We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected]
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Chapter 5 focuses on the poetics of sentence construction (naẓm), as developed by al-Jurjānī and systematized in the “science of meanings” (ʿilm al-maʿānī) by al-Sakkākī and al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī. Sentence construction is where medieval authors primarily located the inimitability and hence miraculousness (iʿjāz) of the Quran. The syntactical structure of a sentence can also be manipulated in such a way as to allow for an experience of discovery to take place in the listener by implicitly conveying additional meanings about the context or the state of the addressee’s knowledge (muqtaḍā al-ḥāl). This can take place through such techniques as omission, changing the standard order of words, shifting the grammatical person, the use of definite or indefinite nouns, among many others. In addition, constructing phrases in ways that go contrary to the apparent expectations of the context (ʿalā khilāf muqtaḍā al-ẓāhir) further enhances their eloquence. Here again, while the specific path to discovering the meaning is different from metaphor and simile, the effect is consistent with an aesthetic of wonder. This suggests a comprehensive aesthetic outlook that underlies the beauty of poetry and the Quran alike.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.