The starting point of the article is the oft-cited claim found in Islamic legal theory, according... more The starting point of the article is the oft-cited claim found in Islamic legal theory, according to which authority over matters of majāz rested in the hands of the lexicographers (or philologists more broadly, ahl al-lugha). For Ibn Taymiyya, this was a lie meant to justify the acceptance of metaphor in the Quran. But evidence from lexicographical, lexicological, and grammatical works supports the jurists’ general claim. This article argues that early Arabic philologists developed a robust, if implicit, theory of metaphorical language, one that was not dictated by theological concerns, and one that took shape outside the technical term majāz (commonly: figurative speech). There was a difference, however, between the lexemes that the jurists identified as majāz and the metaphorical expressions that the lexicographers pointed out, in that the former were not always codified in the dictionaries and thus more aligned with “live” or creative metaphors. Methodologically, the article proposes an updated model for the study of medieval Arabic technical terms, away from the term itself (majāz) and toward the concept behind it (metaphorical lexical extension).
Yasser S. Ahmed's translation of "The Legacy of ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī in the Arabic East befor... more Yasser S. Ahmed's translation of "The Legacy of ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī in the Arabic East before al-Qazwīnī’s Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ"
From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New Angles on the Arabic Linguistic Tradition, 2020
This article explores one of the earliest signs of metaphorical thinking in the Arabic-Islamic tr... more This article explores one of the earliest signs of metaphorical thinking in the Arabic-Islamic tradition under the semi-technical term ittisāʿ ‘extension’ or saʿat al-kalām ‘free parlance’ in early grammar works, with a focus on Sībawayhi’s Kitāb. Making the poetic shawāhid my point of departure, I find a strong correlation at the prima facie level between utterances that Sībawayhi characterizes using the phraseology of saʿat al-kalām and the type of imaginary metaphors that one encounters in badīʿ poetry (the ‘new style’). This correlation can only be explained if we consider the literary environment of 8th-century Iraq, where Sībawayhi was active. After analyzing several ‘metaphorical’ structures in Old Arabic, I further make the case that Sībawayhi’s observations regarding seemingly metaphorical language often blur the distinction between syntax and the lexicon. This study contributes to our understanding of early Arabic-Islamic theorizing of metaphorical language outside the term majāz, and outside the Qurʾānic-hermeneutical context.
Journal of Abbasid Studies. Special Issue on al-Jurjani, 2018
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078 or 474/1081) is recognized today as one of the greatest lit... more ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078 or 474/1081) is recognized today as one of the greatest literary theorists in medieval Islam, but in his own lifetime he was known as a grammarian. It would take nearly three centuries for his theories to take hold in the form of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī's (d. 739/1338) Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ, which launched the standardized science of rhetoric. Even in later centuries al-Jurjānī remained little-known, a situation that would only change at the turn of the twentieth century with the endeavors of Rashīd Riḍā and Muḥammad ʿAbduh, who produced the first editions of al-Jurjānī's Asrār al-balāgha and Dalāʾil al-iʿjāz. Keeping al-Jurjānī's larger tra-jectory in mind, this article takes a closer look at his impact in the time leading up to al-Qazwīnī, with a focus on the Arabic East (Greater Syria and Egypt) where al-Qazwīnī was based. Through an analysis of biographical, bibliographical, and literary critical writings, this study follows the early readership of al-Jurjānī's rhetorical oeuvre and recontextualizes his place in the history of Arabic literary theory.
By analyzing the term muḥāl in the Kitāb I show that the term was employed as a marker of primari... more By analyzing the term muḥāl in the Kitāb I show that the term was employed as a marker of primarily *syntactic* ungrammaticality. It did not have the semantic or logical import as was previously thought. The only exception is the semi-definition found in the opening chapters of the book, another indicator of the extraneous influences in the so-called Risāla and of the discord between "definitions" of terms and their actual employment. I also show that lexically, muḥāl inherently signified speech rather than ideas.
