الباب السادس: في انقسام الكلام إلى فني: النظم والنثرBab 06 — Poetry Prose and the Arts of Expression

Chapter Six: On the Division of Speech into Two Arts: Verse and Prose

Treatise: That the Arabic tongue and their speech comprise two arts

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Chapter Six: On the Division of Speech into Two Arts: Verse and Prose [Edition footnote 1]

It contains treatises:

Treatise: Know that the Arabic tongue and their speech comprise two arts:

The art of metrical, rhymed poetry: that is, speech governed by meter and rhyme; meaning speech whose meters all share one final consonant, namely the rhyme.

And the art of prose: speech that is not metrical.

Each of these two arts comprises forms and modes of speech. As for poetry, it includes praise, satire, and elegy. As for prose, it includes saj', in which speech is delivered in segments and one rhyme is observed in every two of them; this is called saj'. It also includes free-flowing prose, in which speech is released without dividing it into parts, but is sent forth without restriction by rhyme or anything else. It is used in sermons, supplication, and encouraging or frightening the public.

As for the Qur'an, although it belongs to prose, it lies outside both descriptions. It is not called unrestricted free-flowing prose, nor is it saj'. Rather, its verses are set out in passages at whose ends taste recognizes the completion of speech; then the speech is resumed in the following verse and repeated, without binding it to a letter that would make it saj' or rhyme. This is the meaning of His saying, exalted is He: {اللَّهُ نَزَّلَ أَحْسَنَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَاباً مُتَشَابِهاً مَثَانِيَ تَقْشَعِرُّ مِنْهُ جُلُودُ الَّذِينَ يَخْشَوْنَ رَبَّهُمْ} [Qur'an quotation—review against locked authority]. And He said: {قَدْ فَصَّلْنَا الْآيَاتِ} [Qur'an quotation—review against locked authority]. The ends of its verses are called fawaasil, because they are not saj' and do not observe what saj' observes; nor are they rhymes. The name mathaanee was applied generally to all the verses of the Qur'an for the reason we have mentioned, but it became especially associated with the Mother of the Qur'an by predominance, just as al-Najm is used for the Pleiades. Hence it was called “the seven mathaanee.” Consider this together with what the exegetes have said in explaining why it is called mathaanee; it will attest to you that what we have said is the sounder view.

Know that each of these arts has modes particular to it among its practitioners, which do not suit the other art and are not used in it—for example, the naseeb particular to poetry; praise and supplication particular to sermons; and supplication particular to correspondence,

[Edition footnote 1]

See the chapter in Ibn Khaldoon's *Muqaddimah*, pp. 1405–1408.

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and the like. Later writers employed the modes and meters of poetry in prose, through abundant saj', observance of rhyme, and placing the naseeb before the intended themes. When you reflect on this prose, it belongs to the domain and art of poetry; the two differ only in meter. Later writers continued upon this method and used it in royal correspondence. They restricted the use of all prose to this art they had approved, mixing its modes and abandoning and forgetting free-flowing prose—especially the people of the East. In our time, royal correspondence among heedless writers has come to follow the style we have indicated. This is incorrect from the standpoint of eloquence, because eloquence requires observing the conformity of speech to the demands of the situation and to the circumstances of the speaker and addressee.

This rhymed prose introduced poetic modes into itself, and royal correspondence ought therefore to be kept clear of it. The modes of poetry suit wit, the mingling of seriousness with jest, expansiveness in descriptions, the striking of parables, and abundant similes and metaphors where no necessity in the address calls for them. Observing rhyme is likewise a form of wit and adornment, whereas the majesty of kingship and sovereignty, and the address of the public concerning kings through encouragement and intimidation, are opposed to and incompatible with this. What is praiseworthy in royal correspondence is free-flowing composition: releasing and sending forth speech without saj', except on rare and infrequent occasions, and where the speaker's faculty sends it forth naturally without affectation. It also means giving speech its due by making it conform to the demands of the situation, for situations differ, and every situation has a mode particular to it: amplification or concision, omission or assertion, explicit statement or allusion, metonymy or metaphor.

As for conducting royal correspondence in this manner, which follows poetic modes, it is blameworthy. The only thing that led the writers of the age to it was the domination of foreignness over their tongues, and their consequent inability to give speech its due by making it conform to the demands of the situation. They became incapable of free-flowing speech because its reach in eloquence is remote and its avenues are broad; so they became enamored of this saj', patching together with it what they lacked in applying speech to its purpose and to the demands of the situation. They compensated for that lack with a measure of adornment through saj' and ornate epithets, while neglecting everything else.

Those who most adopted and exaggerated this art in all the varieties of their speech were the writers and poets of the East in this age. They even violated the grammatical inflection and morphological form of words when a word entered into a pun or a correspondence that could not coexist with them. They preferred that kind of pun, abandoned grammatical inflection, and corrupted the structure of the word, hoping that it might happen to fit the pun. Reflect on this in light of what we have set out for you, and you will recognize the correctness of what we have said. God grants success to what is right, by His grace and generosity. [Edition footnote 1]

[Edition footnote 1]

End of Ibn Khaldoon's statement.

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Treatise: That excellence in both arts, prose and verse, is achieved together only by the few [Edition footnote 1]

The reason is that, as we have explained, it is a faculty in the tongue. When another faculty has already preceded it in its locus, that locus falls short of attaining the perfection of the later faculty, because the perfection and acquisition of faculties are easier and more accessible for natures that remain in their original disposition. If another faculty precedes it, it competes with it for the receptive matter and hinders rapid receptivity; opposition therefore occurs and perfection of the faculty becomes impossible. This is found universally in all acquired industrial faculties, and we have demonstrated it in its proper place.

[Edition footnote 1]

See the chapter in Ibn Khaldoon's *Muqaddimah*, pp. 1408–1409.

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with a proof resembling this proof. Apply the same consideration to languages, for they are faculties of the tongue and are like crafts. Observe how one who has previously acquired some foreignness remains deficient in the Arabic tongue. A non-Arab whose Persian language came first does not master the faculty of the Arabic tongue; he remains deficient in it, even if he learns it and teaches it. The same is true of the Berber, Roman, and Frankish peoples: you will rarely find one of them who has mastered the faculty of the Arabic tongue. This is only because the faculty of the other tongue preceded it in their tongues. Indeed, when a student from among these linguistic communities pursues knowledge among people of the Arabic tongue, he falls short of the ultimate degree of understanding and attainment; he has suffered only because of the tongue.

You have already learned that tongues and languages resemble crafts, that crafts and their faculties do not crowd one another, and that one who has first excelled in a craft rarely excels in another or reaches its utmost degree. {وَاللَّهُ خَلَقَكُمْ وَمَا تَعْمَلُونَ} [Qur'an quotation—review against locked authority].

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Treatise: On the craft of poetry and how it is learned [Edition footnote 1]

This is one of the arts of the Arabs' speech, called poetry among them. It exists in all other languages, but we are now speaking only of the poetry of the Arabs. If it is possible for speakers of other tongues to find in it the purpose of their own speech, then so be it; otherwise, each tongue has rules of eloquence particular to it.

In the Arabic tongue it is strange in its character and rare in its mode. It is speech divided into equal segments of the same meter, sharing the same final letter in every segment. Each segment is called by them a bayt, or verse; the final letter in which they agree is called the rawee and the rhyme. The whole body of speech, from beginning to end, is called a qaseedah, or poem. Each verse stands independently in conveying its meaning through its constructions, as though it were speech complete in itself, independent of what precedes and follows it. When isolated, it is complete in its subject—whether praise, love prelude, or elegy. Thus the poet takes care to give the verse what makes it independently convey its meaning; then he begins another verse with another such statement, and then another, completing the arts that fulfil his purpose. He harmonizes the verses in their succession according to the differing forms contained in the poem, and moves from one art to another and from one purpose to another by preparing the first purpose and its meanings until they suit the second. He keeps the speech free of discord, as when he moves from the love prelude to praise; from describing the desert and the deserted encampments to describing the mounts, horses, or phantom; from describing the praised man to describing his people and armies; or from grief and consolation in an elegy to emotional response, and the like.

He observes throughout the poem that it remain on one meter, lest natural inclination become lax and move from one meter to another that resembles it. The similarity may conceal this from many people.

These meters have conditions and rules contained in the science of prosody. Not every meter that naturally occurs was used by the Arabs in this art; rather, they used specific meters that practitioners of the craft call the bahr, or “sea.” They restricted them to fifteen seas, meaning that they found no versification among the Arabs in any other natural meters.

Know that the art of poetry was noble among the Arabs above all forms of speech. They therefore made it the register of their sciences and reports, the witness to their correctness and error, and a foundation to which they returned in many of their sciences and wisdoms. Its faculty was firmly established

[Edition footnote 1]

See the chapter in Ibn Khaldoon's *Muqaddimah*, pp. 1409–1419.

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among them, as were all faculties. Linguistic faculties are acquired only through craft and practice in their speech, until an approximation of that faculty is attained.

Poetry, among the arts of speech, is difficult to acquire by craft for later writers, because every verse is independent in its purpose as complete speech and can stand apart from everything else. It therefore requires a certain subtlety in that faculty, so that poetic speech may be poured into the forms known to it in the mode of Arabic poetry, and brought forth as something independently standing. Then the poet produces another verse in the same way, and then another, completing the forms that fulfil his purpose, and harmonizing the verses in their succession according to the differing arts in the poem. Because its mode is difficult and its art strange, poetry became a touchstone for discerning the excellence of styles and sharpening thought in fitting speech to its forms. A general faculty of Arabic speech is not sufficient for it; it specifically requires subtlety and practice in observing the modes that the Arabs assigned to it and in using them.

Let us mention here the conduct of style among practitioners of this craft and what they intend by it when they use the term.

Know that, among them, it is an expression for the pattern in which constructions are woven, or the mold into which they are poured. It does not refer to speech with regard to its conveying the basic meaning, which is the function of grammatical inflection; nor with regard to its conveying the perfection of meaning, one of the special properties of constructions, which is the function of rhetoric and elucidation; nor with regard to meter as the Arabs used it, which is the function of prosody. These three sciences lie outside this poetic craft. Rather, the term refers to a mental image of constructions arranged as a whole, insofar as it corresponds to a particular construction. The mind extracts that image from actual constructions and their individual instances, and makes it in the imagination like a mold or pattern. It then selects constructions that are correct among the Arabs with respect to grammar and elucidation, and packs them into it, as a builder does into a mold or a weaver into a pattern, until the mold expands through the acquisition of constructions sufficient for the purpose of speech and takes on the correct form according to the faculty of the Arabic tongue in it.

Every form of speech has styles particular to it, occurring in it in different ways. Thus, in poetry, the question addressed to deserted encampments may be made by addressing the encampments, as in the saying:

O abode of Mayyah, in the highlands and then the sandy tract

... [translation for this edition]

It may be made by calling upon companions to stop and ask, as in the saying:

Stop, let us ask the dwelling whose people have departed

... [translation for this edition]

Or it may be made by calling upon companions to weep over the deserted encampment, as in the saying:

Stop, let us weep for the memory of a beloved and a dwelling

... [translation for this edition]

[Edition footnote 1]

By al-Naabighah al-Dhubyaanee; its completion is:

... It has become desolate, and long ages have passed over it.

[Edition footnote 2]

By Du'bal al-Khuzaa'ee; its completion is:

... When was its last covenant with fasting and the prayers?

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Or it may be by asking an unspecified addressee about the answer, as in the saying:

Have you not asked, so that the traces might tell you?

... [translation for this edition]

Just as greeting the encampments may be done by commanding an unspecified addressee to greet them, as in the saying:

Greet the dwellings beside al-'Udhayb

... [translation for this edition]

Or by praying that rain water them, as in the saying:

May a roaring, crashing cloud water their traces,

And may radiance and delight dawn upon them.

Or by asking lightning to water them, as in the saying:

O lightning, look upon a dwelling at al-Abraq,

And urge the clouds onward for it, as one drives she-camels.

Or grief at calamity may be expressed by calling for weeping, as in the saying:

Thus let the calamity be proclaimed and the affair be grievous;

The eye that has not shed its water has no excuse.

Or by magnifying the event, as in the saying:

Have you seen whom they carried upon the biers? [Edition footnote 1]

... [translation for this edition]

Or by registering the loss as a calamity upon the created world, as in the saying:

The places where grass grows—neither protector nor herdsman—

Death has taken away the man of the long spear and broad reach.

Or by reproaching inanimate things that have not grieved for him, as in the saying of al-Khaarijiyyah:

O trees of al-Khaaboor, what is wrong with you that you are verdant,

As though you had not grieved for Ibn Tareef?

Or by congratulating the chief on being relieved of the burden of his oppressive rule, as in the saying:

The spears have cast down Rabee'ah ibn Nazaar;

Death has carried off your bold chief.

There are many examples of this in all the forms and modes of speech. Constructions within it are arranged through sentences and non-sentences, performative and declarative, nominal and verbal, agreeing and non-agreeing, separated and …

… because they run upon the tongue until their form becomes firmly established. Through this, practice benefits from following their model and imitating them in every poetic construction, as we have explained concerning speech in general. Scientific rules of Arabic and rhetoric do not teach this in any way. Not everything that is valid according to the analogy of the Arabs' speech and its scientific rules was used by them. Rather, what they used consists of recognized modes, perceived by those who memorize their speech; their form falls under those analogical rules. When one studies the poetry of the Arabs in this manner, through these mental styles that become like molds, one is studying the constructions they actually used, not what analogy requires.

For this reason we said that what forms these molds in the mind is the memorization of the Arabs' poetry and speech. These molds occur in verse just as they occur in prose. The Arabs used their speech in both arts and brought it forth in distinct forms in each: in poetry, through metrical segments, restricted rhymes, and the independence of speech in each segment; and in prose, they generally observed balance and resemblance between segments, sometimes restricting it through saj' and sometimes allowing it to flow freely. Each of these is known in the Arabic tongue, and the form actually used by them is what the composer of speech builds his composition upon. It is known only by one who has memorized their speech, until a universal, unrestricted mold is abstracted in the mind from the particular personal molds, and he follows it in composition as a builder follows a mold and a weaver follows a pattern. This is why the art of composing speech is distinct from the study of the grammarian, the rhetorician, and the prosodist. Indeed, observing the rules of these sciences is a condition of it, and it cannot be complete without them. Once all these qualities have been attained in speech, it acquires a subtle kind of consideration in these molds called styles; only memorizing the Arabs' speech, in verse and prose, provides it.

Having established what style means, let us next state a definition or description of poetry, by which its reality may be understood despite the difficulty of this purpose; for, in what we have seen, we have not found one among the earlier authorities.

The prosodists' statement in defining it—that it is metrical, rhymed speech—is neither a definition nor a description of the poetry under discussion. Their craft considers poetry with regard to its grammatical inflection, rhetoric, meter, and particular molds. Their definition therefore cannot serve our purpose. We need a definition that gives us its reality from this angle. We say: poetry is eloquent speech founded upon metaphor and description, divided into parts agreeing in meter and rhyme, each part independent in its purpose and intention of what precedes and follows it, and proceeding according to the particular styles of the Arabs.

Our statement “eloquent speech” gives the genus. “Founded upon metaphor and description” distinguishes it from what lacks these, which is generally not poetry. “Divided into parts agreeing in meter and rhyme” distinguishes it from prose speech, which no one regards as poetry. “Each part independent in its purpose and intention of what precedes and follows it” explains the reality, since the verses of poetry can only be so; nothing else has been made part of the definition. “Proceeding according to the particular styles” distinguishes it from what does not proceed according to the known styles of the Arabs. In that case it is not poetry, but merely versified speech, for poetry has styles particular to it that prose does not possess, just as prose styles do not belong to poetry. Thus, speech that is versified but does not follow those styles is not poetry.

On this basis, many practitioners of the literary craft held that the verse of al-Mutanabbee and al-Ma'arree has nothing of poetry in it, because the two did not proceed according to the styles of the Arabs among

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the nations, according to those who hold that poetry exists among the Arabs and others. Those who hold that it exists only among the Arabs have no need of this qualification and say instead: “proceeding according to the particular styles.”

Having finished discussing the reality of poetry, let us return to how it is made. We say:

Know that the making of poetry and mastery of its craft have conditions.

The first is memorization of material belonging to its kind—that is, of the kind of poetry of the Arabs—so that a faculty may arise in the soul according to whose pattern one may weave. What is memorized should be selected from pure, vigorous poetry rich in styles. At the minimum, the selection may consist of the poetry of one of the outstanding Muslim poets, such as Ibn Abee Rabee'ah, Katheer, Dhoo al-Rummah, Jareer, Aboo Nuwaas, Habeeb, al-Buhturee [Edition footnote 1], al-Radhee, or Aboo Firaas. Most of it may be taken from the *Kitaab al-Aghaanee*, because it collected all the poetry of the Islamic generation and selected poetry from the pre-Islamic period. One who lacks a store of memorized poetry produces weak and poor verse; only abundant memorization gives it brilliance and sweetness. Whoever has memorized little, or nothing, has no poetry—only fallen versification. Avoiding poetry is preferable for one without a store of memorized material. After being filled with memorization and sharpening the poetic faculty to weave upon that pattern, one turns to versifying; by doing so abundantly, the faculty becomes firm and rooted.

It is sometimes said that one of its conditions is forgetting the memorized material, so that its outward verbal traces disappear, since those traces prevent one from using it exactly as it stands. Once it is forgotten, after the soul has been shaped by it, the style is impressed within it like a pattern, compelling the poet to weave upon it with similar words of his own. He must also seek solitude and choose a pleasant place in which to look upon water and flowers, and likewise pleasant sounds, so that the poetic faculty may be stirred by gathering and invigorating the pleasures of joy. Along with all this, he must be rested and energetic; this is more conducive to the faculty's producing something like the pattern held in memory.

They say that the best times for this are the early hours, upon waking from sleep, with an empty stomach and an active mind. These are times of rest.

They sometimes say that love and intoxication are among its provocations. Ibn Rasheeq mentioned this in his *al-'Umdah*, the book devoted exclusively to this craft and to giving it its due; no one before or after him wrote its equal on the subject. [Edition footnote 2]

They say that if, after all this, it proves difficult, he should leave it for another time and not force himself to it. He should construct the verse upon its rhyme from the first moment of composing and weaving part of it, and build the speech upon that rhyme to the end. If he neglects to construct the verse upon its rhyme, placing it in its proper position will be difficult; it may then come out discordant and uneasy. If inspiration offers a verse that does not suit what he has, he should leave it for the place more fitting to it, since each verse is independent in itself and only the correspondence remains to be arranged. In that matter he may choose as he wishes.

