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88-13,367
WEISS, Bernard George, 1934-.
LANGUAGE IN ORTHODOX MUSLIM THOUGHT: A
STUDY"OF "WAJjl' AkI.!IGHAH'! AND rrs DEVELOP../.,/,
KENT.
.

Princeton un1verstty, Ph.D., 1966


Bellglon

Ualvenily Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor. Mlchlgan

. b2

lftll";"ll";"lI

LIBGU.MD Ill OR'1'llODCIX llOSLIM TllOUClll'h


111

\'
1ernar4 George '!!.eiu

A DISSBRrM'!Oll
HBSIDITBD 'rO TllB

lr.ICUL'lr OF PRilli:BTOll UllIVllRSift


Ill .c:AllDillM:r POR TllB DBGRBB

'I

!\

or llOC'fOR

07 PBIIDSOPBr

1:1. liil . . . . .

'

..

. ~ .'

. , ,., . r.-.;,

'-

~~

Loi~)()

1w4x.

. tre(aae

Some of the materials


u1ed
in the preparation
of thi
I
.
.
di_rtation were acquired from Egyptian l1brarie1 through
the llicrofilllling facilitiea of the Department of xanuacripta

of the AJ:all Leaque in Cairo.

It

waa

my good fortune to apend

the winter of 1964-65 in Cairo under a reaearch grant from


the -rican 11eaearch Centu in Egypt, dudng whicih time the

acquiaition of these materials

V!"'

posaillle. .

I have delillerately made it a practice not to include


in the footnote billliographical data othu thlln the autbo;r'

D8llll and the title.

The reader DAY consult the Lit of

woru Conau1ted" for futber data.

8Clll8 Arallic title are

illlirreviated, but in uch a way that the work may be easily


located in the "Liat of llorka Conaulted.

I,,
I

The uae of

J!U4.,

and Si! cit. i natticted to. inatancaa whne tile previouely


cit.ea

VOJ:'k

1a on th& same page.

I - special thlUll<a to Dr. ltlldolph llach and Prof.


arbat Ziad.eh for calling_ V1J attent_ion to numerous uaef''i'l

vorka, and to Prof. Ziadeh for reading the entire draft of

the diaserta.tio~ and auggeating nULteroua 1mprovementa;

.Any

_shortcomings that may mar the following pages are. all of my

"" Mking.

... ,.._

" ..

,,, ,..,,,.
,/

.7!)zle of Content
introduction

'

. . ... .... .

1-7

"If~' AL-LDG!IAll" AND TllB l'llOBLRll OP

ms

ORIGI!I OP LAliGllAGB

8-41

8-l3

'lb Quetion of Greek Influence

The saturaliat-Tbeologica1 controversy

l3-l8

Traditioniat Origins of the "'1'heologic:al


View' - ~ ..

18-20

The conven~ionalJ.at-Theological
controversy

::.~

&iqnificance of the controv'1!r&y

'1'h "'. .

"lfAec. AL-LDGHAll" AND

ms

20-JS
35-37

... .. .

J7-41

42-89

l'RDICIPLBll

fJ' JllUBPRDDB5Cll

Xntroduction

42

!!!d'- al-Lu9hah and the !!utakallimiln

42-45

Anticipation of wade. al-lugh.ah in


al-Shl.fi<I .

45-47

1"4'- al-Lughah in the Legal '1'hought


of the Mutazilites

...

1114 al-Lughah in the Legal '1'hought


of the Scholaatic11

!adc. al-Lu9bab and the Linguistic

remiaea".I
'1'he 'Knowledge of
~

J!5.!

and the Features of Language

A SUJDing tip

47-54

54-89
54-60

'!he Scholastic .systemization

...

.....

60-88

'1-71
72-89

89

lii'I lii'I . . . . .

'

90-139

. 'l'llS "&CIIPICB OF II.ID " ( ~ AL-II~)

. ...

lnb:'oduction
the Catec;oriea of

90-93
94-118

94-114
114-117
117-.118

. "])irect ,and "Indirect llS!.


.lpplicatlon of the catac;odes of

118-122

'!be lament. of -Language

aourC:e

.... ...

123-124

.Jlpplication of the Catec;orie

. . . . ..
.

124-128

cJnp...'lma, 1--@!tt, l(b.'!isa-IQ:i!.at

128-139

1aolat1ve and
i'

118-139

~aW1Ptive

.1pp11cation of the.catec;orle
~SlO!IS

LIST OF llOUS COllSUL'?llD


DISBBll'l'MIOll All8TIUICT

140-149
150-15&
157

'

. . . . . liill

..a

Introduction

The phrase wad' al-lughah gives expression to on~ of

the most fundamental of all Islamic ideas, namely that of


the givenness of language.

Tb.is phrase did not gain currency

until the tenth century, but. the idea of the givenness of lan-

guage was implicit in ySlam from earliest times.

a way of life centered upon sacred law.

Islam is

The law, which 1&

the supreme given upon which the well-being o~ man depends

1
'

utterly, is embodied in texts written in a particular lan: 11

guage, 1.e. Arabic.

Since this language is independent of

and prior to the law, it constitutes a giVen in its own right.


Before the law can be kna.m, the language of the sacred texts
muat be known.

The Chief service of the early philoloqista

was to record the givens of language (al-maWdULat al-lusha11

wiyah). l

ii

t.exicography was called the science of ~e lan-

guage C\lm al-luqhah), th8 definite. artic~e signify-ing an

'

I.

honorific title appropriate only to a well def.ined corpus

:i

such as was Arabic, a composite of givens to which nothing

1
i

should be added and from Which nothin9 should be taken iplfay.

i:'

I I.i
'

'I
lFor the use of mawduc in the sense Of given, see
Gardet-Anawati, Introduction a la TheOlogie MU&ulmane, p. 407

.'

The term wad' itself is essentially a semantic term,


and accordingly the idea of the givenness of language is

worked out along semantic lines.

What ia ~iven, what is

established, with respect to language, is the relation be-

tween expressions (al~z) and meanings Cma~anl).


tion ia the essence of language.

This rela-

Language comes into being

when expressions and meanings are brought

tog~ther.

Sepa-

rate them from each other, and you are left with mere sounds

on the one band and pure thought on the other.

Language is

the totality of its expressions together ~ the t_otality

of tbe:l:1= meanings.

This of course presupposes a realm of

distinct, self-contained, pre~ex~st8nt meanings, to which

expressions can be correlated in a on~to-one fashion.

Both

expressions, as sounds, and meanings, aB pure ideas, preced_e


langUage.

sxpressiona are denizens .of the external physical

world-(al-khari1}, ideas ~re denizens of the internal intelligible wOrld Cal-dhihn): language bridges the gap between
tbe twq worlds.
Thus the idea of the g~venness of language is elaborated
in terms of a radically inflexible do~trine of semantic f iXity.

Bxpress~ons are established" for their meanings, and

what is established cannot be changed. This guarantees that


tbe expressions of the sacred.texts have a fixed and constant

eaning which i never lost to the community of MUlims


.-1nco:e these meanings are rooted in the given.
One might aay that the givenness of lanquaqe ia 1mplicit in any religion baaed on

~evealed

truths, whether

these truths fall under tlie heading of law or not.

An:'J scrip-

tural revelation presupposes language, and the language chosen


as the medium of revelation is necessarily a point.of referance in the

interpr~tation

tion is contaJ.ned.

of the texts in which the revela-

In Islam, ha111ever, the qiv~nneas Of lan-

guage has a uni.qua importance.

Whe:ceae in Christianity the

church or the Holy Spirit, illuminatin9 the mind of the be~iever, exercises an interpretin.9 rol~, in Islam thia role

I,

devolves

~elusively

upon those versed in principles of in-

terpretation based upon the Study of l~n9ua98.

The Prophet

was considered_to be an infa~libl~ interpret~r of the Koran,

but hi& interpretative state.ments are enshrined in traditions

'which themselves becaine part of the sacred texts.

in Christianity the Bible does not serve as a ~asis for law

to the same

'i

I,,
'

Moreo~er,

exte.n~

that the_ sacred texts of Islam do.

law.' 'it .is true, was founded upon

scr~pture,

canon

but canon law

did not aspire to the comprehensiveness tllat:- characterizes


the law of Islam.

consequently, the Bible was never utilize~

for legal purposes as fully as the Koran and Sunnah were.

4
'Zha Bible 1 primarily a boo!< of history, which records the

bitory of. God'dealinga with men.

The comnunication of

hJ.torical information does not place as great a burden upon


l~nguage a8

the communication of legal directives.

inti i

one reuon why the Bible is accepted in translation, whi~e


the Koran 1 not.

In Islam a vast legal system, in which

practi.cally every action of which man is capable ii accorded

a legal atatua, 1 founded upon the precise meanings of Arabic expreaa101W1 it

~a

unthinkable that theae expresstona

ahoul.d be translated into another language.


OD the other hand, one would not say t:ha.t t:he given-

ne of language i implicit in all law, but only in aacred


law.

In the c~vil law of Europe, for ex~le, t:he Latin of

a particular periOd would never be considered an ultimate

point Of reference in the way that the Arabic of the Qurayab


18:

considered in Islam.

'l'he reason is that there are no

Bbaolutely final texts. in c~vil l.aw.

Texts are alway11 subject

to revi.81on and

rephra~ing

Ambigui~ie8 and

archaisms may be eliminated. and the language

at the hands of the powers that be.

of the texts brought up to date.

con~equently,

while ol.der

texts. ~or example the TWel.ve Tabl.es, may be of utmost impOrtanc:e 1.n the shap1.ng of law, the la~guage o:f an ear.lier period,
e.g. f1.ftb; centuJ:Y e.c., is never regarded_3.s a given for

,.

'

th whole of law.

In Ialam, however, the.aacred texta are

not. to be tampered With.


for all.

The verbum

ae1

is spoken once and

Thia means that if the verbum ~ ia to.be under-

atood and obeyed in all ages, the language in Which it is


expressed muat be an ah_aolute given..

"Given .. thus has the

aenae of aetermined for all time; ..

Archaism.a are a part of

.the given.

Moreover, in civil law texts tend to be precise

111 the first. plaCer they are

d~awn

up by legislative aaaem-

b_liea .. or juristic councils, whose purpose is to state laws


clear~.

usually in a technJ.cal legal language.

'rberefore1

ven iD the case of an older text meanings may be grasped


~1th

only a minimum of conct;tr:n with

m~tters

of lanquage.

'l.'be acre_d texts of Islam, e&pecially th8 Koran, la.Ck :this


,iD.it:ial precision.

The Prophet did not' consider himself

primarily a lawgiv~r, though he di4 lay down norms for the


c::cmau.nity in Medinah.

consequently, the sacred law is based

on texts that are, not explicitly legal..

Thia means that a

9reat. deal must b8 ~ade of oblique meanings..


Of 1111hat cal.

and

'rhe question

what cannot b~ considered the proper meaning

~fa text is a question which must be.eesolved With reference


t~

lanquaqe.
'fhere is a close affinity between the terms wade and

aunnah.

'rhe latter te"rm. in its broad non-religious sense,


::

6
~ans simply .. pr~-eatablish,ed custom, i.e. that Which

ha

been laid da.itn in the past as a norm or all subsequent activity.

The sunnah ,is the totality_ of givens in the 1-ife

of man.

Restrictin9.ouraelves to this wider sense of the

term, we may speak of a sunnah of

language~;

indeed, one

does come acxoss instances here and there of the term used
1n this manner.

Witness

~be

title of Ibn Faris 1 s books

alS!bibI fl figh al-lughah wa-sunan al-~arab fl kal'Smih~


(concerning the Understanding of. Language a~d the Tradi-

tiona of the Arabs with respect tO their


,1.
'

Speech~).

For the

moat part, ha.iteVer, the term sUnnah had a peculiarly religious ~ignificance: strictly speaking, it was a deSignati~n

for the utterances and actions of the Prophet viewed as setting a true precedent for th~ new Conwunity, .but ~n a~tual
uaage it became a designation for the body of traditions
in Which the actions and utterances of the Prophet were recorded.

Because of this, the term wade, rather than sunnah,

became the accepted term for the idea of precedent, of the


given, in matters of lariguage.

ii

"'

r~lated

However, far from being un-

to each other, the terms wade. and sunnah became mu-

tuall complementary.

Kna.itlE!dge of the .!.!!!l!l!!!. as

of the Koran, depends on a knowledge of ~

wel~

as

In order to

knoW what has been established in the mOral a:hd religious

life, one must

k~ow

what has been established with reference

to lanquaqe.

'l'h1.9

~sertation

comprises

thre~

sections.

The first

i i deVoted to the co~troversy among MUslim& over the origin

of language.

This controversy provides a background f6r an

understanding of the early deVe~.ment of the idea of the

givenness of language and the ultimate articulation of that


idea by means of the phrase wade:. al-lughah.

The second sec-

tion deals vith the ~urther development of the idea within


the science of t:he principles of jurisprudence' C':ilm usiil

(
I

aJ.-fiah), vb.ere it is brouqht into sbarpe_r focus than in

any of the other sciences.

l!!A!. with.iii

The crucial role of the term

the "linguistic ~remises (al-mab'3dl. al-lugha-

viyah) of that science is examined.


.,'

The final section is

concerned with the final crystallization of the .. idea of the


givenness of i.anguaqe in the aoienc~ of ~ ( c11m al-wadt.),

a aoience 'Which grew out of the l'!!llinguiatic premises.

!1"4~ al-Lughah.and the Problem of the Origin.of Language

The discussions of the origin of language (mabda al 1ughah) 1 form a.n important chapter in the devc:lopment of the
idea of the givenness of language, in islam.

This givenness,

aa we h~ve seen, means essentially the givenness of the expression-meaning relation; and the discussions of the origin
of language were conc~rned Primariiy with this relation.
'rile question of how language comes into being was understood
as a question of how expressions come to be related to their
meanings.

At bottom there was a concern to show on What

ground the givenness of the ~ression-meaning relation can


be established.

There were three view~ in medieval Islam as to the


origin.of langua9e.

(1) Ac~ord1;ng

to ~ne, language is the

product of nature; that is, lan~age originates in natural


aounds which the human voice is able to im.itate.

&xpreasions

therefore signify meanings by virtue of an intrinsic, natural


resemblance to these meai:iin9s with re_spect to sound.

(2) Ac-

~is and ibtid!? are the common desigrl.ations for the.


Problem in the books of legal theory, e.g. al-"knidI, al-~b
klm., p. 38; Il:>n al-ij~j:i.b, Muntaha al-wusUl, p. 19.

cording to the second view, language is the product of human


convention, i.e.it originates in the concerted efforts of
g_roups of human beings

~ho

gather together for the express

purpose of appointing expre.ssiohs for meanings.

(3) The third

view made language the result of divine instruction: the relation between expressions and meanings is rooted in the nature
of God, in the divine articulateness: man learns 'both ez:pdesions and mearrl.ngs from God. 1
Tbe first two of these views bring to mind view& of
the origin of language advanced by the ancie.nt Greeks r the
ao-~alled

physis (nature) and thesis (convention) views.

'l'he question naturally arises whether we. have here an instance


of direct influence of Greek thought on

Isl~..

That some

;:i"

I,

influence occurred can hardly be deJ_Ued.

It is u'1likely that

a matter so widely discussed as the o:c:igin of larlguage, a


matter v_ith which not only the pre-Socr.atic11, Plato and Aristotle concerned themselves, but also Stoics and Epicureans2
lThe controversy over the orig:iil of langUage i.n .Islam
Lou~.el ln L'Origine du Langage
d 1 apre8 les gramm.ariens arabes. Arabica (1963-64). LOucel
_imply survey& and summarizes the relevant philological sources
Vii;b a minimum of concern for historical Setting and chronolOCJY. BeyOnd the philoloqica1works he does not go.
bu been dealt with by B.

2w.s. Allen, Ancient Ideas on the.origin and Development of language, TransactionS of the Philological Society
.2f LOndon, 1948, PP 35-60.

---10
of later_timea, could have escaped entirely the notice of

the MU.slims.

However, it would _be wrong to think of the MUB-

11.m discussions of t~e origin of language as a mere continuation of the Greek discussions.

several considerations indi-

c8te that this was not the case.


(l) A continuation of the ancient discussions.would
have required a rather detailed knOW'ledge of those discussions.
8\1t we do not know of any ~ources from which such

in the period in which the MU.slim discussions

a knowledge,

appe~

to have

begun, i.e. the ninth century, could have been derived.

'?he

c1asaical account of the. thesia-phyais controversy, i.e. Pla-


to'a

Cr~tylus,

into AJ:abic.

I :

was not, so

f~

Al-FlrlD>1 'mentions it in hie "PhiloBQphy of

: Plato, .,1 but his ilccount of it

1'

j '

I .,

as we can tell, translated

se~

aources., not on .the Cratylus itself.

to. be based On other

'rhe orily kriown ao~rce

i'i ,;

from which the Muslims could have learned about the Greek
I

I,

theories is the De I~te'E'lretatione of Aristotle, -in which a

I''

conventional~st_position is put forward, together with its

1,

~011111.enta.ries.

i'
I

,,I

\,.