The starting point of the article is the oft-cited claim found in Islamic legal theory, according... more The starting point of the article is the oft-cited claim found in Islamic legal theory, according to which authority over matters of majāz rested in the hands of the lexicographers (or philologists more broadly, ahl al-lugha). For Ibn Taymiyya, this was a lie meant to justify the acceptance of metaphor in the Quran. But evidence from lexicographical, lexicological, and grammatical works supports the jurists’ general claim. This article argues that early Arabic philologists developed a robust, if implicit, theory of metaphorical language, one that was not dictated by theological concerns, and one that took shape outside the technical term majāz (commonly: figurative speech). There was a difference, however, between the lexemes that the jurists identified as majāz and the metaphorical expressions that the lexicographers pointed out, in that the former were not always codified in the dictionaries and thus more aligned with “live” or creative metaphors. Methodologically, the article proposes an updated model for the study of medieval Arabic technical terms, away from the term itself (majāz) and toward the concept behind it (metaphorical lexical extension).
Yasser S. Ahmed's translation of "The Legacy of ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī in the Arabic East befor... more Yasser S. Ahmed's translation of "The Legacy of ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī in the Arabic East before al-Qazwīnī’s Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ"
From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New Angles on the Arabic Linguistic Tradition, 2020
This article explores one of the earliest signs of metaphorical thinking in the Arabic-Islamic tr... more This article explores one of the earliest signs of metaphorical thinking in the Arabic-Islamic tradition under the semi-technical term ittisāʿ ‘extension’ or saʿat al-kalām ‘free parlance’ in early grammar works, with a focus on Sībawayhi’s Kitāb. Making the poetic shawāhid my point of departure, I find a strong correlation at the prima facie level between utterances that Sībawayhi characterizes using the phraseology of saʿat al-kalām and the type of imaginary metaphors that one encounters in badīʿ poetry (the ‘new style’). This correlation can only be explained if we consider the literary environment of 8th-century Iraq, where Sībawayhi was active. After analyzing several ‘metaphorical’ structures in Old Arabic, I further make the case that Sībawayhi’s observations regarding seemingly metaphorical language often blur the distinction between syntax and the lexicon. This study contributes to our understanding of early Arabic-Islamic theorizing of metaphorical language outside the term majāz, and outside the Qurʾānic-hermeneutical context.
Journal of Abbasid Studies. Special Issue on al-Jurjani, 2018
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078 or 474/1081) is recognized today as one of the greatest lit... more ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078 or 474/1081) is recognized today as one of the greatest literary theorists in medieval Islam, but in his own lifetime he was known as a grammarian. It would take nearly three centuries for his theories to take hold in the form of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī's (d. 739/1338) Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ, which launched the standardized science of rhetoric. Even in later centuries al-Jurjānī remained little-known, a situation that would only change at the turn of the twentieth century with the endeavors of Rashīd Riḍā and Muḥammad ʿAbduh, who produced the first editions of al-Jurjānī's Asrār al-balāgha and Dalāʾil al-iʿjāz. Keeping al-Jurjānī's larger tra-jectory in mind, this article takes a closer look at his impact in the time leading up to al-Qazwīnī, with a focus on the Arabic East (Greater Syria and Egypt) where al-Qazwīnī was based. Through an analysis of biographical, bibliographical, and literary critical writings, this study follows the early readership of al-Jurjānī's rhetorical oeuvre and recontextualizes his place in the history of Arabic literary theory.
By analyzing the term muḥāl in the Kitāb I show that the term was employed as a marker of primari... more By analyzing the term muḥāl in the Kitāb I show that the term was employed as a marker of primarily *syntactic* ungrammaticality. It did not have the semantic or logical import as was previously thought. The only exception is the semi-definition found in the opening chapters of the book, another indicator of the extraneous influences in the so-called Risāla and of the discord between "definitions" of terms and their actual employment. I also show that lexically, muḥāl inherently signified speech rather than ideas.
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I also show that lexically, muḥāl inherently signified speech rather than ideas.
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I also show that lexically, muḥāl inherently signified speech rather than ideas.