Divine Forgiveness in Context: An Analysis of Al-Ghafur’s Collocational Pairs in the Qur’anic Corpus

Abstract

This study offers an analysis of the Divine Name al-Ghafur through its recurrent pairing with other Divine Names in the Qur'anic corpus, examining what theological theme each pairing conveys in its specific verse context and how these themes collectively shape the Qur'anic representation of divine forgiveness. The study is motivated by al-Ghafur's recurrent co-occurrence with other divine names, a pattern previously classified by Norasid and Jais (2022) according to the linguistic relation between paired terms (mutual meaning, similarity, opposition, and word order). This study offers a complementary reading of the same phenomenon, organizing the same collocational data by theological theme rather than by linguistic relation. Employing a qualitative corpus-assisted approach, data were drawn from all 91 occurrences of al-Ghafur identified through a lemma-based search of the Qur'anic Arabic Corpus, of which 89 co-occur with another Divine Name within the same verse. The analysis is conceptually grounded in the collocation principles of Firth and interpreted through Qur'anic exegesis (al-Tabari, al-Razi, Ibn 'Ashur, among others). The results show that al-Ghafur predominantly collocates with al-Rahim, al-Halim, al-Shakur, al-Wadud, al-'Aziz, al-'Afuw, and Dhu al-Rahmah, each pairing corresponding to a distinct contextual theme, among them compassion, postponed punishment, divine appreciation, intimacy, the tension between majesty and clemency, complete effacement of sin, and deferred judgment. Rather than constituting an independent theological concept, the meaning of al-Ghafur is contextually enriched through these recurring lexical associations. The findings demonstrate that collocational analysis provides a productive linguistic framework for understanding how the semantic interpretation of Divine Names is shaped by their immediate textual environment in the Qur'an.