An Ornamentalist View of Metaphor in Arabic Literary Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Khaled M. Shuqair

The aim of the present paper is to examine the kind of thinking and the chain of assumptions that lie behind the reduction of metaphor to a mere ornament in Arabic literary theory.   For this purpose, Arabic ornamentalist thinking is traced from the third century A.H. (the ninth century A.D.) to the seventh century A.H. (the thirteenth century A.D.).  This is not to say, however, that the seventh century marks the end of such thinking in Arabic literary theory, but that at that time the Arabic literary theory, and the theory of metaphor, was developed into fixtures with an increasing emphasis given to form over content and the art of verbal expression in general.  Inordinate attention was given to ornate style, and rhetoric became an arena for displaying verbal acrobatics.  The axioms, "closeness of resemblance" and "congruity of metaphorical elements," represent metaphor's highest degree of formalization and stereotyping.  That is why some of the images in classical theory are mainly based on complete parallelism between the objects compared, particularly with regard to form, size and color.  From that time onwards, the fixtures of the classical theory have been kept intact.   Metaphor, and rhetoric in general, is nowadays reduced to textbooks to be studied in abstract and rigid terms developed by the classical theory.  Arabic rhetoric is a dead discipline: it is merely an ornamental repertoire of figures that could only be used as a sweet adorner for the language.

1978 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Jonas C. Greenfield ◽  
Jean-Baptiste Frey ◽  
Baruch Lifshitz

2008 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 37-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Bayley ◽  
Andy Russel

Mercury gilding is a well-known decorative technique that was applied to both silver and a range of copper alloys from the third century AD until the introduction of electroplating in the nineteenth century. The process is well understood but, until recently, there has been no good archaeological evidence for it. Excavations in Southampton have discovered two rather different objects that were used to produce gold-mercury amalgam, the first stage in mercury gilding. One is a block of stone and the other a reused amphora sherd. The stone comes from a ninth-century context, while the amphora sherd's findspot is less well dated: it could have been reused in the late Roman or the Saxon period.


1990 ◽  
Vol 122 (2) ◽  
pp. 340-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Jackson

When Muslim forces under the Ghurid sultan, Mu'izz al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Sām, made their first major breakthrough into Hindūstān in the 1190s, they brought with them two institutions that had long since taken root in the Islamic world. One was the iqṭā' or assignment of land or its revenue, in some cases in return for military service (sometimes misrepresented as “fief” on the Western European model). The other was the mamlūk, or military slave. Mamlūk status, it should be stressed, bore none of the degrading connotations associated with other types of slavery: mamlūks – generally Turks from the Eurasian steppelands – were highly prized by their masters, receiving both instruction in the Islamic faith and a rigorous training in the martial arts, and were not employed in any menial capacity. The mamlūk institution, whose origins go back to the first century of Islam, came into vogue from the first half of the third/ninth century, as the ‘Abbasid Caliphs built up a corps of Turkish mamlūk guards and their example was followed, with the disintegration of their empire, by the various autonomous dynasties that sprang up in the provinces. Turkish slave officers themselves went on to found dynasties, as in the case of the Tulunids and the Ikhshidids in Egypt and the Ghaznawids in the eastern Iranian world. The institution surely entered upon its heyday in the seventh/thirteenth century, with the military coup of 648/1250 in Cairo: a group of mamlūk officers overthrew the last Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and inaugurated a regime in which slave status was the essential qualification for high military and administrative office.


2022 ◽  
Vol 04 (01) ◽  
pp. 577-586
Author(s):  
Saleh ABBOUD

Ibn Qutayba (d. 276 AH / 889 AD) was attentive in both the Arabic linguistics‏ ‏and its literature, ‎whereas he hath assorted numerous workbooks which testify his care about, and those who came ‎after, have been benefited from his critical material on the fields of language and literature, this ‎incipit of the research is concerned with reading Ibn Qutayba's linguistic views through the ‎subject of his book Adab al-Kātib “The Writer's Literature” particularly those related to ‎orthography and solecism in the Arabs’ language, and the importance of the research lies in ‎shedding light on the Arab linguistic legacy in the third century AH\ ninth century AD, and ‎displaying the impact of Ibn Qutayba in it, and the objective of the research is to analyze what ‎was mentioned in two important linguistic topics from the book of Adab al-Kātib “The Writer’s ‎Literature” which are: the topic of rectification of the hand and the topic of rectification of the ‎tongue, which they are both linguistic topics that show the prevailing linguistics status in the era ‎of Ibn Qutayba, thence, they are also considered a door to understanding the linguistic opinions ‎that the writer gleaned from his wells and sheikhs.‎ The research deals with linguistic problems related to the orthography and the Arab solecism and ‎phonetics among the populace in the era of Ibn Qutayba, relying on a research framework that ‎begins with a preamble considering both the writer and the book, and then deals with the ‎linguistics status in the third century AH through what was mentioned in the book’s sermon, then ‎he presents some of what was mentioned in his book Adab al-Kātib ”The Writer’s Literature” in ‎the two chapters; rectification of the hand and rectification of the tongue, then epitomized the ‎disputations between Ibn Qutayba and the commentators of his book regarding the two ‎mentioned sections, and the research is concluded with a brief epilogue that presents his most ‎prominent conclusions.‎


Antiquity ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 84 (326) ◽  
pp. 1055-1066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex de Voogt

Playing mancala-type games was an addictive pastime of antiquity and leaves its archaeological imprint on steps and ledges in the form of rows of little scoops. Here the author examines the traces of the game at Palmyra and shows that the Roman game of the third century (with five holes a side) was superseded when Palmyra's Temple of Baal was refashioned as a fort in the seventh century or later. The new Syrian game, with seven holes a side, was played obsessively by the soldiers of an Arab or Ottoman garrison on the steps and precinct wall of the old temple.


Traditio ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 399-407
Author(s):  
Rose Bernard Donna

The chief purpose of this paper is to discuss the influence which the De habitu virginum of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage in the middle of the third century, may have exerted upon the De virginitate of Aldhelm, the earliest outstanding writer of seventh-century England. Cyprian himself was strongly influenced by Tertullian, as Sister Angela Elizabeth Keenan thoroughly demonstrated in her doctoral dissertation. Incidentally, Sister Angela Elizabeth refers to Aldhelm's quoting from chapter five of De habitu virginum. This reference led me to find out whether there might be other instances of Cyprian's influence on the De virginitate.


Author(s):  
Aleksandr Il’ich Aibabin ◽  

The Goths and Alans settled in the Mountainous Crimea about the mid-third century. The Eastern Roman Empire pursued the policy of integrating barbarians on the frontier in order to strengthen its northern borders. In the mountainous Crimea, the Goths and Alans assimilated Greek language in result of political and ideological interaction and trading with Cherson and other cities and towns of the Eastern Roman Empire. The earliest in this area Greek inscriptions were dipinti drawn on the light-clay narrow-neck amphorae of D. B. Shelov’s type F, which were produced in Herakleia Pontike. According to the life of St. John of Gothia who led a revolt against Khazar domination in Gothia, the correspondence of Theodore of Stoudios with the archimandrite of Gothia, and official church documents, Greek was the only language of worship in the churches and monasteries of Gothia from the establishment of the Gothic bishopric on. The priests and monks contributed to the spread of Greek language among the Goths and Alans. From the eighth to thirteenth centuries, there appeared numerous epitaphs in church burials and in cemeteries located around these churches starting with a typical Byzantine phrase: Φῶς ζωή (“Light – life”), Κύριε, βοήθει... (“Lord, help...”), Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς νηκᾷ (“Jesus Christ conquers”), Ἐκοιμήθη (“Deceased” or “passed away”), and so on. From the materials examined there are reasons to state that, by the ninth century, the Goths and Alans assimilated Greek language, which from the ninth to thirteenth centuries predominated in Gothia. There are several written sources documenting the preservation of Gothic and Alan languages in the first half of the thirteenth century. In the mid-sixteenth century, the Goths of the mountainous Crimea spoke mostly Greek. According to written sources, the functioning of Crimean Gothic dialect was restricted and started disappearing from the sixteenth century on.


