effects of bias is also essential for determining the weight of testimony, however, and I will discuss the issue further in Section 3.2. Nevertheless, this discussion highlights the significance of social factors and the evaluation of relevant epistemic authorities in the aesthetic version of the argument.

The second limitation of reformed epistemology, in addition to requiring responding to defeaters, is its focus on defending beliefs rather than persuading outsiders. As the responses based on social evidence illustrate, the mere personal experience of aesthetic qualities seems insufficient for responding to defeaters. Instead, one needs to appeal to further evidence, such as the experiences of others. But this already moves the discussion in an evidentialist direction, away from reformed epistemology. The possibility of using a similar epistemological system to defend multiple incompatible belief systems also provides one of the longstanding arguments against reformed epistemology itself, motivating the search for arguments that could break the impasse between worldviews (see further Plantinga 2000, pp. 325–51; Baker-Hytch 2018; Loke 2025, pp. 52–63). Thus, it seems that for Qur’anic aesthetic qualities to provide an argument to persuade others or provide a more robust basis for religious belief, an alternative account is needed. For instance, one might argue that experiences of the aesthetic qualities of the Qur’an might provide evidence for the premise that the Qur’an is inimitable. I turn now to such evidentialist formulations.

3.2. Evidentialism and the Aesthetic Argument

The general purpose of evidentialist arguments for religious beliefs is to provide reasons in support of those beliefs, starting from premises that do not presuppose the truth of religion beforehand (see further Kojonen 2017b; Loke 2025). For instance, it might be argued that a theistic hypothesis provides a better explanation of the apparently purposeful order of the cosmos. However, providing evidence is not the same thing as providing proof. Thinkers like Richard Swinburne (2004) thus argue that theistic beliefs do not rest on any one argument alone, but on the force of many lines of evidence taken together. Religious experience might similarly provide part of such a cumulative case (Netlund 2022).

Ïn such “c-inductive” cumulative case arguments, the degree to which each line of evidence supports the hypothesis (such as theism) is based on the extent to which that line of evidence is best explained by theism. If some evidence is equally well explained by theism and pantheism, for example, then that evidence will not support either over the other. Similarly, in assessing the evidentialist form of the argument from Muslim aesthetic experience, we must ask to what degree this experience is better explained by Islamic theism.

In terms of specific evidentialist arguments, the relevant comparisons are arguments from religious experience (Netlund 2022; Kwan 2011), particularly the common consent or consensus gentium argument for the existence of God (Kelly 2011). As Harold Netlund (2022, p. 238) summarises, the widespread nature and strength of religious experience can contribute to a cumulative case argument for religious belief in God’s existence, or a specific religion (in his case, Christianity):

The fact that so many people claim to have experienced God requires some explanation, and Christian theism provides this. The plausibility of such an argument will be enhanced to the extent that theistic experiences can be shown to occur widely among diverse groups of people throughout history. The more widespread the experiences are—the more extensive their distribution across historical, cultural, ethnic, and religious contexts—the greater the need is for an explanation.

In addition to being widespread, Netlund also argues that particular features of religious experience might increase the evidential force of such experiences. Some experiences are more ambiguous than others. For instance, an experience of being overwhelmed by the beauty of the cosmos would have less evidential force than a more direct and life-changing mystical experience of the divine.

Applied to the argument from Muslim aesthetic experience, Kermani’s book could be seen as an attempt to provide this type of cumulative case. The argument, as thus understood, would be that experiences of the supreme aesthetic quality of the Qur’an are widespread, and that Islamic theism offers a potential explanation (perhaps even the best explanation) of such experiences.

As thus formulated, evaluating the argument from the aesthetic experience of the Qur’an will depend on how one handles arguments from religious experience in general. If one finds other arguments from religious experience, such as the common consent argument, persuasive, then it seems reasonable to also allow that Islamic religious experience has some evidential weight. Likewise, however, the weaknesses of arguments from religious experience will also apply to the arguments from Muslim aesthetic experience. Netlund, for example, argues that religious experiences are, in general, insufficient as the sole basis of religious belief. Rather, in most cases, theistic interpretation of religious experience requires support from other arguments:

What is regarded as veridical depends in part on the prior beliefs and commitments one brings to the experience. On the one hand, if I already accept the basic teachings of Christian theism as true, for example, then it can be eminently reasonable for me to accept as veridical any experiences that are consistent with Christian teachings. On the other hand, if I am convinced that there is no God or supernatural reality, then it can be reasonable for me to be skeptical of what seems to be an experience of God.

