Dalail al-Ijaz bayna Abi Said al-Sirafi wa al-Jurjani
- Author died
- 1429 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Tiba'ah al-Muhammadiyyah
Dalail al-Ijaz bayna Abi Said al-Sirafi wa al-Jurjani (Signs of Inimitability Between Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi and al-Jurjani) is a critical rhetorical study by the Egyptian Azhari scholar Hasan Ismail Abd al-Raziq (d. 1429 AH / 2008 CE), examining the origins of the theory of nazm (compositional syntax) in Arabic rhetoric .
Thesis and Purpose
The primary thesis of the book is that Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani's foundational work on rhetoric and Quranic inimitability, Dala'il al-I'jaz, was built upon and derived directly from the arguments articulated by the grammarian Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi in his tenth-century debate against the logician Matta ibn Yunus . Abd al-Raziq contends that al-Sirafi's words in that debate effectively served as a core base-text (matn) that al-Jurjani expounded upon and structured his book around, following the same thematic sequence and adopting a debate-style dialectic method . The author also uses this comparative analysis to refute modern and classical views that attribute the origination of the nazm theory to the Mu'tazilite theologian al-Qadi Abd al-Jabbar .
Structure and Contents
The work is organized into an introduction (tamhid) followed by three main parts :
- Introduction (al-Tamhid): Covers the debate between al-Sirafi and Matta ibn Yunus, examines the relationship between al-Qadi Abd al-Jabbar and al-Jurjani, and discusses the concept of Dala'il al-I'jaz prior to al-Jurjani .
- Part One: The Sources of al-Dala'il in Abu Sa'id's Debate (Manabi' al-Dala'il fi Munazarat Abi Sa'id): Addresses the chronological difference between al-Jurjani's Asrar al-Balaghah and Dala'il al-I'jaz, noting that al-Dala'il was authored after 454 AH following Ibn Sinan al-Khafaji's Sirr al-Fasahah . It also analyzes the motives for composing al-Dala'il, the context of al-Sirafi's debate, and its central conceptual arguments .
- Part Two: The Foundations of al-Dala'il (al-Usus allati Qamat 'alayha al-Dala'il): Explores the theological and intellectual groups that undervalued grammar, the distinction between sound and defective speech through nazm, al-Jurjani's introductory booklet al-Madkhal ila Dala'il al-I'jaz, the procedural stages of nazm, and the metaphor comparing syntactic arrangement to weaving (al-nasj) .
- Part Three: Establishing the Theory for Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi (Ithbat al-Nazariyyah li-Abi Sa'id al-Sirafi): Analyzes Dala'il al-I'jaz as a detailed commentary on al-Sirafi's debate, provides a critique of attributing the theory to al-Qadi Abd al-Jabbar, and summarizes the findings of the study .
Publication
The book was published in Cairo by Dar al-Tiba'ah al-Muhammadiyyah in its first edition in 1411 AH / 1991 CE, while the author served as the head of the Rhetoric Department at the Faculty of Arabic Language at Al-Azhar University in Zagazig .
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