Revisiting Qur’ānic Coherence: Naẓm al-Qurʾān between Islamic Thematic Tafsīr and Semitic Rhetorical Analysis

Recent scholarship has renewed attention to the concept of naẓm al-Qurʾān, the structural and thematic coherence of the Qurʾānic text. While classical Muslim scholars explored coherence through rhetoric, grammar, and the doctrine of iʿjāz, modern discussions have developed along separate trajectories within Islamic and Western Qurʾānic studies. This paper offers a historiographically grounded examination of these developments and explores the methodological intersection between two influential contemporary approaches: the thematic hermeneutics of Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī and the Semitic-Rhetorical Analysis of Michel Cuypers. Situating both approaches within the longer intellectual history of naẓm, the study asks whether their structural readings represent independent interpretive trajectories or reveal deeper methodological resonance across scholarly traditions. By comparing their treatment of sūrah architecture, thematic unity, and compositional structure, the paper argues that these approaches illuminate complementary dimensions of Qurʾānic coherence and provide a productive framework for comparative inquiry in contemporary Qurʾānic studies.