(Netlund 2022, p. 260)

Netlund thus argues that even widespread and life-changing religious experiences merely provide part of a cumulative case for a religious worldview. If one follows this opinion, then it is likely that the argument from Muslim aesthetic experience (even life-changing aesthetic experience) could be consistently accepted as veridical by Muslims, insofar as they already have other reasons to regard Islam as true. But in a comparative sense or from the perspective of outsiders, such experiences would, at best, only provide some supporting evidence for Islamic theism, rather than a decisive argument.

Moreover, there are also reasons to consider the argument from Muslim aesthetic experience as comparatively weak, when contrasted with other arguments from religious experience. In Netlund’s analysis, experiences that are ambiguous and easily open to alternative interpretations provide less powerful evidential support. However, the transition from aesthetic judgment to belief in a miracle appears more subjective and more dependent on doctrinal commitments and cultural norms. In the rest of this section, I will elaborate on these factors and consider how they impact the evidential force of arguments from Muslim aesthetic experience. I will also consider how rival traditions can explain religious experiences, as this impacts the degree to which Islamic theism might provide the best explanation of such experiences.

I begin with the problems of subjectivity and cultural dependence. In modern literary theory, the objectivity of literary evaluations remains a debated matter. If no reliable measure of literary quality exists—so that aesthetic judgments are merely in the “eye of the beholder”—then this would, of course, undermine any aesthetic arguments for religious belief. However, embracing a fully subjectivist view of literary quality and beauty also has significant costs and is not a position that most ordinary people would want to defend (Scruton 2009; Ward 2021). For instance, it seems teachers of English can quite reliably estimate the relative quality of their pupils’ essays. But even affirming that beauty is objectively real does not yet mean that there is not also subjectivity in our evaluation of it. Thus, Oliver Conolly, while defending literary criticism as “the common pursuit of true judgment”, nevertheless argues that “literary judgments may be objective up to a point, but not beyond that point.” (Conolly 2016; see further Conolly and Haydar 2003). The development of literary taste will be influenced by upbringing, culture, exposure to works, life experiences, and so on. After works pass a certain standard of quality, ranking them becomes progressively more difficult.

On Netlund’s account, the more widespread and cross-cultural a religious experience is, the stronger evidence for theism it provides. One reason for this is that convergence across cultures helps make alternative explanations less likely. In more localized cases, one might worry, for example, that people simply experience what their environment encourages or expects them to experience (Kojonen 2024, pp. 112–16). As noted, in the case of aesthetic experiences of the Qur’an, many argue that Muslim aesthetic judgment is influenced to a large degree by their preexisting belief in the Qur’an’s divine origins. Not all experience the Qur’an as equally aesthetically pleasing, and the move from the aesthetic experience to inimitability seems particularly dependent on the social context. As Reynolds (2016) points out in response to Kermani,

While the Qur’an is broadcast publicly on loudspeakers in Arabic-speaking cities such as Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo, many there (for example, Christians) have not been convinced that it is the word of God although they hear it over and over again. Kermani states that the listener of Mozart’s Requiem knows it is beautiful because he knows it is by Mozart. One might add that pious Muslims know the Qur’an is beautiful because they know it is the Qur’an.

In discussing Mozart and the Qur’an, Kermani and Reynolds do not mean to argue that the aesthetic judgments are entirely determined by the community. However, it can likewise be difficult to fully separate aesthetic evaluation from its social context. As Kermani explains, a poem “spoken on stage in a solemn mood” can “be expected to evoke stronger emotions than the same poem encountered in a banal context without knowledge of its authorship.” (Kermani 2015, p. 195)

Similar ideas are commonly applied to belief in inimitability. Orientalist scholar E. H. Palmer (d. 1882) already argued,

That the best of Arab writers has never succeeded in producing anything equal in merit to the Qur’an itself is not surprising. In the first place, they have agreed beforehand that it is unapproachable, and they have adopted its style as the perfect standard; any deviation from it therefore must of necessity be a defect.