He should review his poetry after completing it, through revision and criticism, and should not be reluctant to abandon it if it has not reached excellence. A person is enamored of his poetry because it is the offspring of his thought and the invention of his poetic faculty. In it he should use only the most eloquent constructions and what is free of linguistic necessities; he should shun such necessities, for they lower speech from the rank of eloquence. He has forbidden

[Edition footnote 1]

Ibn Aws, Aboo Tammaam al-Taa'ee.

[Edition footnote 2]

He was introduced earlier, on p. 154.

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The masters of the tongue have prohibited colloquial usage and the adoption of linguistic necessity, since he can dispense with it by turning to the soundest mode of the faculty. He should also avoid complicated constructions as far as possible, seeking only those whose meanings race ahead of their words to understanding. He should likewise avoid an abundance of meanings in a single verse, for this creates a kind of difficulty for understanding. The preferred form is that whose words exactly fit its meanings, or exceed them. If the meanings are numerous, there is padding, and the mind is forced to dive after them; this prevents taste from fully grasping the eloquence. Poetry is easy only when its meanings race ahead of its words into the mind.

For this reason our shaykhs—may God have mercy on them—criticized the poetry of Aboo Ishaaq ibn Khafaajah, the poet of eastern al-Andalus, for the abundance and crowding of meanings in a single verse. They likewise criticized the poetry of al-Mutanabbee and al-Ma'arree for not weaving according to the Arabic styles, as mentioned above. Their poetry was therefore versified speech that fell below the rank of poetry; the judge in this matter is taste.

The poet should also avoid rare, obscure words and affected diction, as well as vulgar, commonplace expressions worn down by use. These too lower speech from the rank of eloquence, making it trite and close to being uninformative, and carrying it away from the rank of eloquence; they are two opposite extremes. This is why poetry on divine and prophetic subjects is generally of little excellence, and only the outstanding poets master it—and even then, only a small proportion, about one in ten. Its meanings are familiar among the public and thus become commonplace.

If poetry proves impossible after all this, let the poet exercise himself in it and return to it repeatedly, for the poetic faculty is like a teat: it gives milk when kneaded and dries up when abandoned and neglected. [Edition footnote 1]

In sum, this craft and its study are treated fully in Ibn Rasheeq's *al-'Umdah*. We have mentioned what our effort enabled us to recall. Whoever wishes to cover the subject fully should consult that book; in it lies what is sought. This brief account is sufficient. God is the helper. [Edition footnote 2]

[Edition footnote 1]

In the margin of the original: “Maraa al-naaqah yaamrihaa: he rubbed her udder. Amrat hiya: her milk flowed; she is al-miryah, with dhammah or kasrah; maraa al-shay': he extracted it, as in imtiraa'.” *al-Qaamoos*.

[Edition footnote 2]

End of Ibn Khaldoon's statement.

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Treatise: That the craft of verse and prose concerns words, not meanings [Edition footnote 1]

Know that the craft of speech, in verse and prose, concerns words, not meanings. Meanings merely follow them and are their foundation. The craftsman who seeks the faculty of speech in verse and prose seeks it through words: by memorizing their counterparts in the Arabs' speech, so that their use and circulation upon his tongue may become abundant, until he acquires the faculty in the tongue of Mudhar and frees himself from the foreignness in which he was raised among his own generation. He must make himself like a child growing up among the Arabs, taught their language as a child is taught, until he becomes as one of them in their tongue.

This is because, as we explained earlier, the tongue has a faculty among the faculties of speech, and one seeks to acquire it by repeatedly exercising it upon the tongue until it is attained. What belongs to the tongue and speech is words; meanings, by contrast, reside in the mind. Meanings are also present with everyone, and every thought brings forth from them whatever it wishes and approves. They therefore need no craft. Composing speech to express them is what needs craft, as we have said, and speech is like a mold for meanings.

[Edition footnote 1]

See the chapter in Ibn Khaldoon's *Muqaddimah*, pp. 1422–1423.

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Just as the vessels with which water is drawn from the sea include vessels of gold, silver, shell, glass, and earthenware, while the water is one in itself and the quality of the vessels filled with it differs according to their material, not according to the water, so the quality and eloquence of language in use differ according to the levels of speech in its composition and its application to purposes. The meanings are one in themselves. The ignorant person who attempts to express his purpose without knowing how to compose speech and its styles according to the demand of the linguistic faculty is like a cripple who wishes to stand but cannot, because he lacks the power to do so. God teaches you what you did not know. [Edition footnote 1]

[Edition footnote 1]

End of Ibn Khaldoon's statement.

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Treatise: That this faculty is acquired through abundant memorization, and its excellence through the excellence of what is memorized [Edition footnote 1]

We have already explained that abundant memorization is necessary for one who seeks to learn the Arabic tongue. The excellence, level, and quantity of what is memorized, in its particular kind, determine the excellence of the faculty acquired by the one who memorizes. Whoever's store consists of the poetry of Habeeb [Edition footnote 2], al-'Attaabee, Ibn al-Mu'tazz, Ibn Haani', al-Shareef al-Radhee, or the letters of Ibn al-Muqaffa', Sahl ibn Haaroon, Ibn al-Zayyaat, al-Badee' [Edition footnote 3], or al-Saabi' will have a faculty more excellent and higher in rank and eloquence than one who memorizes the poetry of Ibn Sahl [Edition footnote 4] among the later poets, Ibn al-Nabeeh, the prose correspondence of al-Baysaanee [Edition footnote 5], or al-'Imaad al-Isfahaanee, because the rank of the latter is lower than that of the former. This is apparent to the discerning critic possessed of taste. The quality of later usage follows the quality of what was memorized or heard, and the excellence of the faculty follows both.

As the memorized material rises in rank among the forms of speech, the faculty acquired rises with it, because natural disposition weaves only according to its pattern, and the powers of the faculty grow by being nourished. Although the soul is one in kind by its constitution, people differ in the strength and weakness of their perceptions. Their difference arises from the difference in what reaches them of perceptions, faculties, and colors that shape them from outside. Through these, its existence is completed and its form passes from potentiality to actuality. The faculties acquired by the soul are acquired gradually, as we have explained.

The poetic faculty arises through memorizing poetry; the faculty of writing through memorizing saj' and free-flowing composition; the scholarly faculty through mixing with the sciences, perceptions, investigations, and reflections; the juristic faculty through mixing with jurisprudence, theorizing questions, branching them, and deriving subsidiary cases from principles; and the spiritual Sufi faculty through acts of worship and invocations, and through suspending the external senses in retreat and separation from creation as far as possible, until one acquires the faculty of returning to the inner sense and spirit and becomes spiritual. The same applies to the rest. In each of these the soul acquires a particular coloration by which it is shaped. According to the excellence or deficiency upon which the faculty was formed, the faculty itself will be excellent or deficient. A high eloquence faculty in its kind is acquired only by memorizing speech high in its rank. This is why

[Edition footnote 1]

See the chapter in Ibn Khaldoon's *Muqaddimah*, p. 1423.

[Edition footnote 2]

Aboo Tammaam.

[Edition footnote 3]

Badee' al-Zamaan al-Hamadhaanee.

[Edition footnote 4]

Ibraaheem ibn Sahl, the poet who died in 649 AH.

[Edition footnote 5]

That is, al-Qaadhee al-Faadhil.

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the jurists and scholars are all deficient in eloquence. This is only because what reaches their memorized store, and fills it, consists of scientific rules and juristic expressions outside the style of eloquence and below its rank. Expressions for rules and sciences have no concern with eloquence. When that memorized material reaches the mind first, becomes abundant, and colors the soul, the faculty arising from it becomes extremely deficient, and its expression departs from the Arabs' styles of speech.

The same is found in the poetry of jurists, grammarians, theologians, speculative thinkers, and others who have not been filled with pure, unadulterated Arabic speech. Our excellent companion Aboo al-Qaasim ibn Ridhwaan, secretary of the chief secretary in the Marinid state, told me: “One day I was discussing matters with our companion Aboo al-'Abbaas ibn Shu'ayb, secretary to the sultan Aboo al-Hasan, who in his time was foremost in knowledge of the tongue. I recited to him the opening of a poem by Ibn al-Nahwee without attributing it to him. It was:

When I stood by the deserted encampments, I did not know

What distinction there was between their new traces and the worn.

He said to me spontaneously: 'This is the poetry of a jurist.' I asked: 'How do you know that?' He replied: 'From the words “what distinction,” for they belong to the expressions of jurists and not to the styles of the Arabs' speech.' I said: 'May your father be honored—it is Ibn al-Nahwee.'”

As for writers and poets, they are not like that, because they select what they memorize, mix with the Arabs' speech and their styles of free composition, and choose the good from among it.

One day I discussed this with our companion Aboo 'Abd Allaah ibn al-Khateeb, minister of the kings of al-Andalus from the Banoo al-Ahmar. He was foremost in poetry and writing. I said to him: “I find versifying difficult whenever I attempt it, despite my knowledge of it and my memorization of good speech from the Qur'an, hadeeth, and various forms of the Arabs' speech—even though my memorization is limited. What has afflicted me, God knows best, is what entered my memorized store of scientific poems and compositional rules. I memorized al-Shaatibee's greater and lesser poems on Qur'anic readings, studied Ibn al-Haajib's two books on jurisprudence and legal theory, al-Khoonajee's *Jumal* on logic, part of *al-Tasheel*, and many instructional rules in study circles. My memorized store became filled with these things, and they marred the face of the faculty for which I had prepared myself through the excellent memorization of the Qur'an, hadeeth, and Arabs' speech. Thus they prevented the poetic faculty from reaching its goal.”

He looked at me for a while in admiration, then said: “May God bless you! Who could say this but someone like you?”

This treatise and what has been established in it also reveal another secret: why the speech of the Muslim Arabs is of a higher rank in eloquence and its tastes than the speech of the pre-Islamic period, in both prose and verse.

We find the poetry of Hassaan ibn Thaabit, 'Umar ibn Abee Rabee'ah, al-Hutay'ah, Jareer, al-Farazdaq, Nusayb, Ghaylaan Dhoo al-Rummah, al-Ahwas, and Bashshaar, and then the speech of the early Arabs under the Umayyad state and the beginning of the Abbasid state—in sermons, letters, and their conversations with kings—to be higher in eloquence than the poetry of al-Naabighah, 'Antarah, Ibn Kulthoom, Zuhayr, 'Alqamah ibn 'Abadah, Tarafah ibn al-'Abd, and the pre-Islamic speech in their prose and conversations. Sound natural disposition and correct taste testify to this for the critic who understands eloquence. The reason is that those who encountered Islam heard the highest rank of speech in the Qur'an and hadeeth—speech whose like human beings were unable to produce—and it entered their hearts.

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Their souls were formed according to its styles, so their natural dispositions rose and their faculties in eloquence advanced beyond the faculties of their pre-Islamic predecessors, who had not heard this rank of speech and had not been raised upon it. Their prose and verse were therefore more beautifully composed, clearer in brilliance, firmer in structure, and more finely proportioned, through what they had acquired from speech of the highest rank. Reflect on this, and your own taste will attest to it if you possess taste and insight into eloquence.

One day I asked our shaykh, the shareef Aboo al-Qaasim, the judge of Granada in our time. He was the shaykh of this craft, having studied at Ceuta with a group of its shaykhs, students of al-Shaloobeen; he had gone deeply into the science of the tongue and surpassed its utmost limits. I asked him: “Why are the Muslim Arabs higher in eloquence than the pre-Islamic Arabs?” He did not find this objectionable to his taste. He remained silent for a long time, then said: “By God, I do not know.” I said: “Let me present to you something that has become clear to me concerning it, and perhaps it is the reason.” I then related to him what I have written here. He remained silent in admiration, then said: “Jurist, this is speech that deserves to be written in gold.” Thereafter he favored my place, listened to my words in teaching assemblies, and testified to my distinction in the sciences. God created the human being and taught him eloquent expression. [Edition footnote 1]

[Edition footnote 1]

End of Ibn Khaldoon's statement, p. 1426.

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Treatise: On people of rank refraining from taking up poetry [Edition footnote 1]

Know that poetry was the register of the Arabs, containing their sciences, reports, and wisdoms. Their leaders competed in it. They would stand at the market of 'Ukaadh to recite it and present each one's brocade to the masters of the craft and those with insight, so that his skill might be distinguished. [Edition footnote 2] They eventually competed in hanging their poems on the walls of the Sacred House, the place of their pilgrimage and the House of Abraham, as did Imru' al-Qays ibn Hujr, al-Naabighah al-Dhubyaanee, Zuhayr ibn Abee Sulmaa, 'Antarah ibn Shaddaad, Tarafah ibn al-'Abd, 'Alqamah ibn 'Abadah, al-A'shaa, and the other authors of the seven suspended poems. Access to hanging poetry there was granted only to one who had the power to do so through his people, group solidarity, and position among the Mudhar, according to what has been said concerning the reason they were called the Suspended Odes.

At the beginning of Islam, the Arabs turned away from this because they were occupied with religion, prophethood, and revelation, and were astonished by the style and composition of the Qur'an. They fell silent concerning it and refrained for a time from engaging in verse and prose. Then the matter settled, sound judgment was recognized in the religious community, and no revelation came prohibiting or forbidding poetry. The Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—heard it and rewarded it. They then returned to their customary practice. 'Umar ibn Abee Rabee'ah, the leading Qurayshee of that age, held a high station and rank in it. He often presented his poetry to Ibn 'Abbaas, who would stop to listen to it in admiration.

After that came kingship and a powerful state. The Arabs sought proximity to their rulers through poems in which they praised them, and the caliphs rewarded them with the greatest gifts according to the quality of their poetry and their standing among their people. The rulers eagerly sought their poetry, learning from it reports, histories, language, and the nobility of

[Edition footnote 1]

See the chapter in Ibn Khaldoon's *Muqaddimah*, pp. 1432–1434.

[Edition footnote 2]

In the margin of the original: “Al-hawl: skill, excellence of perception, and ability to act freely.” *Qaamoos*.

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the tongue. The Arabs required their children to memorize it. This continued during the Umayyad period and the beginning of the Abbasid state. Consider what the author of *al-'Iqd* related about al-Rasheed's conversation with al-Asma'ee in the chapter on poetry and poets; you will find there al-Rasheed's knowledge, deep grounding, and concern with composing poetry, his discernment of good and bad speech, and the abundance of his memorized material.

After them came successors whose tongue was not their own, because of foreignness and its weakening of the tongue. They learned poetry merely as a craft, then praised foreign rulers—whose language it was not—in order to seek their favor and nothing else, as did Habeeb, al-Buhturee, al-Mutanabbee, Ibn Haani', and those who came after them … and so on. The purpose of poetry thus became, for the most part, lying and begging, because the benefits it had held for the earlier generations had disappeared, as we mentioned above. For this reason people of aspiration and rank among the later generations disdained it, and circumstances changed: taking it up became a blemish upon leadership and a disgrace for those holding high offices. God turns night and day. [Edition footnote 1]

[Edition footnote 1]

End of Ibn Khaldoon's statement.

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Treatise [Edition footnote 1]: On the poetry of the Arabs and the urban populations in this age

Know that poetry is not confined to the Arabic tongue; it exists in every language, whether Arabic or foreign. The Persians had poets, and so did the Greeks. Aristotle mentioned the poet Homer in his book on logic and praised him. The Himyarites likewise had poets in earlier times.

When the tongue of Mudhar and its language became corrupt, its measures and rules of grammatical inflection were recorded. Languages then became corrupt according to what foreignness mixed and blended with them. The generation of the Arabs themselves acquired a language that differed from the language of their Mudhar predecessors in grammatical inflection as a whole, in many linguistic usages, and in the formation of words. The settled people of the cities likewise developed another language that differed from the tongue of Mudhar in grammatical inflection and in most usages and morphological patterns. It also differed from the language of the Arab generation of this age, and differed internally according to the conventions of the people of each region.

The people and cities of the East therefore had a language unlike that of the people and cities of the West; both also differed from the language of the people and cities of al-Andalus.

Since poetry exists naturally among the people of every tongue—the meters correspond in the number of moving and still letters, and their mutual opposition exists in human nature—poetry was not abandoned merely because one language, the language of Mudhar, whose champions and knights of the field were celebrated, had been lost. Rather, every generation and every linguistic community, including Arabized foreigners and the settled inhabitants of the cities, practiced whatever poetry was accessible to them, composing it and describing its structure according to the path of their own speech.

As for the Arabs of this generation, whose tongue has become foreign to the language of their Mudhar predecessors, they compose poetry in all the meters used by those predecessors, the Arabized Arabs. They produce long poems containing poetry's modes and purposes—naseeb, praise, elegy, and satire—and move in speech from one art to another.

[Edition footnote 1]

Ibn Khaldoon included this section in his *Muqaddimah*, p. 1434, under the heading “A section on the poetry of the Arabs and the urban populations in this age.”

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They may sometimes leap directly to the purpose at the beginning of their speech. They often begin their poems with the poet's name and then launch into the naseeb. The Arabs of the cities of the Maghrib call these poems “al-Asma'iyyaat,” after al-Asma'ee, the Arabs' transmitter of their poetry. The Arabs of the East call this type of poetry “Bedouin.” They may set it to simple melodies, not according to the musical craft, and then sing it; they call this singing hawraanee, after Hawraan on the borders of Iraq and Syria, one of the dwellings of the nomadic Arabs and their settlements to this day.

They have another widely circulated poetic form, in which they arrange the poem in four parts, the last differing from the other three in its rhyme, while observing the fourth rhyme in every verse through the end of the poem. It resembles the quatrain and quintain later introduced by the Arabicized poets. These Arabs possess surpassing eloquence in this poetry, and among them are outstanding masters as well as later poets.

Many of those who have taken up the sciences in this age—especially the science of the tongue—reject these forms when they hear them and disdain their verse when it is recited. They believe that their own taste recoils from it because it is ugly and lacks grammatical inflection. They have suffered this only because they lack a faculty in its language. If they possessed one of its faculties, their natural disposition and taste would testify to its eloquence, provided their innate nature and judgment were free of defects. Grammatical inflection has no role in eloquence. Eloquence is the conformity of speech to its purpose and to the demand of the situation, whether the nominative indicates the agent and the accusative the object, or the reverse. The indications are supplied by the contextual clues, as in this language of theirs. Signification follows the convention established by the people who possess the faculty: when a convention is known and widespread within a faculty, signification is sound; when that signification conforms to the purpose and demand of the situation, eloquence is sound. The grammarians' rules have no bearing on this. The styles and arts of poetry exist in their poetry, apart from the grammatical vowels at the ends of words; most of their words have a quiescent ending. They distinguish the agent from the object and the subject from the predicate through contextual clues, not grammatical inflection. [Edition footnote 1]

As for the people of al-Andalus, when poetry became abundant in their region, its modes and arts were refined, and its ornamentation reached the utmost degree, their later poets developed a form called the muwashshah. They arrange it in strands and branches, multiplying these and their varied meters. They call the plurality of them one verse, and observe the rhymes and meters of the branches successively through the end of the piece. Their pieces most often end at seven verses, and each verse contains a number of branches according to its purposes and modes.

