Literary Arts (Mar 2019)
Khatib's critiques of the opinions of his early and contemporary scholars in the science of Rhetoric, relying on the first quarter of the "Idhah
Abstract
Abstract “Al-Idah Fih šarh Talxîs al-Miftâh” is one of the most authoritative educational and analytical books on rhetoric in which Jalal al-Din Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Qazvini, the renowned Muslim scientist and scholar of poetics of the 7th and 8th centuries A.H., examines various principles of semantics and provides informative reviews on the perspectives of pioneer scholars of rhetoric “as an exposé to Talxîṣ al-Miftâh”. Statement and Scope of the Problem The study addresses the level of disagreement between al-Qazvini and the preceding scholars, and the scope is the first quarter of Al-Idah. The research questions are as follows: 1- What are the difference of opinions between al-Qazvini and his predecessors? 2- To what extent does al-Qazvini disagree with his predecessors? Data Analysis Al-Qazvini critiques the preceding perspectives in 22 instances in Al-Idah, where he challenges and reviews the viewpoints of as-Sakkaki and al-Jurjani when deemed unjustified. The following arguments are made in the first quarter of Al-Idah, covering the chapter on “Semantics” until the beginning of “Conjunction and Disjunction”: 1- Objection to al-Jurjani over two of his books: He has overindulged in synonymous expressions to the point that such a level of verbosity has disrupted his main goal, i.e. expression of oratory rules and skills and instance provision from prose and poetry. 2- Objection to al-Sakkaki over his definition of “semantics”: The words “scholarism” and “research” are not used in a scientific sense in his definition. 3- Objection to al-Sakkaki over his definition of “rational truth”: al-Sakkaki’s definition does not exclude the exclusions, as it holds true for copular sentences whose predicates are not verbs or linked to verbs, such as in the sentence “humans are animals”, which neither can be regarded as truth, nor as an instance of literary trope. 4- Objection to al-Sakkaki over his definition of “rational trope”: he has raised two logical objections to this definition. 5- Objection to al-Sakkaki over his views on the logic behind his definition of “subject”: There is no distinction between “reference to the source of statement” and “reference to the realization of statement”; therefore, the former cannot be deemed as a means of achieving the latter. 6- Objection to al-Sakkaki over his viewpoint on the similarity of “veneration” with “duplication”, and “devaluation” with “reduction”: He provides two in-depth reviews on this principle. 7- Objection to al-Sakkaki over his view on the reasons for subject preposition: According to al-Sakkaki, declarative sentences are merely formed for the sake of “declaration”. However, this is an inaccurate assumption, since a declaration is merely a “formal recognition’ rather than an “internalization”, whereas the latter is what is solely expected from a declaration. 8- Objection to al-Sakkaki and al-Jurjani over placing pronouns following negatory particles: The placement of pronouns after negatory particles , which is what they have proposed in the specified example, is not justified. 9- Objection to al-Sakkaki over the implication of preposition over specification: al-Sakkaki apparently argues that definite subjects are suitable for specification, with either visible pronouns or nouns, if they are not placed after negatory particles with a positive or negative declaration. In practice, however, he only gives examples containing pronouns. 10- Objection to al-Sakkaki over the felicity of declaration specification in a [Quranic] verse. 11- Objection to al-Zamakhshari over the implication of post-negation pronoun over the subject in the same verse. 12- Objection to al-Sakkaki over the implication of subject preposition over generalization. 13- Objection to al-Sakkaki and his preceding scholars over the application of “negation generalization” in a poem. 14- Objection to al-Zamakhshari over his retrospection on two poems. 15- Objection to al-Sakkaki over specifying the predicate as an expression of surprise: Expressions of surprise can be stated without specifying the predicate when there is a linguistic context in the sentence. 16- Objection to al-Sakkaki over expressing predicates in singular form: First, al-Sakkaki puts causal predicate instances in contrast to those of verb predicate, even though they have a common semantic foundation. Second, the predicate is a sentence in and of itself, leading to two attributions in the predicate that strengthen declaration based on the definition provided above. 17- Objection to al-Sakkaki over the inclusiveness of the word “kol” [total]. 18- Objection to al-Sakkaki over definite forms due to fame. 19- Objection to al-Zamakhshari over using coordination in a conditional clause in a Quranic expression. 20- Objection to preceding scholars over expressing the predicate as a sentence. 21- Objection to al-Sakkaki over his viewpoint on verb complements. Conclusion In the first quarter of Al-Idah, al-Qazvini expresses his disagreement with al-Sakkaki on 14 occasions, whereas he only raises objection to three viewpoints of al-Zamakhshari and al-Jurjani, each, and two viewpoints of the preceding scholars in total. This demonstrates al-Qazvini’s concurrence with al-Zamakhshari and al-Jurjani and his disagreement with al-Sakkaki.
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