Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.
Firstly:
The Noble Quran is a sign from Allah, the Exalted and Praised, and Allah has placed within it many signs of truth. Among the signs of its truthfulness and proofs that it is from Allah, the Exalted, are the unique phonetic properties not found in any other text. Indeed, the Quran contains phonetic styles that are unmatched elsewhere.
Dr. Muhammad Daraz says, "Let the proficient reciter read the Quran; recite it properly, descending upon the inclination of the Quran, and not imposing his own inclinations upon it. Then distance yourself from him to a remote place where you do not hear the ringing of its letters, but you hear its movements and stillness, its elongations and melodies, its connections and pauses, then lend your ear to this phonetic collection, made exclusive and released plainly into the air. You will find yourself facing a strange and wonderful melody; you will not find it in any other speech even if it were rendered exclusive and refined in this manner.
You will find a harmony and unity that captivates your hearing as music and poetry do, yet it is not the tunes of music, nor the patterns of rhythm of poetry, and you will find something else that you do not find in music or poetry. That is because you listen to a poem and find its rhythm unified line by line, and part by part, and you listen to a piece of music and find its moods similar and going in a close direction; so your hearing soon rejects it, and your nature tires of it, if it is repeated and recited to you with one signature.
Whereas with the Quran, you are always in a varied and renewed melody, moving between causes and pegs and pauses in different positions, each string of your heart's chords taking an equal share, so that no matter how often it is repeated, it does not bring you boredom or weariness, but you constantly seek more of it," End quote.
"An-Naba' Al-Adhim" (p. 133 – 134).
He also mentioned the beauty of the articulation points of the letters, saying, "If you bring your ear a little closer, the jewels of its letters coming out from their correct articulation points will strike your hearing, surprising you with another pleasure in the arrangement of those letters and their lining up, and the ordering of their positions among themselves; this one taps and that one whistles, a third whispers and a fourth declares loudly, another lets the breath slide over it, and another holds the breath. And so on, you see the linguistic beauty manifest before you in a different yet harmonious collection, without rattling or babbling, without softness or harshness, without discord or repulsion.
Thus, you see speech that is neither the bland urban nor the rough Bedouin, but you see it having blended within it the robustness and grandeur of the desert with the delicacy and fluidity of the city, and the matter is measured in such a way that neither exceeds the other. It is as if it is the essence of the two languages, and their progeny, or as if it is the point of contact between the tribes, where their tastes meet, and upon it their hearts agree," End quote.
"An-Naba' Al-Adhim" (p. 135).
Secondly:
There is a correlation between the parts of the Noble Quran, which scholars refer to as the coherence between the verses and Surahs. This coherence may be between one Surah and another, between the beginning of a Surah and the one following it, between the verses of a single Surah, and between the beginning and end of a Surah.
"And there is not a Surah except that it has its own (landmarks) that distinguish it, whether they are short or long Surahs, and the shorter the Surahs, the greater this characteristic becomes. This is clear from the fact that Allah, the Exalted, did not make the short Surahs a single independent Surah except for a great wisdom, which is the independence of each one of them with what distinguishes it from others."
See: "Misbah Ad-Durar fi Tanasub Ayat Al-Quran Al-Karim wa As-Suwar" (p. 93).
There is also a close proximity between the topics of the Surahs and their objectives, as each Surah of the Quran has a purpose and goal, that is, a significance to which the meanings of the Surah and its content return, and represents its spirit that flows through all its parts.
The objective may be the same as the topic of the Surah, or the objective may differ from the topic, in that a single Surah may have a number of topics, and these topics return to one objective.
Knowing the topics of the Surah and its objective is one of the most important aids to contemplating the Surah and realizing its miraculous nature, because you find that despite the different topics of the Surah, it leads to one goal in a harmony that compels the observer to deem it impossible for this speech to be of human origin.
The search for the topics of the Surah and its objective requires certain matters:
The most important of which are: understanding the meanings of the Surah, realizing the appropriateness between the verses, and realizing the appropriateness between the Surah and what precedes and follows it. All this makes the reader of the Quran more attentive to what he recites and more present in understanding it.
Among the important books in this field are:
1- Asma' Suwar Al-Quran wa Fada'iliha, Dr. Munirah Al-Dosari, Dar Ibn Al-Jawzi, it is an important book in its field.
2- An-Naba' Al-Adhim, Dr. Muhammad Daraz, Tafakkur Center.
3- Muhtawayah Suwar Al-Quran Al-Karim, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Taweel, Dar Al-Watan.
4- Dalail An-Nizam, by the teacher Abdul Hamid Al-Farahi.
5- Al-Burhan fi Tanasub Surah Al-Quran, by Imam Ibn Zubair Al-Gharnati, Dar Ibn Al-Jawzi.
6- At-Tanasub bayna As-Suwar fi Al-Muftatah wa Al-Khawatim, Dr. Fadil Al-Samarrai, Dar Ibn Kathir.
And among the Tafsirs that have taken care of highlighting these aspects are:
1- Nazm Al-Durar fi Tanasub Al-Ayat wa As-Suwar, by Imam Al-Biqa`i.
2- At-Tahrir wa At-Tanwir, by Imam Al-Tahir Ibn Ashur.
3- Masu`at At-Tafsir Al-Mawdu`i, University of Sharjah.
And see: "Ad-Dalil ila Al-Quran," Amr Al-Sharqawi (p. 78).
Thirdly:
We have not been able to personally examine the details of the attempts mentioned in the question, nor have we seen anything of them.
However, we mention here some general methodological alerts, which we summarize as follows:
1- One should not force oneself to research the characteristics of letters and their connection to the word and then the position of this word in the sentence, because this may obscure the main purpose of the Quran, which is to be a book of guidance.
2- It must be known that this is merely one of the delicacies of the Quran, and its seasoning, and not from the solid knowledge, nor from the general objectives of the Noble Quran, nor the central meanings it brought; rather, it is closer to being, if correct, from the superficial layer as the scholar (Daraz) expresses.
3- Writing in such a field, and the possibility of contributing one's own insights, requires special knowledge and tools; the most important of which are specialization in phonetic studies and related sciences, then proficiency in the sciences of Arabic morphology and rhetoric; and such is not attainable by everyone, so the matter should be put in its proper place, and one should not undertake what one has no knowledge of, nor should one pretend to be an expert in a field for which the tools of research and examination are not complete, even if one's tools of research and examination were complete.
4- If something of this is established for a person, there is no harm in speaking of it, but as his own ijtihad, which should be presented to the solid knowledge, its essence, and its core; and one should not exaggerate in this so that it is said to be from the "miraculous nature," lest the Word of Allah and its miraculous nature be exposed to speculation and debate, as has happened with those concerned with examining aspects of the "scientific miracles" of the Noble Quran; and indeed, both extremes in intending matters are reprehensible!!
And Allah knows best.
