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Arabic rhetoric and Qur'anic exegesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

John Wansbroug
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Extract

The evolution of technical terms in the Arabic science of rhetoric illustrates remarkalby its gradual adaptation to the exigencies of scriputural interpretation.Proliferation of rhetorical figures in the writings of the late medieval scholiasts appears to be a consequence not so much of the Qur'ān. In many of these figures a pre-exegetic existence can be discerned; others would seem to be the invention of industrious mufassirum. For the former it is sometimes possible to determine an approximate date of adaptation: the point at which the profane function of a rhetorical figure was abandoned, or at least relegated to an inferior position, in favour of its application to Qur'anic exegesis. An illustration of this process is provided by the figure called madhhab kalāmī, whose evolution I attempted to describe in a recent study. There it was seen that the figure treated by early rhetoricians shared its name, but neither its content nor its function, with that examined and applied to the Qur'ā by the later schoolmen. While the result of this metamorphosis became firmly established in the treatment of badī' by al-Qazwīnī (d. 738/1256) and his successors, it is in the earlier work of Ibn Abi 'l-Isba' (d. 654002F;1256) where we find the observation that although Ibn al-mu'tazz (d. 295002F;908) had denied the presence in the Qur'ān of Madhhab kalāmī, the Holy Book was in fact full of it; and his examples fit perfectly the scholastic interpretation of the figure.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , October 1968 , pp. 469 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1968

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References

1 A note on Arabic rhetoric, in Meller, H., Zimmermann, H. J.. Lebende Antike:Symposion for Rudolf Suhnel, Berlin, 1967, 55–63.Google Scholar

2 The author of their Vorlage, al-Sakkāk‚ (d. 626/1229), Miftāh al-′ulūm, Cario, 1356/1937, does not in fact include madhhab kalām‚ under bad‚ (pp. 2004–4), but in his discussion of istidlāl(pp. 207–44) uses the terminology later employed to describe madhhab kalām‚. Cf.Ei, second ed., s.v.;bayān, esp. 1115a. Still later and, in view of the scholastic development, more logically, al-Suyūt‚ (d. 911/1505), Itqān, Cario, 1863, using Ibn Abi-'I-Isba', removed the figure from bad‚ (2, 94 ff.) and placed it in his section of jadl (2, 157 ff.).

3 Bad‚ al-qur'ā, Cario 1377/1957, 37–42.

4 S. A. Bonebakker, some early definitions of the tawriya and Safad‚'s Fadd al-xitām 'an at-tawriya wa-'listixdā The Hague, Paris, 1966, 16–18, 29, 59, 61–2, 75, 89, 103, 105.

5 'A note on Arabic rhetoric', 56, 61.

6 von Grunebaum, G. E., ‘Die aesthetischen Grundlagen der arabischen Literatur’, in Kritik und Dichtkunst, Wiesbaden, 1955, esp. 134–8.Google Scholar

7 E. R. Curtius, Europāische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelater, Bern, 1948, esp. 49–56, 79–85, 445–63. See also G.E. von Grunebaum, A tenth-century document of Arabic literary theory and criticism. Chicago, 1950, xv-xvi, xviii-xix, n.24. An additional, and complicating, factor in Arabic rhetoric is, of course, the problem of i‘jāz al-qur‘ān, though preoccupation with the meaning of the text antedated discussion of its in‚mitability and alone could account for the union of balāgha and tafs‚r. See I. Goldziher, Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologic, Ledien, 1896, I, 151; and further, S. Bonebakker, op.cit., 25–7; M. Khalafallah, ‘Qu’anic, Leiden, 1896, I. 151; and further, S. Bonebakker, op. cit., 25–7; M. Khalafallah, ‘Qu’anic studies as an important factor in the development of Arabic literary criticism’. Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University, 1952–36, 1–7; idem, ‘Some landmarks of Arab achievement in the field of literary criticism’, BFAAU, 1961, 3–19.

8 See A.F. Mehren, Die Rhetorik der Araber, Kopenhagen, Wien, 1853, 108.

9 The bad‚‘ya to which Ibn Hijja refers is that of Ibn Jābir al-andalus‚ (d. 780/1378), entitled Bad‚‚yat al-umyān, ed. Cario, 1348/1929. Enjambment in this figure is also a concern of Ibn Rash‚ see below, p.474.

10 The following examples are taken from E. R. Curtius, Europaische Literatur, 288; and idem, Gesammelte Aufsātze zur romanischen Philologic, Bern, 1960, 92, 129, n.63.

11 See V. F. Buchner, ‘Stilfiguren in der panegyrischen Poesie der Perser’, Acta Oriental, 2. 1924, 250–61. ‘Ina battler he takes and in assembly he takes and in assembly he gives, a kingdom with a horseman and a world to a beggar’.

12 cf. al-Sakkāk‚, , Miftāh al-ulūm, 201; and Mehren, op. cit., 110Google Scholar.

13 cf. al-Hamaw‚, Ibn Hijja, Khizānat al-adab, 83, and above, p. 472Google Scholar.

14 The presupposition by poets of a wide lexical familiarity on the part of the‚r readers or audiences is a very special problem in the case of the tawriya, cf. Bonebakker, op.cit., 10, 21, 42.

15 The second verse appears also in al-‘Askar‚, Op. cit., 272; al-Baquillān‚ (d. 403/1013), I‘Jāz al-qur'ān Cario, 1963, 95 both under tafs‚r (trans. von Grunebaum, Tenth-century document, 34); and Ibn Qutaiba, ‘Uyūn al-akhbār, Cario, 1925, I, 289.

16 Also al-'Askar‚ Op. cit., 272–3; and al-Marzubān‚ (d. 378/988), Muwashshah, Cairo, 1343/1925, 235, both following Qudāma.

17 See Mehren, Op. cit., 100.

18 Only in the index to the work (p.318), presumably an insertion by the editor, does the expression laff wa-nashr appear.

19 Mehren, Op. cit., 109.

20 I owe this reference to my colleague Dr.Tourkhan Gandje‚, whom I should like to thank for his valuable observations on Persian adaptation of Arabic rhetorical terms.

21 Owing to an early confusion between ma'kū and mushawruash, the number of sub-categories of mufassal was sometimes two rather than three.

22 Also in al-Nuwair‚, Op. cit., v11, 130, but under tafs‚ (1), with the observation that it is one of the best examples of that figure; and in Ibn Hijja, Op cit., 82, under tayy wa-nashr, with no comment.

23 i.e. wa-qālū kūnū hūan aw nasārā⃜ Al-Zamakhshar‚'s interpretation of Qur'ān ii, 111, however, was very likely adopted from II, 113: wa-qālati'l-yahūdu laisati'l-nasāra 'alā shai'in wa-qā 'l-nasārā laisati' l-yahūdu 'alā' in, thought he does mention II, 135 at this point (op. cit., 97).

24 ef. Reckendorf, Arabische, Syntax, s 1973.3

25 Al-Nukat, f‚ i'jāz al-qur'ān, Cario, 1959, 94–5Google Scholar; and cf. von Grunebaum, , Tenth-century document, p. 118Google Scholar, n. 1. Tadm‚n is not commonly used in this sense but, rather, for the (entirely unrelated) Phenomena of enjambment and ‘citation’.

26 Mehren, Op. cit., 135, includes tafs‚r al-khaf‚ (illustrated by Qur'ān LXX, 19–21) among the conceptual figures which he added to those provided by al-Qazw‚n‚.

27 Lausberg, H., handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik, Munchen, 1960, 357–9, 428–9.Google Scholar