They employ naseeb and praise in it as they do in the qaseedah. They competed in it to the utmost, and both the elite and the common people found it delightful because it was easy to grasp and close at hand. Its inventor in al-Andalus was Muqaddam ibn Mu'aafaa al-Qabree, one of the poets of the amir 'Abd Allaah ibn Muhammad al-Marwaanee. Aboo 'Abd Allaah Ahmad ibn 'Abd Rabbih, author of *al-'Iqd*, learned it from him. Neither was remembered among the later poets, and their muwashshahaat fell out of circulation. The first to excel in this art was 'Ubaadah al-Qazzaaz, poet of al-Mu'tasim ibn Sammaadih, lord of Almería.

[Edition footnote 1]

End of this statement, p. 1437.

[Edition footnote 2]

This appears in Ibn Khaldoon's *Muqaddimah*, p. 1447, under the heading “The muwashshahaat and zajal of al-Andalus.”

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Al-A'lam al-Batalyawsee stated that he heard Aboo Bakr ibn Zuhr say: “All the composers of muwashshahaat depend upon 'Ubaadah al-Qazzaaz.” They said that no composer of muwashshahaat among his contemporaries in the age of the party kingdoms preceded him. Among those who came immediately after him was Ibn Arfa' Ra's, poet of al-Ma'moon ibn Dhoo al-Noon, lord of Toledo. Then came the champions of the period of the Almoravids, whose brilliant works appeared. The foremost of their field was al-A'maa al-Tuteelee, followed by Yahyaa ibn Baqee.

More than one shaykh reported that the people of this art in al-Andalus say that a group of muwashshah composers gathered in a Seville assembly. Each had prepared and refined a muwashshah. al-A'maa al-Tuteelee came forward to recite. When he began his famous muwashshah:

Smiling, with pearls revealed,

Unveiled, like a full moon;

The age was too narrow for him,

And my breast contained him.

Ibn Baqee tore up his muwashshah, and the others followed him. al-A'lam al-Batalyawsee said that he heard Ibn Zuhr say: “I have never envied a muwashshah composer for a line except Ibn Baqee, when he produced:

Do you not see Ahmad,

Whom none can reach in his lofty glory?

The West has brought him forth;

Show us his like, O East.”

Among the naturally gifted composers of muwashshahaat in their time was Aboo Bakr al-Abyadh. In their age there was also the philosopher Aboo Bakr ibn Baajjah, author of the well-known melodies. After them, at the beginning of the Almohad state, became prominent Muhammad ibn Abee al-Fadhl ibn Sharaf and Aboo Ishaaq al-Duwaynee. Ibn Sa'eed said that the foremost of the generation who encountered them was Aboo Bakr ibn Zuhr; his muwashshahaat spread east and west. After him Ibn Habboon became famous, and with them in Granada the poet al-Mahri ibn al-Ghars. Later came Ibn Hazmoon in Murcia, Aboo al-Hasan Sahl ibn Maalik in Granada, Aboo al-Hasan ibn al-Fadhl in Seville, and Ibn Khalaf al-Jazaa'iree among the people of the opposite shore. Among the finest later muwashshahaat is one by Ibn Sahl, poet of Seville and Ceuta.

Among the easterners, affectation is evident in what they attempted of muwashshahaat. One of the best examples among them is the muwashshah of Ibn Sanaa' al-Mulk al-Misree, famous in East and West.

When the art of composing muwashshahaat spread among the people of al-Andalus, and the public adopted it because of the smoothness of its ornamented speech and the inlaying of its parts, the common people of the cities wove according to its pattern. They composed in their urban language without observing grammatical inflection and developed an art they called zajal. They continued to versify in it according to their own modes until this age, producing marvels and giving eloquence broad scope within their Arabized language.

The first to excel in this zajal method was Aboo Bakr ibn Quzmaan. Although it had been recited in al-Andalus before him, its beauty had not appeared, its meanings had not been cast into a finished form, and its elegance had not become famous until his time. He lived under the Almoravids and was the undisputed master of zajal. Ibn Sa'eed said: “I have seen his zajals recited in Baghdad more often than I have seen them in the cities of the Maghrib.” He also said: “I heard Aboo al-Hasan ibn Jahdar al-Ishbeelee, the master of zajal in our time, say: 'No master of this art has produced anything like what Ibn Quzmaan, the shaykh of the craft, produced.'”

Although Ibn Quzmaan lived in Córdoba, he often went to Seville and spent the night beside its river. In his time there was also in eastern al-Andalus Muhallif al-Aswad, who had fine examples of zajal.

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After them came another field whose champion was Madghees, to whom remarkable achievements in this method are attributed. After these, in Seville, appeared Ibn Jahdar, who surpassed the zajal poets with his zajal on the conquest of Majorca. Ibn Sa'eed said: “I met him and his pupil al-Ma'ma', author of the celebrated zajal.” After them came Aboo al-Hasan Sahl ibn Maalik, the master of belles-lettres. In later ages came our companion, the vizier Aboo 'Abd Allaah ibn al-Khateeb, indisputably the master of verse and prose in the Islamic community. In his age in al-Andalus there was also Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-'Adheem of Waadee Aash, a master of this method.

The zajal method in this age is the popular poetic art of al-Andalus. Their poetry is composed in it, and they even compose in all fifteen meters, but in their colloquial language; they call it zajal poetry. Among those who excelled in this method was the man of letters Aboo 'Abd Allaah al-Aaloosee.

The people of the Maghrib's cities then developed another poetic form in paired meters, like the muwashshah, composing it in their urban language as well. They called it the “meter of the city.” The first to develop it among them was an Andalusian who settled in Fez, known as Ibn 'Umayr. He composed a piece in the manner of the muwashshah without departing from the rules of grammatical inflection. The people of Fez admired it and became devoted to it; they composed according to his method, then abandoned the grammatical inflection that was not part of their usage. It became widely heard among them, and many excelled in it. They diversified it into types called the muzdawij, kaaree, mal'abah, and ghazal. Their names differed according to their pairing and the features they observed in them. Among them were Shaykh 'Alee ibn al-Mu'adhdhin Salmaan and, at Barzakhoon near Meknes, a man known as al-Kafeef, who excelled in the modes of this art and produced every kind of inventive marvel. The people of Tunis also developed a mal'abah in their urban language, though most of it is poor.

Some of it is single, and some consists of two verses, which they call a dubayt, according to the variations recognized among them in each form. Most of it is made of four paired branches. The people of Cairo followed them in this, producing marvels and ranging widely through the styles of eloquence demanded by their urban language; they brought forth wonders.

Know that all tastes in recognizing eloquence are acquired by one who mixes with that language, uses it abundantly, and addresses people among its generations until he acquires its faculty, as we said concerning the Arabic language. Thus the Andalusian does not perceive the eloquence in the poetry of the Maghrib, nor the Maghribee the eloquence in the poetry of al-Andalus and the East, nor the Easterner the eloquence in the poetry of al-Andalus and the Maghrib, because the urban tongue and its constructions differ among them. Each perceives the eloquence of his own language and tastes the beauties of poetry among his own people. [Edition footnote 1] {وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ خَلْقُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلافُ أَلْسِنَتِكُمْ وَأَلْوَانِكُمْ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآياتٍ لِلْعَالَمِينَ} [Qur'an quotation—review against locked authority].

[Edition footnote 1]

This is the last passage the author transmitted from Ibn Khaldoon's *Muqaddimah*; see p. 1475. A note in the margin of the original reads: “Here ends what the learned author transmitted from the book *The Book of Examples and the Register of Beginnings and Reports*, without omission or deletion of a treatise, as is known.” —Mumtaaz al-Dawlah Meer 'Abd al-Hayy.

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Treatise: On the radeef, the mustazaad, and the muzdawijah

The learned Sayyid Ghulaam 'Alee Aazaad [Edition footnote 1]—may God Most High have mercy on him—said: The radeef is an independent word or more that is repeated after the rawee. Poetry containing it is called muraddaf, from tardeef. It increases poetry's beauty and places anklets on the daughters of thought. Through it Persian poetry is diversified into kinds without number and divisions without end.

There is no radeef in Arabic poetry. If someone forces a radeef into it, its brilliance does not appear as it does in Persian poetry. In Persian it is the bride's adornment; in Arabic it is the peacock's leg. Its basis is nothing but the particularity of the language. Whoever knows both languages sees that the radeef is natural in Persian and unnatural in Arabic. In Persian it comes freely, without strain; indeed, their ghazal does not sound good without a radeef or a connection to the rawee. In Arabic it comes with strain, since one must devise a radeef whose meaning is sound in every verse of the poem. Sometimes the radeef prevents the mind from reaching elevated meanings, whereas in Persian it prompts the mind toward elevated meanings and guides it to precious jewels.

As we have already said, the reason is only the particularity of the language. For this reason I have found no muraddaf poetry in the speech of the genuine Arabs, while I have found it among foreigners as an exceptional matter. Thus al-Zamakhsharee composed a muraddaf poem in praise of 'Alaa' al-Dawlah, governor of Khwarazm, beginning:

Virtue has been attained by 'Alaa' al-Dawlah;

Glory has been founded by 'Alaa' al-Dawlah.

Likewise Shaykh 'Abd al-'Azeez al-Lanbaanee composed a muraddaf poem beginning:

Good tidings, O you through whom the feast rejoices,

Through whom every dead person is revived—the feast.

The repeated verse in Soorat al-Rahmaan of the Noble Qur'an—{فَبِأَيِّ آلاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ} [Qur'an quotation—review against locked authority]—has something of the fragrance of a radeef.

It is clear that repetition is a form of variation in speech and a manifestation of the fluency of tongues and pens. I have seen a benefit in the radeef: when the rhyme letters whose rhymes are few—such as thaa', khaa', dhaal, zaay, dhaad, taa', dhaa', ghayn, and kaaf—occur as rawee, a person is forced to bring in obscure languages and unfamiliar words. Through the radeef he escapes this necessity, and the narrow confines of rhyme become broad.

A rawee with tanween but no prolongation, and a vowelled rawee without a connection, occur only in muraddaf poetry, because the rawee falls in the middle of speech. In muraddaf poetry it is intermediate in one respect, since the radeef follows it and the prolongation is transferred from the rawee to the letter at the end of the radeef; in another respect, because the rhyme depends upon it, it is prolonged. A rawee with tanween without prolongation occurs as in my saying:

The gazelle of al-Abraq is a slayer, by God;

Indeed, the lover is heedless, by God.

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The prolonged rawee occurs as in my saying:

The beloved's harshness at Minaa is acceptable;

Here the enamored one's sacrifice is acceptable.

The vowelled rawee without connection occurs as in my saying:

The measure of hearts shines through purity;

The price of jewels shines through clarity.

Know that the mustazaad is an invention of the foreigners, later adopted by the Arabs. It is metrical speech in which, after each hemistich of the verse, two segments are added from the meter of the mustazaad, on condition that they fit together; or after each verse, except the internally rhymed verse, in which two segments are also added after the first hemistich. Its rhyme and division are observed. The first form is more suitable to the dubayt, and the second more suitable to the qaseedah.

The discerning person will not fail to see that the fixing of the rhyme through the addition of the mustazaad is rarely found in anything else. The addition is like a pearl on the ankle of a graceful woman. Indeed, “for those who do good is the best and more” [Qur'an quotation—review against locked authority]. It brings forth delicate meanings and draws down elevated imaginings, unlike the radeef, which drives away meanings and kills the fair ones.

The sound poetic faculty recognizes the fit between the addition and the mustazaad to which it is added. The fit does not occur in every prosodic meter, but in several Persian meters; in Arabic it occurs in only three meters.

The first is al-Mutaqaarib. Its addition is either *fa'oolun fa'ool*, sound or shortened; *fa'oolun fa'il*, sound or truncated; *fa'ool fa'ool*, both shortened; or *fa'ool fa'il*, shortened and truncated.

The second is Rakdh al-Khayl. Its addition is either *fa'ilun fa'ilun*, with the 'ayn vowelled in both, with both quiescent, or with one vowelled and the other quiescent. Both meters belong to the fifth circle of prosody.

The third is the dubayt, which was originally among the inventions of the foreigners. They extracted it from the nahranj meter, not from the kaamil meter, as some have claimed. Among the Persians, the nahranj consists of eight *mafaa'eelun*; the dubayt is composed from it and from some of its branches after the metrical alterations.

Hasan al-Qattaan, from Khurasan, devised two diagrams to regulate its meters. One is the diagram of al-akhrab, comprising twenty-four meters. It is so called because its first foot is *maf'ool*, derived from *mafaa'ilun* by kharb, namely, removing the meem and noon from *mafaa'eelun*. The other is the diagram of al-akhram, also comprising twenty-four meters. It is so called because its first foot is *maf'oolun*, derived from *mafaa'eelun* by kharm, namely, removing only the meem from *mafaa'eelun*. Some of these feet may be combined with others in a single dubayt without impairing the meter. Some have multiplied the meters by combining them with one another and have brought their number to ten thousand.

The addition in the mustazaad of the dubayt is of two kinds. The first has *akhrab* as the first of its two feet—*maf'ool*, as derived from *mafaa'eelun* above—and the second is either *fa'ool*, making the two feet *maf'ool fa'ool*, or *fa'il*, making them *maf'ool fa'il*. The second has *akhram* as the first of its two feet—*maf'oolun*, as explained above—and the second is either *faa'*, making the two feet *maf'oolun faa'*, or *fa'*, making them *maf'oolun fa'*. The metrical alterations that occur in *mafaa'eelun* and produce the feet of the two kinds of addition are discussed in Persian prosody manuals in their treatment of the quatrain. These feet may be combined in the additions just as they may be combined in the original verses.

* * *

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* * *

The author of *Manaadhir al-Inshaa'* [Edition footnote 1] defined the mustazaad as the addition, after each hemistich, of a prose passage; the author of *Subhat al-Marjaan* [Edition footnote 2] followed him. Then it occurred to me: verse and prose are opposites, so how can they properly be joined? I therefore extracted a meter for the addition and defined the mustazaad by the definition given above.

The mustazaad has several rules. A word may not be divided between the hemistichs and the additions at any point. Each hemistich and each addition must end with a complete word, not part of one, because the original hemistich and the addition are each a separate unit, joined only in meaning.

In the first kind there are four sections, and in the second kind three sections. Another rule is that in the 'aroodh and the second foot of its addition in the dubayt meter, *fa'ool* may occur, just as it may in the mustazaad and non-mustazaad forms of al-Mutaqaarib. By the same analogy, *faa'* may occur without making its final letter part of the second hemistich, as sometimes happens outside the mustazaad. This point is also understood from the first rule, but I have stated it for greater clarification. Another rule is that the hamzat al-wasl may be pronounced as hamzat al-qat' at the beginning of the additions and at the beginning of the second hemistich, without difficulty, since each is an independent section. Because the mustazaad was invented by Persian poets, Arab poets must follow the rules established by Persian poets. It is best to attribute the poem to two rawees: the rhyme of the original hemistich and the rhyme of the addition. Thus, for example, the first poem of the ghazals in this deevaan is called the alif-bearing hamziyyah, while the arrangement of the deevaan according to the order of the letters of the alphabet is based on the rhyme of the addition.

Arab poets composed extensively in the dubayt meter because of its sweetness and ease, but none of them composed a qaseedah in this meter, let alone a mustazaad in it. I saw in the deevaan of Shaykh Safee al-Deen al-Hillee a muwashshah in the dubayt meter containing an addition, but it was another kind of poetry, not according to the method I had chosen. There is no doubt that the mustazaad is difficult because it requires attention to two rhymes and endurance of two calamities. I therefore brought al-Kumayt into the arena of the dubayt, composed mustazaad qaseedahs in it, and laid a new foundation according to the right path.

As for the mustazaad in al-Mutaqaarib and Rakdh al-Khayl, I extracted it myself; no mind before mine had reached it. It is the first structure I established in Arabic. Persian poets then gradually composed mustazaads in the dubayt and other meters, but none of them arranged a deevaan devoted to it. My deevaan is therefore the first deevaan arranged around the mustazaad, and the first prey caught in the hunter's snare. End of his words.

He said—may God have mercy on him—at the beginning of his book *Madhhar al-Barakaat*: The muzdawijah, among the kinds of metrical composition, properly belongs to the Persian language. In Persian it is natural and comes freely, without strain; Persian poets devised it for composing stories and reports and called it the *mathnawee*. In Arabic it is unnatural and comes only with effort, just as the qaseedah is unnatural in the Indian language and does not properly exist in it. Whoever has complete knowledge of these languages recognizes these ranks. For this reason, only a few Arab poets composed muzdawijahs. Among them was Shaykh Aboo Ya'laa Muhammad ibn al-Habbaariyah al-'Abbaasee, who composed *al-Saadih wa-al-Baaghim* in al-Rajaz, beginning:

Praise belongs to God, who bestowed on me

The two smaller ones: the heart and the tongue.

The excellence and glory of the human being

Lie in intellect and lucid exposition.

Among them was Shaykh Bahaa' al-Deen al-'Aamilee, who composed a muzdawijah in al-Waafir called *Riyaadh al-Arwaah*, including:

O you who venture into the sea of aspirations,

May God guide you away from this delay.

He also composed another muzdawijah in al-Ramal called *Sawaanih Safar al-Hijaaz*, including:

O my drinking companion, my life has been wasted and passed;

Rise and recover the time that has gone.

I have not seen an Arab poet compose a muzdawijah in al-Khafeef, while Persian poets have composed many in it. It is also more suitable to the muzdawijah in Arabic. I therefore conceived the idea of composing an Arabic muzdawijah in al-Khafeef, composed this muzdawijah, and called it *Madhhar al-Barakaat*.

Persian poets also have the radeef. I composed a deevaan with a radeef whose rawee follows the alphabetical order, to test natural talent and examine poetic ability. I found that the radeef in the Arabic muzdawijah is natural and pleasing to the ear, unlike the Arabic qaseedah. Indeed, in the muzdawijah the radeef may help natural talent to convey its purposes and release it from the narrow confines of rhyme; this shows that it is one of the muzdawijah's distinctive properties.

Persian poets also have the haajib, which is the radeef between the two rhymes; poetry containing it is called mahjoob. I found that the haajib too is natural in the Arabic muzdawijah and is accepted by natural taste without coercion.

