Arabic Linguistics of OT as Analytical Approach for Grammatical Error in Quran: A Preliminary Concept

The Quran including the Qiro?t Qur?niyah is an authentic source of naqli in the formulation of the Arabic grammatical rules together with the Hadith and expressions of native Arabs. However, it was found that several uses of this resource language is seen to contradict with the grammatical rules drawn by Arab grammarians. This situation resulted in various reactions and negative interpretations amongst the past scholars of Arab syntax, not to mention from orientalists such as ‘Abdallah ‘Abd al-Fadi in his book “Is the Qur’an Infallible?”, which claimed that there are grammatical errors in the Islamic holy book. Therefore, to answer these allegations, an Arabic linguistic approach was proposed by adapting Prince and McCathy's Optimality Theory (OT) based on the main principle that grammatical rules are not mandatory, but are contraints that can either be obeyed or refuted. After the adaptation process, two types of optimality were classified in the ungrammatical Arabic resource language structure framework which were Usage Optimality and Grammatical Optimality. It measures the extent to which the level of grammar or sentence structure diverge or conform to the elements of optimality (aqli). Through this analysis, the language struture will also be supported with other types of Arabic materials from other sources (naqli) to identify if the grammar violation is related to the process of Arabic language development, as is the case with other languages of its group (Semitic Languages), or involves semantic elements/meaning that the speaker wishes to convey to the target audience. Hence, it is hoped that this approach will become a linguistic analysis approach that is friendlier to the nature of language, to harmonise the viewpoints and negative interpretations toward the use of ungramatical Arabic resource language, to then answer negative perceptions of the orientalists or the claims made about the weaknesses and errors of grammar in the Al-Quran.