(Palmer 1880, lv)

Palmer’s worry is that in this case, the community’s judgment is driven by a doctrinal commitment, rather than providing fully independent evidence for the doctrine. Similarly, social epistemologists and psychologists have noted many ways in which the beliefs of communities can easily become distorted by biases (e.g., Dormandy 2018; Levy 2021; Amijee 2023). This is not merely a theoretical danger for the discussion of Qur’anic miraculousness. Instead, bias can be seen, for example, in the quick spread and continued popularity of claims of “scientific miracles” in the Qur’an (Daneshgar 2023; Bigliardi 2025, pp. 29–33). The discovery of biases in any community’s or authority’s reasoning in such a case can severely damage their credibility in other related matters. Suppose acceptance of scientific miracles, as part of the case for the miraculous nature of the Qur’an, can be explained as the result of biased reasoning (as appears to be the case). In that case, the outsider may wonder if the same biases might also be in play in many Muslim evaluations of the idea of literary inimitability.

Defending the reliability of the argument from Muslim aesthetic experience requires responding to such suspicions. In general, the testimony of many to some reality has more force than the testimony of just one person. However, the force of multiple attestation is reduced if it turns out that the many are simply following one testimony, rather than providing independent confirmation. This is a common criticism of consensus gentium arguments for God’s existence. Perhaps, it is argued, the widespread nature of belief in God might owe more to cultural inertia and other factors in cultural evolution, than to people’s independent experiences and reasoning (see further Davis 2020; Launonen and Visala 2023).

In the case of the consensus gentium arguments, Thomas Kelly (2011) uses the analogy of mathematics to argue that the cultural repetition of belief does not necessarily show that the testimony of individual believers has no value. The belief that 2 + 2 = 4 is typically acquired socially from authority figures such as parents and teachers (with social incentives for repeating the correct answers), but the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 strikes people as true is nevertheless essential for explaining why this belief persists. Similarly, Kelly argues, even though belief in God is culturally transmitted, part of the reason why this belief persists and has spread so broadly is that people find it true (Kelly 2011; Kojonen 2024, pp. 112–16). Similarly, defenders of the argument from Muslim aesthetic experience might argue that the experience of individual Muslims provides some support for Islamic belief, even if these Muslims first come to believe in inimitability through cultural transmission. Thus, it seems feasible to argue that at least their aesthetic evaluation of the Qur’an provides some independent corroboration of its beauty. But, making the further step that their testimony also supports inimitability will be somewhat more challenging, as belief in inimitability seems quite dependent on social collaboration, as discussed in Section 3.1.

As noted, the ability of religious experience to function as evidence for a particular religious view also depends on whether that framework provides the only explanation or at least the best explanation of such experiences. Because religious experiences take place across religious boundaries, established religions need to be able to account to some degree for religious experiences outside their religious context (Kwan 2011). For example, Protestants would need to be able to explain experiences of miracles in the Catholic Church, whereas Catholics need to be able to explain miracles in Protestant churches. Those who deny the reality of life after death need to explain near-death experiences, and so on (Baker-Hytch 2025).

One potential response to the existence of religious experiences across different contexts is religious pluralism. This perspective argues that such experiences are best explained by supposing that the same divine Reality is present in all (or at least many) religious traditions (e.g., Hick 1989; see further D’Costa 2022). However, Kai-man Kwan (2003) argues that many experiences in other traditions can also be recognised as at least partly genuine and valid by those who believe one tradition provides a more accurate or more complete picture of God. For instance, Kwan notes that a personal God might also plausibly be experienced as nonpersonal.

In addition to models that affirm religious experience or miracles as compatible, some explanations dismiss rival miracle claims based on an evaluation of the total evidence. Related to Qur’anic inimitability, Lebens (2023, p. 83) notes that even if they became convinced that the Qur’an is an “especially difficult book to explain”, an atheist might still consider it more likely the book “was written by aliens from a distant planet” than that it was inspired by God (Lebens 2023, p. 83). Likewise, he argues that a believing Jew might be more likely to “accept that Mohammad was a false prophet, even if he was somehow capable of working miracles.” (Lebens 2023, p. 83) This is because a singular miracle would be insufficient to overturn their reasons for believing in Judaism. A Jewish worldview might even lead one to expect tests of faith in the form of misleading miracles (Deuteronomy 13:3–4).

Attempting to rule out such alternative explanations can itself be worldview-dependent. For example, British Muslim apologist Hamza Tzortzis, in arguing that the Qur’an cannot be explained as the inspiration of evil spiritual powers, claims that “a content analysis of the Qur’an” firmly tells against such a conclusion, since the Qur’an “promotes morals and ethics not in line with an evil worldview.” (Tzortzis 2020, pp. 296–97) However, the moral and theological evaluation of the Qur’an, and hypotheses about what spiritual powers would or would not do, are worldview-dependent. For instance, the traditional Christian idea is that spiritual temptations often come in the form of misreading or twisting something good, so that the devil appears “as an angel of light.” (2. Corinthians 11:14) Thus, the explanation for rival miracle claims might posit a complex mix of spiritual and psychological factors, truths and errors. My point is not to develop such a model here, but to show that ruling out alternative explanations for religious experiences is not necessarily straightforward.

