Abstract:

Various key concepts in the Qur’an serve a critical role in correcting misconceptions in the minds of its addressees, transforming these erroneous understandings into correct ones and progressively constructing a new mentality in the person. The Arabic word rabb (lord) used in the Qur’an to mean “God’s subjugation and uninterrupted administration of the entire cosmos as owner of all creation” is one such concept. Given the obscure and contradictory conceptions of God and lordship (rububiyyah) that the Qur’an’s first addressees had, this term serves an important function in emphasizing God’s continuous administration of the cosmos and, more particularly, of man as the lord of all of creation. Accordingly, considering how frequently and in what ways the word rabb is used in the Qur’an during the first half of the Meccan period, we observe that it constitutes one of the cornerstones and fundamental concepts of the Qur’an. In our aim to depict the current situation, we will discuss certain key points that demonstrate how the first addressees of the Qur’an, i.e., the Meccan polytheists, perceived both God and the concept of lordship. After this, we attempt to determine the style in which the word rabb is used, the number of times it appears, and its ratio of use compared to other words over the course of the Qur’an’s revelation. Then, we will attempt to identify how this data resonated in the mentality of the Qur’an’s original addressees, the Meccan polytheists.

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