A Sociolinguistic Study of Anti-Negative Stereotypes in Islamic Texts

Abstract

Concerning the studies of stereotypes, most of them are concerned with showing positive and negative stereotypes that are used in specific texts. These studies ignore an important aspect in regard to stereotypes which is the indication whether stereotypes (positive or negative) are acceptable or not in various religions or societies.  The current study intends to tackle the negative stereotypes in Islamic texts (The Glorious Qur'an and Prophetic Hadiths) hypothesizing that these texts prohibit such a kind of stereotypes and that these texts are general to prevent any subsequent negative stereotypes.  To achieve this, four Qur'anic Ayahs and five Prophetic Hadiths are analysed. The analysis of these texts comes up with some conclusions and the main ones are that the analysed texts are not directed overtly to prohibit negative stereotypes but they inclusively imply this accompanying the main topics that these texts tackle. Also, the analysis shows that the generality of these texts is attained via the use of some lexical units and linguistic expressions that fulfill such a purpose