The difficulty of providing explanations for religious experiences from the perspective of another tradition or worldview varies (Kwan 2003; Netlund 2022), but it seems that explaining aesthetic experiences is on the easier side. Different traditions, such as Christian theology, have accounts of beauty that are also applicable to aesthetic experiences in both religious and non-religious contexts (e.g., Fodor et al. 2008; Hart 2003; Simek 2022). For example, recall Plantinga’s experiences of the divine through Mozart’s D Minor piano concerto. Plantinga does not mean to imply that Mozart was divinely inspired or that Mozart’s music reveals the full Christian conception of God. Instead, he argues that because God is the ultimate source of beauty, experiencing beauty through human creations can provide an opportunity to glimpse the existence of God’s transcendent reality. As such, the experience seems compatible with many religious viewpoints, including Islam.

Similarly, it seems that followers of other religions could affirm that Muslim aesthetic experiences are partially correct, and even point to God, without requiring the idea that the Qur’an is directly divinely inspired. Non-Muslims will generally disagree on the claim of miraculousness, but it seems this goes beyond the Muslim aesthetic experience of the Qur’an itself. Thus, non-Muslims might well agree that parts of the Qur’an display the human capacity for beauty, even that this beauty points to God, just as Mozart’s music does. They might also argue, though, that beauty of the Qur’an owes much to its repetition of beautiful themes from previous religions, such as the idea that “whoever safes a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity” (Q. 5:32), which is originally from Jewish Talmudic discussion of the book of Genesis (Sanhedrin 4:5; see further Witztum 2011, pp. 122–24).

Ultimately, in comparison with other arguments from religious experience, the argument from Muslim aesthetic experience seems to provide at best weak or inconclusive support for inimitability and Islamic theism (cf. Akhtar 2008, p. 156). The degree to which such experiences might contribute to a cumulative case for Islamic theism depends on how much better Islamic theism does at explaining them. It seems, however, that the level of evidence provided by aesthetic experiences can well be accommodated by other worldviews, particularly given the subjective character of such experiences, the difficulty of moving from an aesthetic experience to inimitability, and the way alternative viewpoints must, in any case, already be able to explain many types of religious experiences.

That subjectivity indeed is a problem was recognized already by medieval rhetoricians. For example, al-Khaṭṭābī writes as follows against those who say the eloquence of the Qur’an is recognized by an aesthetic sense, without being able to “describe it or define it in a way showing clearly the difference of the Qur’an from other speech” (Al-Khaṭṭābī 2015, p. 13). He responds: “I say this is not convincing in a science like this one and that it does not heal one’s ignorance of it. It is only an ambiguity turned into vagueness. “(Al-Khaṭṭābī 2015, p. 13)

The third and final argument to be considered might be seen as an attempt to fix the problems of subjectivity by focusing on the inimitability of specific literary features. The goal of the arguments from literary analysis, such as the ones developed by al-Khaṭṭābī is to help laypersons to understand the evidence of the literary miracle themselves to at least to some degree, thus also gaining a deeper appreciation for the Qur’an’s aesthetic qualities.

4. Arguments from Literary Features

The arguments from early Muslim history and Muslim aesthetic experience are often accompanied by an attempt to elucidate at least some linguistic features which might display the miraculous nature of the Qur’an. Given the great diversity of the literature, my purpose in this section is not so much to evaluate specific arguments, but to highlight the role of testimonial considerations in this style of reasoning. For instance, Kermani (2015) reports gaining inspiration from the ideas of medieval Muslim rhetoricians in this way. As he explains,

In my study of the aesthetic reception of the Quran, it was in reading al-Jurjani that I first realized the full magnitude of the miracle that is the Quran in the Arab Muslim perspective. When one follows, over hundreds of pages, how al-Jurjānī determines the semantic weight of even minimal linguistic differences, how he painstakingly defines which of the apparently negligible variations must be used in which cases, when one discovers what an ‘almost magical’ effect […] an ellipsis, for example, can have when used in the right place, or when one looks at his chapters on moving phrases forward or back in a sentence and studies the syntactical functions of such shifts (subdivided according to whether or not the case of the prepended words changes) […] then one can understand how miraculous the Quran is in the eyes of someone like al-Jurjānī. As an outsider one may question the laws he postulates; one may even doubt whether the Qur’an really applies them perfectly in all details, as he says it does, but to him, both the consistency of the standards he sets and their perfect conformance with the linguistic reality of the Quran are verified, objective scientific findings, proven by text citations and corroborated by the text’s reception history and his own aesthetic experience.