Know that Persian and Indian poets customarily choose names for themselves and mention them at the ends of their compositions, so that the composer may be known by them. Persian poets call this name takhallus. The reason is that a poet's original name may not fit the meters, so they choose a shortened name that fits the meter.

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Treatise: On the classes of poets

Know that the eloquent have the following superior classes:

1—The earliest pre-Islamic poets.

2—Then the mukhadhramoon [Edition footnote 1].

3—Then the Islamic poets.

4—Then the poets of the formative period.

[Edition footnote 1]

In the margin of the original: “Mukhadhram, with the raa' vowelled, means one who was not circumcised; one who spent half his life in the pre-Islamic period and half in Islam; one who lived through both periods; or a poet who lived through both, such as Labeed; and one whose father was black and whose mother was white. So it appears in the *Qaamoos*. It has other meanings as well.” —Sayyid Dhoo al-Ghifaar Ahmad Taqwee Bhopaalee, may God Most High preserve him.

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5—Then the modern poets.

6—And the contemporaries.

These six classes include three who won the prize in the arena of competition. Knowledge of their speech is a communal obligation in Islam, because it is used to establish the Arabic speech from which the rulings of the lawful and unlawful are derived. Some have appended the later classes as well, insofar as they establish the subtleties of meanings, though not the firmly constructed wording.

Whoever studies this subject thoroughly still cannot be entirely confident about it, for poetry contains subtleties whose veil has not been lifted. Among them is this: the scholars of meanings have said that semantic and verbal complexity contradict eloquence. One later scholar therefore said that all words are ineloquent because they contain semantic complexity. This is not so, for Aboo Hilaal al-'Askaree [Edition footnote 1] said in *Kitaab al-Sinaa'atayn* that they are eloquent, and that complexity is objectionable only when it is unintended; when intended, it is eloquent.

This is supported by al-Isnawee [Edition footnote 2], who said in *Tiraaz al-Mahaafil* that it is a sunnah to pose riddles to those in one's gathering in order to sharpen minds, based on al-Bukhaaree's report from Ibn 'Umar concerning the palm tree. Aboo Hilaal said: A related, fine type is what I called “resembling a riddle”: describing something with attributes arranged in the manner of a riddle, without intending a riddle. End of his words.

The miracle of every prophet accords with his time and his people. Since the Arabs were the noblest of peoples, and their greatest virtues were courage, eloquence, and generosity, the greatest miracle of our Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—was the Qur'aan, miraculous in its eloquence and rhetorical excellence. Since he was the Seal of the Messengers, with no prophet after him, he was given a lasting miracle that will remain until the Resurrection. It continues to be recited, and despite continual repetition it remains new, neither worn out nor decayed.

The eloquent Arabs in poetry and oratory fall into six classes:

1—The first pre-Islamic poets: from the peoples of 'Aad and Qahtaan.

2—The mukhadhramoon: those who lived through the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods.

3—The Islamic poets.

4—The poets of the formative period.

5—The modern poets.

6—The later poets, including those who are classified with them among the contemporaries.

The first three classes are the foremost in eloquence and strength of expression. Among the jurists of Islam, transmitting and studying their poetry is a communal obligation, because through it the rules of Arabic are established, and knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah depends on those rules; upon knowledge of them depend the rulings distinguishing the lawful from the unlawful. Although their speech may contain error in meanings, it may not contain error in wording or in the arrangement of meanings. Once you know this, understand that the first three classes collected their poetry in many books other than deevaans,

[Edition footnote 1]

Al-Hasan ibn 'Abd Allaah ibn Sahl ibn Sa'eed ibn Yahyaa ibn Mihraan al-'Askaree, a scholar of literature who also wrote poetry and composed many works. He died after 395 AH / 1005 CE.

[Edition footnote 2]

'Abd al-Raheem ibn al-Hasan ibn 'Alee al-Isnawee, Jamaal al-Deen, a jurist and legal theorist among the scholars of Arabic, with many works in the field: 704–772 AH / 1305–1370 CE.

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such as *al-Hamaasah*, *al-Mufadhdhaliyyaat*, the poetry of Hudhayl, and other useful books. After mentioning this, al-Shihaab al-Khafaajee [Edition footnote 1] quoted a substantial selection of their prose and verse in his book *Rayhaanat al-Albaa'*. He also mentioned the speech of the formative poets and some pre-Islamic poets, then said: Although the later poets belong to a later age than the earlier poets, they have joined them in the race and nearly risen to the highest ranks—especially the poets of the Maghrib, who produced remarkable meanings and attained an elevated rank. Yazeed ibn Khaalid al-Ishbeelee, for example, expressed meanings in his descriptions of ships that no one had preceded him in expressing.

Among their poets was Ibn Khafaajah. Literary men have said: Poetry began with a king and ended with a king. The first was Imru' al-Qays, for he was the first to soften, refine, weave, and arrange poetry. The second was Ibn al-Mu'tazz, one of those granted comprehensive expression in verse, prose, composition, and poetry. The common people say: “The speech of kings is the king of speech.” It has also been said that the second was Aboo Firaas, but the first is closer to sound analogy. When 'Abd al-Malik learned that al-Hajjaaj did not show consideration for poets, he reproached him for it and wrote to him:

In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Compassionate. From God's servant 'Abd al-Malik to al-Hajjaaj ibn Yoosuf. Peace be upon you. I have heard of you something that has falsified my intuition about you and disappointed my expectation of you: your turning away from poetry and poets. It is as though you do not know the excellence of poetry and poets, the places from which their arrows strike, or the fact, O brother of Thaqeef, that the survival of poetry is the survival of remembrance, and the growth of glory; that poetry is the embroidery of kingship, the adornment of government, the title of blessings, the completion of glory, and the evidence of generosity; that poets urge people toward fine actions and restrain them from blameworthy traits; that they have opened the paths of noble deeds for those who seek them and guided the needy to their doors; that kindness to them is generosity, while turning away from them is baseness and regret. Make good your excessive neglect, erase it through sound action, and revive your errors by correcting them. Peace.

From this one learns the position of poets with kings, and that poetry is a traveled road to noble deeds. Poets are a caravan carrying fair remembrance; their merchandise sells with the generous and lies stagnant with the mean. The sultan is a market to which desires are brought and praises are gathered, filling the packs. This is the intended meaning, abridged.

[Edition footnote 1]

Shihaab al-Deen Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn 'Umar al-Khafaajee al-Misree, chief judge and author of works on literature and language: 977–1069 AH / 1569–1659 CE.

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Treatise: On praise of metrical speech and the necklaces hung from the shoulders of pens

Al-Tirmidhee related from Jaabir ibn Samurah, who said: I sat with the Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—more than one hundred times. His Companions recited poetry to one another and recalled matters from the pre-Islamic period, while he remained silent, sometimes smiling with them.

It is related from 'Aa'ishah—may God be pleased with her—that the Messenger of God used to set up a pulpit for Hassaan ibn Thaabit in the mosque, on which he would stand and defend the Messenger of God.

Muslim related from 'Aa'ishah: I heard the Messenger of God say, “Hassaan reviled them, and he both healed and sought healing.”

Al-Suyootee said in *al-Khasaa'is al-Kubraa*: al-Bayhaqee related, through Ya'laa ibn al-Ashdaq, who said: I heard al-Naabighah—the Naabighah of Banoo Ja'dah—say: I recited the following poetry to the Messenger of God. It pleased him, and he said, “You have done well; may God not cause your mouth to fall out.” I saw him after he had lived more than one hundred years, and none of his teeth had fallen out. al-Bayhaqee then related it through another chain from al-Naabighah.

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Ibn Abee Usaamah also related it through another chain from him, with the addition: “He was among the most handsome of people in the mouth; whenever one of his teeth fell out, another grew in its place.” Ibn al-Sakan related it through another chain from him, with the addition: “I saw al-Naabighah's teeth whiter than hail, through the blessing of the Messenger of God's supplication.”

Shaykh Muhammad Hayaat al-Sindee al-Madanee said in his epistle *The Serially Transmitted Reports from the Poet Naabighah ibn Ja'dah*: I met the Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—and recited to him my qaseedah, in which I say:

We have reached the seven heavens in glory and sovereignty,

And we hope for a manifestation beyond that.

He said, “Where, Aboo Laylaa?” I replied, “To Paradise, O Messenger of God.” He said, “To Paradise, God Most High willing.”

Ka'b ibn Zuhayr—may God be pleased with him—said:

Sukhaynah came to contend with her Lord,

But the contender of contenders shall surely prevail.

The Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—said, “God has praised you, O Ka'b, in these words.” In one report: “God has not forgotten this on your account.” al-Bayhaqee devoted a separate chapter in *al-Dalaa'il* to poetry, saying: “The Prophet's choosing poetry,” and included a lengthy report from Jaabir—may God be pleased with him. Its gist is that a man came to the Messenger of God and said, “O Messenger of God, my father wants to take my property.” The Messenger of God said, “Bring your father to me.” When his father came, the Messenger of God said, “Your son says that you take his property.” He replied, “Ask him, O Messenger of God. There is no outlet for his property except his aunts and relatives. Should I not spend it on myself and my children?” Gabriel—peace be upon him—then descended and said: “O Messenger of God, this old man has composed verses in his heart that have not reached his ears.” The Messenger of God asked him, “Have you composed poetry in your heart?” The old man confessed and said, “God Most High continues to increase us in insight and certainty through you.” He then presented seven verses he had composed inwardly:

I nourished you as an infant and protected you as a youth;

You gather and drink from what I reap for you.

When illness narrowed a night around you, I did not sleep;

For your sickness I remained awake, tossing and turning.

My soul feared death for you, though it knows

That death is a decree imposed upon all.

It was as though I were the one struck, not you,

By what struck you instead of me; my eyes shed tears.

When you reached the age and goal

In which the hopes I had held for you came to you,

You made my recompense harshness and coarseness,

As though you, not I, were the benefactor.

Would that, when you would not observe my paternal right,

You had acted as the neighboring neighbor acts.

Jaabir said: The Messenger of God—God bless him and his family and grant them peace—wept, then seized his son by the forelocks and said to him: “Go; you and your property belong to your father.” End of the report. This hadeeth establishes the father's disposition of his son's property to the extent of necessity.

Shaykh Bahaa' al-Deen al-'Aamilee said in one of his works: It is related from Qays ibn 'Aasim that he came with a group of Banoo Tameem to the Prophet. He entered while Salsaal ibn al-Dalhamas was with him and said: “O Prophet of God, give us an admonition from which we may benefit, for we are a people who raid the open country.” The Messenger of God said: “O Qays, with honor comes abasement; with life comes death; with this world comes the Hereafter; every thing has a watcher and every thing an accountant; every term has a written decree. O Qays, you must have a companion who will be buried with you while alive, and you will be buried with him while he is dead. If he is noble, he will honor you; if he is base, he will abandon you. Then you will be resurrected only with him, and questioned only about him. So make him righteous. If he is righteous, you will find intimacy with him; if he is corrupt, you will find no comfort except in him. He is your action.”

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He said: “O Prophet of God, I would like these words to be in verse, so that we may boast of them before the Arabs around us and preserve them.” The Prophet ordered someone to bring Hassaan. Before Hassaan arrived, the words became clear to me, and I said: “O Messenger of God, some verses have come to me that I think accord with what you want,” and I recited:

Choose a companion from your deeds, for the youth's companion in the grave

Is only what he used to do.

After death, you must prepare him

For the day when a man is called and he responds.

If you are occupied with something, do not be occupied

With anything other than what pleases God.

After his death, and before it, a person will be accompanied

Only by what he used to do.

I say: al-Bukhaaree related from Ubayy ibn Ka'b that the Messenger of God said: “Among poetry there is wisdom.” It is clear to the sages of speech and those skilled in the secrets of pens that some poetry—namely, that which is religiously praiseworthy—is included within the concept of wisdom, for the concept of poetry is narrower in one respect than the concept of wisdom. The purpose here is to explain the excellence of poetry. Poetry should therefore be the subject being reported and placed first in the wording. Properly, one should say, “Some poetry is wisdom.” Yet the Prophet said, “Among poetry there is wisdom,” retaining the verbal precedence in its original form, out of concern for poetry and to convey restriction. He inverted the semantic construction and made wisdom the predicate, exaggerating the praise of poetry. That is, the essence of wisdom is some poetry; consequently, all instances of wisdom must be some poetry and included within it, since the inclusion of an essence entails the inclusion of all its instances. The Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—intended, by conveying restriction through placing the predicate first and by using an emphatic construction, to intensify the statement. Thus the meaning of the sacred words is: “Wisdom is only some poetry.”

What subtlety God placed in the speech of the possessor of comprehensive words—God bless him and grant him peace! Exaggeration is suited to poetry, and the Prophet observed this poetic correspondence in words uttered to praise poetry. He thereby supplied a complete precedent for the permissibility of exaggeration when a religious benefit requires it. Similar is his saying: “Among eloquence there is sorcery.” al-Teebee [Edition footnote 1] said in his *Tibyaan*: *Min* indicates partitive meaning. The statement contains a simile; properly it should say, “Some eloquence is like sorcery.” It is inverted, making the predicate the subject, to exaggerate by making the original subject a branch and the branch an origin. The aspect of comparison changes according to whether praise or blame is intended. End of his words.

[Edition footnote 1]

Sharaf al-Deen al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allaah al-Teebee, a scholar of hadeeth, Qur'aanic exegesis, and rhetoric, author of *al-Tibyaan fee al-Ma'aanee wa-al-Bayaan*. He died in 743 AH / 1342 CE.

[Edition footnote 2]

Al-Jurjaanee; his biography was given above, p. 23.

The point of the prepositional phrase is that it is the subject in the sense of “some people,” or “some among them,” possess the stated attributes. The benefit therefore lies in those attributes, and there is no difficulty in treating the adverbial expression, by interpreting its meaning, as a subject. End of his words.

Ibn Maajah related: “The wise word is the believer's lost property; wherever he finds it, he has the greatest right to it.” The author of *Kifaayat al-Haajah*, in his commentary on Ibn Maajah's *Sunan*, said: “The believer's lost property” means something sought with the most intense seeking imaginable. It is fitting for the believer to seek wisdom as a person seeks his lost property. This statement is guidance and instruction, not a report, for how many believers do not seek at all? Or it is a report by taking “believer” to mean the perfect believer. “Wherever he finds it” means that the believer should attend to what is said, not to who says it, as the saying goes: “Look at what is said, not at who says it.” End of his words.

The wise word encompasses both verse and prose, because the wording is general. The first is supported by the Prophet's saying—God bless him and grant him peace—“Among poetry there is wisdom.” It is remarkable that *kalimah* can denote a qaseedah, as al-Jawharee and others have said. Once this is established, I say: If we set aside the exaggeration in the hadeeth and take its basic meaning—namely, that some poetry is wisdom—then, joined to the second hadeeth, it yields the first figure of the syllogistic forms: some poetry is a word; the wise word is the believer's lost property; therefore some poetry is the believer's lost property. I added the word “word” to the minor premise because poetry is verbal wisdom.

This sound conclusion establishes that one should seek from poets conclusions compatible with the noble Sharee'ah. A decisive proof for it is Muslim's report from 'Amr ibn al-Shareed, from his father, who said: I rode behind the Messenger of God one day. He asked, “Do you have anything by Umayyah ibn Abee al-Salt?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Recite.” I recited a verse, and he said, “Recite.” I recited another, and he said, “Recite,” until I had recited one hundred verses. This hadeeth shows that one should seek praiseworthy poetry, which is the conclusion of the syllogism; that one should continue seeking it; that recitation is commendable; and that one should seek it wherever it is found. Umayyah ibn Abee al-Salt died an unbeliever, yet the Prophet said of him: “His tongue believed, but his heart disbelieved.”

It is thus established that whoever seeks praiseworthy poetry performs a recommended act, while whoever condemns it abandons that act.

How could it be otherwise? al-Tirmidhee related from Anas—may God be pleased with him—that the Prophet entered Mecca during the compensatory pilgrimage, while Ibn Rawaahah walked before him saying:

Make way, sons of unbelievers, before him;

Today we shall strike you according to its revelation.

A striking that removes heads from their resting places

And distracts a beloved from his beloved.

'Umar said to him: “Ibn Rawaahah, are you reciting poetry before the Messenger of God and in God's sanctuary?” The Prophet said: “Leave him, 'Umar. It reaches them more swiftly than the splashing of arrows.” al-Bukhaaree related from Sa'eed ibn al-Musayyab: 'Umar passed through the mosque while Hassaan was reciting, and 'Umar objected. Hassaan said: “I used to recite there while one better than you was there.” He then turned to Aboo Hurayrah and said: “I adjure you by God: did you hear the Messenger of God say, 'Answer on my behalf; O God, strengthen him with the Holy Spirit'?” He replied, “Yes.” This establishes the prohibition of objecting to poetry and the permissibility of reciting in the mosque. al-Qastallaanee said: The Prophet's statement shows that poetry has a right whose possessor is worthy to be supported in uttering it by Gabriel—peace be upon him. Something of this nature may certainly be recited in a mosque.

It is related from Ibn Seereen that he recited poetry, and one of his companions said: “Someone like you recites poetry, Aboo Bakr?” He replied: “Woe to you, you fool! Is poetry anything other than speech, differing from other speech only in its rhymes? Its good is good, and its bad is bad.” al-Daaraqutnee related from 'Aa'ishah—may God be pleased with her—that poetry was mentioned before the Messenger of God, and he said: “It is speech: its good is good and its bad is bad.”

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The point is that poetry is not intrinsically blameworthy; praise and blame relate to its meaning. If the meaning is reprehensible, prose and verse are alike. Reprehensibility means that it contains obscenity, harm to a Muslim, or a lie. The lie prohibited in poetry is that which harms a religious matter, not the lie used merely to improve poetry; that is permitted even when it exceeds the limit and departs from ordinary practice. Consider the qaseedah of Ka'b ibn Zuhayr—may God be pleased with him. He flirted in it with Su'aad and used every fine kind of hyperbole, metaphor, and simile, especially the comparison of saliva to wine in his words:

She reveals the whiteness of her cheeks when she smiles,

As though they were a fountain mixed with wine.

The Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—heard it and did not object. Rather, the qaseedah became the finest means of intercession and the surest path to overlooking offense. It received gracious acceptance from him, and he rewarded its author with a gift from his mantle. How excellent was Aboo Ishaaq al-Ghazzee when he said:

To deny the poets' excellence is folly;

To magnify praise is the path of right guidance.

“Baanat Su'aad” erased Ka'b's sins

And raised Ka'b in every gathering.