But the works of Aristo~le were nOt widely

understood in the ninth century.


(2) The

~naturalist

view of language and the conven-

lAlfa.ra:bius, De Platonis Philosophia, Arabic text, p .. 7.

11

tJ,onaliat view were never simultaneously advanced in Islam


~

rival viewss there was never a confrontation between them.

i true that in the later books in philology and legal

th80J:f (ue'lil al-figh) the two views are

with the tbeolo.gical view; l but this must not be taken to

I~
I,
!

mean that these

fiven time.

I
1,

vi~a

were

juxta~sed,

prOpoun~ed aimul~aneoualy

at a

In actual fact, the "naturalist" view of language

1,I

preceded the conventionalist 11 view by at least

t:I.

tuxy. 2

together

When the

co~ventiQnali~tM

ha~f

a cen-

view was first put forward,

it appears that the naturali&t .. view had been disposed of,

ao that no one then accepted it as a theory of the origin of


l~guage.

All this shows rather conclusively that the debate

of the anc:ient Greeks over the. origin of language waa not,

t: l
I

in the aenae of a debate between the competing and

'

di~~tri-

I
~y op~aed

physis and tjlesisR views, continued in that

folCll among the Muslims.

I'
'

Accordingly the mediating view of

8ocJ:~te 1 _wbicb the. cratylua represents as bringin9 the debate

'~l

~ the origi.D of language to a conclus~on, 3 has no exact

t-

t.' ------.le.g.
~

~ --. '

t:c

al-kddI, al-Ibkihli,

p.

J.B.

2rhe basis for this chrpnology is given On p.

3According to Socrates, both convention 'and natural


>_--~-,c~:-l!li.lat1on play a ~art in the forniation of lariguage: see
-~-;'.J:~tt, The Diil.loques of Plato, pi). 222-224.
~-:.--''-'

---- -

ll
oounte:pllrt among the Mulilna.

(3) '!he naturaliat view, aa advanced in Islam, can

1'11 accounted for without any recourse to a Greek precedent.

It

may ve>:y well have grown out of the speculation of philo-

11

. _ 'logista over the

11

aimilari~

between certain words and their

I'

.an:J.nga. According

\11.

1D this aort of speculation was lChalil ibn Al)mad, 16 th~ founder

Ibn j!nnt, one of the first to engage


. (d. 791)

I .

of Arabic philology.

1\

bald that the difference between the sounds of tbe

per and the cricket is reflected in the worda that signify

'I

thoae aoundas aarra and saraara.l

grassho~

Such interest in onoma-

. topoeia vu carried to extreme by some etymologists, Who at-

1.

'-:

tributec1 natural meanings

!11
I ',. .

I'

t~

the consonants.

'fbus we find

tbe 41.fference in meaning between gaaama and khadama made

to Z.eat

;!~'

OD the

difference in ~ound between g and Jg}.

bec:uaa of the hardnesB

:1'.

o~

Qadama,

the g, means to eat something

~d

1114 dJ:Y"I whereas kha4ama, awing to the. lighter quality of

\\'
[!

the Jgi,. means to eat aometh1ri9 soft and moist. 2

I
\

Khiilll, for example, is said to have

such spe-

CU.lation aa this could. ve:cy easily have led to the supposi1

tion that _language in its entirety o~iginatea in ai.milarities

1:

\:

I.

l.Jl:n Jinni., al-Khasa is, II, p. 152.

rl

21!!.!!!., pp. 157-158.

\i

'

13

between vocial sounds and meanings.


Thu we look in vain for a mere repetition in Ilam
of

~he

ancient phyaistheeia controversy.

Rather we find

in the Mulim discussions of the origin of language two seem-

1ngly separate controversies1 in the first, the 11 naturzi.list 11


and theological views are the contenders: in the second,
the

11

conventionalist" and theological 11 views.

The

11

natur-

aliat and conventionalist views, rather than being oppO1itea, represent successive challenges to a common opposite,
namely the theological view.

Tbe

~aturalist-theological"

controversy appears to

have been a mJ.noi event in the intellectual history of early

llam.

Unlike th8 later "conventionalist-theological con-

trover.Y, which invqlved repreaentativea of major movements


Within Islam, this cont"roversy

to Mu1.tazilite circles.

see~

to have been confined

There is no record of a. clash between

the naturalist vi~ a'nd the emerqin9 or~odoxy.

Orthodoxy

1n the ninth century waa represented by AQmad ibn ijanbal (780855) and his followers, who were concerned with issues of
~09ma1 the origin of lan~age was not_ at that time such an

iaue.

'1'he opposition to the naturalist view came from

~1tbin .Mu~tazilite

ranks.

our information concerning the naturalist-theologi-

14

cal controversy 1 unfortunately scanty.

The only represen-

tative of the naturalist view whose name has come down to


~.ii <Jll>bad ibn Sulaymin (d. 864), a Mutazilite of Basra.

la for the

11

theological 11 view, its earliest knOW"n represen-

'

.tative among the Mutazilites is Jll>il 'All al-Jubbi 'I (d. 915-6), 1
wbO flourished a quarter of a century or more after the time

of &Abbld .jJ)n SulaymXn.

Thia leads us to wonder whether there

vaa a controversy at all in

~Abbad's

time, since we do not

. :know of any of C.Abb3d a contemporaries' to have held the op-

po81te, 1.e.

11

tbeologica1, view. (The conventionalist view,

~cording to Ibz:i iraymlyah, was not yet in existence.2)


is mOre likely is that an actual controversy did

no~

Wh~t

occur

Wltil around the tum of the century, 1. e. 900 . .If this is

111'
:
11.,

IO, then the adversaries :1n the con_trovert1y would have been

I! ~1)
i! nl

1.1-Jubbl >1, representing the .theological point of view,

! ; ~i j

and. certain follOW'era

:,

I ii'

I
I

o~

'Abb"id ill_n .Sulaymin, who con.tinued

to perpetuate the riaturalist view of their master.

This

ICcord with what.we knOW' of a general conflict between alJ\lbbi>I and the follOW'ers of 'Abb~d. 3 cAbb~d had. taken is~ue

1Falchr al-Din al-~I, al-~afsir al-kablr, II, p. 175.


2Ibn Taymiyah, Kitab al-Imlin, p. 36.

3w.

Montgomery Watt, ~bM illn Sulaym"lri, BI (new ed.)

. ,

with the school of AbU al-Hudhayl (d. 840-1), the ..,at celel>:t&ted of the early

Mu'taz~lites,

in various points.

Since

al-Jubbi'I belonged to this school, -he took up the cudgels

on its behalf against cAbbad, whose

1'Y the latter's followers.

vi~s

This suggests

were then represented


~_tron9ly

that he

adopted the tbeoi~gica1 view of the origin of language in


direct opposition to the school of .cAbb'ld.

EXactly how al-

Jubba'I formulated the theol09ica1 view is not known, but


it is certai.n that hie version of that view differed considerably from the traditionist version, which will be discussed
presently.

Probably his foniiulation was similar to that of

the later speculative theoloqians (mutakallimUn> who held


the theoloqica1 view. 1
Unfortunately, as with all the

ear~y

Mu tazilites,

Ve have no writings of '.nbbad ibn sul~ymin, and the usual


lbUrces for ninth century Mu'tazil~tism,_i.e. the Magilat

Of al-Jlllb<ari and the Kitl!b al-Intiaa:r of al-Khayya:' have


DOtbing to say about hi~ view of language; nor do the volumes

ao. far published of cAbd al-Jabbar 1 s al-MughnI f.r al:lwab al-

J:!whtd wa~al-'adi

ant

consequently, we are reli-

on the later books of legal theory (uSiil al-figh).

laee p. J~

shed any light.

These

-~.-~

16

))OOkB, however, are more interested in the refutation of'.Ab. -tild_'a view than in an objective statement of it and the arguments supporting it.

The only argument of c:Abbid recorded

!I tllat g!ven by Fakhr al-Din ai-RbI !n al-Mahsul fl usiil

al-figh, where

Abbad is said to have maintaiDed that expres-

aiona must resemble their meaninga,,othe.tWise there would be


no reason ltar1I.b) why one -wxpression and not another is used
fOJ: a particular meanin~ .1

'l'his uqument. is weak, and we ~y

conjecture tli'at cAbb:ld had moJ:e effective arguments th.an that


on Which to build his ca.se.

on the otheJ: hand, if an actual

controversy had not begun in his time, we may suppose that


he J:ested his view moJ:e on philolo9'ical considerations, e.g.

onomatopoeia, than on theoJ:etical conside1:ations such as those


upon which the above aJ:gument is based.
The standard arguments used to refute the "natu'raliat
View of the oJ:igin of language weJ:e as follows:
(1) If expressions of tllemselves (b!-dh:l.Uh:t) dgn!fy

llean:t.nga, i.e. by virtue of a similarity to .the meaning, then


ftecessarily each person would kn<:"". all the languages; it would
be unne~essary to leaJ:n the meanings of exp1:essionS.

But this

Obviously is not the case.2


lpakhr al-DXn al-RazI, _al-MahsUl, as quoted in MuzhiJ:, p.17
2a1-suyot-I., al-Muzhir,Ip. 17.

;
deniably signify the non-existent.l
(3) It is also unthinkable that the same expression

1bould resemble two ailtith~tica~ meanings1 yet this is what


the naturalist position

woul~ re~ire

us to say of homonyms.

It is a fact of language, inE!xplicable on the naturalist


view, that some homonyms signify entirely opposite meanings
("4dld) .2

'

To whom these arguments are due, whether to al-Jubb'i "1.

himself or to .later thinkers, is-a question to' which our sources


do not supply an answer.

Quite conceivably .the third .argu-

ment, Which is _basea on an

'

11r
I

'i)j

ess~~tially

philological insight,

have been advanced by the more philologically inclined

llu~tazilites of 'AbbXd's ~ t.;n.e.

,,, RI
iI :.~1

The failure of the naturalist view of

I ;;

'I

~e

origin

Of lanquage to make an impact in Islam is significant for

I'

the aevelopment of the idea of the giveriness of ~anguage.

I'

~ever else this ide_a would be develop'ed _henceforth, it would

\'.'

Dot' be aeveloped along naturalistiC li~es.

Naturalism might

1:

libn al-ijajib,

11'

i'

Muntah~

al-wu?Ul, p. 20.

. 2al-l\midt, al-IbJsl!m, p. 38.

18
p given a sure basis for this idea1 a language given in

.!',

.D!tur.e, rooted firmly in man's physical environment, would

!IA been a

language immune from change and secure against

corruption, a language the givenness of which would have been


the givenness of nature

But the

its~lf.

ac~eptance

of such

a 1cbeme would have meant the sacrifice of a basic Islamic


f-

J.nlligbtr all permanence is based o.n the will of God. . This


J.nlligbt, which came to be

exp~eaaed

in an atomistic ontology,

Hared by Mu tazilitea and orthodox alike, was inimical to

f - tbe

very idea of nature, as .. that idea has been understood in

the West.

The theological view of the or iqin of language

extended this insight to language itself.

Permanence in lan-

guaga, like permanence in all other realms, must be based, not

on such phantasiea as an abiding

nat~re,

but on

th~

reality -

Of the timeless and imlliutable wiU of God. l


The belief in the divine origin of language had arisen

loQg

before al-Juhba>x embraced a version of it in

oppo~itiOn

to the view of c..AbbM ibn Sulaym:!ln~ It had its ~oots in the


f, 014 tradi tionism of the first century and a half of Islam.

if

haditio~sts wer~ i~terested,

among other

~inqs,

in the

iilterpretation of the Koran- and the belief in the divine

~.

1Arnaldez, Grammaire et Theoloqie chez Ibn Hanm, p. 40.

I
I

19

origin of language WU based On a broad interpretation Of


th Koranic atatement that God taught Adam all the namea.

. (!Coran ll, 31).

According to thia

inte~retation,.

which ia

secorded by al-;abuI, 1 the ph%-aile a11 the names meana the

namea

cil>Jects.

all existent tbingss persons, animals, and inanimate

'?hi wu tantamount tc 1aying that the Koran teaches

that God taught Mam language in its entJ.rety.


In addition tc this broac! interpretation, al-'fabari

alo records a more narrOW" one. 2 accordi.ng to which the phrase

'
at1 the names means either the names of' the angels, or the
names of Adam's aona.

irbia interpretation wu based on the


'

p:reaence of the masculine plura1 third pm:son pronoun l-1!.Ym)


:l.D the latter part of thie same

~erse:

Then (haviilg taught

Mam all the names) he ahawec! them (-hum, i.e. the thing
~) ~ the &n9!!1B and aatdc ~811 me the names of th~ae,

if you are truthful."

l f God had taught Mam the names of

all existent things, so the argument

~an.

it would have been

nac:eaaary to use the pi::onoun -.!!!,, which can xefer to both


~tional
~fer

and irrationa1 objects, xathex than -.h!!!g, which can

C?n1Y to rational beings,

i~e ..

angels oX the sons of Adam ..

lal-iabari, Tafs~r. I, pp. 482-485.


21!!.I.!!. pp. 485-486.

20
lfbe 1111.jority 0 the exegetes,

aSr a1-iatiari,

accepted

tb broader intei"pretation of the phrase ai1. the names,


including the paragon of exegete, Ibn "Abb'ia, to whom innu-

..rable exegetical traditions


~

.r

in

literature.

th~

~e

attributed in

~he

cormnen-

Mahdi. al-MakhzOml points out that Ibn Abblis

matter, as in many otbera, may have been influenced

by Jew"iab doctrines, i.e. the ao-c:alled 1srl~IlI'ylt_ 1

The

'?Orab, unlike the Koran, makes Mam the giver of nameBr bUt
it is quite exi>licit as to what lldam gives the names !2_1 to
eV~tbing

'that puaed w.itlUn Adam' viev..

irhia comprehen-

liveness, when attributed to the Koran, results in a uniquely

~-_ i81~c

doctrine of the divine origin of

~anquage.

It is

quite poaaihle that such a doctrine, baaed on the Koran, was


formulated in direct response to a Jewish doctrine, basQd on

'!

Xt vu in the tep:tb century that the theological"

!~ ~

Vi.av of the Origin of language received ita first serious


Ohallenge.

'rile initiator of tbis challenge was

Abu

H!shim, (d.933)

011. of a.l.-Jubba:.)r. who introduced the conventionalist" view

,I

llMl in ao doing touched off the fir at real controversy woithy

Of the name over the origin of language.

lat-llakhztimI:. al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Far~ldI, p .. 84.

21

AbG

~him'

opponent was the famous al-ABhcarI (d.

9356), the founder of Sunnite theology.

According to Ibn

Taymiyah,l al-AsharI,_ during his MUtazilita days, had ac:ce~t~d

the conventionalist view, but

wh~n

he broke with

)IUCtazilitism, he gave it up in favor of the theolo~1Ca1


viw.

-Thia was the view of al-Jubbi'I, and it may be that

in this matter al-AshcarI was. influenced to some extent by


his former master.

Abtl Hhbim, 1n formulating the

11

C:onven-

tionalist view, had made a departure from the position of


his father.

'l'bis is coosiatent With What we knOW in qeneral

about the r.elation of AbU Hhhim to his father.

The fqrmer

fOunded a sep~ate achOol ~f JIUCtazilites, i.e. the.Bahabamiyah,2


Vhic:h saperceded the school of his father.3 AlAsharI, it

then appeiU:'B,

m~st

haVe been influenced during his Muctazilite

phase by his fellow-student AbU Wlshim; and when he withdrew

from

Mu~tazilite

circles. be gave up the view of the son in

faizcu:!~of ~e viw.of the father.

But there was Diucb. more to al-Ashc.arxa acceptance

of the theological" view of the origin of language than a

libn Taymiyah, Kit11b al-Im~n. p. 36.

2.rhe term is formed from the name Abn B~him.

la .Byber9, al-MU~tazilah,

BI, III, p. 791.

22

199E'e E"eturn to the teaching of a former

MU~tazilite

master.

'Al-Aah<arI waa above all else &J1?<10us to show his loyalty to


the traditionist causes and since among the people of t+adi-

tJ.on (ahl al-sunnahl the belief in the divine origin of lan-

guage ran strong, it is natural that be should have opted for


.tbat belief.

MoreoveE', the conveptionalist view of AbU

Bl&bim vae soon to become a distinctly

Mu~tazilite

view: and

it is frequently so called in the later books of legal theory

lusUl al-fiqh).

Al-Ashcarr undoubtedly saw_ that this was the

case, and adopted the theological" view- as a direct stand


against the MU~tazilites.
~OE'

The origin of language. ~us became,

a time, an issue between

MUct~ilites

and Sunnite theo-

logians.