(Kermani 2015, p. 217)

Kermani’s learning from al-Jurjānī is consistent with one of the purposes of expert testimony: to help non-experts gain understanding of the methods of reasoning and evidence relevant to the topic. Expert guidance can clarify the considerations underlying the expert’s conclusions and how alternative views can be addressed. The result is that listeners gain some understanding of the relevant evidence for themselves, rather than basing beliefs solely on the expert’s authority (Jäger 2016). Over time, such authoritative guidance can help the listener themselves gain expertise in the topic, thus creating robust grounds for belief. Alternatively, the authority’s words may prove unreliable, creating a defeater for the previous trust.

4.1. A Variety of Arguments

In Islamic literature, there is great diversity in the identification of supposedly miraculous features, many going beyond eloquence and literary features, into features such as prophetic knowledge, effect on human hearts or human communities. Qadhi (1999) lists the following five literary features:

(1)

The placement of a particular word in perfect context, over its synonyms. The connotations given by the chosen word are better than those that would have been given by its synonyms.

(2)

The unique sentence structure and syntax, which does not follow any one pattern but varies throughout the Qur’aan. Each style is unique, and its rhythm clear and resounding.

(3)

The use of different tenses (past vs. present; plural vs. singular, etc.) to give deeper meaning to a passage.

(4)

The pronunciation of a word matches its context. In other words, when discussing topics that are encouraging and bearing glad tidings, it uses words that are easy to pronounce and melodious to hear, and vice versa.

(5)

The perfect combination of concisement and detail. When the subject requires elaboration, the Qur’aan discusses the topic in detail, and when a short phrase will get the message across, it remains brief. (Qadhi 1999, p. 268)

Attempts to elucidate such features commonly follow the ideas of al-Jurjani and other medieval Muslim rhetoricians. Al-Khaṭṭābī (2015, p. 15), as noted previously, similarly summarises that the Qur’an contains “the most eloquent words compounded in the most eloquent composition containing the most valid ideas.” He argues that such literary features are the most plausible candidate for the Qur’anic miracle, because it must be identified in features that can be found in all surahs: “He said, ‘Produce a sura like it […]’ without specifying [a particular set of suras].” (Al-Khaṭṭābī 2015, p. 12) This is why, for al-Khaṭṭābī, the miracle cannot primarily be about features such as claimed prophetic knowledge, because such is not claimed for many surahs. This, he argues, is similar to how poetic works can be compared to each other generally. For example, “the verses of Imru’ al-Qays have a refinement of craft, a beauty of figurative usage and an originality of ideas that the verses of al-Nābigha do not.” (Al-Khaṭṭābī 2015, p. 41)

As can be seen in the previous quotation from Kermani (2015, p. 217), medieval defenses of inimitability, such as those of al-Khaṭṭābī, al-Bāqillānī, and al-Jurjānī, often list numerous rhetorical features of the Qur’an, such as its concision, metaphors, rhyming, hyperbole, and argue for Qur’anic excellence in each case. However, they do not necessarily locate inimitability in each feature in isolation, but more typically in their combination. As al-Bāqillānī puts it,

If the one who says this means that when every idea is conveyed in the highest class of wording and is connected with others similarly, ending in the most perfect rhetoric and the most admirable expression of skill, this is something we would not refuse, and this is rather what we believe in. But we object to the one who says that any one of these rhetorical aspects by itself contains the [essence of] i’jaz without relating it to the text.

(Al-Bāqillānī 1954, 207ff; translated by Boullata 2015, p. 119)

The medieval works also often include comparisons of Qur’anic rhetoric with other Arabic literature, such as the work pre-Islamic poet Imru’ al Qays (d. 544) or the verses (probably falsely) attributed to rival prophetic claimant Musaylima (Stewart 2012, p. 328). The analysis of the details of such arguments requires knowledge of Arabic language and rhetoric. Nevertheless, there are also more general-level considerations that can be analysed by others, calling to mind Grundmann’s (2021) three criteria of social evidence, analytic evidence, and evidence from independent disciplines.

