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8. THE USE OF REPETITION IN THE QUR’ĀN (3) A great scholar in the science of the Qur’ān who lived at the end of the 5th Century H/11th CE and the beginning of the 6th Century H/12th CE was called Maḥmūd ibn Ḥamzah alKermānī (al-Karamānī, or al-Karmānī or al-Kirmānī), the native of Kerman in Iran. (He was not to be confused with Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Kermani, the well-known commentator of Bukhari’s Ṣaḥīḥ). He was known as Tāj al-Qurrā’ (“the Crown of Qur’ān Reciters”) for his mastering various readings in the Qur’ān. He lived in the era of the deterioration of the Abbasid caliphate where no more left except small image in Fatimi caliphate in Egypt, Syria and Morocco. At that time the Moguls (Mongols), the Qarmathians, and the Bāṭiniyyah (the upholders of the view in hidden and secret meanings of the divine texts) and other destructive religious views were being active extensively. Al-Kermani’s work was entitled “( أَسْ َرار ال َّت ْك َرار في ْالقرْ آنthe Secret Meanings of Repetition in the Qur’ān”), but originally it was entitled البرهان في توجيه متشابه القرآن لما فيه من الحجة والبرهان (“The Demonstration in Guiding Similarity of the Qur’ān Containing Evidence and Proof”). Modern scholars did not pay much attention to it as they thought that the term mutashābih in its title meant “ambiguous”, whereas the author meant “similar words”, namely, the repetition of words. Its editor ‘Abd al-Qādir ‘Aṭā published it in two titles mentioned above as if it were two books. However, in the book entitled Asrār he also put al-Burhān the second title as a commentary of the first title. Al-Kermani dealt with the meanings of repetition in the whole of the Qur’ān. He said many times that these repetitions are actually not repetitions at all, as every word has its own meaning and purpose. He mentions 590 repetitions in his book. We shall select what we think more important to know among them, as follows: