عِلْم المَعاني
ʿilm al-maʿānī
The science of meanings
The science by which the forms of Arabic speech are known to fit the requirement of the situation.
- عِلْمُ المَعانِيʿilm al-maʿānīThe science of meanings
- The science by which the states of Arabic expression are known — the states through which speech conforms to the requirement of the situation (muqtaḍā al-ḥāl).
Balagha is three sciences: al-maʿānī (how speech fits its situation), al-bayān (how one meaning may be expressed in more than one way — simile, metaphor, metonymy), and al-badīʿ (the embellishments that adorn a speech already sound). Al-maʿānī is the first and the gravest, because it governs the sentence itself.
Its chapters are the chapters of the sentence read for effect: the predication itself (khabar and inshāʾ), definiteness and indefiniteness, precedence and delay (taqdīm and taʾkhīr), omission (ḥadhf), restriction (qaṣr), and conjunction and its absence (waṣl and faṣl).
إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ
Sources
- تلخيص المفتاحTalkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ
The text on which the three sciences of Balagha are conventionally studied.
- دلائل الإعجازDalāʾil al-Iʿjāz
The theory of naẓm — that eloquence lies in the ordering of meanings, not in single words.
In the glossary
Related entries
Declaring that one thing shares a quality with another, by means of a particle such as ka- or ka-anna.
Read entryA simile one of whose two terms has been dropped: the word is borrowed for what it does not literally name, and the likeness is what licenses the loan.
Read entryThe noun in the accusative upon which the action of the verb falls.
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