'!be terms around which the controversy revolved were:


f.

iat~1Jh,_ taw~duc,

~nd taw~tu~,

.!!!!!m, and ~' for d~vine ori9in .1

....
I,.

are nearly synonymous1

~e

a~d

for convention,

tawgrf,

The former set of terms

latter set, however,

di~fer

to

&<me

extent in meaning.

Tawgif literally means instruction:

it 1a the infiJ~ival form of the verb waggafa ca1a, i.e. "to

.. ,
1.Datz:uct (someone) in, to inform (someone) of."

This term

COnorms rather well to the term taclim, which is the infini-

L.

-.
l'l'hese terms are discussed by LOucel in L 1 0rigine
411 Langage d'apres lee grarmnar~ens arabes," Arabica, X, fas.3,
pP.254-S.

23

.,t1ve of ea11ama, the word used


1~>

Adam all the names."

Thus tawgif expressed perfectly

t.bat doctrine of the orig~n of language Which arose in tradi-

tionist circles and baa its basis in the Koran.


ilhX:m and

~'

The terms

on the other hand, which mean "inspiration,

do not have this close connection with the Koranic text.

lt may be askeds what was it about the conventionalist


position that cmimended it to the majority of Mutazilitea?
lfhe answer requires a brief excursion into the ninth Century.
During that centu:ty, the leading minds had been preoccupied

with the question of the createdness of the Koran.

Of all

the issues of those times, this was unquestionably the great-

est, since during the reign of

al-Ma~m~n

trine of the createdness of the Koran W!!B

ition

~fa

(813-833) the docelev~ted

to the po-

pledge of allegiance to the .Abbasid caliphate.

The.Jl\J.Ctazilites. .in defe~ding thei~ position emphasized the


I

.. create~

~ature

of speech in general.

Speech. they, argued,

consists of sounds which are ephemerai. 1


to'

speak

God cannot be said

(mutakallim) sine~ he does not enter into.the ephe-

meral order: he-can only be"said to cause sp"eech.2


bares all the quil.ities of

ordin~~

The Koran

speech; it came into

~d al-Jabb1ir, al-Mughn~. VJ:I, pp. 21-23

.2Albert Bader, Falsafat al-Muc.tazilah, p. 106.

24
~ein9 at a fixed time. 1

Thia emphasis on the mundane nature

of speech did not of itself necessitate the notion of the


conventional origin of language; 'What is mundane may quite
conceivably be divinely established.without any human participation.

What did lead the Mu'tazilites to adopt the "con-

ventionalist

posit~on

was the fact that in traditionist cir-

'

ales the doctrine of the divine origin of language was coming

to be associated with a doctrine quite unacceptable to the


.JIU'tazilites, i.e. that of the uncreatedness of speech: divine
epeech, to be sure, but speech nonethe1ess, speech Which pre.-

supposes language.

One argument which ai-Ashcarx propounds

.in support of this traditionist dogma is particularly instruc-

tives
Since God is eternally a)a~ower it is
impossible for him to be eternaJ.ly qualified
vi th the opposite of speech, because the o~
Site of speech. .is silence, or a defect.
juat as the opposite of knowledge.
~ is ignorance, or doubt, or a defect.~

In this argument speech and knoWledge are closely connected;

one ia implied in the other.

This iecal.ls the Koranic pas-

aa.ge in which God is said to have

1<ilbd

t~ugbt.

ail the names to

a~-Jabbllr, al-MiJqhnI, VU, pp. 21-23.

2.lbu al-taaaral-Ash<arI~ al-Ibiinah <an usUl al-ditrans. Klein, p. 67.

25
The Arabic word for teach, i.e. ca11ama, means 11terally to cause to know.

This is taken to mean much more

than simply that God caused Adam to know the names1 it means
that in informing Adam of the names God caused him to have

Jcnawledge. 1

The context bears this

o~t.

And Be is KnCMer of all things.

And.when

thy LOrd said unto the angels: Lo I am about

to place a viceroy in the earth, they said: Wilt


thou p'l.ade therein one who will do harm ~llerein
and Will shed blood, while we, we hymn Thy praise
and sanctify Thee? He said: surely I know that
wh1Cb 'ye know not. And He taught_ Adam all the
names, then showed them to the angels, s.ayinq:
1nforin me of' the names of these, if ye are truth~
ful. They said: 88 glorified: We have no knowledge. save th.at which. Thou hast taUght us. Lo,
'l'bou, only Thou, art the Knower, the Wise. 2
God thus imparts his own knowledge to Adam by informing Adam

of the names.

This ,knowledge marks Adam off as superior even

.to the angels and worthy of the angels' adoration,

following verse shows.


langu~ge,

as

the

The association of knowledge with

evident in this Koranic passage, was to become,

With Ihn ~azm, the basis for~ "verbal lOqic,nl

I~

t;adi-

tlonist circl~s of the ninth century, it tended toward the


1Arna~dez,

'

Grammaire et Theologie chez Ibn Hazm, pp.43.

lpickthall,- The Meaning of the GlOrious Koran, p. 27.

3Arnaldez, ~ cit., pp. 101-103, 1211:., A "verbal


~~le" is a logic, notOt pure concepts i"n the mind, but of

f.

lneanings of words, i.e. a logic of language.

k,,i ''/'''"' ' ' " "' '

26
i>elief in ~e uncreatedness of language.

Accordingly, the

trad.itionist view of the origin of language does riot imply


a

begi~ing

of

l~nguage

in the ordinary sense, i.e. a creation

of 1anguager it has to do rather with an impartation of language to Adam from above, an infusion into Adam of the divine
articulateness.

and~

The terms tawqlf, ilh!m,

uited to th.is idea: they do not signify

~he

are well

creation of lan.'

guage 1 but -the imparting and infu.sion of it.

It was in reaction to this etherealizatio~ of language

that 1'.J1e Mu'tazilites adopted the


language.

Mconvention~listM

view of

This view was moat consistent with the MuC.tazilite_

emphasis on the createdneas of all speech.

Language,

in

the

1'ac.tazilite view, is not a transcendental reality bestowed


from heaven upon the creature man.

Language is of man, and

beJ.ng of man is also of the Creation.

The creator of all

tbi.nga is of course God: in this sense, language, though ariaiDg from human convention, is the prod~ct of divine creativity:

~I

bat ao ai:e all the affairs of man.

In the occasionalism of.

the Mu~tazilitee, the divine'areativity extends to all that is,


-Ve the being of God himself.

The issue in the tenth century

C:OntroVersy over the origin of language was, then, riot whether


language is created qy ~d or not: but whether language is
~~man, i.e. of the creation, or of e~ernity.

27

Another factor which rendered the "conventionalist"

\,J,ew commendable. to the .Muc.tazilitea waa their philological


erudition.

The connection between the

Mu~tazilitea

and.early

philology has been pointed out by Nyberg. 1 The 11uc.tazilitea,


philologists at heart, were keenly aware that Arabic was the
language of the Arabs.

This awareness led them to adopt the

"philological method of Koran interpketation, 2 according to


which the philological principles derived from the study of

pre-Islamic poetry were counted valid for the interpretation


of the Koran.

The JIUC.tazilites thus presupposed an uninter-

rupted continuity between the language of the Aral>a and that

of the Koran.

Thia philoloqical point of view vu not shared

by the strict traditioniats,. who in their interpretation of

th.8 Koran relied exclusively on exeqetical traditions handed


d.own from the age of- the compclniona .. 3

For traditionistst

dliacontinui ty between the lanqUage of the Arabs and that of


the Koran was more apparent than continuity.
I-

The belief in

the, transcendental origin of Arabic emphasized this discon-

The language of the Koran ~as considered to be unique,

i .. tinuity.

la. Hyberq, a1-11uc.tazilah, EI, III, p .. 791 .


2Goldziher, Richtunsen, pp. 116ff.

~., pp. SS.

-;

l.

za
not in th.a senile of beia9 other than the language actually
iD use _among the. Ar~. but ia the sense of being a purer

farm of that language than any actual dialect, a form corResponding fully to the transcendental archetype bestowed upon
~am.

The conventionalist" viev was an-explicit rejection

of the withdrawal of the Reran from the realm of ordinary

,I

;I

II
.)

ian;ua;e.

'fhe arguments used by either aide in the conventionaliat-theological controversy are pieaented in two important
philoloqical worlta of the late tenth century, i.e. the Kit'!!>
al-S!b.ibi of Ibn Piria and the al-l(haea.ais of Ibn _JiMt, a_a

well aa in tbe boolcs of .legal theory (uslll al-fiqh) of the

eleventh can~ and -after.


IJ:e to be attributed to the

TO ~at ex.tent ~ese arguments


origi~al

disputants, al-Ashe. arl

, . Ind Jbij Bi!shim, is not lcnown: however, it is fairly certain

that th~ w_ere a11 advance.d durii:ig the course of the tenth
cen~i:y,

if not by al-Ashcarl. and Ab'ii &!shim themselves, then

'I

,[

I'

'by theii: immediate fo11.,;..era.

r
l.

The arguments (adillahl were

divi~ed

into two typeaz

those baaed OD authority (naql) and those based On reason

~. 'lhe chief argument from authority 1 . used by the par-

29
~ail

text

of the theological view waa derived from the :Koranic

previoualy diacussed (p. 19, i.e. Karan II, 31).

'l'hi

t;eXt was interpreted broadly after the tradition of ihn c.Abb3:ss

oo4 taught Adam all the names, i.e. the names of all existent
thing a.

Pains were taken to show not only that the names

e&ntioned included the names of all things, but also that

the' word name includes all three parts of spaec:=bs: noun (ccllled
name in Arabic:), verb,: and particle.

that language in its entirety was


Aa

:In short, it was stressed

c~n~erred

by God on Adam.

an ar9ument from reailon, l advocates of the theo_lo-

gical view made the following point:

Language could not

have originated in convention, because any convention preaup-

.poa.ea language..

Bew can a group of people assemble for the

purpose of establishing la,nquage without Some m8ans of cOmm:unJ.cat;lng their intention to each other?

Granted that

Convention 1a preceded by some sort of language thencon the


conventionalist bypotheBia that language would hiive been
~tcil>liabed by a convention, whi~h in tum would have required
I. fu~er

prior language, and so on ad infinitum..

'l'he cj'iilt

Of the argument is that there is no logically conceivable


. ~"tarting point in the process, for every convention presup-

lal-ahawk'lnI:, Jrsha.d al-fubOl, p .. 11.

I
.i

'

'!

'lO

language.

~sea

'l'he only solution to the dilemma ia a belief

in the divine conferment of

la~guage.

The conventionalists in turn advanced the following


axquments1 As an argument

f~o~ authority,! they cited the

1oranic verse which says1 "We never sent a messenger save


with the lanquage of his people" (XIV, 4).

language precedes revelation.

a Prior revelation of

la~guage

This implies that

'l'he theological view. implies


preceding the revelation properr

but this is a duplication of revelations for which there is


no justification in authority.

Arguing from reason~ 2 the con-

ventionalists proceeded thus: Xf God is the author of lan~age,

then to

kn~ la~quage,

i.e. to know that expressions

are eStablished for certain meanings, 1a to know something


about God.

This implies a.

p.ece~sacy

knowledge

w~thin

man of

~' which renders human responsibiiity. (taklifl; pres~ly

the responsibility placed upon man to seek the knowledge of


God~

meaningless.

Moreover, how could God co.nvey language

to man when he himself possesses no physical members? 3

Xn-

Btruction in language requires the use of the hands in point-

ing to the objects to.which the name& being taught belong.


lal-ShawkinI, Irsh~d al-fubUl, p. 12.
2~ .

libn JinnI, al-Khasa~1s, p. 45.

lD other words, the idea of the divine origin of language


tequires an anthropomorphic representation of God.
With e~ch side advancing arguments of this sort, the

eontroversy

event~ally

reached an impasse.

In

~he

early elev-

(4. 1027), proposed what amounted to a compromise between

tbe theological and conventionalist views.

According

tc;t him, God- crea".;ed a kind of minimal language, sufficient

..

to enable mankind to meet its basic needs and to enter into

a~ial.relations neces~ary to the establishment of conventions.

'ftl:E:Ough conVention, then, language couiddevelop .beyond the


.... oril.ginal minimal s_tage ."
1.

au.gura~ed by ~

Thus language was a phenc:>menon in-

and augmented by inan. l

'rhia compromise did not gain

~ide

acceptance, the reason

'

being that the controversy over the origin of language was

itself on the de_cline in the eleventh century.

The person

Who more than anyone else was res~nsible for c~oslng the

.books

on the matter was the great jurist-theologian, al-Baqil-

l5n.I (d. 1013).

iusdeclaration that

neither~

tbeologi-

Cill. nor the "conventionalist" points of view have conclusive


8Vidence on their side and that therefore the question Of
I

lal-l\midl, al-Ibkllm, p. 39: al-Suyil~I. al-Muzhir,l pp. 20

32
the origin of language should be held in suspension1 was taken
as the last word on the subject by most of .the theologians

and legal theorists of later times. 2

It is significant that

al-B!qillanI, an Ashcarite, should have drawn the curtains

on the theological-conventionalist" controversy.

Thia shows

that in his time the origin of language had ceased to be a


live issue between Mu'tazilites and orthodox theologians.
The fact is that even some orthodox theologians had been drawn

to the conventionalist view. 3

Here, as in other matters,

the influence of the MtJCtazilites on orthodox thought is to


be detected.

It is known that AbO B3:shim, the original pro-

pagator of the conventionalist view, influenced orthodox


tb~ology

in respect to another very important matter, i.e.

the doctrine of modes ~). 4

In legal theory also the

imPact of the Mu'tazilitee was considerable, as we shall see


in the next section.

lal-lmidi, al-Il!kiim, p. 39; al-SuyiltI, al-Muzhir,Ipp.20f.


2q'5.la bihi al-jwnhUr, a_l-Shawka.nI., Irsha'.d al-fubiil,
P. 11: cf. Fakhr al-DI.n al-R~I. al-Tafsir al~kabir, I, pp.
22-23.
3This is inferred from a statement of al-Am.idI that

ome of the mutakallimlln held the.Hconventionalist view;

eee al-Amidi, Muntah~ ai-sUl, p. 17.

33

The failure of the

"theologica~"

view of lanquage to

retaJ.n ita position as a distinctively orthodox doctrine is


,due to the fact that the strict traditioniBt version of the

c!oetrine of the uncreatedness of the

I
j

Kor~n,

which had given

rise to that view, i.e. the version which set forth the un,

createdneas of the Koran in terms of the uncreatedness of


the. actual Arabic expresSiOns in the Koran,l had lost favor
in ortb~ox theological" circles.

A new version waS taking

its place, according to which the uncreatedness of divine


'

'

speech meant, not the uncreatedness of

~rdinary

speech, but

the uncreatedness of an attribute inhering in the divine nature,

i.e~

the attribute of articulateness, which came to be

expressed by means of the ~e~ kal~.2

The divine .articulate-

ness was considered as indepen.dent of ordinary verbal .s.peech,


pf language, as pertaining to.thought and meanings rather than
ac:tual words.
talc.~

permi~ted

the ortliodox the0log1ans to

a somewhat casual attitude to the questiOn of the origin

Of language.

.1.e.

This

aoun~s,

Language consists of the union of expressions,


and me_anings, and since one. of the components i:n

the union belonged to the realm of ephemeral created things,

la. La.oust, Al)mad b. ij.anbal, EI (new e'dition), ~, p. 275.


2al-ljI, al-Maw5gif, pp. 293-2941 al-R~I, Tafslr, I, p.30

34

10 d14 the whole.

Prom henceforth the question of the ori-

gin of language was a question, not of whether lanquase waa

a transcendent reality conferred upon man or a created phenomenon arising out of

hum~n

convention, but of whether lan-

guage, as a created phenomenon, was brcnight into bein9 through

divine fiat alone, or

convention).

~hrouqh

human instrumentality (i.e.

Prained in this way, the question lost the im-

portance which it had in al-Ashcarl's time, and al-Blqillanl's


~eutralism
t~

is altogether appropriate.

onward, the divine origin of

From al-Blqillant 1 s

lanqu~ge

is, at least among

the majority of legal theorists and theologians, only a theoretical possibility (ibtim31), to be entertained but n9t espousea.

The same is true also of the conventional origin of

lilllguage.
'!he belief in the divine

origi~

of language did not

disappear altogether, however. but continued to be asserted


by ~o ultra-conservat~ve gro"ups within Islam: ~e ;21.iritea,

Pecially Ibn

~azm (d. io6'1, 1 and the ~anbalitea.

Ibn Tay-

miyah (d. 1328), the chief representative Of ~anbalite thought,


insisted that the conventionalist~ view Was
4evi~ed

47.

by certain scholars as a

an

juatif~cation

innovation,
for the notion

lArnaldez, Grammaire et Theo1ogie chez Ibn Hazm, pp. 37-

35
of metaphor. 1

Por him the first three centuzie of llam

are ebaolutely normative, and he does not doubt that the belief in the divine origin of lan_guage wa11 prevalent in these
I

centuries;

Thus Ibn Tayrniyah champions the traditioniat view

of language, aS al-Ashc:arI had puq>e>rted to do, though the

1chool which the latter founded did not follow his leacl.

* * * *
:i:t riow remains to show wh:at

I'.

ai~ificance

the contro-

versy over the origin of language and ita decline has for

the development of the idea of the givenness of

l~guage.

We have said at the beginning of tbi.a section that the chief

concern in the discussions of the 9rigin 0 language was to


how on what ground the givenness of language, i~e. the given-

[.

nesa of the expression-meaning relation, c&n; be established.

'l'he advocates of the Rtheological view took the position


that the

givenn~ss

of language

Wil8

dependent on the

given~esa

of the divine nature itse"lfr language ia a transcendental


reali~y issui~g

from the articulateness ef God, which is -one

l.According to ~n Tayro+yah, metaphor, as the use of


n expression for a meaning other than th.at for which it has
been estabiished, is po&sible on1y if tlle 9riginal establish8'ent is bf co.nvention, i.~. is sue~ that it can be .suspended.
Thili presupposes that only what is established b.y convention
can b~ suspended; what is of divine origin cannot. see Ibn
T&ymlyah, Kitab al-Im1!n, pp. j4ff.

and the same as the knCMledge of Godr it 1 conferred upon


aen by inatructlon or inspiration..

'rbe advocates of the con-

ventionaliat view, on the other hand, made the givenness of


language a direct outcome of human cooperation1 wise men, in
.consultation with qne another, ordain what shall be the names
of things, what.shall be the language spoken by themselves
and their

d~scendents.

a.re absolutely final.

i;rhe results of these concerted efforts


Once brought into being, language re-

ma.ins always the same, a given for the people which uses it.
'rbe decline of the controversy over the origin of lan guage and the relegation of the "'theological" and "'conventioll"".'
Ill.1st views to the realm. o_f theoretical

~ssibility

show

that neither of these accounts of the givenness of language


was accepted by the majority of the speculative
and legal theori&ts..

theoloqi~ns

This does not mean that the givenness

of language was unimportant to them: the later development


Of the "linguistic premises"' of the science of the principles
Of jurisprudence is, as we shall
pcn:tant to them.
Of

lanqua~e

proof that it .!!!!.. im-

What their neutrality respec:ting the origin

signifies is that the givenness of language was

. accepted as a fact
tification..

see~

~hich

simply did not require further

us-

That such a thing as the l"anguage oi the Arabs

'Xisted prior to the "time of the Prophet, that t~e Koran and

37

sunnah were written in this language, and, that therefore a


kJICMledge of this lanquage was_ fundamental to the underata.ndinq

of Koran and Sunnah--all this was justification enough for


the idea of the.givenness of language.
came into

bein~

Precisely

was a matter of detail.

~ow

Arabic

The fact was, it was

there, a given to be taken at face value.


'file emphasis which early traditionists had placed on
the discontinuity between the language of the Arabs and that

of the !Coran dif!1&ppeared among later orthodox theologians.

!ha "Philological method of Koran interpretation .advanced by


the MUCtazilites eventual.ly triumphed, as is evident in the

c:cmmantaries of rakhr al-Din al-RazI (d. 1209) and ~1-eay~llwI


(4. _1.286).

Therefore there was nothing objectionable about

conaiderinq the language of-the Arabs, i.e. the language knCMn


through the lexicographers,

basic to the science of Koran

.
.
.
.
~interpretation ( c.11m. ai-tafstr) and other .re'ligioua sciences.
It was t:h1a language wh1:-ch

wa.8

taken as the given..

The Koran

ramai.tled its highest expression, its mirac~e, but the l~


CJUage of the Prop"bet and the

~~guage

of the Arabs were es-

llan.tially one in their givenness.


& final word is in order concerning the rise of the

"term. wade and its use i.n the context of the controver.sy over

38
ti> origin of language.

The term ultimately became a desig-

nation simply for the establiBhment of.language7 as such it.


emphasized the common ground l;>etween the 11 theological .. and

conventionalist views of language, namely the conviction


that the

relatio~

bet,ween expressions and theirmeanings was

based on fiat, not upon any intrinsic connection between expression and meaning.

EXpressions

~be

related to mean-

ings quite otherwise than they in fact are: "black" could

piean '"white, and so on.

The reason why exPressions

d~

mean

vh,at they mean is that they have been assicn;ed to their meanings.

The term wad c:. thus e~haaized the Bu_p.:Ca-natural cbarac-

ter of the exfression-meaning relation, though it

w~s

neutral

with resPect t~ the origin of langua~e.


Thia neutrality did not always characterize tb.e term
~

The first to have used it,

a~

it appears, were the

.11uc.tazilites, and with them it clearly bad reference to the


establishment of language by c"onvention, rather than by divine
fiat.

A brief look at the Kitab al-MUctamad of the MUc.tazilite

legal theorist .AbU al-ijusayn al-Ba9rI (d. 1044) reveals that


this is so.

The veib

w~daca is .used synonymously with istaiabil.. 1

listalb is occasionally used where wadaca normally


Ppears in definitions of .maja:z, i.e .. "al-majh ,ma. ufida bihi
~c.nan iuuqtalaiJ,ancalayhi ghayrama. u~tulibaca1ayhi fl a,1 tilk
1.1-muwa.~acait," AbU al-~usayn, al-Muctamad, p. 16.

39
The iihirite Ibn .ljazm also quite clearly

was! with istilab.

a~sociates

the term

In fact, the Kit:ll> al-MU'tamad displays two meanings

of the 1:-erm wade.

In addition to meaning the establishment

of language by convention, it also in many

inst~nces

establishment of language
by lexicographers.
.
.

means the

Th.is ambiva-

lenCe is such that in some cases it is not certain in which


.meaning the

~erm.

wad c is to_ be

t~en.

Probably the use of

the term to.descrilie the work o~ the lexicographers is the


earlier oile.

Frequently in Arabic the term wada'a has the

wrote a book.

In keeping with this sense, the lexicographers

(ahl al-lughah) are Said to ha~e established Arabic (wadacu

. al-Carabiyah), 2 meaning that they had set Ar~ic in Writing,

recOrded Arabic.

.!'.'Or this

rea~on,

the lexicographers are

omet~s called ~e ahl al-wadc..l


Wh9n the controversy oVer the origin of language first
heqan with al-Asbc.ari and Abii. a&shim, the term wade as such
~as apparently not use~ by either Side.

A cognate of wade,

~tends to appear, in Ibn .ljazm, as part of the


. Phr~e ist11Cih l:.al3 wade i see l:bn isazm, al-:Ibka'.m, p. 30.

2al-sad!m, al~F*btist, 'P~ 34.


llll-lmidX, al-IbJsl!m, pp. 11-1~.

40
1.e. taw!du~, was used to express the conventional origin of
1anguage: but ~ itself must have been restricted, during
the early phases of the controversy, to the work of the lexi

coqraPhers.

However, as the notion of the conventional origin

of language became firmly rooted in the minds of the MUcta-

zilites, the term wade came to be used for the original es,
tablisbment of langu_age, i.e. came to be synonymous with its

cOgnate taWaauc, as well as- the other term for convention,


i.e. istU!b.
'l'b.9 term ~ would ~ardly have been accep~able to

the traditioni.sts with their transcendental view of language,


Or even to al-Ash ari~ to the extent that be represented the
b:aditionist point of view.

~implied a coming into being

in time, a notion which was not applicable to uncreated speech-.

tawglf, ~. and ilham were far more suitable.


When the doctrine of uncreated speech came to be divorced from the notion of languii:ge as a tr~cende.ntal reality
and .,i:edefined by the specula~ve theologians in terms of the

Attril>ute of articulateness inherent in

God,

the: unsuitability

of~ as a term for the divine origin of language cea&ed.


Tb.Ose who now wished to consider language as having a.divine
G.ri91n could appropriate the term wade for their own purpose.
, 'ibua wad~. which among

tbS

MUc.tazilites meant establishment

41

bY convention, could .now mean establishment by divipe fiat.


Through this extension, the term then came to represent the
conanon element in both vieWa, as stated abovet the supranatural character of language, of the expression-meaning relation.

'rhus the term wade, rather than expressing a particular doctrine of the origin of language, comes to express the
presen't status of language as established. What matters

I'". henceforth is not the manner in which language came into being
at some. remote point in the past--that is an unknown1 What

matters is the status of language now, as a given,


ing point of

tbo~ght.

start-

In the follC7tlfing section, we will see

how tJ:l,is notion of the givenness of language as a present

fact was developed in MUlim legal theory (usul al-fighl.

._

"Jf!dc al-Lughah".and the Principles of Jur+sprudence

.,

Since it was within the science of the principles.of


jurisprudence that the term wade. came into its ~n aa an expression for

the.givenn~ss

of language, our investigations

in thiB section will take us into


ence.

~e

literature of that sci-

The first to introduce the term wade into the vocabu-

1zu:Y of Islain.ic legal theory were the MuC.tazilites.

Although

with them the term connoted a conventional origin of language,


this connotation was accidental to the central significance
of the term in MuC.tazilite legal thought.

In the main, the

term~ is a designation f6r the establishment o:t: all the

linguistic givens which the leqal theorist must take into


~count.

Only

~a~

is

~stablis~ed

to the interpretation of texts~

in language is relevant

The successors of the Muc.-

tazilites in th.e field of legal theory were the scholastic


.theologians, who introduced int;> their books a special introductory section which dealt exclusively
ianguage.

wi~h

the givens of

This section was placed under the heading 1inquis-

t~c premises" (al-mabad:I>al-lughawryah), and within the "lin-

. 9Uiatic premises" the term wade. served as a focal

poii>.~.

our study will thus be concerned prini.arily with that

' .,,, ,..,_., . :" , . i

43

group of legal

th~orista

1ative theologians).

characterized aa mutakallimii'n (apecu-

Both the MIJ<tazilite and later acholaa-

tiC legal theorists belonged to tb.is group. 1

l\Ccorcllrig to
,11,

Ibn I<haldn,2 the mutakal!im legal theorists were one of t;wo


!

grc;N.p who wrote on the principles of jurisprudence: the other


, I

qroup were the Banafite jurists (fugah11 al-hanafiyah).

'.rbe

mutillkallim legal tl:leor.ists are someiimes called Sh~ficites,

aince most of them were in fact adherents of the


rite.

Shafi~ite

'l'he great al-GhazzlllI himself was a ShlifiCite.

mutakallimiJ'n, or speculative

theo~ogians!

'rile

were in many re-

pecta the lea.ding spirits in 1-::gaJ. theory and thus were Sha-

fi<ite in more than name.

Like a_l-Shllfi<I himself. they in-

ited that all legal 1'Ulings must be properly derived from

ourcea; and thus like al-shlficl they fostered a critical


attitude toward old_er juristic practice.

'rile Hanafite jurists,

on the other hand, bad ulterior motives in their leqaJ. theorizing, they wished to provide, in the face of al-Shaficl 'a

lstrictly speaking. the MU<tazilites are of course not

nrutakallimUn; however, within the co~text of legal theory


they may be classed a.s mutak.allimUn, since toqether wit'h the
later nrutakallimUn they r~present a distinct school Of legai
thought.. Ibn l<haldUn includes in biS list of chief mu~akal
.-lim legal works two works by Muctazilites: see Ibn lChaldUn,
al-~gaddimah, p. 455.
2Ihn J<haldiin, 1.2

..!.

I'
i

cballeQge, a theoretical justification for the established


practice of the aanafite school.

Thei~

purpose waa to aet

forth the rules whereby. in their opiniont

t~e

great jurists

of the put, i.e. lll>U J;!an!fah, ill-ShaybllnI, l\bll Yusuf, had


derived their rulinqB from the sources..

What prompted them

vu tl)e fact that the qreat jurists had not indicated theee
rules u

al-Slillfi0 1 had done.

Since the speculative theologians were the tJ;"Uer theori~ta,

it was fitting that they abould bave been much concerned

with What-is-established (mawQa<J in lanquaqe, i.e. in wacj


al-lushah.

l'bey were :intereat:ed. in nothing more than the

. correct derivation of legal rulings from the tBxts, wich


vaa essentially a matter of interpretation; and in their interpretation of the

t~s wba~ia-eatablished

vaa tJ:ieir primary point of

reference~

in la.nguacje

Juristic precedent

did not enter into the :interpretation of texts at all.

Again,

like al-ShllfiI, they posed a challenge to which the aanafites

bad to respond.

BVentually the Banafites, in spite of their

deference to prec~ent, Were also oblig~d to take irito conideration what-is-established in la.rtg:uage..
ul~imately made its way

into.

The terni wade

aanafite legal_ vocabul~, as

a brief look at the book of Fakhr al-Islilm al-PazdawI (d.


1089) reveais ..

-,. ...

\-'. .....

However, the Hanafite~ never went as far as

-:.

;;

...

45
to formulate 11nguiatic premises aa the subject matter-of

a special introduction, or prolegomenon, to their legal theory.


In the aanafite book.a of legal theory the givens of language

are always dealt with in a section on al-Kit"M> (i.e. the


Koran).

The.concern of the speculative theologians-with whatia-established in language is traceable to al-Sllafi0 I himaelf.

Although the term wadC: as a technical term does

~t

appear

in al-ShlficI's famous treatise, the Ris'!lah, the underlying

idea to which the term wade- gave expression, i.e. that of


the

givenne~s

through~t

of lanquage, _is implicit

the

Ris~lah.

one of the principle points that one grasps from the opening
pages of the Rislilah is that an understanding of the text o.f

the Koran :cequires an anterior understanding of the i:.anguage


in which the text is written.

Al-Shlrfi x takes pains to. em-

phasize the Arabic character of the Koran and the obligation


imposed on every Muslim to learn Arabic.
Jc.nows

Only to one who

Arabic Well will the cl~rity of the Koran be apparent. 1

Arabic ia for a.J.-Shl.fi c.r a deposit of linguistic data preserved


.

in the memories .of the community as a whole.

la1-Sh~ficr, al-Risalah, p. so.


2~ pp. 42-.44.

46

The principle ~hat the Koran can be clearly understood


through a mastery of the Arabic language is one of the impor-

tant contribution& of al-ShlficI.

He is often credited with

having emphasized the importance of tradition as a_sourde of


law, in keeping with:the spirit of the traditionist movement.i

What he is less cOrmnonly note4 for is his having created a


rUdimentary system of berm_eneutic~. based on considerations
of language-, whereby the Koran itse:lf could be correctly interpreted and the excesses of traditioniSm checked.

Soine

extreme traditionists had affirmed that nothing 1n the Koran


could be understood apart frOm tradition.

A class of tradi-

tions evolved which were concerned entirely with Koran interpretation, interpretation based not on considerations of lani;iuage, but exclusively upon utt~rances allegedly.handed dawn
from the c.ontempoiariee of the Prophet, or from the Prophet
himself. 2

such traditions naturally indulged in no little

eisegesia, seeking to find in the verses of the Koran sup-

po_rt for partisan doctrines. Theunrestrained proliferation


. Of traditions of this sort might have obscured for all tiine
the true meaning of the Koran. The best guarantee against

1schacbt,

An

Introduction to Islamic Law, pp. 47-48.

2Goldziher, Richtunqen, pp. SSff.

47

an ascendancy of tradition over the Sook of God was a system


of interpretation rooted in a knowledge of the language.
Thus language itself, aB a

giVe~,

an established norm, pro-

.. vided a check against the arbitrary growth of exegetical


traditions.

Wade al-luqhah is present in the spirit, if not

the letter, of al-Sh3ficl'a Risalah.


In the following pages, we will consider briefly the
use of the term ~ in Muc.tazilite legal theory'. and then

somewhat more extensively the role of wade as a focal point


of the 1egal premJ.ses of the later scholastics.


'rbe rise of MUc.tazilite interea~ in the science of the
principles of jurisprudence i~ the tenth century is one of
the major events in the history of that science.

'rile Mu~ta-

zilites brought to the study.of leg~l theory and hermeneutics

a high degree o_f philol.ogical proficiency and sophistic~tion


which had long been chaiacteristic of their movement.
close connection between the

MU~tazilites

The

and early philology

baa already been referred to (see above, p. 27).

The great

philologists of the tenth century, al-Fllrisr (d. 987) and


Ibn Jinni (d. 1001), are said by al-suyu~I 1 to h~ve been

1
la1-suyatI.,
. al-Muzhir, p. 10.

48

HuCtazilites.

Moreover, long before the Mu~tazilite turned

th~ir attention to legal hermeneUtics, they h8.d exercised


their philological skills in the field of Koran exegesis ltafslr al-Qur'lln), developing a distinctly philological method

of interpretation . The first knOWn Muctazillte exegete, ac. cording to Goldziher, 1 was AbU Bakr al-Al}amm, who lived iD
the early ninth century (d. 850).

