I used to be intrigued by the adventures of the English orientalist and explorer Richard Burton. At great personal risk, and disguised as a Muslim, he became one of the first Europeans to enter Mecca in 1853, a city where entry by non-Muslims was strictly forbidden. Nowadays, however, anyone can walk into the holy cities of Mecca and Madinah without restriction, and it has become commonplace.

The final frontier that is still perilously inaccessible to Europeans today is the Arabic language. And within the Arabic language – its peak – which is Balagha (Arabic Rhetoric). In fact, Balagha is beyond the grasp of most Arabs too. And it is on this science that the linguistic miracle of the Qur’an is said to be built upon.

According to the Arabs, there is something about the way the Qur’an uses Balagha which has has made it impossible for anyone to imitate the Qur’an. This inability to imitate or match it proves that it could not have been written by a man. This compels us to accept the Qur’an’s own origin story, which is that it has been sent down by God as His final revelation to mankind. This is certainly a bold claim and argument, which has been begging for a robust refutation for over a millennium.

My own orientalist journey to reach where I am today has taken me 7 years: 4 years for a Bachelor’s, 1 year for a Master’s, and then 2 years utterly lost in the wilderness trying to make sense of it all, in what I euphemistically call my “independent research.” Finally today… “Welcome to the Starting Line!” of my research in the field of the linguistic miracles of the Qur’an.

My PhD will build on my Master’s dissertation and develop a way to quantify Balagha. This can be used to settle the 1400-year-old question of whether the Qur’an contains an exceptional amount of Balagha, or whether its inimitability and miraculousness lies elsewhere.