Al Balagha al Wadiha Lesson 01 01 Introduction to Rhetoric

and welcome to our course on introduction to rhetoric in general right so we're to be explaining the text alba to ada and

alhamdulillah i mean this is one of the more interesting uh subjects um subhanallah nahu is very interesting initially and

when you learn how to figure out the era of this murphy this is much zoom this is you know it has its own thing and some people people that are in my experience anyway people that are

more mathematical in their thinking uh enjoy nahu a lot more uh self has a certain element but once you've memorized certain forms and things surf is not you know it's not as

challenging is more challenging and there's just a lot more to cover in nahum uh but it's dry you know there's only so many times you can

you know hear about you know zayd um but with balarama appears to people that are more literary in their thinking people appreciate language more

feel right at home with balarama right um yes you can have people that are good with their mathematical skills and they're very good with nahu and and then when it comes to badaga they're

excellent as well um but banara is what is rhetoric right we're going to look at it in detail in arabic mukhtar is it

right so for a particular words of speech to fit appropriately with the context in which is being said so it's basically the art

of saying what you want to say in the most effective manner and sometimes that's the most beautiful manner sometimes that's the most concise manner sometimes that's the most

um flowery manner let's say right so you know language is used to um convince people is used to instruct people it's used to entertain people so

this is basically what you get with balarama and what we'll find is that uh rhetoric

is something shared amongst languages right rhetoric is not just when when we learn these rules it's they're not just some of them are specific to arabic which we'll see and

they'll be very clear but when you learn about simile when you learn about metaphor right you know all of these things um what you'll find is that

um there'll be a transfer if you really got the principle down there'll be a transfer uh into your own language so what i do recommend is that you get uh j.r.r tolkien's book the lord of the

uh j.r.r tolkien's book the lord of the rings and you read that as you're studying this that you read that book whether you've read it before or not read that book and if you want you can start with

the hobbit um it's just nice to have the full story um but the hobbit is obviously i think he wrote it for even it's a difficult book by today's standards but he wrote

it and i think he had his six year old son proofread and he was like yeah it's great and it's quite difficult you know uh by today's standards

um but he is a master of this for example um bismillah right we say you know in the name of allah the

all merciful ever merciful so you've got the name of allah allah but then there's this these two attributes are mentioned after it and you know and he he

there's a section in the return of the king where he's describing the rich king of angem however you say and he just keeps giving attribute after

attribute after attribute after attribute and you'll see the power of all of these descriptions he's the first and the last and the outwardly manifested inwardly hidden and the one who knows absolutely every single thing

and then he gives you that thing so what we want so balara is a tool just like nahu and sarfa both it's a tool to get into

appreciating the quran appreciating the beauty of the quran so like um you, know, so, this, was, a means, of, you, know

strengthening your face right basically like he said that uh to you know you have to study balarama in order to to master um the science sorry in order to be able

to appreciate the beauty of the quran right so let's get into it right so in the text in the books actual introduction

we will look at and although the text is there on the slides uh i prefer if you actually follow on with actual pdf or get a physical copy of the

book this book is widely taught in the arab world it's widely taught in uh in the west it's not difficult to get it the edition that we're using is the

bushra edition get the actual text right if you can um otherwise there's a pdf you know print it off whatever if you need to but you use a physical copy make notes right

um that's the important thing the the text the two authors who wrote the text there they added loads of extra questions you know exercises and stuff we haven't looked at those right because

at this stage what we want is we want it we want to just understand the main rules of the text the main principles and then we take it from there

also what we also have is there are um principles that are covered right at the end of every section they

are the meat of the text if you memorize not we'd have to memorize them but as long as you know them really well and you can explain them that's the meat of the text and then there's there's a lot of poetry and a lot of prose in here

which i've done my best to explain um and you will benefit a great deal from it insha'allah and uh, although, something, i was, going, to talk, about, at the, end, of, the

introduction but i might as well discuss it now there are two types of when it comes to texts texts that you learn there's a text of the arabs

and the malaga texts of the non-arabs the non-arabs focused more more on defining the science every rhetorical device has this

particular has a german definition, as, we we're, doing, logic, you know and completely inclusive and completely exclusive inclusive of all the components of this thing and exclusive

or anything that's not from you know a definition and you know they lay out the science and you know the most important in the discussions and it's not all of these things and