Ou:r Chief source on xuc.tazilite legal theory is the


!(itllb al-Mutamad of Al>ll al.-IJUsayn al-Ba\lrI (d. 1044), vbo

summarizes therein the views of bis predecessors.

The ear-

liest of the llU<tazilites cited by Al>u al-ijusayn ia ai.-.rwmaI


(d. 916), so that we may infer that JIU<tazilite legal. ~gbt

began around the start of the.tenth century.

Also cited are

Al>u ea&him (d. 933) and two impOrtant members of the tlcbool
founded by him Al>u Al>d Allah al-IJusayn ibn AJ.1 al.--rl
(d. 978~9) and AlJd al-Jabbllr ibn ~ al-Asadllblid:C (d. 1026).
'?he latter, who was the teacber of .AbU iil-JJusayn, was undoubtedly the most important figure in llUtazilite legal. thought.
Under the Buwayhid vizier, Ibn c Abblid ld. 995), wbo favored
llUtazilitiam, he was appointed chief judge (Olldl al=ffi1411bl

looldzihe.r, Richtunqen, p. 113.

49

of the province of Rayy. 1

Be wrote a book on the principles

of jurisprudence entitled Kitab al-ahd, which is mentioned


by Ibn l(haldnn2 as one of the

~hief sources used later by

sayf al-Dln al-iimidr (d. 1156) and Falchr al-Din al-RiizI (d.
1209) in the formation Of the mutalcallim variety of Muslim
legal theory.

!rile frequency with Which the name of Abd al-

Jahbl!r is mentioned in later books on the principles of Ju-

risprudence is testimony to the importance which this Mucta-

zilite had on the course

o~

Islamic

lega~

theo:cy in general.

Unfortunately the Kitab al-abd is not eXtant: hCM"ever we may


regard the Kitab al-MU'tamad of AbU al-ijusayn as a student's

exposition.of the system of

bi&

master.

The term~ appear& in the Kit'!b a.1-Muc:.tilm.ad in con-

nection with discussions of certain features of language:


homonymi ty, general! ty, idiom, and metaphor.

since these

features are basic .to the system of interpretation propounded


by

AbU al-ij.usayn, he takes care to ahoW that they are. estab-

lihed.
zation.

'rhus the term wade is used on the level of


It

~as

.~enerali

a bearing on both the particular and the gen-

eral facts of language.

one can say that the particUlar word

ls, Stern, "i\bd al-DJahbar, EI (new edition).


2
. .

lbn J(haldUn, al-Mugaddimah, pe 455.

50

man ia established for the idea "rational animal.

One

can also say that a homonym is an expression which is established for a plurality of meanings in the manner of alternation <'al~ a"l-b,fldall 1

It is w'ith statemen.ts of the latter

type that wade bas to do in the Kit'!b al-Muctamad, as well

as in the legal works of the.later scholastics.


We will confine our attention to AbU

a1-~uaayn's

dis-

cussion of the establishment of metaphor, which 1athe feature of language with Which he as a MUc.ta.zilite is most con-

cerned, and deal with the other features of language when we


come to the scholastics, who discuss them at greater length.
In connection with metaphor, the term waac. is used

in a manner that requires spec;:ial clarification.

The meta-

phor is defined as an expression which is ua-ed to signify


a meaning other th.an the
lished (wudiCa).2

me~inlj

for which it ha& been estab-

The word "lion_,

11

for example, has been

established for a particular kin~ of aiii.mal.. When used to


signify a courageous man, it has

ac~ually

been severed from

the meaning for which it is est_ablished ClJ'.ld transferred to


another meaning.

For this reaSOn, those who rejected meta-

lA}>ij al-Q.usayn, al-MU~tamad, pp. 22-23.


2xbid., p. 17.

51

phor argued that metaphor represented a usage-of language


CQntrary to ita original establiabmentr it va. a violation
of language itself.

Tbe MU'tazilitea therefore wexe bound

to 1hoW that metaphor, rather than being a violation of language,

w~s

a very part of language.

metaphors are established in the

sowever, to affiJ:Dl that

qam8 sense as other words

would be to concede too much: it would

d~prive

metapbOrs of

their distinctiveness and cause them to be aaaim1lat49d to


ordJ.nary words

This is in fact how some of the opponents

of the JluCtazilites disposed of m.etaphor~

lfbe word 1ion.

they said, was established for two meaningB: predatory animal

(al-hayaw:ln al-muftaris) and courageous man <al-raful alhu11.c.1..

It could be used in either mean,inq, in the manner

of a homonym.. l

Bach usage is a separate leqit~te usage

in accordance with a separate ea~abliabment.

There was then

no question of an expression' a being tr~fel:'red from. its

proper me~ng to another.

Abll al-Jj'.usayn realized that this

account of the matter was entirely misleading.

It implied

that 11on may be used. in eithei:- of its meanings without


any reference to the other meaning, i.e. tbat each meaning
1 independent of the other.

l.Abu

In reality, ibis la not tl;ae

~1-vusayn, al-Mu~tamad, p. 29.

52

cue. u

he points out..

one meaning. i.e .. courageous man,

ia uh6rdinate to the other, i.e. predatory _animill~: the

nrat cannot be grasped until the second. is taken into account ..

lfhia subordination arises from the fact ~at the two mea.ning's

atand in a relation of cQmparison (taehbih)J 11on siqnifiea


courageous man" by vir~ue of a a,imilarity between this meaning and the proper meani~9r therefore the meaning ~courageous
man cannot be grasped until ~~ meaniiig predatQ:ry animal

haa firat been apprehended. 1

In order to pres~rve this sul>-

ardination of metaphorical meanings to proper mea.ninga, .AbU


ill.-JIUayn is obliged to retain and justify the stand defini-

tion of metaphor as an expression used in a meaning other ~an


the-_ meaning for which it is established.

His justification

c:onaiata in showing ~at this transference of a word from


one meaning to another {sub~rdinate) meanJ.n9 ia 1taelf. e~~ab
l~ehed.

However, rather ~an using the term waac for this

-tabliahment, he uses the term muwi.dac;ah: corisequently we


find iD the Kitm> al-Mu <tamad an almost paradoxical juxtapoition of waac and muw~da~ah . A metaphor is an expression
eatablished (muw~dacah) to ai9nify a Meaning other than the

!13

one for which it is originally established (wadC).

then come tO take on a specialized mSaning which is more


reatricte4

thari

~at of muw!daeah; it refera apecifi~allY to

the eatabliabmeDt Of expression& for their_ proper meanings.


there is here a sense that, thoUgh metaphor is truly a part

of language. there is nevertheless in lan9uage a basic substra-


'

~ a core. of proper meaninJS upon which all metaphor is

built.

I .

'rh9 term wade comes to be associated with_ this core;

ther~fore the establishment of metaphor must be expressed by

some other term.


18 significant.

The fact that a cogn.ate of wade. is chosen


Though metaphor is not established in the

aame primal sense as non-metaphors. it is nevertbelesS estah11.ahecf. in aome aenser and be~CJ est.ablishe4 it is therefore

a given" of language.
&avinq thus accorded ~ metaphor the statu.s Of a given,"
abQ'

al-JJllsayn is free to employ the notion of metaphor. when-

ever the occasion arises in the f.tlciboratiOn of'. the MU tazili te


ayatem. Of legal. ~ought.

In 1;he first main section o_f the

ltit!b al-MuCtamad. which deals w.f:th

c:~mmands

and prohibitions,-2

the categories of metaphor and non-metaphor (bagigah) already"

l..AbU al.-ij.usayn, al-MUc.tamad, p. 35 ..


2~.,

pp. 43-lBO.

'

: ./

,.

. , .

'

J'

....

,_

plays an important role.

Thus we have in Muctazilite legal

theory the rudiments of a linguistic prolegomenon in which


the established givens of language, metaphor as well as other

features of language, are set forth as a ~oint of reference,


a basis, for the main work of the legal theorist, i.e. the

.i

correct interpretation,of the texts of sacred law.

!.

I .
.........

It is in the works of the scholastic legal,theorist'

that we find the idea ofthe givenness of language most thoroughly worked out.

'l'he term "scholastic is used here

'to

describe those speculative theologians hnutakallimUn) Who

like their name-sakes in Christian Europe attempted to create


a synthesis of f~tb and reason~ doqma and pagan le~rning,
within a predominantly Aristotelian framework.

Nyberg

has

called ninth century Mutt.izilitism the first Muslim scholasticim, but this application of the term is not entirely appropriate since the M~c.tazilites, wh:1le they did wc:>rk toward

a ~ynthesia of sorta between fa~th-and _reasOn, did not do so


in the manner of Ari&totelians.

consequently~ the early Ash:..

carite theologians, i.e. those from al-Ash-earl (d. 935) to


al-Bi.qillinT (d. 1013), ca~ot be properly called scholastics

---------------~--~--~------

either, in the strict sense, aince their conceptual scheme


was drawn from the MUC.tazilites.
Al-GhazzalI (d. 1111) is generally recognized to have
been the first to introduce Aristotelian logic into the

~in

stream of Islamic thought,l although it bas not been fully


determined to what extent his master, al-JUW'aynI (d. 1085),
,,

may have begUn the process.

Prior to

al-Gbazz~lI, .

Aristotel-

ian.ism had been confined to the philosophical movement (fal-

safah), which until the beginning of the twelfth centtiry had


Th~ to al-GhazZ~lI a:nd

followed its own separa_te course.

those who followed him, the organon of Ari.stotle became, with


certain modifications, the organon of
ology (kall!m).

The result of

this

MUs~im

speculative the-

appropriation was an Is-

lamic scholaaticism truly worthy of the name.


mbe efforts of the

MU.Bl~

scholastics in the field

of the principles of jurisprudence brought into being a distinctly scholastic school of legal thought.

Al-GhazzllU him-

self compose~ a book on the pr:Lnciples ~f Jurisprudence, call~


th! MUstaafa, in which be employed the Ariato-telian method
of definition and proof.

This ~ook, ba..tever, was superceded

by two twelfth century works,

al-Ihk~

fI usGl a1-abkam by

al-hidI {d. 1156) and al-Mal;!!!Ol fr usul al-fl.gh by Fakhr


llilashshar, Manllhi1 al-Bab.th, pp. 130-138."

al-Drn a1-aaz1 (d. 1209), which became the baaia of all later
work in scboiastic legal theory, e.g. the M1nha1 al-wusO'l
ill! 11m al.:uslll of al-eay4lfwI (d. 1286) and the Mukhtasar
al-Muntah\I al-usllll of

nm

al-1;111'.jib .(d. 1248), upon the lat-

ter of which al-ljl (d. 1355), the paragon of MUslim acholae-

tics, commentea.

--

-:.

'l'he impact of the Aristotelian _lcigic, in the form per-

petuated by IaAmic echolaaticism, on the science Of the prin1

ciplea of jurisprudence was strongest, not in the area of


legal reasoning, but in the matter of tlle systemization of

that scienc8.

Legal reasoning continued along more or 11!!&&

traditional lines, the cbi.ef method- of inferenc:;e being analogy.

The ayl~ogism, introduced by 8:1-Ghazzclli, .never. becam!!: 9ermane

to the legal science; ~ndeed strict ~eductio~ is generally

not characteristic of legal systems.

In al-XmidI anQ al-~~

the focus is upon analogy.


'Ebe aystemi.zation of the science of the.. Pi:'inciplea
of j urisP~deri.ce

by

the scholastic& was a direct woxking Out

of the Aristotelian notion of science. Which was known to the


Muslims from the Posterior Analytics. -"rhia notion bad given
rise to an encyclopedic tendenCy among the Muslims wbiCh was
first manifest in.pbi.losophical circles, beginning with the
organization of the sciences by al-Kind.I 4d~ cl 873) and al-

57
rual>I (d. 950) and continuing in the. polyhiatorical writing .
.of the Brethren of Purity (IkhwSn al-eafll), who flourished in

the late tenth century.

Eventually the idea of the sciences

a interrelated parts of a body of ~~1eage was taken_ Over


by orthodox theologians, and became the basis for a classi-

fication of the sciences that form the subject matter of a


1
irbe Science of
copious encyclopedic literature~ Islanl.
the principles Of jurisprudence thus became part of a a..yatem

of sciences.

_According to the Aristotelian formulation,


is composed ,of three basic

coustitu~ntsJ i

science

the. subject matter,

i.e. that concerning which something is to be demonstrated;


the theorems, i.e. that which is to be demonstratedi ~ premises, i.e. that upon w1:'1ch the demonstration is based, or

from, ,.,bich the demonstration proceeds.

The p~~es are either

propositions or definitions taken from other acienc:es, or


- axioms accepted as -valid in .them&elves.

AB the starting points

of demonstration, the premises are the givens of a acieoce,


lvon Hammer. made a ~tudy of this .. literature.based on
Baj_ji Khalifah. see Joseph von aammer-Purqst~ll, Encyklopadische uebersicht der wisSenschaften des orientB (iB04)~
ueber die enCyklopaqie der Perser, Araber, und TUrken,
Penkschriften der Konialicheii .Akadem.ie der Wissenschaften,
Vienna: Philosoptd.sch-historische c1aaae. 1056-59.
2x. Grene,

AP0rtrait

0 Arist~tle, pp. as-93.

---------~---------..-.-.-

58

that upon which the science is baaed and apart from

whic~

tbe 11eience cannot proceed.


Tb .MulimB applied the Aris;otelian potion of science

not only to the sciences whic.h they acquired from the Greeks
and with which that notion had originally been as~ociated,

but also to their awn traditional sciences..


the nOtion of the premises of a science

came

Consequently
to be extended

to include not only the givens of reason, i.e. the fisst prin-

ciples, intuiti.vely perceived, from which Aristotle had derived


bis entire system, but fl]...so the givens of traditi9n, acquired

thrOugh reliable report and providing religious, legal, and

linguistic information.

we find the A;riatoteli~ notion of s~ience f irat ri-

II

goroualy applied 1:0 the acienc_~ of the principles of juris-

prudence by al-Jlmid'[ in bis al-Ibk:lm

'[

usOL alabJ<iim. l

The

subj_ect matter [maw-dU') of that acie_~e is, according to"hi:.m,


tbe verbal ~irecti.ves (adJ:llah) of Koran and sunnah1 the
theorems <masS"il) to be demonstrated are the legal valu_es
of these directives: and the premises (al-mabadX) are certain
propositions which have been e&tablished in other sciences,
~ .

namely the science of theolc;>gy <'l..lm al-kalam) and the science


of Arabic.

In addition there are premises '!'hi'ch are peculiar

1 al-hidt, al-Iblsajg, PP 4-5.

to the cience of the principles of juriaprudenCe which.have


to do with purely legal concepts.

In all, then, there are

three main cateqories of premises in the science of the prinCiples of jurisprudences the~logical premises (al-mabXdXaalkallmiyah), linguistic Premises (al-mab~d!aal-lughaw~yah),

an4 legal premises (al-mabadI'al-fighfyah).

These consti-

tute the initial givens of the science, without which leqa~

theory would be unthinkable.

'!h8 leqal premises are concerned primarily with def~


tion and have no basis outside jurisprudence.

The theological

and liDCJUi&tic premises, on the "othe.r hand, are CC?ncerned with


verities the qivenness of which is independent of the science
of which they are a pai:t1 namely. the attril>\ltes of God and
the Prophet, and the attributes of language.

Both language

and the divine natu~e are given the status of tiiDelese reali
t1e11, the knowledge of which

is fundamental

to legal theo~:

~e divine n&tu~e must be known, since the laws with which

the legal theory has.to do are God 1 a laws.

Language must be_

"known_, since the laws are eml:;>odied in verbal directives and

can be grasped only as the expressions are understood.

Ag~n,

aa with the Muc.ta.zilites, this rettUires moi:e than an acquaintanc~ with the meanings of particular words~ it also requires

an understanding of the principle features of lariguage.

..!-

60

.'
Tb fontation of the linguiatic premi&ea tbua brin9a

to a culminationthat conviCtion which bad begun with al-Sh~fiCX

andwaa fostered by the MU~tazilitea, namely the conviction


that there

are

certain linguistic facts. or givens, which must

be ltnawn before the work of legal theorizing proper can begin.


the Muctazilites, in dealing with the ~ivens of languaqe,

made frequent use of the term waa, which ve have taken to be

the fullest expression of ~e Islamic idea of the givenness


of languaqe . _In the next paqes, we will aee baW' this term

provided
by

a focal point for the 11n9u1stil: preid.ses formulated

the acboiastics, - and how the idea _of tbe gJ.vei:mesa of lan-

quaqe was thus systematically developed.


'!be centrality of the aonCept of wade al-lu9bab within
the linguistic premiaes ia attested J:>y ~ use of a deri-

vative of waac as an occaaion&l desiqnati.an for -those premises,


i.e. al-mawdaC'at

al-lugbawiyah~

1:ingui.Stl_c givens. wl

~:1.8

desiC)Il&tion is less coalnon than al-m~~dI~ai-lughawiyah~ w~ich


fallgws the more corr~ct p~loaopbical usage and ~ati"nguisbes
the. premise,& frC?m the subject matter, for which the accepted

philosophical t;erm i mawdnc.