For instance, considering the general methodology (a matter of analytic evidence), it seems that one could similarly produce a long list of excellent rhetorical features for many literary works, such as Dante’s Divine Comedy. An admirer of Dante’s work might then go on to compare the Divine Comedy to several other works argue for its superiority in each case. Yet it seems such a methodology would not be sufficient for concluding inimitability. Another methodological concern relates to the possible subjectivity and circularity of the evaluation of Qur’anic rhetorical features, since the evaluation seems to be so situational.

As a more specific example, consider the “placement of particular words”, the first feature on Qadhi’s list. How objectively can one really determine that any given word has better connotations than its synonyms, or that the Qur’an’s use of words is better than humanly possible? It seems that for many Muslims, the Qur’an itself is the supreme authority of goodness and truth. Thus, supposing that another word had been chosen, it seems likely that supporters of inimitability would then also have sought to defend the perfection in that alternative term and its meaning. For example, would it really be a problem if a word not meaning “crucifixion” had been used for the punishment in Q. 5:33? The idea that Qur’anic words are so precise that no changes would be possible also seems to be challenged by the existence of different reading traditions (Reynolds 2016; Nasser 2013; 2020), and the variety of interpretations for many Qur’anic words (Carter 2017; Pauha 2025, pp. 119–160). The origins of some words are quite obscure. Consider, for example, the interpretation of al-kawthar in Surah 108—traditionally interpreted to be a river in paradise, but plausibly a loanword meaning safeguarding (Cole 2025, pp. 85–104).

Or, turning to Qadhi’s fifth point (concisement and detail), does the need for detailed explanations of certain topics, together with the possibility to gloss over others, not change based on the individual’s and community’s context? Does the dependence of many Muslim interpretations on the hadith not indicate that the Qur’an itself lacks some information people find important? Moreover, when both repetitive elaboration and concise, less detailed descriptions can be explained as serving the goal of spiritual growth, it is difficult to see how the superiority of the chosen balance can be objectively determined.

Here, too, “social evidence” such as the testimony of other scholars helps evaluate the arguments. For example, the medieval rhetoricians’ approach has also been subjected to critical analysis, both by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. Consider Islamic studies scholar Mustansir Mir’s (1990, p. 129) detailed evaluation of al-Bāqillānī’s critique of Imru’ al-Qays:

Bāqillānī in his critique of Imru’ al-Qays shows a hearty disregard for the difference between the nature of literary analysis and that of logical analysis. […] [T]o evaluate a metaphor by using tools of logic would be like taking a butterfly through a car wash. Unfortunately, that is the impression one gets upon reading Bāqillānī’s remarks about Imru’ al-Qays. […] [Bāqillānī] sees contradictions where none exists, fails to appreciate significant departures from normal usage and ordinary syntax, turns an unappreciative eye to subtle semantic shifts, picks holes in apposite metaphors, and brings unwarranted charges of redundancy.

(Mir 1990, p. 119)

Bāqillānī bends over backwards to prove that Imru’ al Qays’ poetry is riddled with defects. […] I have tried to show that quite a few of his criticisms would not stand the test of scrutiny. More important […] some of his criticisms, if accepted will have to be taken to be applicable to the Qur’an as well, a thought that would be unpalatable to Bāqillānī. Not only is Bāqillānī less than cogent in his critique of Imru’ al-Qays, he is also unfair. […] Bāqillānī cannot be said to have provided solid grounds for the vindication of Qur’anic i’jaz.

(Mir 1990, p. 129)

In other words, according to Mir, al-Bāqillānī’s analysis is severely biased and unconvincing. Sophia Vasalou (2002, p. 42) concurs. In her view, the works of al-Bāqillānī and al-Jurjānī “can be seen as epitomising the discussion”, so that later medieval writers “have little new to add”. Nevertheless, she argues that both al-Bāqillānī’s and al-Jurjānī’s approaches are beset by significant problems:

We can sum up by saying that the direct route of literary proof was strewn with a number of stumbling blocks, which may or may not have been endemic in the effort but may have been peculiar to the specific attempts. The stumbling block for Bāqillānī was his not being sufficiently possessed of a literary approach, thus levelling suspect criticism to human literary works, taking the ‘otherness’ he set out to prove as the premise to a great degree, and finally lapsing to subjectivity; while for Jurjānī it was possessing too much of a literary approach, and in trying to ‘garden’ the domain of knowledge the Qur’an fell into, gardening the Qur’an itself.