1974 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. Coulton

In the standard handbooks on the techniques of Greek architecture, the problem of lifting heavy architectural members is considered mainly in terms of the various cranes and hoists based on compound pulley systems which are described by Vitruvius and Hero of Alexandria. It is assumed that the same basic method was employed also in the Archaic period, and that the use of an earth ramp by Chersiphron to raise the architraves of the temple of Artemis at Ephesos in the mid-sixth century was exceptional. If this is true, it is a matter of some interest in the history of technology. The simple pulley, used not to gain mechanical advantage but just to change the direction of pull, is first known from an Assyrian relief of the ninth century B.C., and may well have been known to the Greeks before they began to build in megalithic masonry in the late seventh century B.C.; but the earliest indisputable evidence for a knowledge of compound pulley systems is in the Mechanical Problems attributed to Aristotle, but more probably written by a member of his school in the early third century B.C. This is a theoretical discussion of a system which was already used by builders, but it is not so certain that practice preceded theory by three centuries or more. It is therefore worth looking again at the evidence for the use of cranes, hoists and pulleys in early Greek building.


2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 16-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aref Abu-Rabia

Today (2006) some 60% of the 160,000 Bedouin in the Negev Desert live in seven towns, and most of the remaining 40% live in tribal settlements of varying sizes, in clusters of wooden, metal, huts, tents, or in cement block or stone houses. Al-'Aref (1934: 9-34, 231-37) and Abu-Mu'eileq (1990), claim that Bedouin tribes have inhabited the Negev for thousands of years. Sharon (1975:11-30) tells of three known Bedouin migrations in the desert regions around Palestine in the last 1300 years. The first Bedouin immigration took place with the rise of Islam in the seventh century. The armies of the Muslims were composed entirely of Bedouin soldiers, who came to Syria and Palestine with their families, tents, livestock and camels. The second Bedouin migration occurred in the ninth century. Tribes of Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym moved northwards from the Najd Heights to Sinai, Upper Egypt (10th century) and North Africa (11th century). The third Bedouin migration commenced early in the sixteenth century and reached its height in the seventeenth century. The Shammar tribe from the region north of Najd in the vicinity of Jabal Tay and Jabal Shammar- wandered northwards, and displaced the previous overlords of the Syrian Desert, the Mawali tribes (Hitti 1951:622; Sharon 1975).


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 64
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Hakima ◽  
Naser Moheseni Nia ◽  
Mohammad Shafi Saffari ◽  
Syed Esmail Ghafelehbashi

<p>In the gnostic literature of Iran and in the Islamic Gnosis, gnosis has been interpreted as an effort to save the individual by accessing to the real unity. <br />The unity, mystical journey (conduct) and the relation of God with creature are considered as three main axes under the theme of unity or the gnostic unity until before the pantheistic gnosis of Ibn Arabi, the concept's explanation and the definition of unity in terminological and lexical terms, expression of unity concept in the non-Islamic gnosis, explanation of unity concept in the Iranian-Islamic gnosis until the period of Ibn Arabi, expression of the way of mystical journey, explanation of mystics' attitude on the subject of mystic unity based on the belief of Gnostics of Khorasan school, expression of God's relation with creature in the Iranian and Ibn Arabi's gnosis are considered as the most fundamental under considering instances of this research work; in addition, a brief explanation on pantheism of Ibn Arabi is also under consideration. The theoretical pillars of exalted unity from the perspective of Ibn Arabi, are existence, entity and manifestation; Ibn Arabi, contrary to his preceding Gnostics doesn't consider the creatures mirageor hallucination. This view is somewhat different from the views of mystics of Khorasan, and Gnosis of Khorasan, the differences that have led to two ways of Conduct (Mystical journey) in gnosis. The scope of this research begins from the third century AD and continues by the end of the seventh century that is the rise of theoretical gnosis based on the Ibn Arabi's pantheistic opinions.</p>


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