Thread by @shahanSean

A fascinating legend about the belletrist Rōzbeh ibn Dādūya (executed ca. CE 757, Baṣrah)—known as Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ ‘son of the man with a shriveled hand’—states that he tried for six months to compose texts similar to sūrahs in the Qurʾan. Eventually, he had to give up.

The legend is late & appears in Balʿamī’s Persian ‘translation’ of al-Ṭabarī’s famed world history. But it’s intriguing because, as a prose stylist, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was trailblazer who was universally revered. Quotations of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s so-called sūrahs are very rare ...

But in the 60s, Wilferd Madelung stumbled across a ms. of a text authored by the Zaydī imam al-Muʾayyad bi’Llāh (944-1020) which contains citations of *muʿāraḍat al-qurʾān* composed by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ. They were finally published by Josef van Ess in 1981; here's some examples..

Example 1 (this is a draft translation/reading -- suggestions are welcome)
1) Take refuge in the lord of the town!
2) and king of the town
3) and builder of the town
3) and He who dwells in the town
4) from the evil of the fatal blow
5) And people who spread tyranny

6) Who provided cover for his companion
7) And protected his flank
8) And defended his neighbor
9) From the denizens of cities
10) and the And friends of treachery and deception.

Josef van Ess calls this composition "an attempt to imitate the spirit of an early Meccan sura." It clearly echoes Q. 113, 114 and also Q. 90, but it doesn't work. It’s like a rhapsodic mish-mash of sajʿ (2 be continued ...)

Example #2 (personal favorite)
This one seems to be about the Abbasids' conquest of Umayyad Syria. It begins:

1) Ponder how God punished the Syrians
2) transgressions fill the land
3) and therein multiplied dissipation
4) Recall that day, when towers sheltered them,
5) and those who marched from the East in tents
6) Your Lord poured on them the misery of chastisement

7) He does not hasten punishment
8) But on the day of recompense He give the fullest retribution.
Already al-Muʾayyad noted that this composition is remarkably close to Q. al-Ḥāqqah 69:6-14. The wicked Syrians here stand in lieu of the qur'anic ʿĀd and Thamūd. [tbc]

Example #3 (my last)
In this composition its now the Iraqis' turn. Those of you familiar with Arabic lit with catch the allusion to the khuṭbah of the Umayyads’ governor al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf al-Thaqafī.

1) People! To Iraq's denizens has been ascribed
2) hypocrisy and discord
3) its water is bitter, salty
4) They outwardly manifest obedience to the Creator
5) Your Lord knows best who strays from His path
6) He knows best who transgresses
7) and fulfils His covenant w/ the guided

There are some qur'anic formulas -- compare Q. Anʿām 6:117, 119. The composition relies heavily on its metaphor abt the water. The message seems to be that, though the Iraqis look pious, they are actually sinners just the water of Iraq looks drinkable but is actually brackish.

For this original study, see:
Josef van Ess, “Some Fragments of the Muʿāraḍat al-Qurʾān attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ,” in: Studia Arabica et Islamica, ed. Wadād al-Qāḍī (Beirut, 1981), 151-163.