The Prophet did not need a qaseedah

Beginning with separation from Su'aad,

But he was the giver of gracious gifts,

And the best guide to noble deeds.

They have said that this qaseedah's superiority over the other poems adorned with praise of the Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—is like the superiority of the Companions over the Successors and those after them. Its author also compared the Prophet's sacred neck to a doll's neck, and none of the early or later authorities objected.

Al-Qaffaal and al-Saydalanee stated a sound principle: a poem's lie is not a lie, because the liar intends to establish his statement as true, whereas the poet intends only to improve his speech.

What we have established proves the permissibility of verbal imaginings and expansiveness in the fields of composition. It also shows that condemning praiseworthy poetry means abandoning a recommended act. One should not heed the reproach of any critic regarding what the Messenger of God, the leading Companions, the Successors, the learned, and those who serve as models—may God be pleased with them—practiced.

There is also a prohibition against insulting poets. al-Bukhaaree related from 'Urwah ibn al-Zubayr: I went to insult Hassaan in the presence of 'Aa'ishah, and she said: “Do not insult him, for he defended the Prophet.”

There is no doubt that whoever composes or recites praiseworthy poetry follows those defenders: he refreshes believers with Yemeni wisdom and defends them against the psychological burdens that weary them. This is supported by what is related from Ibn 'Abbaas: when he finished a lesson in exegesis and hadeeth, he would say to his students, “Season yourselves,” and order them to take up amusing speech, lest boredom overtake them. *Ihmaadh* derives from *hamadh*, a salty, bitter plant; its opposite is *khullah*, something sweet. The Arabs say: *khullah* is the camels' bread, and *hamadh* their fruit, because when they tire of *khullah* they turn to *hamadh*. Hence their saying to a man who comes threatening: “You are one who has fed on sweet forage, so take some bitter forage.”

As for His saying, “And the poets—their misguided ones follow them,” it concerns the polytheist poets. The verse indicates that the cause of blame is wandering through every valley of falsehood and vanity. In this respect poetry is blameworthy, and every Qur'aanic or hadeeth-based condemnation of it refers to this meaning. It is praiseworthy insofar as it contains wisdom. For this reason God Most High distinguished believing poets from those polytheists by exception, and the Prophet directed us to this with his saying: “Among poetry there is wisdom.”

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As for His saying, “We did not teach him poetry, nor is it fitting for him,” it is a reply to the unbelievers who claimed that he—God bless him and grant him peace—was a poet. Anyone with the slightest discernment knows that the Qur'aan is not of the genus of poetry, for poetry is metrical and rhymed, whereas the Qur'aan is not. Their claim may have rested on the idea that a poet observes meter and rhyme in speech; one capable of poetry can easily produce speech without observing meter or rhyme, and what he produces arises from his natural faculty, rather than being—as he claims—sent down from heaven. God Most High refuted them by saying, “We did not teach him poetry,” because most poetry consists of unreal imaginings, flirtation with women and youths, false boasts, and praise of those undeserving of it. The Qur'aan is not in this manner. He then reinforced it with His saying, “nor is it fitting for him,” meaning that such things do not befit his station, since poetry is rarely free of them. You tested him for approximately forty years and found nothing in his words, deeds, or circumstances resembling any of them. The verse also suggests that the Prophet was capable of poetry but did not utter it because it was not fitting for him: God denied its propriety, not his ability. He then supported this with His saying, “It is only a reminder and a clear Qur'aan,” that is, a heavenly book whose miraculous nature makes clear that it is not human speech.

It is thus clear that the verse exonerates the Prophet from dictating the Qur'aan through his natural faculty, as poets dictate metrical speech through theirs. On close examination, one finds no condemnation of poetry in it, but rather great praise. What, then, could call for condemning poetry absolutely? Praise and blame depend on meaning, as stated above. If the meaning is good, metrical speech is more beautiful than prose and more beneficial to the speaker in impressing meanings upon the listener, and to the listener in turning toward it eagerly.

Al-Booseeree expressed this well:

The pearl grows more beautiful when strung;

Its worth does not diminish when unstrung.

The Prophet used to quote Tarafah's verse: “And one not provided by you will bring you news.” He also said: “The truest word uttered by a poet is Labeed's word:”

Indeed, everything apart from God is false … ...................................

It is related that the Prophet said to 'Aa'ishah—may God be pleased with her: “Did you give the girl to her husband?” She said, “Yes.” He asked, “Did you send someone with her to sing?” She said, “We did not.” He said: “Did you not know that the Ansaar are a people who enjoy flirtatious song? Why did you not send someone to say:

We have come to you, we have come to you;

Greet us, and we shall greet you.

Were it not for the dark wheat,

We would not have alighted in your valley.”

It is reported in the sound collections that he—God bless him and grant him peace—said on the day of the Trench:

In God's name, and through Him we were guided;

Had we worshipped another, we would have been wretched.

O God, were it not for You, we would not have been guided,

Nor given alms, nor prayed.

So send down tranquility upon us,

And make our feet firm when we meet them.

Indeed, they have transgressed against us;

When they seek a trial, we refuse.

He raised his voice, saying: “We refuse, we refuse,” with the baa'; in one variant: “We come, we come,” with the taa'.

The scholars differed over whether poetry issued from him—God bless him and grant him peace. Those who affirmed it transmitted several examples, including his words—God bless him and grant him peace—when he was building his mosque:

This burden is not the burden of Khaybar;

This is more dutiful to our Lord and purer.

Al-Zuhree used to say: “He did not utter any poetry except what had been said before him—apart from this.”

Muhammad al-Barzanjee al-Madanee¹ composed an epistle establishing that writing, reading, and poetry may be attributed to him—God bless him and grant him peace. He says: “There is no doubt that when poetry is wisdom, as he reported—God bless him and grant him peace—'Among poetry there is wisdom,' it is a perfection; and he should not be devoid of any perfection, for he is the complete copy encompassing all human and angelic perfections. Any suspicion concerning the Qur'aan applies only to the period before revelation descended and prophethood was established. After that, the same cannot be said of writing and reading. Everything he uttered of poetry occurred after prophethood. No one ever claimed that he composed poetry, recited it, or kept company with poets before prophethood. After it, however, he uttered it, recited it, asked the Companions to recite it, and poems were recited in his presence. He corrected their words, just as he corrected a line from Ka'b ibn Zuhayr—may God be pleased with him—saying:

From the swords of India.

And he replaced it with: “From the swords of God.” Thus there is no defect in his prophethood and no suspicion concerning his miracle; rather, this is another miracle and another perfection, so there is no impediment to allowing it.” End of his words. The complete verse that he corrected is:

The Messenger is surely a light by which illumination is sought;

A drawn Indian sword, one of the swords of God.

I say: Perhaps the reason he corrected it was to prevent a redundant word from occurring in the speech. For al-muhannad, as al-Jawharee² says, is a sword forged from Indian iron.

This is what occurred to me concerning the excellence of praiseworthy poetry and the nobility of this fortunate star.

The first to weigh the jewels of speech and arrange the pearls reserved for the human treasury was God's chosen one, Adam—peace be upon him. Poetry proceeded from him; Adam was the father of poetry and the great ancestor of the fruits of thought. Ibn al-Atheer and a great multitude attributed this to Adam—peace be upon him—though many investigators denied it.

Others said that Adam elegized Abel in Syriac, and that when the poem reached Ya'rub ibn Qahtaan, he translated it into Arabic.

They differed over where the affair of Abel occurred. Some held that it was in India, on Mount Nood, where Adam—peace be upon him—descended from heaven; others said it was in Mecca. The reports then became mutually supportive.

[Edition footnote 1]

Muhammad Shareef al-Barzanjee al-Madanee al-Shaafi'ee; he was alive in 1134 AH / 1722 CE.

[Edition footnote 2]

In al-Sihaah.

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The reports agree that Adam descended from heaven in India and afterward settled in this dusty earth. I have discussed this fully in my epistle *Shamaamat al-'Anbar concerning What Has Been Reported about India from the Master of Humanity*. Adam's descendants inherited poetry from him. Among those who settled in India were people of poetic talent. When the banners of Islam overshadowed this land, and the Muslims cast their burdens here, spoke its language, sang in its melodies, heard the speech of its eloquent orators, and recognized the eloquence of its rhymed prose, they found that its people had exerted the utmost effort in creating meanings and directed their energies to the furthest limits of human power in establishing forms.

Now know that ranging through the fields of belles-lettres is the right of the eloquent leaders among the Arabs. They climbed the summits of its mountains and reached the farthest of its passes. By my life, the flowers of eloquence smile in their breezes, and the regions of eloquence exude their fragrance. May God repay them on our behalf with the fullest recompense and remember them in the assemblies of holiness with the finest praise.

When Islam united the nations, and Arabs and non-Arabs mingled, and the caliphs sat in Baghdad while peoples from distant lands flocked to them, the non-Arabs acquired the art of eloquence from the pure Arabs and answered their example beneath this lofty tree—especially those near the seat of the caliphate and adjoining the center of nobility, as witnessed by al-Tha'aalibee's *Yateemat al-Dahr*, al-Baakharzee's *Dumyat al-Qasr*, and other works.

As for India, it was conquered during the reign of al-Waleed ibn 'Abd al-Malik by Muhammad ibn al-Qaasim al-Thaqafee in 92 AH. In 95 AH his banners extended from the borders of Sind to the farthest reaches of Qannauj. When he returned, the governors of India returned to their stations; rulers of the Marwaanid and 'Abbaasid caliphs remained in Sind. During the 'Abbaasid period, Aboo Hafs Rabee' ibn Sabeeh al-Sa'dee al-Basree, a follower of the Successors and a leading hadeeth scholar, was in Sind. He was the first to compile a work in Islam. The author of *al-Mughnee* says that he died in Sind in 160 AH. Near the end of the fourth century, Sultan Mahmood al-Ghaznawee set out to conquer India; he came repeatedly, prevailed, seized booty, and wrested Sind from the rulers appointed by the 'Abbaasid al-Qaadir bi-Allaah ibn al-Muqtadir. His sons governed from Ghazna to Lahore, until Sultan Mu'izz al-Deen Saam al-Ghooree took Ghazna, came to Lahore, seized Khusraw Shaah, the last of the Ghaznavid kings, and secured India. He made Delhi the royal seat in 589 AH / 1193 CE. From that date until now, the kingdoms of India have remained in the hands of Muslim sultans.

When Islam spread through these lands and its suns rose over their lowlands and highlands, a group of Muslim men of letters appeared and scattered pearls from their pens across the carpets of time. Their books are not before me as I write, so I shall defer setting their biographies on the platform of presentation. This concludes the intended passage from *Tasleeyat al-Fu'aad*¹.

Among the men of letters of India was Qaadhee 'Abd al-Muqtadir ibn Rukn al-Deen al-Shareehee al-Kindee al-Dihlawee, who died in 791 AH. He had a celebrated laamiyyah whose opening is:

O driver of the caravan in the watches of night and at dawn,

Greet Salmaa's dwelling; weep, then ask about it.

[Edition footnote 1]

This is a book composed by Ghulaam 'Alee, who will be mentioned shortly. See what Dr. Jameel Ahmad wrote about it in *The Movement of Arabic Authorship in the Northern Indian Region*, p. 130 onward.

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Among them was Shaykh Ahmad al-Tahaanisaree—may God have mercy on him—who had a daaliyah whose opening is:

The longing of the singing bird carried away my reason,

And stirred the anguish of my wandering, sorrowful heart.

Among them was Sayyid Ghulaam 'Alee ibn Sayyid Nooh al-Balkraamee, who used the pen name Aazaad. He had seven diwans, including a poem describing the beloved's limbs from head to foot, called *The Mirror of Beauty*. He also wrote a fine commentary on it, as well as *Deewaan Murdif*, *Deewaan Mustazaad*, and *Deewaan Marji'*. The *tarjee'* is a kind of poetry that he composed with exceptional delicacy; no poet before him had composed an Arabic *tarjee'*. He called the seven diwans “The Seven Planets,” and composed the seven notebooks called *The Manifestation of Blessings* in paired verses in the khafeef meter, with extraordinary fluency and sweetness. No one before him had composed Arabic paired verse in this meter, and no Arab poet or Persian poet who imitated the Arabs ever composed paired verse in this form. He composed the seventh notebook in 1193 AH and died—may God have mercy on him—in 1200 AH. He had many works in Arabic and Persian, as will be detailed in his biography, if God Most High wills.

The total of his poetry in these works was eleven thousand verses. No one among the people of India was ever known to possess an Arabic diwan or Arabic poetry in this condition. He was the Hassaan of India: in his diwans and qaseedahs he praised the Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—and created many rare meanings in his praise, of a kind unavailable even to gifted poets. He devised in them subtle escapes whose reach no eloquent declaimer attained. His manner in love poetry was distinctive, rarely found in the work of another and recognized by specialists.

Among them was the eminent Shaykh, the authority of his age, Shaah Walee Allaah al-Dihlawee, the traditionist, who had fine qaseedahs and brilliant words in praise of the Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace.

Among them were Shaykh 'Abd al-'Azeez, Shaykh Rafee' al-Deen, and Shaykh Muhammad Ismaa'eel al-Dihlawee—may God have mercy on them. They had graceful and eloquent prose and verse.

Among them was the literary Shaykh Awhad al-Deen al-Balkraamee—may God have mercy on him. I saw eloquent prose, brilliant verse, and many commendations of various books by him.

Among them was the accomplished Shaykh Fadhl Haqq Khayraabaadee. He had many qaseedahs and poems modeled on al-Hareeree and al-Badee', in which he employed every graceful expression and ingenious meaning, although he indisputably overused paronomasia, derivation, and obscure words.

Among them was the excellent scholar Mawlaanaa 'Alee 'Abbaas al-Jariyaakoothee—may God protect him—who had a diwan of poetry, letters, and commendations.

Among them was the virtuous Shaykh Faydh al-Hasan al-Sahaaranpooree—may God preserve him—who had eloquent qaseedahs and fine poems unlike anything produced by his contemporaries. The last two wrote to us and composed poetry praising our books; some of it has been printed.

Among them was my full brother, the eminent Sayyid Ahmad Hasan al-Qannoojee, who used the pen name al-'Arshee; some of his qaseedahs surpass the words of the masters, especially those in Persian.

[Edition footnote 1]

See what Dr. Jameel Ahmad wrote about these eminent figures in *The Movement of Arabic Authorship in the Northern Indian Region in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries*; it contains sufficient material.

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As for this poor man, he has neither entry into nor mastery of this science, nor has he planted a palm or lote tree in its valley. What we see of its surviving traces in Arabic and Persian, and what he mentioned about it in *al-Ihtifaa'*, is only a drop from the rain of these men of letters and a stream from the shore of those complete and noble masters. He spent a period of time pursuing their sayings and reports, following their traces, and walking in their path. How well the poet said:

This fragrance is the trace of their companionship with me;

I am no rose—only its soil.

Know, then, that the purpose of the science of adab among the people of the language is its fruit: excellence in composed verse and prose according to the methods of the pure Arabs and the ways of the early men of letters. For this purpose they gather from their memorization of Arab speech whatever may produce the faculty: elevated poetry, evenly wrought rhymed prose, and scattered questions of language and grammar. From these the reader generally infers most of the rules of Arabic. They also mention some of the Arabs' famous days, so that he may understand what occurs in their poetry, together with important famous genealogies and general reports. The purpose of all this is that, when he reads it, nothing in the Arabs' speech, methods, or modes of eloquence should remain obscure to him. Since the faculty is not acquired by memorization without understanding, everything upon which understanding depends must be presented first.

When they define this art, they say that it is memorizing the poetry and reports of the Arabs and taking something from every science. By this they mean the linguistic sciences and the transmitted religious sciences, insofar as their foundational texts are concerned: the Qur'aan and hadeeth. Other sciences have no place in their speech, except insofar as later writers, when they became preoccupied with the art of badee', used allusion in their poetry and letters and employed technical scientific terminology; the student of this art then needed to know those sciences in order to understand them. We heard from our teachers in their teaching circles that the foundations and pillars of this art are four diwans: Ibn Qutaybah's *Adab al-Kaatib*, al-Mubarrad's *al-Kaamil*, al-Jaahidh's *al-Bayaan wa-al-Tabyeen*, and Aboo 'Alee al-Qaalee al-Baghdaadee's *al-Nawaadir*. Everything besides these follows from them and branches from them, though the works of later authors on the subject are numerous.

In the earliest period, singing was part of this art because it follows poetry: singing is simply its melodic setting. Secretaries and eminent men of the Abbasid state cultivated it eagerly in order to acquire the methods and techniques of poetry, and practicing it did not damage their probity or manliness.

Qaadhee Aboo al-Faraj al-Isfahaanee—whose stature is well known—composed his *Book of Songs*. In it he collected the reports, poetry, genealogies, days, and dynasties of the Arabs, basing it on the one hundred songs selected by the singers for al-Rasheed. He covered the subject fully and thoroughly. By my life, it is the diwan of the Arabs and a collection of the scattered excellences they left in every art: poetry, history, singing, and all other conditions. To our knowledge, no book equals it in this respect. It is the summit toward which the man of letters aspires and at which he stops—and how far he is from reaching it! God guides to what is right.

[Edition footnote 1]

From this point the words are Ibn Khaldoon's; see pp. 1387–1388.

[Edition footnote 2]

The original has between the lines: “that is, the science of adab.”

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This is the end of what we transmitted from *The Book of Examples and the Diwan of Beginnings and Reports*. The author of *Kashf al-Dhunoon* also transmitted it, but with a deficient abridgment and wearisome condensation, so I did not rely on him. I took it from the same sources from which he took it, adding material in various places from other books, out of concern for comprehensiveness and hope of completing the benefit. It is no wonder if some repetition has occurred in different parts of these discussions, in forms that will become apparent to you when you reflect on what is before you. Through God comes success.

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## A discussion of identifying the knowledge that is an individual obligation upon every legally responsible person

That is, the knowledge included in the Prophet's saying—God bless him and grant him peace—“Seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim.”

Know that the scholars have differed greatly over identifying this knowledge; there are more than twenty opinions. In essence, each group assigns the obligation to the science with which it is concerned.

The Qur'aan commentators and traditionists said: it is knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah, through which one reaches all the other sciences. This is the truth from which there is no turning away, and it is the position of the majority of the rigorous scholars among the early and later generations.

The jurists said: it is knowledge of the lawful and unlawful, called the science of fiqh. This is evidently included in the first opinion.

The theologians said: it is the knowledge by which one apprehends tawheed, the foundation of the Sharee'ah, called kalaam. This too is included in the first opinion, since the questions of tawheed are explained fully in the Book and Sunnah; beyond God's and His Messenger's explanation there is no explanation. As for the kalaam peculiar to theologians, in which they mixed logic and philosophy, it does not belong to this category.