(Vasalou 2002, p. 42; emphasis in the original)

In Vasalou’s estimation, al-Bāqillānī’s analysis emphasizes the uniqueness of the Qur’an in a way that does not do justice to human works. Al-Jurjānī’, however, models Qur’anic rhetoric based on patterns in general human rhetoric, which ends up “depriving it of a degree of its ‘otherness’, its miraculousness” (Vasalou 2002, p. 41). The difficulty encountered by the authors, she argues, is showing “the transcendence of the divine even after it had been manifested into the created order.” (Vasalou 2002, p. 45)

An alternative (or complementary) argument for Qur’anic miraculousness comes from the claimed newness of the Qur’anic literary forms, when compared to its cultural context (e.g., Saeh 2015; Tzortzis n.d.; cf. Kojonen forthcoming). For Arabic literary scholar Bassam Saeh, the arguments based on literary features, as developed by medieval Muslim rhetoricians, are wholly unconvincing. Even after becoming “a literary researcher and critic well practiced in the arts of language and literature”, Saeh writes he was unable to see the “miraculous aspect of the language of the Qur’an” (Saeh 2015, p. 6.) He likewise claims that,

[I]f virtually any Western, non-Muslim linguist adopted the same approaches and methods adhered to by Muslim scholars in their study of the Qur’an, he would be led to conclude that geniuses the likes of Shakespeare, Dante, Rousseau and Goethe were also gods.

(Saeh 2015, p. 8)

In this way, Saeh corroborates the suspicions of methodology noted above, in connection with Qadhi’s criteria. For Saeh, it was only when he became convinced of the newness of the Qur’an in relation to its historical circumstances that he was able to see it as a miracle:

To the primitive Bedouin Arabs who lived in the days of the Prophet Muhammad, the revolution of the Qur’an was comparable to the descent of a huge flying saucer before their very eyes: Strange, sophisticated, masterfully crafted. […] [T]here would be no justification for claiming that the Qur’an is miraculous based on nothing but one, two or even three isolated cases. However, when we discover the density and frequency of the innovative phenomena that run through the Qur’an’s verses and surahs; when we see how one follows on from the other nonstop—in a single breath, without breaks or gaps of any kind; and when we see how every word, structure and expression in the Qur’an conceals wonders of expressive innovation of all colors and shapes, we begin to perceive the true linguistic miraculousness of the Qur’an and the impossibility of mimicking or forging it.

(Saeh 2015, p. 14)

I do not mean to argue that Saeh’s approach is fully opposite to the medieval rhetoricians. As Vasalou (2002, p. 35) argues, for al-Bāqillānī, “the Qur’an’s eloquence is sui generis […] To be sure, it may include familiar elements, but only to assimilate them in this unclassifiable otherness.” Nevertheless, Saeh’s approach once again shows how defenders of literary inimitability do not necessarily agree on what precisely might give evidence of the miracle.

Modern critical scholars themselves rarely take claims of literary inimitability seriously, but their work can nevertheless help evaluate the premises of arguments regarding literary features. For instance, related to the claim of the uniqueness and novelty of the Qur’anic literary forms, Stewart (1990) argues that a large part of the Qur’an is in the form of saj’, a type of Arabic rhymed prose, and that this was tacitly admitted also by medieval Muslim rhetoricians. This, Stewart shows, challenges the viewpoint of writers like al-Bāqillānī, who denied the presence of saj’ in the Qur’an to emphasise inimitability. While Stewart concludes that Qur’anic saj’ has its own distinctive features, these are nevertheless in continuity (and not necessarily more meritorious) than other saj’.

Thus, in the case of Saeh’s claim that the Qur’an verses and surahs constantly create new literary “phenomena” in relation to its context, this once again seems to return to a reliance on testimony. It seems to be the only way through which both the Qur’an’s uniqueness in relation to its cultural context, and its supreme quality in relation to what is humanly possible, might be supported. Claims of uniqueness require engagement with the sort of critical research discussed in Section 2.1 and Section 4.1 of this article to determine what sort of rhetorical forms were present in the Qur’an’s cultural context, and to what degree the Qur’an innovates. To determine that it really is a miracle in comparison to what is possible for human minds on their own, it seems engagement with the world literary cultures and other relevant disciplines today is also needed, as discussed in Section 2.2. In both cases, for Saeh’s argument, reading the Qur’anic text as it stands today would hardly be sufficient. Rather, the knowledge available to an individual needs to be supplemented by social collaboration. Belief in inimitability depends on testimony.

