The Technical Aspests of Abdul-Qahir AL-Jurjani's Theory of Versification
Arkan Husein Mtair
Baghdad University, College of Arts
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25130/jls.3.2.17
Keywords: - Al-Jurjani, Dala'il ul-I'jaz - theory of versification - grammatical meaning - structure
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to explore the technical aspects
of Sheikh Abdul-Qahir Al-Jurjani's theory of versification which is
scattered in his book Dala'il ul-I'jaz and to collect these dispersed parts.
Al-Jurjani's theory of versification represented an outstanding
critical and rhetorical achievement in the Arabic critical rhetorical
tradition because it provided answers to many critical questions at that
early epoch in the history of Arabic literary criticism. It, therefore,
attracted the attention of critics and rhetoricians at all subsequent
times. Such a theory can never be found in his predecessors except for
some hints in Ibnul Muqaffa' and Al-Jahidh's works though the idea of
versification was common among the Mu'tazila and Ash'ariya but it
was not evident; it was just mere hints which no one had interpreted in
detail except Al-Jurjani who gave it much importance and talked about
it in details, linking sound to sense, rhetorical figures of speech to the
miraculous nature of Qur'anic language. Al-Jurjani's theory of
versification has become a scientific basis for the interpretation of the
Holy Qur'an. Furthermore, some critics tried to link Al-Jurjani's theory
with contemporary stylistics and poetics.