The Sufis said: it is knowledge of the heart and awareness of its thoughts, because the intention, which is a condition of works, is not sound without it. This is a branch of the purified Sunnah; one who knows it knows the Sunnah in the most complete manner.

The people of truth said: it is the science of unveiling. There is no basis for restricting the obligation to this, and no text or proof indicates it.

It was also said that it is the knowledge contained in the Prophet's saying—God bless him and grant him peace—“Islam was built upon five.” This is the obligation upon the generality of Muslims, and it was the choice of Shaykh Aboo Taalib al-Makkee.

Some added that the obligation of the five pillars is only according to need. Thus, whoever reaches the middle of the morning must know God Most High through proof and pronounce the two testimonies with understanding of their meaning. If he lives until noon, he must learn the rulings of purification and prayer. If he lives until Ramadan, he must learn the rulings of fasting. If he owns wealth, he must learn how to pay zakaah. If he gains the ability to perform pilgrimage, he must learn its rulings and rites.

These are the well-known positions in this matter. The first is the soundest, because all of these are included in it and none lies outside it once the need arises. *Kashshaaf Istilaahaat al-Funoon* adds that some said it is the servant's knowledge of his condition and rank before God Most High.

It was also said that it is knowledge of sincerity and the maladies of souls.

[Edition footnote 1]

Muhammad ibn 'Alee ibn 'Atiyyah al-Haarithee, a jurist, preacher, and ascetic, who wrote works on morphology. He died in 386 AH / 996 CE.

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It was said that it is knowledge of the inward. The Sufis said that it is the science of tasawwuf. It was also said that it is knowledge of what is contained in the saying “Islam was built upon five,” as already mentioned.

What should be decisively understood as intended is knowledge of what God Most High charged His servants with, namely, doctrinal and practical rulings. This is stated in al-Ghazaalee's *Ihyaa'*, where he elaborates. In *al-Siraajiyyah* it is said: seeking knowledge is obligatory to the extent required for an unavoidable matter, including the rulings of ablution, prayer, and the other religious laws, as well as matters of livelihood. Beyond that it is not obligatory; if one learns it, that is preferable, and if one leaves it, there is no sin. End of quotation.

This explains the knowledge that is an individual obligation. As for the communal obligation, *Muntakhab al-Ihyaa'* states that medicine, insofar as it restores bodily health, is a communal obligation. But *al-Siraajiyyah* says that it is recommended for a man to learn enough medicine to avoid what harms his body. Also among the communal obligations are arithmetic for wills and inheritance, agriculture, weaving, cupping, and governance. In-depth study of medicine is not obligatory, even if it gives strength beyond the sufficient amount.

These sciences are branches. The foundation is knowledge of the Book of God Most High, the Sunnah of His Messenger—God bless him and grant him peace—the consensus of the imams, and the reports of the Companions. Learning the language, which is the instrument for acquiring the religious sciences, is likewise a communal obligation, as are knowledge of abrogating and abrogated texts, general and specific expressions in fiqh, articulation and points of pronunciation, reports and their details, the names of their transmitters, and knowledge of soundly connected, mursal, strong, and weak reports. So too is knowledge of rulings for settling disputes and administering governors. These sciences concern the Hereafter because they are a cause of the world's sound order, and its sound order is itself the sound order of the Hereafter. Thus this is worldly knowledge by means of worldly rectification, unlike the science of foundations—tawheed and the attributes of the Creator. The science of issuing fatwas is likewise a communal obligation. Knowledge of acts of worship and obedience, and of the lawful and unlawful, takes precedence over knowledge of fines, legal penalties, and stratagems. The science of spiritual dealings is obligatory for the God-fearing believer: asceticism, piety, contentment, gratitude, fear, reliance upon God Most High in every condition, excellence, good opinion, good character, and sincerity. These too are beneficial sciences.

The science of unveiling is not acquired through teaching and study; it is acquired through spiritual struggle, which God Most High made a precondition for guidance: “Those who strive for Us—We shall surely guide them to Our ways.” As for kalaam, the early Muslims did not occupy themselves with it; indeed, whoever did so was attributed with innovation and with occupying himself with what did not concern him.

This is a summary of what appears in *al-Tataarkhaaniyyah*. al-Ghazaalee classified fiqh and the jurists among the sciences of the world. He said: by my life, it is also connected to religion, but not in itself—rather, through the world, since the world is the field in which the Hereafter is cultivated. He compared fiqh and medicine, since medicine too concerns the world through bodily health, but said that fiqh is nobler in three respects, which he then detailed.

[Edition footnote 1]

The work also known as *al-Tataarkhaaniyyah fee al-Fataawaa*, by the jurist 'Aalim ibn 'Alaa' al-Deen al-Hanafee, who died in 286 AH / 899 CE. *Al-Tataarkhaaniyyah* is a great work in several volumes; it is also said that its author called it *Zaad al-Musaafir*.

[Edition footnote 2]

This is *al-Siraajiyyah*, mentioned shortly above.

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He elaborated on the sciences of unveiling and spiritual dealings, then mentioned philosophy. He said that it is not a science in its own right but consists of four parts: geometry and arithmetic are permitted; in logic and natural philosophy, some matters contradict the Sharee'ah and true religion and are therefore ignorance rather than knowledge, while others do not. He elaborated on the details. *Al-Siraajiyyah* states in *Khizaanat al-Riwaayah* that learning kalaam and debating it to the extent needed is not prohibited. Shaykh Shihaab al-Deen al-Suhrawardee said in *A'laam al-Hudaa* that abstaining from kalaam applied only when the time was close to that of the Messenger—God bless him and grant him peace—and his Companions, who had no need of it because of the blessing of companionship with the Prophet, the descent of revelation, and the scarcity of events and strife among Muslims. Sayyid al-Shareef, al-Taftaazaanee, and other recognized, upright investigators explicitly stated that in our time engagement with kalaam is a communal obligation. al-Taftaazaanee said that the prohibition applies only to one whose understanding is deficient or who is fanatical in religion. End of quotation.

These are the praised sciences. As for permitted knowledge, it includes poetry free of vulgarity, histories of reports, and related subjects. As for blameworthy knowledge, *al-Tataarkhaaniyyah* says that magic, neeranjaat, talismans, astrology, and similar subjects are unpraised sciences. Philosophy and geometry are remote from the knowledge of the Hereafter; they were extracted by those who preferred the life of this world to the Hereafter.

In *al-Fath al-Mubeen*, the commentary on al-Haleemee's *Forty*, and elsewhere, they explicitly permitted learning philosophy and its branches—metaphysics, natural philosophy, and mathematics—in order to refute its adherents and repel their harm from the Sharee'ah, as a form of preparing one's equipment.

*Al-Siraajiyyah* says that learning enough astrology to know prayer times and the direction of the qiblah is unobjectionable. *Al-Tataarkhaaniyyah* says that anything beyond this is forbidden. *Al-Khulaasah* and *al-Ziyaadah* likewise say that it is forbidden.

In *al-Madaarik*, commenting on God's saying, “Then he glanced at the stars and said, 'Indeed, I am ill,'” they said that astrology was once valid, but that preoccupation with learning it was later abrogated. al-Baydhaawee said that he looked at their positions and conjunctions, or at the science of them, or at its book, and that there is no prohibition in this. In the *Great Commentary* it is said: if inquiry into astrology is impermissible, how did Abraham—peace be upon him—undertake it? We reply that we do not concede that examining astrology and inferring its meanings is forbidden. Whoever believes that God Most High endowed each star with a power and property through which a particular effect appears is not engaged in false knowledge in this respect.

From this it is known that the prohibition of learning astrology is disputed. As for astrologers' reports, *al-Madaarik*, commenting on “Indeed, with God is knowledge of the Hour,” says that the astrologer who reports the time of rain or death does so through analogy and examination of the ascendant; what is grasped by proof is not the unseen, since it is only supposition, and supposition is not knowledge.

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In *al-Kashf* it is said that astrologers' claims take two forms. Some reject them, citing God's saying, “God would not disclose the unseen to you,” and the Prophet's saying—peace be upon him—“Whoever visits a soothsayer or diviner and believes him has disbelieved in what was sent down to Muhammad.” Others distinguish: the astrologer either says that the stars are created or uncreated. The second is manifest unbelief. If he says they are created, he may say that they act independently by their own choice, which is also manifest unbelief; or he may say that they are created and subjugated signs of certain things, with an effect created in them by God Most High, like light and fire, and that this was discovered through calculation. In that case it is not the unseen, for the unseen is what calculation cannot indicate. The verse and hadeeth refer to knowledge of the unseen, whereas this is not unseen knowledge.

As for logic, Ibn Hajar al-Makkee says in his commentary on al-Nawawee's *Forty* that logic, as practiced today, is one of the instruments of the religious sciences—fiqh, hadeeth, and tafseer—and is beneficial without any inherent objection. The objection concerns only the philosophical doctrines sometimes mixed with it. Logic resembles the Arabic sciences in being among the materials of usool al-fiqh, because a legal ruling must be conceived and its states affirmed or denied; logic is the instrument for explaining the rules of conception and assent. It is therefore a religious science insofar as it either proceeds from revelation or is necessary for knowledge that proceeds from revelation: kalaam is necessary for existence, while Arabic and logic are necessary for completion. Hence al-Ghazaalee said, “There is no confidence in the fiqh of one who does not reason logically,” meaning one in whom the rules of logic are not naturally established, as in the early mujtahids, or acquired through study. Fakhr al-Deen al-Raazee, al-Aamidee, Ibn al-Haajib, the commentators on his book, and other imams praised logic. The statement that it is forbidden applies to logic mixed with philosophy. End of the discussion in *Kashshaaf Istilaahaat al-Funoon*, with some additions and adaptations. The ruling on logic and the correct position concerning it will appear under *'ilm al-meezaan* in the section beginning with meem in the second part of this book. I have also discussed the ruling on kalaam in my work *Qasd al-Sabeel ilaa Dhamm al-Kalaam wa-al-Ta'weel*.

[Edition footnote 1]

Aboo Hafs 'Umar ibn Muhammad al-Suhrawardee, who died in 632 AH / 1234 CE; the full title of his work is *A'laam al-Hudaa wa-'Aqeedat Arbaab al-Tuqaa*.

[Edition footnote 2]

See the discussion above, p. 23.

[Edition footnote 3]

His biography was given above, p. 43.

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See the works of Shaykh al-Islaam Ibn Taymiyyah al-Harraanee and his student, the God-realized traditionist Ibn al-Qayyim, such as *Ighaathat al-Lahfaan 'an Makaa'id al-Shaytaan*, and the works of Sayyid Ibn al-Wazeer, the scholar Muhammad ibn Ismaa'eel al-Ameer al-Yamaanee, and the works of the chief judge and unrestricted mujtahid Muhammad ibn 'Alee al-Shawkaanee, together with their like. Study them carefully and hold fast to them with the greatest resolve; you will attain, God willing, the happiness of both worlds and the good of both realms.

When you read them, it will become clear which science most deserves to be acquired and which most contributes to rescue from destructive things in this world and the Hereafter. If circumstances do not enable you to study them, strive to acquire the abridgments of these virtuous authors, such as *Adab al-Talab*, *al-Qawl al-Mufeed*, *Irshaad al-Nuqqaad*, and similar works. If even these are beyond your reach, return to the summaries we made from the works of that noble group and composed in recording this purpose. Most have been printed in recent days and circulated among Arabs and non-Arabs. They contain precious benefits, sound truths, useful customs, valid aims, and rights established by the Book and Sunnah. They suffice the imitator, enrich the mujtahid, heal the sick, quench the thirsty, comfort the heart, and convey the seeker to his goal.

How astonishing are those who elaborated on the sciences that are obligatory individually and communally, and on those that are praised and condemned, yet explained them with the refuse of their thoughts and the dregs of their minds, without clear proof. At times they raised their classification to the heavens and at others lowered it to the earth, without looking to what came from the master of the scholars and authority of the virtuous—God bless him and his family—concerning this matter: “Knowledge is threefold: a decisive verse, an established Sunnah, or an equitable obligation; anything beyond that is superfluous.” Aboo Daawood and Ibn Maajah narrated it from 'Abd Allaah ibn 'Amr ibn al-'Aas—may God be pleased with him. The definite article in “knowledge” may be taken as referring to known religious knowledge, or as comprehensive, as in “Praise belongs to God”; the latter is more likely. The verse means the Noble Book, the Sunnah means the science of the noble hadeeth, and the obligation means inheritance law, which is a part of the Book and Sunnah. Everything beyond these two foundations is superfluous—something additional and unnecessary—especially the sciences inherited from the infidels of Greece, which rest neither on a religious foundation nor on genuine knowledge. They arose in Islam after the passing of the three generations testified to be good, and contain no good; they are, as it was said, “knowledge that does not benefit and ignorance that does not harm.” Whoever clings to the hems of the Divine Book and Prophetic hadeeth has no need of all other sciences: the whole catch lies in the belly of the partridge. Whoever does not find what came from God Most High and His Messenger sufficient for the affairs of this world and the Hereafter—may God neither enrich nor preserve him.

The person who turns from these two noble sciences and these two distinguished foundations, which gather the useful sciences of livelihood and the Hereafter, to foreign disciplines, occupying himself with them day and night and exhausting all his time in them, is not fit to be addressed, is no object of attention, has not been granted success, and has no place in salvation. In the hadeeth of Mu'aawiyah—may God be pleased with him—the Prophet—God bless him and grant him peace—forbade obscure sophistries. Aboo Daawood narrated it. Most of these disciplines belong to that category. He also forbade examining the revealed scriptures sent to the prophets before him—peace be upon them—so what of these ignorances and superstitions which they call sciences and arts, make occasions of virtue, and to which they tie human perfection, confining it to their acquisition? The proper description of this is wasting time and destroying the rational soul by casting it into ruinous things. May God protect us and our Muslim brothers who follow what He loves and approves, and preserve us from what harms the religion of God. He is near and responsive. Through God comes success, and upon Him reliance.

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## The classes of the people of knowledge

From *The Etiquette of Seeking Knowledge* by our shaykh and benefactor, the God-realized mujtahid imam Muhammad ibn 'Alee al-Shawkaanee, chief judge of Yemen—may God have mercy on him. He said—may God be pleased with him:

First, the student of knowledge must make his intention sound and purify his inner purpose. He must understand that the work he has undertaken and the matter he seeks is the Sharee'ah which God Most High prescribed for His servants, sent with His messengers, and for which He revealed His books. He must strip it of every worldly aim and of every intention that clouds it. If merely combining the pursuit of knowledge with another aim had the same ruling as combining sensible things, then combining the intention of this world and the Hereafter would be a grave error. Seeking knowledge is among the noblest and highest acts of worship. God Most High said, “They call upon God, making the religion sincerely His,” and it is soundly reported from the Messenger of God—God bless him and grant him peace—“Actions are only by intentions, and every person shall have only what he intended.”

One of the most important things the student must understand, at the beginning and at every moment, is that this work is the acquisition of the knowledge God prescribed for His servants and the understanding of what He made them worship through His decisive Book and the tongue of His Messenger. This aim is the cause of acquiring it and of attaining the good that is with God. No part of this belongs to partisanship or zeal for a group. It is something God made obligatory for them; no one may claim exemption from it, much less rise to the level of obligating God's servants according to his own opinion. That belongs to God Most High alone.

This does not conflict with the disagreement among the scholars of usool over whether prophets exercise ijtihaad; for the fair and careful scholar, the disagreement is verbal. The most important thing you gain is fairness without partisanship in any matter of this Sharee'ah. Do not destroy its blessing through partisanship for a Muslim scholar by making his opinion and ijtihaad a proof against yourself and all servants. Even if he surpasses you in a kind of knowledge and exceeds you in understanding, he remains subject to judgment and bound by what binds you. You must acknowledge his precedence and the rank appropriate to him in knowledge, while believing that this is what is required of him and no more. You may not believe that his correctness is correctness for you or that his error is an error binding upon you. Rather, strive until you reach what he reached: deriving the legal rulings from the source beyond which there is no other source, the place that is the beginning of thought and the end of action. If you establish yourself upon fairness and freedom from partisanship for any school or scholar, you will have gained the greatest benefits of knowledge and its most precious fruits.

Whoever knows the sciences and their people correctly will have no doubt that the engagement of the traditionists with their science is not equaled or approached by the engagement of other specialists with theirs. A man's fairness is not complete until he takes every science from its people. If he takes knowledge from those who are not its people, prefers what he finds in the speech of scholars about sciences in which they are not specialists, and turns away from the speech of the specialists, he will stumble and mix things, producing opinions and preferences farthest from soundness.

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This occurs even among the scholars of the four schools: some are broader in knowledge and higher in rank than the imam they follow, yet they prefer in their books what their imam preferred, even when his proof is weak, fabricated, or nonexistent. They repel contrary proofs, clearer than daylight, sometimes through strained interpretation and sometimes through enveloping falsehood. In short, such a classification brings its author only disgrace in this world and the Hereafter.

Second: students have three classes. The first seeks to reach the rank of mastery in the religious sciences and their preliminaries, raising his ambition until, when he acquires them, he is an imam whom people consult, benefit from, and follow: a teacher, jurist, author, and judge.

The second has less ambition. His highest aim is to know the rulings of obligation and legal status required by the Lawgiver, in a manner that allows him to act independently without needing another, though he does not aspire to the rank of the first class.

The third seeks less than the second: to correct his tongue and refine his understanding enough to grasp what he needs of the religious law without unintentionally altering or corrupting it, without aspiring to independence.

There is a fourth class: those who seek one or more sciences for a religious or worldly purpose without aspiring to the religious sciences. Thus the classes are four.

Whoever is sincerely desirous, strong in understanding, penetrating in insight, noble in spirit, courageous in nature, high in ambition, and elevated in instinct should not accept a low position or be satisfied with less than the highest goal. Noble souls and lofty ambitions do not accept less in worldly matters—rank, wealth, leadership, a craft, or profession—which quickly vanish. How much more should this be true of those who seek what is nobler, higher, more serious, more valuable, more beneficial, and more complete: religious aims, with knowledge at their summit and foremost in every virtue and in attaining the final good of the Hereafter?

As for the first class, whoever imagines reaching it should begin with grammar, starting with abridgments such as al-Hareeree's poem *al-Mulhah* and its commentary. Once he understands and masters that, he should move to Ibn al-Haajib's *Kaafiyah* and its commentaries, then *Mughnee al-Labeeb* and its commentaries.

This ordering concerns Yemen. Whoever grows up in a land where other books are studied should take what the scholars of that land study.