4.2. Cross-Cultural or Limited Testimony

Depending on testimony for ideas about literary uniqueness is not in itself problematic. Many celebrated arguments both for and against religious belief also rely on testimony at least in part. For instance, consider the fine-tuning design argument, as presented by scholars such as Robin Collins (2009) and Luke Barnes (2019). This argument assumes that the properties of the natural laws, constants, and initial conditions of the universe fall in a surprisingly narrow life-permitting range. It is then argued that this data is explained far better by a theistic worldview, in which the universe was purposefully created, than by alternatives such as random chance or necessity. For most people, the testimony of physicists is needed to support beliefs about the precise properties of the universe’s natural laws, constants, and initial conditions. But that is no different from the case of many other beliefs about the universe. As Collins and Barnes point out, there is widespread cross-cultural agreement among experts about many examples of cosmic fine-tuning. Those who disagree on the empirical facts, such as the late cosmologist Victor J. Stenger (2011), represent a minority view. Disagreement with the theistic conclusion is more typically based on philosophical reasons (Waller 2019).

In the case of an argument from Qur’anic literary features, one might similarly attempt to use expert testimony to argue that something about the specific features of the Qur’an is unique or even surpasses human capability. This would be particularly powerful if there were, among experts, widespread cross-cultural agreement on the inimitable quality of these features, as there is widespread cross-cultural agreement about fine-tuning. In that case, one could then proceed to argue that perhaps Islamic theism provides a good or even the best explanation for such qualities of the text. The problem, however, is when cross-cultural testimony seems to challenge rather than support the premises of many such arguments, as we have seen in the previous sections.

As noted, many Western scholars also agree that the Qur’anic corpus has literary merits. Some works in Muslim apologetics thus assemble lists of quotations, particularly from older orientalist scholarship, in an attempt to demonstrate cross-cultural support for Qur’anic inimitability (e.g., Tzortzis 2020; cf. Kojonen forthcoming). However, such an approach risks “cherry-picking” and taking the work of scholars out of context, defending conclusions that go beyond what the scholars themselves would see as justifiable. Moreover, such apologetics risks ignoring the mainstream findings of more current scholarship (Kojonen forthcoming). As noted in Section 2.1 and Section 4.1, contrary to arguments for absolute literary uniqueness, work in recent decades has revealed much continuity between the Qur’an and literary forms, genres, and ideas which already existed in the cultural milieu. This work supersedes earlier work by considering a much broader range of evidence.

My analysis in this section is not intended to provide a comprehensive evaluation of all arguments from literary features or the relevant critical scholarship. I have merely sought to illustrate how, once again, testimonial considerations are relevant for assessing arguments for the claimed miracle of the Qur’an. For example, for apologetic purposes, there can be a temptation to give the uninitiated reader the impression that claims of inimitable literary features in the Qur’an have cross-cultural support, because such would strongly boost the credibility of the argument. However, this strategy poses a risk of misrepresenting the intellectual landscape, ultimately undermining the credibility of the apologetic arguments. As with any argument relying on testimony, misrepresentation can easily cause trust to be lost. And trust, once lost, can be difficult to regain (Mercier 2020).

5. Conclusions

The arguments examined in this article demonstrate that the doctrine of Qur’anic inimitability, while often presented as an idea distinct from testimonial arguments, is instead in many of its forms fundamentally rooted in trust. The various lines of reasoning—whether from early Muslim history, from Muslim aesthetic experience, or from analysis of literary features—show that belief in the Qur’an’s miraculous nature is not simply the result of encountering the text and rationally investigating it as individuals. Instead, these arguments function as an exercise in what Anselm (d. 1033) in the Christian context described as “faith seeking understanding”: an attempt to articulate and justify a conviction that is already held in a religious community based on faith.

There are also different ways of understanding the claimed Qur’anic miracle, which do not rely on the idea of miraculous literary features. Thus, this article’s analysis does not necessarily apply to all versions of Qur’anic miraculousness. However, in each of the surveyed arguments for a literary miracle, testimony plays a central role. Claims about the reaction of the Qur’an’s earliest audience depend on the reliability and interpretation of historical reports, and the scope of expertise of 7th-century Arabs. Arguments from aesthetic experience rely on the testimony of the Muslim community and the authority of tradition, which buttress a conclusion that would be too flimsy if held merely based on individual subjective experience. Even arguments that focus on detailed literary features ultimately depend on testimonial knowledge of the past and the evaluation of experts. In each case, the process by which individuals come to believe in the Qur’an’s inimitability is deeply social. It is shaped by the transmission of testimony, by communal experience, and by the interpretive frameworks that believers inherit and inhabit.