Corpus Linguistics in Islamic Studies: Methodological Principles and Applications

Abstract

This article discusses the role of corpus linguistics in the study of Islamic writings with special interest in its theoretical basis, modes of compilation and use of the practice. It contends that corpus-based methods offer a methodical and empirically-based approach to working with the Holy Quran, Hadith, and the classics of Islamic literature, even as they also involve traditions of scholastic activity of the Islamic intellectual culture over a long period of time. Though corpus linguistics is a relatively new branch of linguistics, its fundamental principles also echo the previous Muslim works of preserving, verifying, and analyzing texts, including the production of concordances, the lexical description of lexical material, and the verification of the hadith. The article focuses on the major principles of corpus linguistics and their connection to Islamic scholarship, focusing on the accuracy, representativeness, and methodological transparency. Next, it addresses the topic of corpus collection in an Islamic environment, and follows the stages of the early codification of the Quran, the systematic collection of the Hadith, till modern e-corpus. Specific focus has been given to the contemporary resources like Quranic and Hadith databases, which utilize computational tools to enable large-scale analysis whilst being faithful to authoritative sources. Lastly, the article brings to the fore a variety of uses of corpus linguistics in the study of Islam. These are semantic and syntactic analysis of Quranic discourse, stylistic analysis of Hadith narrations, comparative analysis of Quranic translations and analysis of modern-day Islamic communication on the internet. The article also shows how corpus linguistics can be utilized with Islamic studies to enhance understanding of Islamic textual heritage, facilitate interdisciplinary studies, and facilitate informed use of Islamic textual heritage in a global, multilingual context with modern analytical tools.