A Narratological Analysis of Surah Al-Qasas Based on Roland Barthes' Theory.

The Holy Qurʾān, while being a guiding and illuminating book on the path to human happiness and felicity, contains various kinds of stories throughout its text. To convey a crucial ethical point, warn servants of God, deter them from wrongdoings, encourage the Prophet (SAW) and believers, and so on, this book sometimes presents a narrative in the most concise manner possible, using the fewest words. Given the extensive use of narratives in the Qurʾānic ayahs, understanding this type of speech and its characteristics is particularly vital in order to better comprehend the ayahs and the reasons behind their varied and multiple uses. One way to achieve this goal is to examine and analyze the Qurʾān from a narratological perspective. Based on the literary theory of Roland Barthes, the present study analyzes the narrative structure of Surah Al-Qasas on two levels of story and discourse, and by delving into the details of this theory, which offers a fresh perspective among literary analysis methods, it tries to discover and examine layers of concepts in Surah Al-Qasas that may have gone unnoticed. The narratology of the stories in Surah Al-Qasas revealed that marginal episodes and the shortest indices and catalysts play a significant role in comprehending the story's purpose and the meaning of a given ayah. It also demonstrated that the Qurʾān's unique storytelling style, sometimes using the fewest words and the shortest text, purposefully guides the audience towards the main goal of the narrative, which is the divine guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]