However,

tJ:te

use of al-mawdQCl.t

al-lughawD/ah is, in spite of ~~ relative rarity, significant

llbn al-ij.rjib. Mukhtasar al-Muntaha, p .

'.

i6.

61
1n that it 9111Phaat.zea the givenness of language as a starting

point of legal theory.

Th.ere ia, in

~&.ct,

a givenness in

both the premises and subject matter of " sci8nce.

The pre-

mises are those givens Which are taken ~ither fr9m. other sci-

encea or from pure reason

-i!IB

the basis of demonstration and

the aubject matter is that given to wht'!h the science .!iD:!,!

.Cience 1 dJ.rected..

Apart from the givenness of

p~sea

and subject matter no science is pcasil:>le.

It 18 an accepted principle in Ia lam.le thought that


that Which 18 established can be known o.:ily thrOugh tranam.18-

aion.1 'tb1s J..a to a large extent self-evident, ~ the estab1

l.1.abment of an_expreasiOn for a meaning is essentially a fact


of hiat.orY and, in the absence

~f

any inherent connection

between expression and meaning detect~le

by reason, earl

~'e

known only aa information about it ia passed dO\ni through


a line of reliable transmitters in the manner of all histori
cal iD.formation..

C!!!!l!J

consequently, the subject of transmission

~es its place -within the 11nguistic pr~ses.

'?he heading under which it ~ppears is: the knowledge of~


(Jn!Crifat al-wade)~
i!l-lu9hah).

o; the k~owledge Of language

(maCrifat

Lughah and. wade are here, aa elsewher'"e, closely

lat-ShawkanI., Irsh~d al-fubCl, p. 13.

,,

62

related terms; the knowledge of one is the same as the knowledge of the other.

'l'be interconnection between the terms

a.nd sunnah;

mentioned in the Introduction (see above, pp. 5-6), is made


more poignant by the fact that the study of the transmission
of wade takes its leading principles from the science of the

transmission of sunnah, i.e. the


(farbwa-~acdil).

sci~nce

'l'his application of

of.hadith-criticism

badith-criticis~

to

the doma.l.n of language had already begun before the Muslim


1cholast1Cs bad entered_the field of le9al theory.

one of

the. first to formu.late a cOmplete system of transmission-cri-

ticism for the linguistic sciences waa a1-Anbar1 (d. 916).


-Bia Lumac al-addillah fI utOl al-nahw is a inonument to the

influence of traditiOnism in. Arabic philology.


enc~

Thia influ-

undoubtedly goes back to_ earliest times, as the first

pb:ilolog.l.ata, 1ncluding al-IChalil


1chooled in tradition.
themselves the
lan.guage. 1

ibn At>mad

(d. 791), were

The lexicc;.graphers eyentually earned

reputatio~

of traditionista (mubaddithUn) of

Like other traditii:>nists_, their function was to

report, to Uanamit data.

Th.iB

d~ta

could be worked upon by

othersa the jurist (fagih) worked upon the data supplied by

lAl-SuyiI~t, al-MQzhir, ~. p. 59.

,.

63

the traditioniat by applying analogy


marian

~)

~)

to it, the gram-

did the same with the data supplied by the

lexicographer.

Al-AnblrI, who flourished a_t the end of the same cen-

tury which had seen the rise of badith-criticism arid the compil~tion

of the two great canonical 'books of traditi.on, those

of al-Bulchlirl (d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875), simply recapitulates without any serious modification the theory of transmission-criticism as it had been developed by traditionists.
Three factors must be considered in connection with any given

transmissi~n: the number of transmission-lines Cisn'Xd), the

completeness Of any giVen line, and the trustworthiness of


the

tr~smitters.

In respect to the first, transmission is

divided into two types: the multilineal transm.i&Qion (taw~tur)


and theunilineal transmission. (l!.had). 1

The mi.ltilineal trans-

mission includes a nunber of transmission-lines sufficiently


diBtributed that no collusion can be _deemed possible.

The

uniliileal transmission, on _the other hand, ia based on a single


transmission-line:

Al.-.AnbXrI ~f~irms that the unlineal trans-

aisaion produces oil.ly probable knoWledge ~

In respect

~ the second factor, transmission is divided into complete

la.1-.Anl>ar~, Luma~ al-adillah, pp. 32-36.

64
and incomplete. 1

The inComplete transmission Cmursal) is

uch that the identity of at least one of the transmitters

is not indicated, and therefore bis trustworthiness cannot


be determined.

Al-llnb!rI takes the usual traditionist point

of view in rejecting such transmissions.

:In

respect to the

trustworthiness of the transmitter~,2 a1-Anbarl. _stipulates


that a transmitter must have a reputation of reliability
(Cadl), whether male or female, free or slave.

With al-l\midI and Fakhr al-Din al-RllzI, the. question


of the knowledge of wade. al-lushah through transmission

is

intioduced into the "linguistic premises of ~e science of


the principles of jurisprudence.

Al-Lddr, in his brief state-

ment of the matter, 3 reflects a point of view very much like


that of a.1-.AnbSr'I.

Al-R.Xzl:, 4 hCMever, goes IU\ICh further into

tbe aubj_ect ~d raises som~ questions oyer the valid_ity of

a simple transfer~nce of the categories of had.Xth-criticism


without modification into

the

l~nguistic sciences.

What evi-

dence. he asks, do we have of a multilineal transmission

Of

lal-.AnbllrI, Luma~ al-adillah, pp. 39-41.


2Ibid., P 35.
lal-JlmidI. al-:rbk11m, p. 4l.

4~1-awz.I, al-Mah8Ul, as quoted in al-Suyti~Y, al-MUzhir, I,


pP. llS-llB.

65

linguistic information occurring in past times?

It ia not

enough that a piece of linguistic information be widely distributed in the present1 this diatribtion JDU&t wctend into

the past.

TW'o avenues of proof for multilineal transmission

in the past are closed: (1) In the linguistic sciences it


is not customary to report on the trustworthiness of the
transmitters as far back as the contemporaries of the Prophet.

When one learns a certain word from a person, one is not told

by thatperson that this word was heard from_a recognized


transmitter.

The furthest one goes in authenticating a word

is to trace it to a recogni.zed lexico~, or some accomplished


teacher.

Al-R&zt

se~

to share the opinion of Ibn F!ris

that language is to a large -wctent handed da.tn from one person to another as a spontaneous ac-tivity quite independent
of the role of transmitters; the supreme instance of this
activity is the process by which a child learns words from

i.

bis

elders~

transmiss~on

-(2) Moreover, there is no


in language.

purpos~

for multilineal

In respect to certain weighty mat-

ters of law and religion, multilineal transmission serves the


purpose of guarding against fabrication; but in matters of
language there is no motive (dacI) for fabrication.

lll>n Fh-io, al-SQbibt", p. 3 0.

In short,

66
a1-R1Zr ~ aware that transmission, in the case of language,
1 not aa formal and regularized as in the case of r_eli9iou111

tradition.

He does not exclude the category of multllineal

transmission from t~e domain of language, but in&ista that it


must be understood in a somewhat different sense ... irhe criterion for multilineal transmission in language is more subjecti ve than in the science of tradition.

~ expressi.on whose

meaning has been transmitted in multilineal fashion is simply

I.

an expression whose
meaning. is
.
. in fact doubted by. no one.
ror example, whoever would doubt that earth means earth,

and "slty" means slty would be rebulted by those around him.

' doubt would be taken as sheer audacity.


such
U!!ml. we have respec;::tin9 such expressions

This certainty

is proof enough

that they have been transmitted in muitilineal fa8hion, apart

from t]le formal apparatus of a chain of tranamJ.tters.

other

expreaaions, ~ever, ar~ admittedly uncomnon and tbe.1r meanings atrao9e1 with respect. to such wOrds we have a sense of
uncertain.ty, on account of which we may correctly attribute

to them a uniline&l transmission.

Thus unilineally trans-

mitted" is equiva:lent to the well-known lexicographical category of gharlb (rare).

Conversely, that which is not ghar'Ib

ie the product of multilineal .transmi.esion.

Al.-Rl.zI, in

EiUp-

port of his subjective inter"pi:-etation of the types of trans-

67

miion, atatea that the legal theoriata and philolo9iets


have never really concerned themselves with transmission-
criticism, aa 1 evidenced from the fact that many of the

early philological hooks_. e.g. those of al-llhalil ilm ~ad


and SibawayhI, contain.errors.
'lbi9 adaptationM of the

ca~e9ories

of multilineal

and un111neal transmission by al-R'lz:I to the linquiatic.scien~ea,

though accepted by many later legal theorists, is not

at all Bat.i.afactory to the great polyhi~tor a1-suya~I, who


1

returne to the mOre

fo~listic

point of

vi~

ot al-Anbari.

Philologists, he maintains, h!X!!, given attention tO transmis-

ion criticism, and have composed tabagat books for the.purpoae, whereby the great names .of the linquistic sciences can
be J,.dentified and their value as

trans~tters det~rmined . 1

lli::>reover, a1-Suyuti devotes a long chapter of the Muzhir

to illustrations of the occurrence of the formulas of trans-

llliaaion in the philological books.

Hi approach to language

is that of a thorough-going traditionist, and he employs many


of the categories of badith-criticism, e.g.
muraal, etc.

lai.-suyQ~I, al-Muzhir, I, p. 120.

I
.

'

'
'

~'

,.

'

pp. 144-170

~' f~sid,

68
A im1l.U approach i followed by certain legal theoriat.o as well.

Al-Z'!"kashI (Cl. 1344), l fOr example, lays

dawn fiv8 conditions for the Obligatory a"cc-eptance o a words


(l) It. muat. be ptoven by a strong chain of t.ransmit.tera to
be. from the Arabs1 (2) the t.rustworthineas of the t.ranamitt.era
must be eatabliahed1 (3) the word DUSt. be t.ranamit.t.ed from
ameone who ia considered to be a great. authority lbu!lah).
in matt.era of language: (4) the t.ranalllitter 11111st. actually

bear the word from the one from. wham be t.ransmita it1 (5)
tho11e who tranami.t it fraa him must then alao hear the vord

from him.
Whatever be the exact inteE{>retation of the categories
of transmiaaion as applle4 to 1u.gu_age, the fact remains that

throughout. the literature of legal theOry t.ransmiasion baa


a firlll place within the "linCJUiatic .preoiiaea aa the baais
for .the knowledge of the givens of language.

Of the two

types of knowledge in the lllJBlim epiatemology, i;e. knowledge

baaed on report ~d knowledge ac~ired through reason,, the

knowledge of-wade al-lushah, i.e~ of the al-mawdUCit al-lu-

ghawiyah, belongs unequivocally to the

~o:cmer.

Jlccorclinqly, anillogy ~ is refused by moat of the

laaa.r al-Din al-zarkas~. al~e@r al-MUbit, as quoted


in al-suyn~, al-MUzhir, z,, pp. 58-59.

'"

69

iater legal theori~t a role in the science of language, 1.e ..


lesJ.cograpby.

There :La detectable in th:l.a refusal. an unw:l.l-

linCJne to give to analogy a status comparable be> that which i t

occupiea in ~aw, 1.e .. ~e status of a aource.

Tb.a other sources

of law f:l.nd a place of sorta in lex:l.cograpby.

The 1toran from

earl~eat timea was an authority in, language.

The sunnab,

.t:bough :Lgnored by the early ph:l.loloq:Lsta, eventual.ly came to


be recognized as a second authori.ty, probably as a result

of the cod:Lf:l.cat:Lon of the 11\mnah in the

Jlillik mal<es free use of the sunnah u


a-lea) : 1

n:Lnth century. Ibn

shawllhid (author:Ltat:Lve

As an equ:Lval.ent of :1.1m:rc (consensus) we find

tlla kalllm al-arab (speech of the Arabs).

unlike the 111.ac

o~ law, which ext~nda through:the first three centuries of


blma, the kalb al-'ilrab reaches back into the pre-'Islamic

pm:J.od, an4 tbe


a t expression.

poetry Of

th~:t period

iB

considered its

tru-

The lexicographers drew chiefl on the pre- .

Ial.aaic poeta, though


temporary beduins.

many

of them also consulted with con-

The reaemJJlance between kalU a1-c.arab

and t.1mac can be seen in a:i-~fi.C.Ia emphasis on the~


al- carab as the possession of

the

whole community. 2

Though

lc;o1c1ziher, MUhammadanische stUdien, XX. p .. 239.


2 al-Sh"lfic.r, al-Risalah, p .. 42 ..

70

eaaentially a depoaite of the past, i.e. of pre-Is~~c times,


it is carried forth in the minds of Muslims.

The vastness

Caa'ah) of Arabic is such that it cannot be the possession


of a aingle individual (except one miraculously endowed, as
a Prophet)r therefore it must be sought in the whole corm:nunity.

Thi at:titude encourages a kind of talah a1-c11m (pious

pursuit of knowledge) in language.

With three of the sources of jurisprudence thUs present


in the linguiatiC sciences as sources for the ~~owledge of

wade, it was natural that some jurists, e.g. al-Biqill~T

(4. 1013), llbU Is~aq al-Isfar~'InI (d. 1027), shouid have


sought a place for the fourth

~ource,

gument they used wap as follows:l

i.e. analogy.

The ar-

The word~. for exam-

ple, is derived from mukhamarah, which means 1ntoxication.


Transmitters repOrt that the word ..khamr has been established
for the fermented juice of the grape.

Bow~ve'.r. through ana-

logy we can gO beyond the transmitted infornlation and affii:'m


that ~ has been established also for the fermented juice

I:

of th9 date.

The cause hllah) of this analogy is the pre-

eence of an intoxicating element in both the fermented juice


of the grape and -that.of the date, rendering both proper s1g-

p. 14

lal-Xmidr. al-Ihkam, p. 29; al-Shawk"an"I; Irshad al-f~hU.l,


.

nificationa of khamr.

That ia to say, the cause of fermented

grape juice's being called khamr, i.e. the presence. of an


intoxicating elemerit, is also by analoqy the cause. of fermented
date juice' a being called khamr, though the latter acceptation
is not substantiated by transmission.
Al-lmidI,- who represent&'-'What became the majority opinion, rejects this line of reasoning chiefly on the grounds
1
that it doesnot present us with anything' conclusive.
Granted
that it is logically possil>le that the word khamr may bave

been eetablished for fermented date juice on tl)e basis of a


property common Cal-wasf a1-tamJ.e) ~ it and to fermen~
grape juice, it is likewise logically possil>le that it may

not have been so established~ ~at it may rather have been


eetabliabed exclusively Ckh"a"ssatan) for f~rmented grape juice.
'l'b.ia inconclusiveness, attache~ to all ~ttempts to appl;t analogy to language; there~ore an.ilogy cannot be considered a
proper aou:Cce of language.

'the only avenue to wade. al-lushah

ia transmission Cnagl); the only authority in language is


vhat is transmitted from Koran, Sunnah, and kal3.m al-C.arab.
Moreover, there is no real

iik~~ess between the analoqy of

.jurisprudence and the analoqy Which some try to apply to lan-

I'

72

gua9e, since the analogy of jurisprudence .:La in reality


grounded in the consensus of the early community, and is thus
itelf known to ~s through transmission.

There 1$ no positive

transmission showing us that in matters of language the early


co111I1Unity, particu_larly the earliest lexicographers, used

analogy1 therefore in the later lexicography analogy is

~n

independent enterprise, divorced from a larger consensus,

Which smacks of innoVation.


The emphasis on transmission as the sole basis for
tbe kn.owledge of wade al-lughah _thus explicates mOre fully

the idea of the givenness of language.

Thia givenness is

not tbe giveMess of l.ogical or formal trutb pos~ted_ by the

intellect, nor is it the

~ive~ess

of phenomena directly ex-

perifi!nceds_ in the spheres of logical truth a.nd direct experience, giv~nness is inmedia~~

Xslam iS concerned, not with

tbe imnediately given, but with that which is given mediat.ely,


i.e. through the medium of

tr~sm.iasion.

Language, like -1aw,

belongs -to the order of the mediately given.

waac al-lughah,

like the SunnahJi.tself, depend& on transmission as a vehicle


through which to be conmunicatecJ through time.

j .

...
:

Bavin9 -thus shown how the k11:0W'ledqe o~ the givens of


.

language is acquired, the legal theorists

~ti.
<'

:.{ ~i!
;,;,

,
-

~
;,

'-';

deal directly with the givens themselves.

~re

'prepared to

Again, as with

73

AbU al-ijUsayn, the notion of what-is-e8tabliahed in language


(al-mawdocat al-luqhaWiyah) -embraces both the particular and
the qen"aral facts of language.

legal theorists.

