al-Badi' inda al-Hariri
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- Islamic University of Madinah
al-Badiʿ ʿinda al-Ḥarīrī (Rhetorical Figures in al-Ḥarīrī) is a rhetorical study by Muhammad Bello Ahmad Abu Bakr, a scholar in the Department of Rhetoric and Criticism at the Faculty of Arabic Language, examining the stylistic embellishments (badīʿ) used throughout the famous Maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī (446–515 or 516 AH).
Scope and Theoretical Framework
The study focuses on the badīʿ devices found across the fifty narrative episodes (maqāmāt) of al-Ḥarīrī, who followed the pioneering model of Badīʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī (d. 398 AH) while expanding and enriching the genre. The author adopts the technical definition of badīʿ established by later rhetoricians such as al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī—namely, the discipline by which modes of verbal embellishment are identified after observing contextual propriety and clarity of expression—rather than the broader sense used by early critics.
Addressing the critical dispute over whether badīʿ forms an essential constituent of eloquence or merely superficial ornamentation, the author references modern scholarship, particularly Aḥmad Ibrāhīm Mūsā’s al-Ṣabgh al-adabī fī al-lughah al-ʿarabiyyah, arguing that when such figures arise naturally without forced affectation, they contribute directly to aesthetic impact and the construction of meaning. Rather than adhering to an abstract, scholastic taxonomy, the work analyzes stylistic devices empirically as they appear within al-Ḥarīrī's prose and verse.
Rhetorical Devices in the Maqāmāt
The treatise examines several major categories of rhetorical figures illustrated from al-Ḥarīrī's text:
- Antithesis, Rhyme, and Intertextuality (al-Muqābalah, al-Sajʿ, and al-Iqtibās): The author highlights al-Ḥarīrī's ability to interweave multiple devices simultaneously, as demonstrated in the opening sermon of the Maqāmāt, where antithetical pairing (muqābalah) and rhymed prose (sajʿ) are combined with Quranic allusions and prophetic traditions. Examples of textual borrowing (iqtibās) include subtle adaptations of Quranic phrasing—such as invoking وَتَرَى الْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَاب ("And you see the mountains, thinking them rigid, while they pass as the passing of clouds") to describe a sailing vessel—as well as overt citations of entire verses and classical Arabic proverbs in the eleventh and forty-sixth maqāmāt.
- Double Entendre (al-Tawriyah): Al-Ḥarīrī employs double entendre in an unconventional manner through legal riddles and verse. In the thirty-second maqāmah, he frames one hundred jurisprudential questions according to the Shafi'i legal school, in which the apparent, immediate meaning seems problematic, but the obscure, intended meaning provides the valid legal answer. The study also surveys poetic tawriyah in the forty-fourth maqāmah, where terms like al-qādir signify a cook rather than a capable person, and al-ʿuqāb refers to a military standard rather than an eagle.
- Paronomasia (al-Jinās): The work explores various forms of paronomasia in both prose and poetry, including adjacent root variations, alternating word insertions, and compound paronomasia (al-jinās al-murakkab) at the beginnings and ends of lines in the forty-sixth maqāmah. It also examines paired paronomasia (al-jinās al-muzdawaj) in verse forms termed al-matāʾīm (twinned verses) in the seventh maqāmah and in prose passages in the third maqāmah.
- Reversible Text and Inversion (al-Qalb): Al-Ḥarīrī practiced palindromic composition (mā lā yastaḥīlu bi-l-inʿikās), progressing from short phrases to entire poetic lines—such as those in the sixteenth maqāmah that read identically from right to left and left to right—and word-level reversals. A prominent example is al-Risālah al-qahqariyyah in the seventeenth maqāmah, a two-hundred-word prose piece structured entirely of subjects and predicates that yields coherent, balanced aphorisms when read in reverse order. The author compares this technique to the geometric grid poetry of Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī.
- Calligraphic and Letter Constraints: The treatise examines al-Ḥarīrī's use of orthographic constraints, dividing them into al-ʿawāṭil (lines composed entirely of unpointed letters), al-ʿarāʾis (lines composed entirely of pointed letters), and al-akhyāf (compositions alternating between pointed and unpointed words), present in both verse and sermons in the sixth, twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth maqāmāt.
Critical Evaluation
The study balances classical critiques with literary appreciation. It notes that critics like ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī disapproved of excessive contrivance (takalluf), maintaining that meanings should dictate phrasing naturally rather than being forced into rigid formal constraints. Commentator al-Sharīshī similarly observed that practicing arbitrary self-imposed constraints (luzūm mā lā yalzam) often resulted in strained diction. Nevertheless, the author concludes that al-Ḥarīrī demonstrated extraordinary craftsmanship and verbal facility, arguing that such intricate literary feats should be recognized for their novelty and technical skill rather than dismissed entirely.
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