[Edition footnote 1]

Al-Qaasim ibn 'Alee, author of the *Maqaamaat*, who died in 516 AH / 1122 CE.

[Edition footnote 2]

The author's note says that this refers to what people study in Yemen. A student elsewhere should take from the scholars of his own land in every science an amount corresponding to what is listed here.

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The student who seeks deep mastery cannot dispense with mastering the subtle investigations and noble benefits contained in al-Radhee's commentary on the *Kaafiyah*, nor with the unusual questions in *Mughnee al-Labeeb*. He should listen to commentaries after memorizing these abridgments so thoroughly that he can recite them from memory. At minimum he should memorize the most comprehensive and beneficial of them. He should not neglect Ibn Maalik's *Alfiyyah* and its commentaries, *al-Tasheel* and its commentaries, al-Zamakhsharee's *Mufassal*, and Seebawayh's *Kitaab*, for these books contain subtle grammatical questions and refined Arabic investigations not found in the earlier abridgments.

He should study an abridgment of logic with his teachers, understand its meanings, and be satisfied with something like *Eesaaghoojee* or al-Sa'd's *Tahdheeb* and one of their commentaries. The purpose is only to gain a general aid in conceptions and assent, so that he will not encounter an Arabic investigation—in grammar, morphology, or rhetoric—in which the author follows the method of the logicians and be unable to understand it. This occurs frequently in definitions and classifications, where Arabic scholars speak in the language of the logicians.

Once he has acquired a grammatical faculty, even if he has not finished hearing the books mentioned, he should begin morphology with *al-Shaafiyah* and its commentaries, *al-Zanjaaniyyah*, and *Laamiyyat al-Af'aal*. He will not master morphology properly unless *al-Shaafiyah* and its commentaries are among his memorized texts, because its questions are extensive, its rules long, and its chapters branching. He should also study al-Radhee's commentary on *al-Shaafiyah* after beginning with shorter commentaries such as al-Jaarbardhee's and *al-Manaahil al-Saafiyah*, for these contain morphological benefits found nowhere else.

After mastering grammar and morphology, even if he has not finished the books of either discipline, he should begin semantics and rhetoric. He should memorize an abridgment containing the essential questions, such as *al-Talkhees*, al-Sa'd's *Mukhtasar*, its marginalia, its extended commentary, and its marginalia. If he memorizes the abridgment and thoroughly verifies the two commentaries and their margins, he will reach a firm station in the discipline. This body of work encompasses what is found in the works of the earlier commentators on *Miftaah* and similar books. If he finds a work by 'Abd al-Qaahir al-Jurjaanee or al-Sakkaakee, he should study it attentively, for he will find in it valuable insights.

While studying this art, he should also study short and accessible disciplines, with few investigations, such as the science of definition and the art of disputation. For the first, *Risaalat al-Wadh'* and one of its commentaries suffice; for the second, *Aadaab al-Bahth al-'Adhudiyyah* and one of its commentaries.

[Edition footnote 1]

Al-Radhee al-Deen Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Astaraabaadhee, who died in 686 AH / 1287 CE, wrote a commentary on Ibn al-Haajib's *Kaafiyah* in grammar.

[Edition footnote 2]

*Mughnee al-Labeeb 'an Kutub al-A'aareeb* by Jamaal al-Deen 'Abd Allaah ibn Yoosuf Ibn Hishaam, who died in 761 AH / 1360 CE.

[Edition footnote 3]

*Tasheel al-Fawaa'id wa-Takmeel al-Maqaasid* by Ibn Maalik, author of the *Alfiyyah*.

[Edition footnote 4]

The full title of this commentary is *al-Manaahil al-Saafiyah 'alaa al-Shaafiyah*.

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He should then devote himself to lexicographical works explaining individual words, such as *al-Sihaah*, *al-Qaamoos*, *Shams al-'Uloom*, *Dhiyaa' al-Huloom*, and *Deewaan al-Adab*, together with works on Arabic vocabulary generally or specifically, such as books on obscure Qur'aanic and hadeeth terms. He should then study logic, memorizing an abridgment such as *al-Tahdheeb* or *al-Shamsiyyah*, and hear their commentaries from specialists. Proper study of this science gives the student greater understanding and readiness when rational proofs arise. At minimum it gives him insight when he encounters logical discussions in the works of ijtihaad, as many authors do in usool, rhetoric, and grammar.

He should then study usool al-fiqh after memorizing an abridgment containing its essential questions, such as *Mukhtasar al-Muntahaa*, *Jam' al-Jawaami'*, or *al-Ghaayah*. He should hear their commentaries, such as al-'Adhud's commentary on the *Mukhtasar*, al-Mahallee's commentary on *Jam' al-Jawaami'*, and Ibn al-Imaam's commentary on *al-Ghaayah*.

He should broaden his study in this science and examine the works of the different schools, such as *al-Tanqeeh*, *al-Tawdheeh*, *al-Talweeh*, *al-Manaar*, and Ibn al-Humaam's *Tahreer*. Among these works, nothing compares with *al-Tahreer* and its commentary. One of the most useful aids in reaching a verifying mastery of this science is to immerse himself in the marginalia written by the investigators on the 'Adhudee commentary and on the commentary on *al-Jam'*.

After mastering usool al-fiqh, even if he has not finished hearing its longer works, he should study kalaam, called the foundations of religion. He should take something from the Ash'arite works, something from the Mu'tazilite works, something from the Maatureedite works, and something from those intermediate between these groups, such as the Zaydees. In this way he will know doctrines properly, judge every group fairly, and accept or reject each statement with genuine understanding.

After this I say that a scholar should adhere only to what the righteous early Muslims followed: standing by what the proofs of the Book and Sunnah require, allowing the attributes to pass as they came, returning knowledge of their likeness to God Most High, and not relying on the written rules of this science when they are built upon the edge of a crumbling cliff of rational proofs that cannot be grasped or established except through claims and false attribution to reason in conformity with desire—especially when they contradict the established proofs of revelation. At that point they are only a fable and a player's game.

[Edition footnote 1]

The author explains these two disciplines in the second part of his *Abjad al-'Uloom*.

[Edition footnote 2]

The editor remarks that the most comprehensive lexicon is *Taaj al-'Aroos*, the commentary on *al-Qaamoos*, by al-Sayyid al-Murtadhaa al-Zabeedee al-Misree; it encompasses the books of this discipline.

[Edition footnote 3]

The original margin recommends *al-Mujtabaa* among the best works of the Mu'tazilites, and *al-Mawaaqif* with al-Shareef's commentary and al-Sa'd's *Maqaasid* with his commentary among the best Ash'arite works.

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After acquiring these sciences, he should study tafseer, taking from teachers what one like him needs to receive, such as al-Zamakhsharee's *Kashshaaf*. He should immerse himself in commentaries of different kinds and sizes, relying in interpreting God's speech first on what is established from the Messenger—God bless him and grant him peace—and then on the Companions, for they were people of Arabic. Whatever he finds among the reliable foundational works of the Prophet's tafseer should take precedence over other material. The most comprehensive compilation is al-Suyootee's *al-Durr al-Manthoor*. He should study extensive commentaries such as al-Raazee's *Mafaateeh al-Ghayb* and not limit himself to a few verses under the title “verses of legal rulings,” as al-Mawzi'ee and the author of *al-Thamaraat* did. Before reading tafseer, he should study the sciences relevant to recitation and the other sciences connected to the Noble Book; al-Suyootee's *al-Itqaan* is especially useful for this. He should not neglect works on readings, such as al-Shaatibiyyah and its commentaries and al-Tayyibah and its commentaries.

The greatest, most useful, broadest, and most serious of the sciences is the science of the purified Sunnah, which explains the Noble Book and independently establishes an unbounded number of rulings. He should hear works such as *Jaami' al-Usool*, *al-Mashaariq*, *Kanz al-'Ummaal*, Ibn Taymiyyah's *al-Muntaqaa*, Ibn Hajar's *Buloogh al-Maraam*, and *al-'Umdah*. He should then hear the six canonical collections, Ahmad's *Musnad*, the *Saheeh* of Ibn Khuzaymah, Ibn Hibbaan, and Ibn al-Jaarood, and the *Sunan* of al-Daaraqutnee and al-Bayhaqee, as far as his ability and the teachers available in his age permit.

He should then study the commentaries on these works, hearing what he can and reading what he cannot hear. He should greatly expand his study of works on narrator criticism and accreditation, particularly *Siyar al-Nubalaa'*, *Taareekh al-Islaam*, *Tadhkirat al-Huffaadh*, and *al-Meezaan*, after studying some of the terminology of the traditionists, such as Ibn al-Salaah's works and al-'Iraaqee's *Alfiyyah* and its commentaries.

He should read works on the histories of states and the events of the world year by year, as al-Tabaree did in his history and Ibn al-Atheer in his *Kaamil*. Awareness of this is of great benefit.

Once the student has mastered the sciences we have mentioned, he has reached the highest class of the mujtahids and completed all forms of religious knowledge. He can derive rulings from proofs whenever and however he wishes. Yet he should study other sciences as well, so that the honor he has acquired may be complete. Among them is fiqh; at minimum he should know an abridgment of the fiqh of each of the famous schools.

[Edition footnote 1]

By al-Zamakhsharee.

[Edition footnote 2]

That is, the six Saheeh collections.

[Edition footnote 3]

The original margin says that these sciences will, God willing, belong to the second section of this book, which contains what the student of religious knowledge does not need but the student of worldly sciences does.

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The mujtahid may need these sciences to answer followers asking about the positions of their imams, and to repel those who criticize his ijtihaad, as often happens with the partisan and deficient. If he tells such a person, “The eminent scholar so-and-so held this view,” or “The people of such-and-such a school acted upon it,” that will restrain the attack and break its force. It is extremely useful to examine comprehensive works that recount the doctrines of the early Muslims and the schools, their proofs, and what passed between disputants, whether as historical fact or hypothetical argument, such as the works of Ibn al-Mundhir, Ibn Qudaamah, Ibn Hazm, Ibn Taymiyyah, and those who followed their methods. These works are the field of the investigators' attention and the goal of the mujtahids' reflections.

What further elevates this noble class, strengthens understanding, sharpens comprehension, and makes the mind flow is reading the poetry of the master poets and accomplished versifiers. It also gives him the ability to compose and move through its forms. If a man at this lofty level of knowledge cannot compose verse, that is a blemish on his excellence and a deficiency in his perfection.

Likewise, he should read extensively the eloquent writings of famous authors who excelled and whose letters and correspondence display the purest tongue and clearest expression. His speech should match his knowledge. If he has not practiced good verse and prose, his speech falls below the regard of the people of eloquence. Knowledge is a tree whose fruit is expression; how ugly it is for a scholar accomplished in every science to be mocked in verse and prose by someone who cannot rival him in any of his sciences, and for a person with only slight acquaintance with elegant speech and polished composition to laugh at him. Among the most useful works for this are *Mandhoomat al-Jazzaar* and its commentary, and Ibn al-Atheer's *al-Mathal al-Saa'ir fee Adab al-Kaatib wa-al-Shaa'ir*. Once firmly grounded in the religious sciences, he may also take something from disciplines that polish thought, purify talent, and expand the heart and soul, such as mathematics, natural philosophy, geometry, astronomy, and medicine.

In general, knowledge of every science is far better than ignorance of it, especially for one who has prepared himself for the highest class and rank. Ignore the criticisms you hear; they are a branch of imitation. Once you know any science, you judge it through the knowledge you possess, rather than being judged by it. Choose what pleases you. One firmly grounded in religious knowledge need not fear anything. The danger is only for one whose footing in the Book and Sunnah is insecure. He may become shaken and lose strength. Once you have placed the religious sciences first as we have directed, study whatever you wish, acquire as many disciplines as you want, and penetrate their subtleties as far as you can. Answer whoever opposes, reproaches, or attacks you with the poet's words:

We were told that Sahl condemned, out of ignorance,

Sciences that Sahl did not know.

Had he known them, he would not have despised them;

But being content with ignorance is easy.

I am astonished by a man who claims fairness and love of knowledge while his tongue attacks a science he neither understands nor knows: its subject, goal, benefit, or even its conception. We have found many sciences outside the religious sciences to possess great benefit in refuting falsifiers, partisans, people of pure opinion, and those who do not engage with proof.

[Edition footnote 1]

Perhaps the work known as *al-'Uqood al-Durriyyah fee al-Umaraa' al-Misriyyah* by Yahyaa ibn 'Abd al-'Adheem al-Jazzaar, who died in 679 AH / 1280 CE.

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The aptitude that makes a person suitable to receive and teach knowledge is nobility of origin, honorable lineage, manifest ancestry, or having among one's forebears someone connected with knowledge, righteousness, the marks of religion, or lofty affairs and high rank. This naturally draws its possessor toward elevated aims and keeps him from baseness. As for one who is the refuse of possessions and the dregs of low professions—tailors, oil-pressers, butchers, and similar occupations—his soul does not leave baseness, avoid degradation, or reject humiliation. If one of them pursues knowledge and attains some portion of it, he falls into conceit, vanity, arrogance, and presumption over people, causing harm to the people of knowledge and even more to those beneath them.

One who is suited to knowledge and possesses honor increases in honor through knowledge. He acquires through it good bearing, beautiful humility, dignified composure, and excellent character, all of which increase the elevation of his knowledge and the magnificence of his understanding.

Between these two groups is a third: those who make knowledge a worldly livelihood and seek no purpose in it beyond obtaining an office held by their forebears or a leadership position once possessed by them. This is seen in many families associated with judging, issuing fatwas, preaching, writing, and similar offices. Such a person has no true relation to knowledge and should not be counted among its people; his instruction has no benefit that returns to religion.

The student should seek knowledge as it deserves to be sought and learn it in the manner God desires, believing that it is the highest concern of religion and worldly life, and hoping to benefit God's servants after acquiring it.

This concerns the first class. The second consists of those who seek enough of ijtihaad to make acting upon the proofs of the Sharee'ah valid. He should acquire from every discipline of ijtihaad enough knowledge to dispense with others when needed, or to guide him to the place where the relevant discussion is found and understand what he encounters. He begins with grammar until he can recognize the states of word endings in inflection and fixed form. The minimum is to memorize an abridgment containing the essential grammatical questions, such as the *Kaafiyah* and one of its commentaries, the best of the short commentaries being al-Jaamee's. He then memorizes an abridgment of morphology, such as *al-Shaafiyah* and al-Jaarbardhee's commentary, followed by a concise work in semantics and rhetoric, such as al-Qazweenee's *Talkhees* and al-Sa'd's *Mukhtasar*. The most useful for the student is al-Husayn ibn al-Qaasim's *Ghaayah* and his commentary. He then reads a concise tafseer such as al-Baydhaawee's, consulting other tafseers as far as possible, and then hears what must be heard from the books of hadeeth.

[Edition footnote 1]

Al-Husayn ibn Qaasim ibn Muhammad ibn 'Alee al-Yamanee, a descendant of the notables of Yemen, who died in 1050 AH / 1640 CE. He wrote *al-Ghaayah* in usool and also composed a commentary on it.

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These are the six foundational collections. If he cannot manage them, he should hear a work containing their texts, such as *Jaami' al-Usool*. He should not neglect the legal hadeeths found elsewhere, according to his ability, and should investigate reports outside the Saheeh collections in places where their discussion is expected, such as commentaries and takhreej works. Alongside this he should practice language enough to locate and extract Arabic words from their sources, and possess sufficient knowledge of hadeeth terminology and narrator criticism to understand what a traditionist says about chains and texts.

The third class seeks to correct its tongue and refine its understanding enough to grasp what it needs of the Sharee'ah without unintentionally changing, corrupting, or misinflecting it. Such a person does not seek independence; he resolves to ask when conflicts arise or preference is needed. He should learn enough grammatical inflection to recognize word endings. Memorizing al-Hareeree's poem and reading its commentaries with specialists is sufficient, along with practicing the inflection of verse and prose and repeatedly asking about what is difficult until he acquires a faculty by which he recognizes word endings. He should then learn hadeeth terminology; *al-Nukhbah* and its commentary suffice. After that he should hear concise hadeeth works such as *Buloogh al-Maraam*, *al-'Umdah*, and *al-Muntaqaa*. If he can hear *Jaami' al-Usool* or one of its abridgments, he should do so. If a hadeeth's meaning is unclear, he should consult commentaries or language books. If he cannot determine which of conflicting reports is preferable, or whether a report may be acted upon, he should ask trusted scholars of the field known for knowledge and fairness, then act according to their guidance as a request for a ruling and obedience to proof, not as blind imitation. He should hear a tafseer requiring little verification, such as al-Baghawee's or al-Suyootee's *al-Durr al-Manthoor*. If a question is unclear, interpretations conflict, or he cannot determine the stronger view, he should return to specialists, asking them for transmitted knowledge rather than personal opinion.

The Companions, Successors, and their followers belonged to this class. They asked their scholars about rulings they needed in their livelihood and Hereafter, and those scholars transmitted to them what came from God Most High and His Messenger—God bless him and grant him peace. They acted upon those transmissions, not personal opinion, without blind imitation or binding themselves to a particular view, as anyone familiar with their practice knows.

The fourth class seeks one or more sciences for a religious or worldly purpose without aspiring to the religious sciences, such as someone who wants to be a poet, prose stylist, or calculator. He should learn what leads to his aim. The aspiring poet should study enough grammar, semantics, and rhetoric to understand the aims of specialists, learn a great deal of badee' and its types, investigate its subtleties and secrets, and study prosody and rhyme. He should practice Arab poetry and memorize as much as possible, then the poetry of the early Muslim poets such as Jareer, al-Farazdaq, and their contemporaries; then Bashshaar ibn Burd, Aboo Nuwaas, Muslim ibn al-Waleed, and eminent poets who followed them such as Aboo Tammaam, al-Buhturee, and al-Mutanabbee.

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He should then study the poetry of the later periods' poets famous for excellence, using language books to understand difficult passages, and immersing himself in works containing the biographies of men of letters, such as *Yateemat al-Dahr* and its continuations, *Qalaa'id al-'Iqyaan*, and works like it, including *al-Riyaanah* and *al-Nafhah*.

What we have mentioned is also needed by one who wants to be a prose stylist, together with works such as Ibn al-Atheer's *al-Mathal al-Saa'ir fee Adab al-Kaatib wa-al-Shaa'ir*, al-Mubarrad's *al-Kaamil*, al-Qaalee's *al-Amaalee*, and collections of the sermons and letters of the eloquent, especially the works of al-Jaahidh, al-Qaadhee al-Faadhil, al-'Imaad, and their like. He will benefit from these to the fullest degree.

Whoever wants to be a calculator should study arithmetic; its books are well known.