then you've got you know and all these all of these things in bayan which we all come to this is what the ajim is focused on more and in reality you need

both right especially if someone you know if you want to go on to you know be a scholar of islam you need both right because the ulama

the scholars of tafsir especially whatever they use these terms right so you can't be ignorant of them the arabs like for example you've got ibn afir

right his book al-mathil right what they did is they had an approach where they weren't too rule-heavy the principles weren't there you know

they won't shook down in your throat or anything but they brought they used a lot of examples examples of good usage examples of good literature examples of good poetry

and this was done in order to develop a taste right your taste in language this ability to determine appreciate and critique um

language right good language a good usage and bad usage both things are essential right the ability to appreciate something and the ability ability to

compare and say this is superior to that for x y and z reason right so the so allah says both approaches are necessary where does this come from so the arabs

had their rhetoric right the arabs were known for their mastery of language you live in the desert there's not much you can do you can go ride a camel or you can compose some poetry or listen to it so the arabs were very famous for this

right and you know they're famous famous for their poetry um subhan allah there was a lot going on people had memorized

a lot for example there's normally you'd hear this ravi a female robbie rabbi, a, female, narrator, or, hadith or something but here the means gives the meaning of someone who does

something a lot so hamada rabia he once said there's a famous poem by kaab ibn zuhair and he did this to as a way of you know um

not having as, a way, of, asking, the, prophet, to, pardon him um but his father zuhair even abhisulma was famous for

you know his the poem that was hung in the kaaba and so what happened is hamada ravi at one point he said i know

300 different um i know 300 different poems written by 300 different men uh called zuhair right

um and all starting with a particular line right so there was a lot of poetry amongst arabs um you know subhanallah so you know they

were known for the eloquent expression which when the quran came it dumbfounded them the quran's beauty and arabic was mainly restricted to what

is it you've got poetry and you've got what they call in sha which is basically just prose and they've got khataba which is giving a speech and they had particular styles they had

particular motifs they had particular approaches the quran defied all of them and presented such literary beauty that you know it just left them dumbfounded they would

rather they chose to fight and lay down their lives their wealth their children and you know to oppose the quran they chose to do all of this over

um trying to compete with the eloquence of the quran because they knew it just wasn't possible so they gave up they gave up uh so you know

the arabs were known for this right and they were also they also were able to critique uh language critique language and usage um we've got you know there's famous

uh in discussions for example um hassan uh eventhabit and nabira and nabira is famous both films poets you they're

having a discussion and hassan is saying i am i'm more eloquent i'm better than uh you know these famous poets and another and then he quoted two lines

of his poetry critiqued he said look had you said this instead of this it had been more eloquent and then you said this instead of that it would be more eloquent right it's like that so

they were they had a grasp of their language they had a strong grasp of their language and they were able to appreciate and what is this appreciation it wasn't appreciation of yeah you made this word

murph and this word is not one soup no it's an appreciation of the beauty of language of the usage of language right and for example um [Music]

are those who know and those who don't know are they the same this is it's a question it's a rhetorical question but there's so much in there it's just you know it's really beautiful

and uh you know so questions sometimes you can ask a question to express shock would i hate my father you know um and you can ask the question to

criticize did you hit your father you know these sorts of things so the arabs appreciate this if we even have discussions you know um examples of the prophet sallallahu

alaihi yes he didn't compose poetry but he enjoyed good poetry and you know he is he occasionally asked the sahaba you know to quote

into some poetry to him right um for example once the prophet was with hassan and he said you know

recite for me a poem of the poetry of jahiliyyah right because allah has you know excused you know the sins mentioned in there and allah allah is excused at first right and there's a

benefit in studying this approach especially for you know improving your understanding of the quran so he quoted a poet uh in a a poem and then the prophet said

sallallahu alaihi oh hassan don't mention this cassidy to me ever again right so why then he said you know hassan asked why and he said that basically um

that this man uh was good to me um abu sufyan who was a foster brother of the prophet salallahu he had criticized

the prophet salallahu and poetry and you know al-qama even the author of the poem that hassan chose actually praised the prophet so um he

didn't want anything you know said about him in a negative way so then you know for example there's another ana right another point he said he said

would you do well enough he said we we've reached our our majesty and our our uh our forefathers because this is the most about the forefathers we've reached the

sky and that was so great and we and we hope for a greater manifestation of this as well so the prophet said uh

