In the year 190/803, the Baṣran philologist Abū ʿUbaydaMaʿmar b. al-Muthannā (d. 209/824) travelled to thecourt of Hārūn al-Rashīd in Baghdād, where thevizier al-Faḍl b. Rabīʿ put Abū ʿUbaydaʼs linguisticexpertise to the test.

More specifically, the vizier was curious about themeaning of the fruits on the tree of Hell describedas looking like heads of Satans(ruʾūsal-shayāṭīn) in sūra37:62–63. How could God frighten the Arabswith an object nobody had ever seen? Abū ʿUbaydaresponded by claiming that God addressed the Arabsin their own language and, therefore, the key tounderstanding the intended meaning of these peculiarfruits could be explained by way of examining thepoetic heritage of the Arabic language. Thus, thephilologist referred to a verse in the Muʿallaqa of Imruʾ al-Qays,in which the teeth of the ghūlare compared to the sharpness of a sword.The ghūl, like thedemonic tree, was an unseen being, but thementioning of its name alone was grounds enough forachieving the intended effect on the listeners,which was to frighten them. Here, Abū ʿUbaydapractices, perhaps for the first time, the method ofadducing poetical analoga to explain peculiaritiesin qurʾānic language.

The anecdote further reports that Abū ʿUbayda'sexamination at the Caliph's court catalyzed AbūʿUbayda's career in qurʾānic hermeneutics. Afterreturning to al-Baṣra, he started to compile a book(ʿamiltu kitāban) onthe Qurʾān, entitled Majāzal-Qurʾān, best translated as Explanatory Re-writing to theQurʾān.

Ella Almagor, who has investigated the meaning of theterm majāz in the“pre-rhetorical” period of Arabic textual criticism,pointed out that the anecdote is the “epitome of AbūʿUbaydaʼs hermeneutical approach”. In fact, the taskis similarily formulated in the introduction toMajāz al-Qurʾān.

Since, according to Abū ʾUbayda, the Qur ʾān wasrevealed in the language of the Arabs, free fromeven a single word of foreign origin, the qurʾānicproclamation was self-explanatory to the Prophet andhis contemporaries. The temporal distance of 180years from the immediate socio-linguistic culture ofthe Qurʾān's first audience, however, necessitated asystem of exegesis. In order to understand God'srevelation, one had to study the language of theArabs, and in particular Arabic poetry.