ALIREZA FAKHARI; zahra besharati; korosh safavi; abbas ashrafi
Volume 2, Issue 3 , November 2018, , Pages 41-60
Abstract
In the verse “he sent down for you eight heads of cattle in pairs”, God the almighty has mentioned the creation of man from a single soul and reiterated sending down the “eight heads of cattle in pairs” and spoke of livestock. Attributing the verb “sending down” to ...
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In the verse “he sent down for you eight heads of cattle in pairs”, God the almighty has mentioned the creation of man from a single soul and reiterated sending down the “eight heads of cattle in pairs” and spoke of livestock. Attributing the verb “sending down” to “eight heads of cattle in pairs” has led to various viewpoints such as parallelism of the creation in these animals; however, studying the concept and formation of “eight heads of a cattle in pairs” regarding the word count for “eight”, its semantic relationship with the things referred to, the collocating verb and other components of the verse have not been considered yet. This issue makes scrutinizing the semantic implications of the phrase “eight heads of cattle in pairs” more important. Based on this, and by relying on Quranic functions, and by making use of the etymology and symbolism of the words in the above verse such as “eight”, “pairs” and “sending down”, we can infer meanings such as “balance, correspondence, and lawfulness of nature”, “being paired, linking and balance” and “destiny and measuring the creature from the divine treasures” respectively. Also, based on clues such as the register of the verse, the implied meaning of the “balance and lawfulness of the creation in this world” can be inferred for the phrase “eight heads of cattle in pairs”.