or abu leila you know where do you hope for this manifestation he said in paradise ya rasulullah he said in sha allah yes of inshallah that's where it happened then he said to me

then he said to him you know recite some poetry of him he says he said a couple of lines and then you know it's narrated that the prophet said you don't well for something to split up and spread out

and break right he said may not not break your mouth right he said to us you know and the narrator of this he said that um i looked at his

his mouth you know when this nabi had told him this and the narrator said later on in life and he said i saw his his teeth it's like they were in like hail stones you know that come down

really white and shiny and none of his teeth have fallen out the door of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam okay so as a brief introduction to balarama what how did it develop

was the letter of the sciences to develop a lot more focus initially was given to nahu as we know right you know the arabs were worried about their children you know

being influenced by non-arabs and not mastering the language and then we also have um surf which

you know which which was looked at as an aspect of nahu at that point right um

but it did develop into an independent science later but you know it was within that and so people okay they might have struggled with you know initially with the rules of what they didn't struggle with was

appreciation that's why if you look at if you look at the seer the science of the theory initially how did it start it started as a narration of

um you know short explanations even abbas was asked about this he said this was asked about this he said that you know a few verses here and there

and now if you look you've got um details of series like you know imam alu says and these books that go through practically every single letter in the quran from the ba of bismillah to

you know to the end of oneness right and you know a detailed deep analysis so the science developed but developed in a similar way right so there are a few stages so

the first stage of ballarat was identifying tropes right orthotrope is a commonly used theme a commonly used rhetorical device

and then you have the adamah such as abu ubaidah right who wrote his famous book majasul quran so what imam abu abadi did he you know he went to um

he went through the quran and identified places where there's majaz which is a topic metaphor that we see right and then for example the verse you say where the sun says

ask the city we were in you can't go and ask a city because the city is a plot of land with buildings right but what it means ask the people of the city right

and so he compiled he identified a lot of these rhetorical usages uh in in his book right and it's the books available it's around and it's an earlier book

so one thing that we notice about this stage uh of um writing is that um the terms of the science and the definitions

have not have not been identified they have not been delineated so what happens is people they looked at certain things and they

might refer to istiara and tashbee us both in tishbe or majaz right we look at all these terms insha'allah so you know they look at certain things and they just explain them in a broad way

another thing is that they just like we'll see with the imam who's last on this list um you know he discussed many things but you know

we discussed many topics of but what he didn't do was put them in an order right so things that are now in particular topics and sections whatever

is book these early works were not like this everything was everywhere right i naturally saw it because it was it was being developed and then we have imam asmai who's very very famous for

um his travels his learning he spent a lot a long time in the desert with the bedouins learning arabic and you know in his books you know he talks

a fair bit he talks about uh rhetorical devices like this these things that you know we find in the quran and in other aspects of language you know it's there right

subhanallah um and then we also have imam who's a great imam right and you know great imam of nahu very famous right in kufa and

you know he talks about these things as well he's identified them the tishbe and kinaya and these things he discussed them as well so in these stages people just

identifying these things as bishop right another famous huge scholar who jacob quotes and you know he's got some really beautiful stuff and

you know identifying these things right um he he was there was a particular class of people at that time who went on to become uh officials

not magistrates but in like uh people that dealt with government stuff and these sorts of things so they were an educated class so you know he wrote stuff for them and he identified these things

that's the first stage next we had um next we had the second stage of research and this stage of research i won't go too

deep into this but it was research into the arabic language based on what the these early scholars had and discussed um they went and researched into

one was researched directly into the quran and the hadith mostly in the quran right like imam romani al-khattabi al-baqilani you know their discussions were mainly

focused around the jazz of the quran what makes the quran inemitable right what where is the challenge of the quran laid out right and

this is basically it right and this is where um a lot of the research um on the quran because one of the miraculous aspects of

the quran in fact his primary one is the literary miracle right that you know it cannot be copied its beauty cannot be surpassed right or imitated

so these people had uh you know epistles not necessarily detailed works um on this topic at the same time you had other scholars who were

uneven sally earlier the scholars are looking into like even waters even even jaffa they're looking into language um and they're looking into body they're

looking into all of these sciences and they're explaining certain things as a general look into literature right into arabic literature so more and more

things were identified certain things were classed together and you know it was starting to come to you know fruition the best

stage you know it's it's the most interesting stage is uh this third stage right um you got the detailed analysis and now

