Linguistic And Semantic Dimensions Of Rukn Al-Din Ubayd Allah Al-Samarqandi’s Qur’anic Scholarship

Abstract

This article examines the linguistic and semantic dimensions of Published:09-06-2026 the Qur’anic scholarship of Rukn al-Din Ubayd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Samarqandi (d. 701 AH/1301 CE), a Hanafi-Maturidi scholar associated with the intellectual tradition of Transoxiana. Rather than treating al- Samarqandi simply as a general polymath, the study focuses on the evidence that can substantiate his place in the history of Arabic linguistic and Qur’anic studies. Copyright: © 2026 by the authors. Particular attention is given to works attributed to him in the manuscript and Submitted for open access publication biographical tradition, especially Tafsir Ghara’ib Ma‘ani al-Qur’an, I‘jaz al- under the terms and conditions of the Qur’an al-Karim, and the treatise Risala fi Huruf al-Ma‘ani wa ma Yalhaqu Biha Creative Commons Attribution (CC min al-Adawat.The analysis shows that his linguistic significance is most clearly BY) license visible at the intersection of semantics, Qur’anic exegesis, rhetoric (balagha), (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ and the interpretation of particles and contextual meaning. His method should by/4.0/) therefore be described more precisely as Qur’anic linguistic-semantic analysis rather than as a contribution to Arabic linguistics in the modern disciplinary sense. The article also considers his legal and theological writings only insofar as they clarify the conceptual framework within which his linguistic interpretation developed. By narrowing the analytical focus and distinguishing documented evidence from broader biographical claims, the study proposes a more precise assessment of al-Samarqandi’s contribution to the linguistic study of the Qur’an.