Qur'an Exegetes and Their Treatment of <i>isṭāʿa</i> and <i>istaṭāʿa</i> in Q. 18: A Critical Analysis

This article assesses the exegetical opinions related to the two verbs isṭāʿa and istaṭāʿa in Sūrat al-Kahf (Q. 18), offers a critical survey of them, and redraws their semantic limits according to the context in which they occur. An analysis of the usage of these two verbs in pre-Islamic poetry allows one to determine their meanings prior to the Qur'an, while a critical survey of standard Qur'anic interpretations reveals artificial encrustations added to the sense of the two verbs which do not comply with the linguistic context of their usage within the Qur'anic text. The issue is confused further by some exegetes who linked the two verbs, assuming that istaṭāʿa implied a sense of ‘extended effort’, while the shorter isṭāʿa carried a nuance of ‘limited effort’. Given the fact that isṭāʿa was not employed in pre-Islamic poetry in the sense offered in the standard exegetical works, this article concludes that the two verbs are used in Q. 18 for specific rhetorical purposes. Moreover, Arabic lexicons – by in large – do not offer a separate entry for the verb isṭāʿa, treating it instead as a variant of istaṭāʿa.