Awṣāf al-ʿAdhāb fī al-Qurʾān al-Karīm: Qirāʾah Waṣfiyyah Taḥlīliyyah li Waẓāʾifihā al-Balāghiyyah wa al-Tarbawiyyah

Abstract

This study examines the descriptions of punishment (ʿadhāb) in the Qur’an as a semantic and rhetorical structure with educational and ethical functions rather than as mere language of intimidation. It addresses a scholarly problem arising from reductive readings that confine Qur’anic punishment to fear appeal while overlooking its role in shaping moral consciousness, linking human actions to their consequences, and establishing the principle of just retribution. The study employs a comprehensive inductive survey of all Qur’anic occurrences of the root (ʿ-dh-b), amounting to 349 instances, followed by a descriptive-analytical method that classifies these instances into major semantic fields and interprets them through authoritative exegetical and lexical sources. The findings show that the discourse of punishment is organized around interconnected fields, most notably intensity, rhetorical magnification, fiery embodiment, humiliation, sensory experience and intensification, perpetuity, and temporal certainty. These fields operate together to produce a coherent Qur’anic pedagogy that combines sensory warning, psychological restraint, and ethical formation. The study further demonstrates that the descriptions of punishment are context-sensitive and function within the broader Qur’anic logic of justice, accountability, repentance, and moral reform. It concludes that Qur’anic punishment discourse constitutes an integrated value-based pedagogical system that reinforces divine justice and directs human beings toward upright conduct before the closure of moral choice.