The Qur’an in translation is sometimes wrongfully described by the western reader to be lacking any coherent structure, jumping from topic to topic without making clear the link between them. The rhyme and the innate musicality is lost in translation yet is one of the things that makes the book so powerful. Furthermore, these are key to making connections within a passage of the Qur’an that may not be clear at first glance.

Neal Robinson applies modern methods of literary analysis in order to uncover some of the style and the structure of the Qur’an. His findings are very interesting!

To give a brief example, he breaks down some Meccan surahs into “units” of rhyme, which is called the “Isochronic unit”. A short vowel is one isochronic unit, while a long vowel is two. In arabic, a short vowel would be any of the sounds indicated by a dhamma, fatha or a kasra, and a…