Both are the concern of the

He must knOW' the established meanings of

particular expressioris (al-dalilit al-waQ<Iyah)' if he is to


ascertain. the meaning of texts.

The established meaning of

the expressions in a text, taken at face value, constitUte


the literal sense (z'3.hir).

The literal sense is the start-

ing point of legal interpretation.

Of the two

pr~nc.iple

types

of aiqnification with which the scholastic legal theory is


concerned, i.e. explicit signification (dal~lat al-mantag)
and implicit signification (dalalat al-mafhUm), 1 the former
ia the more fundamental; and the first step in determining
an explicit signification is the ascertainment of the literal
sense.

BOW'ever, since the literal sense does not always yield

a precise meaning, the

~egal

theorists must go beyond th_e

particular facts of language, i.e. the established.meanings


of particular expressions, to the general facts, i.e. established semantic ~eatur"es that characterize categories of ex-

i.

pressions {homOnymity, synonymity, generality, idiom, _metaphor).


These features are

res~onsible

for ambiguity in the literal

lMu~&mnad Ad.lb $ali~, Tafsir al-nusUs, .pp. 437ff.

74

enee, 1.e. for 11ma1, which muat be reao~ved by the legal


theorist in accordance with rules provided by stylistics cc11m
al-bayWn).

It should be emphasized that these feature& are

eatabliahedr they are not accidents of language, but givens


of language, designed to have a definite Unction in language.
The b~lk of the "linguistic premises" is devoted to demonatrating that these features are established.

Only by doing so

do the legal theorists consider themselves justified in going


beyond the ambiguous literal sense of tex~s to a more precise
aenae ascertained by stylistic rules.

_Unlike the iahiritea,

_the Sunnite& disassociate clarity of meaning Cbayan) from

literal aenae (zahir)1 the clear meaning of a text is that


meaning which ia grasped from the expressions used in accordance with stylistic rules. In ~ertain.instances, a, literal
sense may be free of ambiguity, i.e. may be clear, in which
1

case interpretative measures such as delimita~ion Ctakhsis)

and explication <ta,wil) are unnecessary.

In the majority

of cases, however, these measures are necessary 1 and the use


of them ia justified by

fe~tures

established in language.

In the remaining portion.Of this section, we will see


how the scholastic legal theorists argue that the principle
feature~ of languase upon ~hich their hermeneutics is baaed

are amo~~ those thinss established in language, i.e. are givens


of languase ."

75

Metaphor1
The givenness of metaphor is denied by only One Sunnite
juriat, namely

Abu

Ia~lq

al-Isfara'Inl (d. 1027), who rejects

not the fact that an expressiori such as "lion can in certain


instances mean courageous man but that this

I
!

d~ffera in p~inciple from any other usage

uaag~

of lion

the expressio~.

In other words, he assimilates meti1:phor to non-mStaphor

01!=.

qlqah) , thereby abolishing the catego,,Y of metaphor altoge-

ther. The criticism of this point of

vi~

has already been

indicated (iiee .;i,ove, pr.s1-s1).

JI08t legal theorists are


neaa of metaphor in language.

a~

pains to ahOW' the given-

'?his proves a

ao~~hat

diffi- .

cult task for the ch~ef reasOn, menti~ned previously in connection with the MIJCtazilitea, that the givenness of

~~taphor

cannot be mq>ressed by means of the term wade., since this

term in the standard definition of metaphor has a special


connection with the non-metaphor.

A ~etaphor on this defi~i-

tion ia an expression which ia used (ustuCm.il) in a meaning


other than the meariing for which it has been established
(wudiCa).

'?he terms istiC.m2.l and wade are placed in opposi-

i . ,,_,
:

----------------------------------

laL-llmidI, al-IbJt!m, pp. 23-24; al-Bih~rr, Mueallam


al-thbat, i:, pp. 154-155: al-Subkr, Jame. al-iawClmic, ~, p.
IrsbCl.d ai..;.fuh\il., pp. 20-21.

76

tion ta each otherr the latter bas the connotation of what


J.e the essence of lanquaqe, the former the connotation of

what is a departure from the true essence.

Metaphor thus

taJtea on the appearance of a manipulation of languaqe freely

an4 arbitrarily practic:ed by anyone having a fanc:y for it.


-

'

~18 state of afi:rs is ol:)viously .intol~rable to anyone accept-

ing the existence of metaphor .in the Koran, as the. Sunnite


legal theorists dot such arbitrarineBs attributed ta the sa-

cred texts of lmrwould make for complet~hermerieutical chaos.


consequently, legal theorists are committed to the view that
metaphor is part of the fal:lr ic o~ ianguage; and. if they cannot

af~irm the givenness of metaphor by means

o.f th8 term wade

they must do so in some other way.


one way 1B ta shoW' that usage (iati"rdl), upon which
metaphor is baaed, is,

the .ArabS.l

like~

itself, transmitted

fro~

Thi.& takes from usaqe the stigma of arbitrariness1

one may use. ~resaions as metaphors oilly in a manner confondng to the usage of the Arabs.. There is thus in usage
a givenness, a sunnah; which though diatinguishahle. from
the giveriness of ~ is nOne~eless givenness in th~ true
sense.of the word.

Such is the givenness of metaphor.

lal-JlmidX, al-Ibkllm, pp. 26-27.

Th.ere

;J

are two view& aa to the way in which the principle of trans.U.aion is to be applied to metapborJ.cal. usage.

(1) Accord

in9 to one. Which ia t:he stricter view, each metaphor must be


-. transmitted together with its metaphorical

&raha.

Tbe argument isi: haw

d9

we~

in C~ inatanc:ea ~oUrageouS

man.;

m~aning

from the

that 11on siqnifi.es

if we. &re not informed

thmugh a cbain of tranami ttera of tbis signification?


ls unthinkable, on this view, that

su~b

It

a signification is

inaecUately from tbe context itself, or inferred from

a c:onnectJ.on (C.al'l'gah) between the proper mei!.ning and the


Etapboricil.l meaning. 1 metai:>hor were blled solely on _con-

Dections between meanings ana not on tramimisaj.On, there wou_ld


be nothing to prevent us from sup.Posing that palm tree may
be ued metaphorically for a tall animal, not

ju~~

a tall man,

&a 1a usually the c:~se; sinc:e iii. the -::ase o_f tall animal a

connection can be eatabli~hed with the palm tree in terms


tbe coumon attribute Of ta1lness..

Wit:hout t:C-llsmission, there

ls no limit to metapbor; and metaphor unchecked

.fas.ion.

l~ads

to _con-

Transmias.ion .is thus a ne.Ceasary limiting -factor.

(2) The other view, which is

r.

aom.ewha~

less exacting than "the

f':>:cegoing- v.iew, is that it is t:he manner, or style, of meta.pboricil.l usage which must be transmitted from the Arabs, not
each actuil.l metaphor.

1f .it can be . establi&hed th.at t:he Arabs

78
4id uae metaphor and be shawn in what manner they did so /1
tb.111 1a aufficien.t for establishing the -qivenness of

iD 1anguage..

metaPhor

'
'.rhe arbitra.rineas
is lessened by ~e fact that

metaphorical. usage must be subjected to the rules derived. from


the usage of the Arabs, rules that stipulate the types of

connection on which metaphor may be based.

'fba oth:er way of affirming the givenness of metaphor

ta ta employ the coqnate of wade, i~e. ~Macah, 1 as was


done by the MUc.tazilites.

This makes possible the retention

of~ as a term associated with the non-metaphor, without

underminJ.ng the qiverin~ss

_Of

metaphor-.

'lb~ idea of the establishment Cmuw'!'.daCah) of metaphor

i.m in ma.DJ' respects a close correlate of the idea of the

tranamisaion lnaql) of metaphorical usaqe.


must have been established at some

poin~ in

What is transmitted
the past.

Thus

the two ways of affirming the givenness of metaphor, i.e.

'
through
the principle of transmission and through the
o:f the term

muw~da ah,

u~age

supplement eac;:h othe:t, though within

the linguistic premises they are

not

mentioned ~onjOintly.

'fbe impact of the term mUw~dacah as a desiqnationfor


the givenness of metaphor is seen in th8 later development.

laJ.-JmidJ:, al-Ibkllm, p. 15.

79
in the treatises i;n the science of ~, of the Category
1
.
of 11 1ndirect wade,
Cal-wade al-ta>wilI) which is a direct
carry-over of muwD.dacah.

With this new category, the qiven-

nese of metaphor finds its ultimate expression.


Legal Idiom2

Legal idiom is considered to,be one of tbe_sources


3
of ambiguity with which hermeneutics must deai. .Certai.n expressions, primarily Koranic, e.g. salab, sawa, were reCog1

nized to have meanings in the context of .law which they do

not have in ordinary language.

The problem was whether in

.Part1:cular cases to int~rpret such expressiOna in accOrd~ce


with their 11nguist1c or their legal meanings.

i.i.a~wllI literally means explicative: however, in


English explicative do~s nOt serve well aS a desci"iption

of establishment: "indirec't. is more suitable..

A metaphor

is eBtci.blished indirectly for it.S meanin9, i.e. is a.Ppoint~d


to signify a me.aninc;i bf means of a co'iitext (bi-al-qarinah)
Consequently, a metaphor iequires explication. A non-metaphor,
on the other hand, iB established directly for a JQeanJ.ng, i.e.

ia appointed to signify a "!"aning through itself (bi riafeihi).

see <19'Dm al-Dln al-Isfar~~Ini, sharb al~ris3lah al~a_q.civah,


fol.

6a.

2lll>U al-ijusayn, al-MUtamad, pp. 23-26; al-llmidl:,


pp. 18-23; al-Bih~ri, Musallam al-thubUt, I, pp.
164-1651 Ibn a1-1;1ajib, Mukhtasar al-Muntah.T", pp. 22-23;
al-ShawkanI, Irsh~d al-fuhul, pp. 19-20.

al-IbJ<~.

3JiiuQamnad Adib qalib, Tafs!r a1~nusUs, p. 231.

BO
The pon:ll>ility of technical vocabularies had been

recognized by.philologists.

When an artisan creates tools

for his professiQn, be must give these

t~ola name~r

these

names coDstitut.e a vocabulary pe_culi~ to him and his coworkers, a vocabularr quite distinct from the language pro-

per.1

To this extent a certain evolution is granted in .the

formation of expressions, resulting not in a ~ification


of language as such, but in a pro~iferation of technic~.l vo-

cabularies.

The lanquaqe banded down from the past remains

untouched by this evolution.

Technical yoc"abularies are said

to arise out of a special ~ in which a group of artisans


or ap8cialista participate.
I

&II

!..!!!.!!

Thia type of wade. is desci:'ibed

as distinct from waaC lugbawi.

I.t "is .the lat-

ter exclusively which f~rms the basis of language "per se

which is authoritative for the whole communitj'.


is authoritative only in the doinain

and

Wadc~urfY

J.ii which it. is operative ..

With respect to the legal idioms, the question which


J.aixaes itself

on:

the legal_ theorists ia whether to interpret

them as metaphors arising Out of the language or.as tech-

Di.cal terms forming a special vocabulary distinct from .the


language ..

In more precise terms, the question is whether

1%bn Jinn!, al-l<hasi1.'is, I, _p .. 45.

81
to take aa the basis of the legal idiom

al~ad~ al-lugbaw~

or al-wade a1-sbar11;I (a special legal wade).


Advocate" of the first al.ternative were al-BlqilllnI,

pakhr al-D!:n al-R!z!:, and

al-eay~ilwr.

'

They argued that to

poait<. a special vocabulary peculia~ to.the Koran and distinct


froa the

lan~age

would violate the maxim, found in the

JtOran itself,. that the Koran is an~Arabic Koran. It wu thi8


maxim which made the. givenness of

Jaiae of all religious sciences.

lan~age

a fundamental pre-

The Koran vas considered

to be revealed in the language of the Ar_aba, i.e. in a iangu.age whose givenness wae a pre-established fact.
tec~cal

of

vocabulary in the Koran

~lied

The notion

a non-Arabic,

or mo_re ~ilCtly post-Arabic, element (i:ndeed a very impor-

tant

el~ment,

since .,,ords in this vocabulary were pivotal

1D the religious Jife ofMuslims), the givelll\ess of Which


c:ould not be
r

considereda-pre-establ~sbed

nea8 of such ~ vocabu.lary would

fact!

The 9iven-

be .concurrent with the reve.:..

laUon itself, and would require that the establis~nt (wadC.)


o~

the vocabulary be made knCMn by sOme process of transmission

to those to Whom the


~

revelatio~

wa:s addressed.

no 1.ndicatiOn of any such transmission.

l~

idiom of the Koran, rather .than

H<Mever, there

Therefore the

~onstituting

a special

vocabulary, mu&t be part of the pre-established lani;iuage of

82
th ~abs.

Any peculiarity of meaning in these idioJ'.118 can be

accounted for in.terms of metaphor.

'l'hu. aal!h, the lexico-

graphers tell u, means ca11 (du'!) in the lan9ua9e.


In the Koran, it is given a more particularized meaning, i.e
a particular type of call subject to certa~n regulations and
legal evaluation CwuttJb).

This particularization of meaning

does not obliterate the original meaning which the word has
in the ianquage.

Thus sal'!h is given a basis in

11

the language~:

the proper meaning of the word 1_s found in the language and

the metaphorical usage to which it is subjected in the Koran


conforms to the rules of metaphor given in lanquage.

'l'hOae who argued for the existence of a

ape~ial

tech-

nical vocabulary in the Koran based on al-wade al-share~ t.Qok


the following line of .re~oning:

At least s.ome of the le_gal

idioms of the Koran, so they pointed out, have lost their


origin~l meaning entirely.

Thus ~ does not mean ca11


I

since a mute is caPable of perfo~ng aal"fill.


~e caa~

of true

~taphor,

-Mo.reover, in

the metaphorical meaning occurs

in the mind Of the heiarer subsequently to tlle occurrence of


the original me~ning, so that the connection between the two
meanings may . be grasped. . This subordination of meaning to
meaning does not, however, occur in the usage qf legal idioms.

,_.,,

When the word aawm. is uttered, one does not first grasp the
meaning aJ:>stention" and then subsequently

th~

meaning "fast":

rather one grasps the latter meaning immediately

(tab~duran).

rurtherm:>re, the communication of the meanings of legal idioms


does not necesBarily require a special process of transmission,
uch as that by which th.e knOW' ledge of
mUnicated.

11

the language 11 is com-

Legal meanings can be knOW'n from contexts and

from the practice of the community.

As regards the maxim that

the Koran ia an Arabic Koran, this can be true in spite of


the presence of non-Arabic elements in it.

(Foreign words

in tbJ.a connection are considered conjointly with legal terms.)


The ter. "QurJn
a.aurab.

~the

can refer to either the part (i.e. a verse,

Arabic element), or the whole, depending on

the context.

'Iba

caa~

for the

pre~ence

ofa technical. vocabulary

in the !Coran was first advanced by tlle


the opposition of men like
the Clay.
fear

'l'he

that
id~a

Mu~tazi~ites,

al-eaqill3n~

it

ult~mately

and despite
carried

The later books of legal theory accept. it without


the givenness of language is thereby undermined.

of the givenness of language thus takes on a some-

. what. broader application.