you've got this giant right here and you know one of the things that which i am going into

there was a lot of discussion around this issue can the quran be imitated or not um no the quran is language is so superior

that it cannot be imitated it cannot no one can you know do something like it and then and then you had the muratazilla

and the more jazilah had a position that no they said that yes the quran can be imitated but allah subhana allah prevents people from imitating it right it's called the

surfer the position a surfer that deflected their you know sent aside and so they cannot imitate the quran but the you know had allah not done this

they would have had the ability right so the dominant position is that no it's you know um it cannot be imitated if we even have a jahid imam

so like i said this discussion went on for a couple of centuries right you know on top but imam al-jahed was a more tazily and you know he critiqued one of his teachers

uh for having this position he says it's because he doesn't understand arabic anyone that has a deep grasp of arabic would never take this position right and

so yeah imam abdullah he's got two main works the indications of the incapacitating ability of the quran

where he talks about this thing called anovum that you know is beautiful it's like you know that words are not after you know it's

not the individual words it's the words that are composed in a particular structure right and he he mentions example after example and he

analyzes it he analyzes and shows this is it and this is that and it's just really he is one of the unfortunately he's one of the, great, masters, of

you know you know the science of balarama and you know, he's, you, know, he's he's, not, as famous as he should be right uh amongst the scholars of ballard and stuff you know he's amazing you know

everyone you know uh takes the hat off for him you know he's amazing honestly his work is fantastic and they're both in that one work is

gone the other one is called right which is so you'd say is um ah amazing scholar and then at the same time

um oh actually just after we had the scholar mahmoud allah and his you probably heard him he's famous for his tafsir uh al-kashaf right

uh very famous and it is actually it's it founded a particular approach of tafsir right and there were the most of

you know basically where there's a lot of emphasis on the rhetorical uh approach of the quran the rhetorical analysis textual analysis and

you know the literary uh approach of the quran and you know you have many many famous professors in the commentaries on his death and then imam al-baydawi came

so the issue is with the imam zamakshi was that he was a mother and he was very gifted at hiding his his more jazzily positions within his

text so the ulama uh wrote many commenters on it and explaining the text back to front inside out uh

you know two of the most famous ones uh the hashi of ibn muneyer and the hashi of athibi right which is they're both imprint amazing works

and then uh you've got the tafsir imam razi also followed uh you know these scholars followed his approach and what was his approach is

basically taking some of the some of the principles that imam abdul qahir identified and applying them throughout the quran it's just fantastic honestly

it's fantastic so that was the third stage and then the first stage you got imam sakaki right and imam sakaki what he did is

he wrote a book called right the book the the key to the sciences and there's a section on the section and then the third section is and what he did is basically he

he described he he documented balarama right the science he divided it into three so the three subsciences the main discussions this is

the first thing we talked about this is the definition here is an example a few of the things here a few of the discussions there's some a bit of philosophy here and there a bit of logic

you know and so you know he he made a huge contribution right but it was padded out it was a identity work so

then came uh and so he wrote the summary of the key which focuses just on and one excellent text excellent text

and it's got many many commentaries on it the most famous commentary is uh and the best one is is by uh right um

which is called mukhtar al-mani he's got like a more extended commentary and then a shorter commentary and which has got many super commentaries on them like the

hashi of the supreme and these are texts that i generally talk uh in madaris or whatever but these focus more is like motherboard of the ajim so there are other balaga works

there are some contemporary works like i said imam sayyoti has a work there are other ones but they all basically follow suit from this approach right some of the more contempt for example there's a

a poem called the hidden pearl which basically looks at allah it looks uh it's it's it's diversification of the

salmon right because we need this and then there are commentaries on this muslim but they all basically go around this approaches it's it's an up place to

stop at this point um so what what the text that we've got what they do is they take not everything is covered it's an introduction to ballarat but

it's an introduction that gives you a bit of a taste because there are examples and you read them and you develop that taste especially when there's a bit of an analysis every example is analyzed right and you'll

develop that test and some of it comes with time some of it comes with mastery of nahum surf as well and but inshallah if you go if you get the examples down you'll be sorry right

you'll have a good approach uh a good entry into the science and you know um so they take the principles and they take the examples right so it's a good

approach uh overall so insha'allah uh let's that's the general introduction i talked about the arabs in the ajim and then what we'll do

we look at the introduction of the work see what is falsah