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Thalab

Qawaid al-Shi'r

Author died
291 AH
Editions
Maktabat al-Khānjī

Qawaid al-Shi'r (Rules of Poetry) is a short treatise on Arabic literary criticism and rhetoric attributed to the Kufan grammarian and philologist Tha'lab (200–291 AH / 816–904 CE) .

Authorship and Dating

The book is considered one of the earliest structured treatises dedicated to Arabic rhetorical and stylistic figures, preceding Ibn al-Mu'tazz's Kitab al-Badi' (composed in 274 AH) . A work under the exact same title was also attributed to Tha'lab's contemporary, the Basran scholar al-Mubarrad .

The attribution of the work to Tha'lab has been questioned by modern scholars such as Ihsan Abbas, who noted that early bio-bibliographical sources do not list a book by Tha'lab under this title and that Tha'lab's documented critical commentary in his Majalis does not reflect the methodological approach found here . Nevertheless, Abbas observed that the treatise's unique classifications and terminology point strongly to a third-century AH origin before the works of Ibn Tabataba, Qudama ibn Ja'far, or the late-third-century dissemination of al-Badi' .

Structure and Content

The treatise opens by positing four foundational rules (qawa'id) governing poetry—and discourse generally—which correspond to basic speech acts: command (amr), prohibition (nahy), informative assertion (khabar), and interrogation (istikhbar) .

From these four syntactic-discursive foundations, the author derives seven poetic genres (funun):

  • Praise (madh)
  • Lampoon (hija')
  • Elegy (marathi)
  • Apology (i'tidhar)
  • Erotic prelude / love poetry (tashbib)
  • Simile (tashbih)
  • Narration of events (iqtisas al-akhbar)

The work subsequently defines and illustrates several rhetorical devices (alwan al-bayan wa-l-badi'), exclusively drawing on pre-Islamic, early Islamic, and Umayyad poetry:

  • Simile (al-tashbih), focusing on well-balanced similes devoid of exaggeration or deficiency .
  • Hyperbole (al-ifrat fi al-ighraq / al-mubalagha) .
  • Subtlety of meaning (latafat al-ma'na), defined as conveying meaning by allusion (ta'rid) rather than explicit declaration (tasrih) .
  • Metaphor (al-isti'ara), defined as borrowing a name or meaning of one thing for another .
  • Skillful transition (husn al-khuruj), moving seamlessly between thematic sections (such as from weeping over abandoned encampments to praise or lampoon) without awkward connective phrases .
  • Juxtaposition of opposites (mujawarat al-addad), later known among rhetoricians as tibaq or mutabaqa, defined as mentioning a thing alongside that which negates its existence .
  • Homonymic paronomasia (al-mutabaq), defined as repeating a word with two different meanings (a category of jinas) .

The text also addresses diction and metrics, defining robust diction (jazalat al-lafz) as language that is neither obscurely archaic nor vulgarly colloquial, and harmonious versification (ittisaq al-nazm) as poetry free from metrical and rhyming flaws such as sinad, iqwa', ikfa', ijaza, and ita' .

Classification of Poetic Verses

The treatise concludes with a fivefold qualitative classification of poetic verses based on the relationship between their two hemistichs (sadr and 'ajuz):

  1. Al-Mu'addal (the balanced): verses in which both hemistichs are mutually balanced and equal in weight, such that either half conveys a complete meaning if stopped upon, resembling proverbial sayings .
  2. Al-Ghurr (the blazed): verses where the first hemistich independently yields the complete intended meaning even if the second hemistich is omitted .
  3. Al-Muhajjala (the fetlocked): verses whose opening is clarified and completed by the rhyme and second hemistich .
  4. Al-Muwaddaha (the clearly articulated): verses composed of balanced, autonomous syntactic segments and parallel clauses .
  5. Al-Murajjala (the dependent): verses whose meaning remains suspended until the final rhyme word, which the author describes as furthest from the core of eloquence ('amud al-balagha) because the opening cannot stand on its own .

Editions

Qawaid al-Shi'r was published in Leiden and later edited with an introduction and commentary by Muhammad Khafaji (Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, 1948) .

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