Models of Speech in the Quran

Language is very important in that it is the main means of communicaon between human beings. The first impression one receives in a communicaon with someone concerns a concepon of his or her speech— contents of his uerances poinng to his or her character and atudes. According to the Quran, God observes politeness in his verbal communicaons with the prophets, angels, believers, and even unbelievers. And the Quran asks believers to speak nicely with others and avoid bad, impolite words (even when they talk to an unbeliever). The Quran has suggested styles for how to speak, such as: resolute speech (al-qawl al-sadīd), commonly accepted speech (al-qawl al-mẚrūf), so speech (al-qawl al-layyin), eloquent speech (al-qawl al-balīgh), respecul speech (al-qawl al-karīm), and the best speech (al-qawl al-aḥsan). The speech should also be, according to the Quran, well-argued, clear, pleasant, to the point, and nice. In this paper, we classify the models of speech according to the Quran and its exegeses, in addion to hadiths. The classificaons include: family (the way parents should talk with their children and vice versa), society (the way teachers should speak with their pupils and vice versa, the way governmental officials should speak with people, the way people should speak with one another, speeches in military situaons, in propagaons, etc.).