Da‘wah as Qur’ānic Rhetoric: A Linguistic Study of Ḥikmah, Maw‘iẓah Ḥasanah, Jadl bi al-Aḥsan, and the Ethos of the Dā‘ī

Abstract

Da‘wah in Islam is not only a religious duty but also a structured communicative practice grounded in the Qur’ānic rhetoric. This article argues that the three principles articulated in the Qur’ān 16:125: ḥikmah, maw‘iẓah ḥasanah, and jadl bi al-aḥsan, constitute a Qur’ānic communicative triad that can be fruitfully analysed through contemporary linguistics and discourse theory. Through comparative-theoretical hermeneutics, the study reads selected Qur’ānic passages alongside their tafsīr and places the resulting interpretations in structured dialogue with modern linguistic theory, including speech act theory, Gricean pragmatics, politeness theory, pragma-dialectics, and Habermasian discourse ethics. Ḥikmah is read as a normatively constrained appeal to reason illuminated through Grice’s Cooperative Principle. Maw‘iẓah ḥasanah is analysed in relation to pathos and politeness theory, showing how the Qur’ānic address forms reduce the face-threatening force of exhortative religious discourse. Jadl bi al-aḥsan is situated within pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, and the Qur’ānic prohibition on reviling false deities (Q 6:108) is interpreted through Habermasian discourse ethics. The analysis proposes a four-dimensional communicative framework,viz., rational-evidential, affective-relational, dialectical-argumentative, and character-constitutive, that resolves the structural asymmetry between the Qur’ānic triad and the Aristotelian logos-pathos-ethos model. The framework offers a model for understanding religious discourse as a form of rhetorical pragmatics applicable beyond the Qur’ānic context.