Minhaj al-Bulagha wa Siraj al-Udaba
- Author died
- 684 AH
- Editions
- Minhaj al-Bulagha wa Siraj al-Udaba
Minhaj al-Bulagha wa Siraj al-Udaba (The Pathway of the Eloquent and the Lamp of Men of Letters) is a major treatise on Arabic poetics, rhetoric, and literary criticism written by the Andalusian scholar Hazim al-Qartajanni (d. 684 AH / 1285 CE) . The work represents a comprehensive theoretical synthesis that bridges the indigenous tradition of Arabic literary criticism with philosophical concepts derived from Aristotelian poetics and logic .
Structure and Terminology
The complete work was originally planned in four major parts, but its first part—which treated speech, its constituent parts, delivery, and its psychological impression on the audience—has been lost . The three extant parts address the craft of poetry, the mechanics of versification, and the comprehensive study of poetic themes and meanings (maʿani), verbal forms and structures (mabani), and style (uslub) .
Al-Qartajanni organized each of these three surviving divisions into four principal sections termed manhaj (pathway) . Within these sections, chapters are structured using specialized designations:
- Maʿlam (signpost): chapters primarily dedicated to logical classifications and structural divisions .
- Muʿarraf (descriptor): chapters focused on psychological and semantic dimensions .
- Maʾamm (objective): concluding remarks summarizing the aims of a chapter .
- Idaʾah (illumination) and Tanwir (clarification): subsections dedicated to elaborating secondary concepts and fine particular details, reflecting a rigorous hierarchical logic .
Method and Theoretical Framework
The book stands out in Arabic literary theory for merging classical Arabic criticism with Greek philosophical poetics . From the Arabic critical tradition, al-Qartajanni frequently references Qudamah ibn Ja'far's Naqd al-Shi'r, alongside works by al-Jahiz and Ibn Sinan al-Khafaji . He drew his philosophical framework primarily from Ibn Sina's treatment of Aristotle's Poetics in the ninth section of Kitab al-Shifa', as well as references to al-Farabi .
A central premise of the treatise is that poetry is grounded in imaginative simulation (takhyil) and mimesis (muhakah), distinguishing it fundamentally from rhetoric (khitabah), which aims at rational persuasion (iqna') . Al-Qartajanni categorizes poetic mimesis according to its aesthetic purpose into three types: beautification (tahsin), uglification (taqbih), and correspondence (mutabaqah) . He also analyzes the psychological faculties required for poetic composition—namely the retentive, discerning, and crafting faculties (al-hafizah, al-ma'izah, and al-sani'ah)—as well as the emotional states of expansion (bast) and contraction (qabd) induced in the listener .
Manuscripts and Editions
The surviving text of Minhaj al-Bulagha is preserved in a single manuscript held in the library of the University of Tunis (formerly the library of the Ez-Zitouna Mosque) .
The third section (al-Manhaj al-Thalith) was published separately by Abd al-Rahman Badawi in the commemorative volume Mélanges Taha Husain in Cairo (1962) . The entire extant text was critically edited by Muhammad al-Habib Ibn al-Khuja as part of his doctoral thesis at the University of Paris and printed in Tunis (1966), followed by a reprint by Dar al-Gharb al-Islami in Beirut (1982) .
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