Likewise, whoever wants to study philosophy needs mathematics, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and geometry. Whoever gathers these four sciences becomes a philosopher. Knowledge of the philosophical sciences does not conflict with religious knowledge; rather, it increases the religious scholar whose footing is firm in the Sharee'ah in delight in and love of religious knowledge, because he knows that there is no way to reach what the philosophers sought except through the Sharee'ah, and that no other path reaches a final goal or benefit.

Whoever wants medicine should read Galen's books; by agreement among later practitioners, they are the most useful works in the field, except for a small minority. A group of later authors selected sixteen books and wrote useful commentaries on them. If that is not possible, the most complete works combining simples, compounds, and treatments are Ibn Seenaa's *Qaanoon* and 'Alee ibn al-'Abbaas's *Kaamil al-Sinaa'ah*, known as *al-Malakee*. Among the most useful abridgments is Thaabit ibn Qurrah's *Dhakheerah*; and, for the properties of simple drugs and some compounds, the *Tadhkirah* of Shaykh Daawood al-Antaakee. Had it been completed through the treatments, it would have made other works unnecessary, but the author stopped after beginning the treatment of illnesses alphabetically and reaching the letter taa'. Among the most useful works in this art is *al-Moojaz* and its commentaries.

In general, whoever seeks a science should reach it through the famous books known to benefit students, carefully edited and excellently refined. For every art we have already mentioned the works that best guide one in it.

Often a student who has not been trained in the character of fair-minded people and refined by the guidance of investigators seeks to learn one famous school, with no desire or energy for another. The nearest path to his aim is to memorize an abridgment of that school's works: *al-Kanz* in the Hanafee school and *al-Minhaaj* in the Shaafi'ee school.

[Edition footnote 1]

The Qaadhee al-Faadhil al-Baysaanee; see above, p. 52. al-'Imaad is al-'Imaad al-Isfahaanee.

[Edition footnote 2]

*Al-Kanz* is *Kanz al-Daqaa'iq* in the branches of Hanafee fiqh by Aboo al-Barakaat 'Abd Allaah ibn Ahmad, known as Haafidh al-Deen al-Nasafee, who died in 710 AH. *Al-Minhaaj* is *Minhaaj al-Taalibeen* in the branches of Shaafi'ee fiqh by Muhyee al-Deen Aboo Zakariyyaa Yahyaa ibn Sharaf al-Nawawee, who died in 676 AH.

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Once he has memorized the abridgment so thoroughly that he no longer needs to carry the book, he should begin understanding its meanings and contemplating its questions with a teacher of the discipline. He should combine memorization with understanding, repeatedly review it, and reflect on its meanings until his memorization is firmly established. Then he should study a commentary on the abridgment with a teacher, progress to a work with more benefits and fuller questions, and read the works of the investigators in that discipline, incorporating whatever questions lie outside the memorized abridgment so that he can recall them when needed. But if his only knowledge is the fiqh of that school, he will certainly have ordinary understanding, poor perception, and a coarse nature. He must therefore begin refining his understanding and polishing his thought with some grammar and collections of adab, until he acquires conceptual legal understanding. True legal understanding belongs only to the mujtahid, according to the investigators without disagreement.

This is a summary of al-Shawkaanee's words. If you want to examine these meanings more fully, consult the original book, which contains under each statement many benefits that cannot be included here. This concludes the discussion of this purpose. Through God comes success, and upon Him reliance.

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## A discussion of general matters frequently used and misunderstood through neglect

Among them is the conceived notion. If it is realized outside the mind in its own right, it is an externally existing entity; anything else is externally nonexistent. Whatever exists incidentally belongs to one of three aspects: the unrestricted generalities, numbers, the concomitants of essences, absolute relations such as inherence, necessity, opposition, and particular relations such as above-ness and magnitude.

If it exists in the mind, it is a shadow-existence. What belongs to external entities is a primary intelligible; what does not belong to them in reality is a secondary intelligible, including those grounded specifically in mental existence and those abstracted as states and privations. A posited concept is negated. Whatever by its essence refuses existence is impossible; whatever is not impossible may be invented, while other things are established in reality by a particular effect.

Among them is existence: some is real and cannot be removed; some is accidental and can be removed; some is abstracted or originates an abstraction, and its removal is nonexistence. Privations and nonexistent things are not distinguished from one another in the condition of nonexistence.

Among them is relational existence, which has several divisions: simple and compound, with the opposite of simple being a compound in the force of a disjunction excluding the possibility that both alternatives are absent; restricted by an aspect and unrestricted; relatively simple; extreme; and self-related.

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It is either absolute, restricted by a circumstance, added to something, prior, subsequent, or unrestricted, thereby becoming eternal, originated, or perishing; or it is an attribute of something, either a privation or a privation of a faculty. It is necessary, obligatory, or impossible, in itself or through another; these correspond by opposition. Neither of the two is necessary in an unqualified sense; the specifically possible exists in itself, corresponds to its counterpart, divides into its two kinds, and does not correspond reciprocally.

It is either potential or actual; each prepared state is near the other. It is general or particular, and the two correspond reciprocally. Existence is before multiplicity, with it, or after it. It is instantaneous or gradual, coincident or not. Absolute nonexistence is opposed to existence, while unrestricted nonexistence accompanies it; these two considerations usually concern the state of existence and rarely the state of nonexistence itself.

One existence may be separate from another, accompany it, or be included in it. It differs from states in that states are carried by derivative predication, whereas existence is predicated in direct attribution. It is original or shadow-like; realized or estimated; characterized by nature or characterizing; wholly or partially abstract; material; equivocal in its forms; or otherwise.

An externally existing thing is necessary if nonexistence is impossible in itself; otherwise it is possible, possessing an essence that is never free of an accompanying particular. The characterizing relation is a state that requires its subject to be another subject, while the characterized is the locus of the state.

[Edition footnotes]

The edition contains marginal clarifications for the distinctions above, including the unrestricted, restricted, and causal aspects; the divisions of the necessary and possible; the relation of existence and nonexistence; and the meanings of the derivative and direct modes of predication.

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Whatever does not need the nature of a state is matter for a form. A substance is an essence whose concrete existence is not in a subject. The discussion then distinguishes time, place, the indivisible substance, the independent line and surface, body, bodily and specific form, prime matter, soul, and intellect. The final five are established through investigation. Whatever cannot accept division or indication, if it acts in a body through instruments and is perfected by a soul, is a soul; otherwise it is an intellect. What receives both as a locus is prime matter: its actuality is preparedness.

A form that is alike throughout is bodily; one that differs by kind is specific. A compound body is either testimonial, if it continually occupies a place while displacing others, or imaginal. The testimonial body is divided according to its kinds into the simple bodies—the celestial spheres and stars and the elements—and elemental compounds. A compound without a mixture that grows is mineral if it merely preserves structure, plant if it grows and reproduces, animal if it senses and moves by will, and human if it thinks and makes things with instruments. The earthly is human and the fiery is jinn.

Sentient souls are celestial, animal, or rational; a soul without sensation is vegetative; an agent without awareness is natural, though the term may be generalized. In our view, an angel is a sentient substance without growth, appetite, or anger, even though it may intend bestowal or vengeance. It is called spiritual, imaginal, celestial, or aerial; every deeply devoted being is an ascetic and administrator, and it may take different forms in its own perception and in another's perception, like the jinn.

Accidents are either conjoined, whose existence in themselves is their existence for their loci, or abstracted, whose particular mode of existence is like that of their loci in themselves or in relation to another. They persist for a time, are predicated of one another, and follow substance in occupying place and moving. Although the renewed production of likenesses in rays, shadows, and sounds may suggest otherwise, this is due to neglecting substance and to the colors.

Relative accidents include relations in which something besides the locus enters into the constitution. As equality, increase, and decrease are accepted in themselves, relation to a container is place—“where”—and to time is “when.” Relation to an effect progressively is action, and its reception is passion. Relation to an interior or exterior that moves with it, containing all or part of it, is possession or another relation. Position is an added relation of similarity or difference.

Quantity is either continuous, with its parts joined, such as a line, a surface, or a mathematical body with three dimensions, or discontinuous, such as number. Quality is perceived through hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch, whether directly or through shared estimation, as in weights, melodies, beauty, foulness, breadth, and their opposites. It may be psychological in the body, such as life and health, or in the soul, such as knowledge and will. The stable forms are dispositions and faculties; those that quickly vanish are states and affections. It may be preparatory, strengthening the power of reception or its absence, or strengthening action; movement perhaps belongs to this category. Its lack of stability does not harm it.

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Sounds are noncontinuous for each thing in which they occur, though one kind may join another gradually. The discussion then treats quantities such as shape, angle, evenness, and oddness, perhaps including the point.

Among these matters is essence, considered simply as itself and its essential constituents. All existential and nonexistential accidents, concomitant and separable, are negated from it. When considered as the thing it is, it may bear contraries, so that the mind imagines the removal or union of both contradictories.

The first division is as follows: an essence is either real, constituted without human convention, or conventional and artificial; external, occurring in concrete things, or mental; simple, with no actual part, or compound, terminating in something actually simple. Even if the two components of a compound are inseparable in reality, they may differ in nominal definitions or in the parts that are and are not predicated.

Its parts are either constituent principles, whose removal removes the whole, or accidental to its completion, whose removal does not; primary or secondary; actually composite in reality alone, in perception as well, or potentially; and interpenetrating, borne and not borne under different considerations. Thus they are certainly different in reality but one in subject, like color and whiteness; distinct yet corresponding, like matter and form and soul and body.

In genuine entities, generality and particularity are genus and differentia in reality, and matter and form in operation; in corresponding entities the relation is reversed. Parts may be separate and adjacent, alike or different by kind or genus, such as number, color, and bodily form. The parts of a compound body may be quantitative, compositional, and analytical; in a simple thing they are analytical only. A thing may have interpenetrating primary parts and separate secondary parts. Its parts of consideration may be substances or accidents, real or relational, privative or affirmative, related singly or collectively to the four causes, to the effect, or to an attached or separate external thing.

The name of the whole may fail to apply to all the parts when a condition of unrestricted application is absent. Every whole must have one aspect united by need, whether in its production, acquisition, persistence, or the attainment of its purpose. In real entities this concerns the essence and its concomitants; in conventional entities it may also concern separable accidents. An essence becomes particular through the manner in which it is established. This manner is constituted at the outset for things confined to one individual by their realities, for souls through their bodies and then conversely, for what inhabits a locus along with time, and for a locus divided by position that permits reference to it.

The original act of making is simple, after which composition appears. At first glance, whoever says that establishment precedes existence, or is additional to essence externally, adopts composition; whoever denies this adopts simplicity. In the deeper account, realization is possible only by bringing existence out of nonexistence. Composition intervenes among the parts, not between a thing and its parts, since it is impossible to strip a thing of its essence and essentials and then produce what already existed.

[Edition footnotes]

The edition repeats the heading “The first division,” and clarifies the relations of genus and differentia, matter and form, and the constitution of bodies and souls.

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Multiplicity is the aspect of division. It differs from number because number includes the particular rank, whether vague or specified, whereas multiplicity does not. Unity is the aspect of the absence of division; it constitutes multiplicity and accompanies it. Its opposite is considered through substitution in its locus, and this is the nature of the discriminator, even when restricted by time, place, or something similar.

Existence and division correspond either when the mind analyzes corresponding realities, when a universal is divided into particulars by adding different restrictions to a common element, producing genera, species, kinds, or individuals, or when a whole is divided into parts by separation, by a real or relative division, or by positing one thing without another. The latter may be particular, by specifying the thing divided, or universal, without specification; this applies rationally to continuous quantities and through distinction of individuals and boundaries to discontinuous ones.

They distinguish whole and part from universal and particular by the impossibility of the whole's existing in and being predicated of a part, by the whole's rising and falling with all its parts, and by the preservation of personal unity despite multiplicity. The fullest unity belongs to what has no essence beyond its actuality, no conjoined attribute, and no prior multiplicity of aspects; then to separate beings, souls, indivisible things with positions, continuous substances, natural compounds, species and properties, genera and common accidents, and finally shared relations.

Union is the aspect of unity within multiplicity. It includes sharing in indication, movement and rest, customary place and time, attribute, descent, ownership, and similar relations. The two aspects differ in strength. Strongest is unity in essence with difference only in consideration; weakest is the reverse.

Of the many, two are distinguished. If their positions differ only in individuation, they are alike. If they differ in essence and can coexist, they are different; if they cannot, they are opposites. If a positive thing corresponds to another positive thing and the two necessarily accompany one another conceptually, they are real correlatives, equal in force, actuality, number, and locus. If they do not accompany one another, they are contraries. With maximal difference they are real contraries; when they are kinds of one genus, they can be conceived in one locus.

Negation and affirmation may be simple or privative. When restricted to a locus capable of the positive attribute, at a particular time, individual, class, species, or proximate or remote genus, negation is the absence of a faculty.

As for the infinite, its possibility is certain in relations whose extent has no limit, though they are not infinite in reality in the strict sense. Its impossibility in human apprehension is known through experience, and in causes and dimensions through proof: dependence arises from the emptiness of an essence; if every empty thing depended on another, nothing would produce or be produced. The motion of a finite parallel toward its ancient counterpart, while the starting point remains fixed, is impossible: if there were no limit, cutting the interval between the parallels at every point would require cutting infinitely many intervals in a finite time. Other proofs support this.

In other cases al-Faaraabee required existence, order, conjunction, and materiality; most philosophers dropped materiality, while theologians dropped the final two. Some investigators dropped the final three, claiming that the possibility of mentally applying the whole is enough without actual order. In my view, if the necessity of number for multiplicity is accepted as supposed, the infinite disappears from reality and knowledge; otherwise it does not. This lies beyond ordinary apprehension.

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Among them is what an entity's existence depends upon: without it, the entity would be impossible. It may be the mere absence of something—the preventing cause; the absence of something after its existence—the preparatory cause; or the existence of something alone. The latter is either a preponderant cause or a validating condition. Preponderance is influence and requirement. That which requires a thing and influences its existence is its cause. That through which the effect becomes actual is:

1. Form, and that through which it is receptive;

2. Matter.

These enter into the compound. In the simple, form is the effect and matter, if present, is the receptive element and that from which it proceeds.

3. The agent, and

4. The end, which is a cause mentally and an effect externally; both are external.

The need for the last three concerns composition, the necessity of a receptacle, possibility, and the agent's choice, whether near or remote. The ends of natural things belong here. A validating condition may be required for the agent's influence, such as the instruments of nature—powers and limbs—or the instruments of crafts, which mediate between agent and recipient in conveying the effect. It may be required for matter's reception, the completion of form, or the attainment of the end. Whatever must precede but need not disappear with it is, incidentally, a locus or, essentially, a condition of the preparatory cause.

Causes include the complete, which depends on nothing beyond itself, and the incomplete, which depends on something else; the necessitating, from which the effect cannot fail, whether it is complete, its final part, or an agent possessing all conditions of influence, and the non-necessitating; the independent, consisting of a complete set of one kind with its conditions, and the sufficient, which suffices to obtain all that is needed; the proximate, with no intervening cause, and the remote; a cause that does not differ from the essence of its effect, such as the effects of natures in their loci; and a cause that leaves an effect, as opposed to one that does not.

The reality of influence is the occurrence of the effect. Generation is the succession of one act upon another by an agent. The producer and preserver of a person may be multiple, as in the parts of relations, the gathering of the parts of compounds, supports of a roof, replacement of what decomposes, and the body of an embryo. A stable personal identity may rest upon something that changes in person or kind, through a common measure, and conversely because receptacles, conditions, and concomitants differ. The existence of the effect is connected to the cause of its concomitant; the absence of the effect follows from the absence of any of its causes.

Two independent causes may converge simultaneously or successively upon one kind of thing, though not one individual, except loosely, in speaking of independence and causality. Circularity involving precedence from one side is invalid, though not mere simultaneity. The possible may occur without the cause necessitating it and may fail to follow from a complete cause. A plurality may be referred to a unity, which is the cause; its accidental form is not expected to convey the effect. Among the specialists in legal principles, it is what leads in general to the consequence, so the consequence may fail to follow it; but when it is posited to obtain a ruling, the ruling does not fail to follow it.

[Edition footnotes]

The edition supplies the headings “The divisions of the first kind” and clarifies that the sufficient cause means the general cause, its final part, and the agent possessing all conditions of influence.

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Among these are precedence and posteriority, which are self-evidently correlative. If the conjunction of their subjects in their respective aspects is impossible, the precedence is temporal; the parts of time possess it essentially, and what accompanies them possesses it through them. Otherwise it is either according to need, and therefore essential. If the later may fail to follow, it is natural precedence, belonging to non-necessitating causes, conditions, and preparatory causes in existence. If it may not fail, it is causal precedence, belonging to the necessitating cause in obligation.

If it is not according to need, then, if reversal is possible by changing the starting point, it is rank precedence, consisting in proximity to the posited starting point in a rank, whether sensory or intellectual. If reversal is not possible, it is precedence by nobility, consisting in increase in the intended attribute. What is called precedence in essence—such as the precedence of the two essentials over the essence and of the essence over accidents—does not separate from essential precedence except in a few moments.

Concomitance belongs to things sharing these aspects when they are stripped of them. Whatever accompanies the later is later in every respect; whatever accompanies the earlier is earlier in every respect except causal precedence. Often some aspects combine in agreement and reversal. Praise belongs to God.

[Edition footnote 1]

That is, the cause.

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It is what leads in general to the consequence, so the consequence may fail to follow it; but when it is posited to obtain a ruling, the ruling does not fail to follow it.

Among these are precedence and posteriority, which are self-evidently correlative. If the conjunction of their subjects in their respective aspects is impossible, the precedence is temporal; the parts of time possess it essentially, and what accompanies them possesses it through them. Otherwise it is either according to need, and therefore essential. If the later may fail to follow, it is natural precedence, belonging to non-necessitating causes, conditions, and preparatory causes in existence. If it may not fail, it is causal precedence, belonging to the necessitating cause in obligation.

If it is not according to need, then, if reversal is possible by changing the starting point, it is rank precedence, consisting in proximity to the posited starting point in a rank, whether sensory or intellectual. If reversal is not possible, it is precedence by nobility, consisting in increase in the intended attribute. What is called precedence in essence—such as the precedence of the two essentials over the essence and of the essence over accidents—does not separate from essential precedence except in a few moments.

Concomitance belongs to things sharing these aspects when they are stripped of them. Whatever accompanies the later is later in every respect; whatever accompanies the earlier is earlier in every respect except causal precedence. Often some aspects combine in agreement and reversal. Praise belongs to God.

[Edition footnote 1]

That is, the cause.

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