The givenness of "the language"

remains .fundamental: but against the backgrouna of.this

give~

ness, the givenness of the technical legal vocabulary as a

84
eparate phenomenon independent of the givenness of the lanquage proper is. also admitted.
Generality. Homonym.ity. Synonymity

ot these three features of language, generality rc.Umnm)


i the one the givenness of which is least disputed.
~~~;'

.lbD

al-JJU.sayn a.l-Ba9ril. records that the Murji.aiteB, a sect of

Hi~;
~

'

early Islamic times, denied the existence of general terms

:,1;:~

in language.

,,r:;;,

'rbe expressions usualiy taken as general., i.e.

the ao--called alfllz al-t.umllm, -were in their opinion particil-

H; ..1t

:';ffl;'

lar ~).

,\l;lf

we may suPpose that the Mu.rjiaitea were react-

ing ~gainat the l.egal hermeneutics of ~l-Sh3fict, in which


generality is one of the leading principles: howeve~, we have
DD

direct evidence that this Was ao.

In any case, the opinion

of the Murji~itea appears.to have soon disappeared, as there


ta no mention of it in the bOoks of the schoiastic legal. theortata.

With al.-Sh"afic.I, generality becomes an accepted fact

of .laiiguage and a cardinal premise of Muslim h"ermeneutics.

,,

Generality as such is never an issue in MUslim legal theory,


'

though there is disagreement as to the eva:J,.uati.on Chukm) of


general terms, i.e. whether they are binding or not.

l.lbU al-ijUsayn, al-Muc.tamad, p. 209.

85
&oma~mity and synonymity, l on the other hand. are

veEY llNCh disputed, and a great deal of attention ia directed


in th8 tingu.18tic premiSee to showing that they are among

the established givens of language.

The usual defini.tion of

the bomonym ias ail expression established for a plurality of


1M1aninqa by a plurality of eatabiiahmenta lawdll~).

The last

part of the definition sets the bom6nym off from the general

expression, wJ:Ucb is established for ~ plurality of meanirigs


by a einqle establishment.

of expressions in disguise.

A homonym is, ::ln

ef~ect,

a group

The same expression is established

for one meaning, and then, quite apart from that eatablistunent,
for 8nother meaning.

Bach estab1ishment (wadC.) is a separate

fact of language, a separate. qiveri..

Thus_ cayn means both

spri.nCJ and eye, and each aignificati.on is independent

of the

othe~:

it is as

thou~h

c.ayn is in reality two words,

the vocal aimilal:ity- between them beiilg cOincidental.


nym. by contrast, is an expression

establish~

for a

for llbich another expreSsion is also ~stahlished.

A synomean~ng

'lt&e same

me~g is subject to _tWo or more estah1islunents.

lai-lmic!I, al-rl!kllm, pp . 10-13; Ibn al-lj'.lijib, MUkhtasar


_al-Muntah"a 1 pp. 17-19_: al-Bihari., Musallam al-thubUt. pp.
135-138 189-190: al-Shawk~nl., Irsh~d al-fubIT1, pp. 16-18:
al-Subkt, Jaiiic. al~iaw~1c., pp .. 379-3~4.
1

B6
'l'he al>jection.o to homonylility and synonymity proceed
ftom the contention that they serve no useful purpose: and

what ill established Cwud,l~a) in language must have a purpose.

Indeed, hamonymity and synOJIYllll.ty only contril>ute to confuion. llllkinCJ of language a heavy burden that 1.t ought not
U ani:expression bu two meanings, then the intelli-

to be.

gil>i.Uty of language ia diminished: one never knows which


miJ.ng la

meant.

If two expressions have the same meaning,.

language then becomes an unnecessarily toilsome affair: each

peE'Son mu.at leaxn both wzp~eaions ~ les.t some learn one and

oma the other. bl.ocki.ng conmunicati.On c~letely.

unaer1y-

ing these al>jection.o ia a firm conviction"in the rationality

I'

of J,anguaqe, &n,d indeed in


aatal>liahed.

the

wad,c. al-lughah

rationality of all that is

precludes the fortuitous ancl

acciden~.. Language 1a the product of conscious delibera.:..


tion.

I.t .ia brought into being for the sole purpose of com-

mmi.cation: whatever does not serve this purpose, whatever


makes for unJ.nteiligibili~ or unneces_eary effort is to be
denied.
for

&

'J:he ideal l!!!) of language ia a plurality of words

plurality of icleaa, each word being uniquely appointed

for an .idea.

Since homonymity and synonymity do not conform

to thi.s ideal, their givenness is denied.


nymi.ty

Acc~rdingly, homO"'

iB explained away by s"ame philologists

in term8 of a

'

,'

87

transcendental unity of concept 1 underlying all the appar-

ently diverse meanings of a_ particular expiesaion1 synonymity

' efforts, of which al-ThaC.:llibI'a .(d.


1 disposed of in those
1038) fiqh al-luqhah (Wisdom of Language) is a chief example,
to Bingle out the nuances of expressions which render all
expressions unique in their signification.
The defenders of homonymity and synonymity are obliged

'

to demonstrate the rationality of these features, since the


ration~lity

of language is a dogma to Which they no less than

thei.r adversaries are conn.itted.

Their case is built on the

premise that the purpose of language includes more than mere


ccnmnu.nication.

be

achie~ed,

Bathetic effect is an equally valid end to

and synonymity facil_itates the realization of

this end by supplying the poet with numerous expressions


. a given

id~a.

the choice of whiph 'is

tions of rhyme .and

~eter..

useful purpose, rendering


occasions.

de~ned

by

consid~ra-

Moreover, .ambiguity can serve a


homonymit~.appropriate

on certain

'l'be Proph~t h~elf was on one occasi~.n saved by

an ambiguity.

When' he and Abu Bakr were fleeing from Mecca,

the two men were acCoated and_. Abu Bakr wcis asked, "Who is
this_ with you?

Abu Bakr replied, This is ril':J guid'e.

The

lMa.Saignon, aefl.exions aur la structure primitive de


l'analyae gramm.aticale en arab~. Arabica, I, fasc .. 1, p .. 10.

88
reply was both appropriate and truthful.
TO aum up1 The real bas.ls for the Islamic idea of the

givenness of language was provided, not by the theories of


the origin pf language which wer~ advanc.~d in the tenth century, but by th9 system of legal thought which was -being deve-

loped about the same time by the Muc.tazilites on the model


established by al-Shafi'i, and which was eventually formalized
by the Muslim scholastics.

a theoretJ.cal, one.
whe~e, and

This basis was a pragmatic, not

Every system of thought must begin BCJmeM

a system which is based on a textus reCeptus must

necessarily begin with language.

:If ~e system is

to be intact

and. Stable, so must be the language upon whi~h it in the final

analysis rests.

A house

built upon s~d will not endure.

Language must be above the shit;ting sands of human

~fairer

it must ~ a given, an absolute, a fixed and reliable point

of reference.
In the linguistic premises of the science of the

principles of juri~prudence, the term wade. became the standard expression f~r the idea of the givenness of language
aa a starting point of legal.thought.

Before it can be de-

termined what is established in the rea_lin ~ l~ thr~ugh the

a~red teXt.s, it mUstbe determined what is aBtablished in


the realm of language.

In Islam; the ~given" is always un-

89

dertood as the "eata?lished.

Tb8 1inguistic premie"

are concerned ma.inly with those features of language whose


establishment was controverted.

The majority of the acholas-

tics, taking the philological point of view of the Mu<ta.zi-

lites before them, argued that allthe features in


are established.?

In sO doing they reinforced the idea of

the givenness of language.

Ill

questi~n

.The science of wade: 11

In the 11 1cience of

~ ~he.

idea of the givenness of

language reaches ita fullest expression.

The emphasis shifts

from the givenness of certain features of language to the


givenneH of language in its totaJ.iW.

mi1e1 were concerned

o~ly

The "linguistic pre-

with those givens which had a bear-

ing on the interpretation of texts.

The idea of the givenness

of language was explored, not for its own sake, but as a necesUry preliminacy to legal theocy.

That language in its to-

tality i eatablisbed_was presupposed by the legal theorists.


The principle that only what is estab_lished in language has

relevance to legal interpretatioi#Presupposes that language


aa a whole i established.
The. cience of

explores this presupposition.

lt attempt to show how .!ll the elements in

lan~age

have

been established, and thereby works out systematically the


idea of the givenness of language in its totality.

ment11 we mean any unit of

signification~

BY "ele-

any expression

t..!!il

in the general sense, including not only words, but also


form.al elements, i.e. forms of words, suffixes, etc.
In modern se~ticis the theory that most nearly cor-

91

reporida to the Muslim semantic outlook ie the theory of the

namerelati~n. 1 . In this theory, meaning ia conceived in terms


of imple "standing for."

The meaning of an expression is

that for which the expression stands, that for which the ex-

preaaion is a name.

Muslims carry this theory to extreme:

every expression is a name for something, even


that in modern linquistics would be called
1.eD expressions indicating relations

11

expressi~ns

pure _markers, "

be~ean

wOrd.s but hav-

ing no meaning in themselves, e.g. conjunctions.

Thus the

proCeaa 'by which lanquage is "establi~hed 11 (wudi~a) is con1

ceived, as

process.

~ name~giving

Unlike the modern theory

of the name-relation, however, which sees expressions as the ,

nainea of objects in the world, the Muslim view sees expresions as naines of ideas in the mind.

The process by which

lanquage ia established is a process of establishing names


.
for pre-existent

ideas~

i . . . Rudolph Carnap, l!eaning and l!eceasity (Cbicaqo1


Vniverity of Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 96-100.

2.rhe ideaa for which expr~aBiona a~e established aa


&re called by different te~ Ba na, madlul, mafhmil.
In each caae an idea, not an object in the external. Wor1d, :
i meant. Tb.us al-Jurjani defines ma ani aa1 al-suwar aldhihniyab .in haythu annahu wudi a bi-iza iha al-alfaz.
See Ali il>n Muhalnmad al.;.Jurjani, Kitcb al-ia rifat .(cairo1
al-Matba llh al-Bamidiyab, 1903.), p. 150. In aiuslim semantic
thought, the opposition ia Alwaya between LafZ and ma na ..

name.

'.

. ,.

., .

. J.;,'

92
Th name-relation lies at the heart of the notion of
the givenness of ianquage.

'?he elements which make up lan-

guage stand in a fixed, ordained relation to those ideas of.


whic~ they are names.

The explication of the g1veOness of

language consists in elucidating the process whereby the namerelation is established.

This is what the science of wad'

does.
Thi science is said to have gra.ni directly out of
the science of t;he principles of jurisprudence.l

to deal' with the subject of wade. for its

a.in

The first

sake 1 outside

the co,ntext of legal theory, was the great scholastic theologian J4ud aJ.-Din ai:..tjI (d. 1355).

Bis ef_forts, however,

did not give rise immediately to a separate science.

The

short treatise which he wrote (al-Ris3lah al-wadcJyah).only

auggea~d topics that were to be aea1t with ni.11Y and systemat1ca11y later.

Even as

lat~

as the early sixteenth century,

Taahkl5prQzade (d. 1561) states that the "science of~


had not yet become a written Cmu~Bwwari) science and that the

tr~atise

of al-fjI was but a drop in the

Dee~

of that .science.

It appears that the science of wade. did. not gain


lAnon., Ris~lah fi al-wade,
Ma))mUd ShihabY., Dti Ris~leh, p. B_.

Yehuda

MS

4275, fol. 70b~

2~~a~hk~prU~a~e, Mift~ al-sacadah, I, p. 110.

'
~e status of a recoqnized written science until the eiqhteerith

century.

'l'he fii'!!Jt treatises on wade., independent of the

mentary literature on al-Iji's


These

treati~es,

Ris~lah,

appear at that

co~

time~

which are of the nature of manuals, present

a body of knCJPiir11ea9e far more comprehensive and systematic


than that represented by the treatise of al-f.JI..

soma of

them will be dealt with later.


l~

elucidating the process whereby the name-relation,

i.e. _the relation betWeen the elements of language and their


meanini:Js, is aatahliahed, the authors of the wade treatises

make use of

"cat~gories

Caqsam.] of wade.

The application

of these categories to the "elements of language c0Mt1tutes


.an exhaustive account o~ th~ eatal:?'llshment of language in "its
totality and the final l!llSlim statement of the givenness of

'.

language.
The remaining

pagea,o~

this dissertation Will be de-

, voted to an analysis of the. "science of ~..


will proceed in two ataqea.

'rbis analysis

Pirst, _"!e will. examine the cate-

gories of wade: then. the manner in which these categories


are applied to the elements" of language.

I
lftla chief categories of wad

fall into three aeta1

ti) al-wa4 a1-<:1mm u-mawqa< lahu 5ima


al~a4c a1-cimm. 11.... mawQ.UC lahu kh'XQ$
al-wa4 al-khliH li-mawqlf< lahu khlf$ll

(2) al-wa4 al-shakh$I


a1-wa4c. al-ni!Wet

(3) al-wa4 al-tal)qJ:qI


al-w~ al-tawtlI
!fhe fi.rat set may be translated as fo1lowas:
General establishment for a qeneral object of establishment
(1.e. meaning)
Generiil establishment for apaz:ticular object of ~stab~.
U.abment
particular estalllishment for a particular object of estal:lliabment

Sii;ace these translations involve rather lenqthy phrases that

do not iericl themselves to repetition, we Will

refer

to these

CategorieS by means of abbreviations of the Arabic phrases:


As these .categories are the most
difficult
.
. .

to comprehend. more space will

than to the

o~er

be given

to expla1nin9 them

sets of categories.

'!be seCobd set will be render'ed:

z.solative wade.
suhawriptive wade:

'!be third set, which may be rendered as direct wade


and indirect wade (see above, p. 79}, is l.ea:S connt>rt in the

literature.of wade., 'and.we will have few occasions to refer to

95
the categories of thiB set.

* * *
The cateqories A-A, A-I<h, and I<h-I<h were first deline'

ated by Alt il>n

Mu~aminad al-Jurj~I

taries1 on the treatise of al-ljI.


cateqories was laid by al-!jI'

(d. 1413) in his commen-

The groundwork for these

h~elf, whose treatise 2 is

concerned primarily with the category A-I<h.

once this cate-

, qory ~ad been introduced, it was a natu_ral step to the forma-

tion of the others.


The category A-lQl was developed by al-:CjI' as a means
of demonstratin9' that certain expressions ~), i.e. per-

Bonal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative pronouns,


and particles, are to be counted as particUlars C1uz"Iy3.t),
rather than as universals CkullI'yat), as was the habit of

the anpients". 3

Such expreSsions, he feels, are particulars

because they are established for particular ideas, although

l<AlX U>n MUbammad al-Jurjan~, H?sh!yah ~ala matn alRis2lah al-wad<Iyish, fol. la: Sharh <al~ al-Ris3lah al-wad:ryah. fol. .nsa.
2al-Ij~,

al-Ris~lah

a1-waac+yah: in Malmn' al-muttJh,

pp. 33-35.

3i.e. t~e pre-Ghazzalian, pre-scholasti~ jurist-theologians w'tl6se chief representative was al-B'lqilllinI. on the
difference between "C\ncients and moderns" see Mu})sin MahdI,
Ibn Khaldrrn's Philosophy of Historx. pp. 31-33.

96
they differ from other particulars in that they are estal>lished
for these ideas,. not directly, but through the medium of uni-

. vera~l ideas.
The meaning of these statements will be explained after

I
I,

!
!

we have fi.;st dealt with a preliminary question: the propriety


of

ap~lyin9

the

universal~particular

distinction to tq>ressions.

In logic, this distinction is said to be primarily applical>le


to ideas, or concepts: a concept (siJrahl is univeraal if J_.t .

is "true of many, particular if it is not true of ~l

Bxpre"seions are said ~ be universal or particUlar in a de_ri-

VatiM senBe (bi a1-carad), but in logic the only expressions

to which these qualifications are .attached are cOJimon nouns


and proper names.

One never comes across instances, in logic,

of the application of the univerSal-particuiar distinction.to


~ersonal,

demonstrative, -relative pronouns, or particles.

In the science

I'

~f ~

the universal-paiticular dis-

tinction is applied to all types of expressions.

The. justi-

fication for this is not expressly stated, but it may


ly surmised.

All expressions have meanings.

may be called urliversal or

~a.z;ticular by

b~

easi-

if an expression

vii;:tue of the mean-

in9 Which it has, the ill. expressions may be call,:id universal

1outi>

al-Din al-R5zI,, sharb al~Ris~lah al-shamsiyah,

pp. 44ff.

,,

97

or particular.

A personal pronoun, for example, has a mean-

ing: that meanin9 ia either universal or particular1 there-

fore the per.sonal prorioun is e_ither universal or particular.

'l'be expressions Whose particularity al-!JI is concerned

I
I
I

to establish fall into two classes; (1) particles form a class


of their own1 (2) personal, demonstratiVe, and relative pronouns form another class; the designation for this class is
marifah (definite), and in addition to these three types of
expre_ssioM, proper names also belong to this class.

In preaenting al-!JI's. exposition of the category of


A-Kb, we will first. show how be uses th1a category to ~n-

atz"ate the p.articularity of the maC.rifllt (other than proper

names), and then how he uses it to-demonstrate the

part~

larity of particles.
Before we move directly

in~

the aqbjec:t of the

ticularity of the macrif!t, a few general remarks_concernin9


the marif~t and their place. J.n Arabic philology wiil be ~
order.

Zn both 9rammar

rhetoric

~ne fiiids

the principle

asserted that the subject of a se~tence is properly a ma'rifah.l


The term macrifah, which literally means

_knowled~e, is

used

in philology to designate an expression which refers to some-

al-Taftazan~. al-Mutawwal ca1-a- al-Talkh~s, p. 54;


cal~ al-alfryah, I, p. 187.

Zbn cA.qXl, Sharh

98
thing

~.

More exactly, 1 t ia an expression by which a

apeaker refer demonatratively

to himself and to the one to whom he is speaking, i.e. the

hearer.

Cieh~ratan)

to something kncMn

Obvioualy only what is known to both can be referred

to demonstratively.

Thus when I say to someone "Zayd has

arrJ.ved, I am referring demon&tratively, ie .. pointing by

meana of an expression, to a particular person known to myaelf and the one to whom I am speaking.
I aay

"l!!.

The scne is true if

has arrived, or the quest has arrived, or (he)

Who, 1 .. e .. alladhi. is to speak has arrived," or

(one)

bae arrived, or zayd's servant (ghulh zayd) has arrived.

Tlle mat:.rJ.Ht thus number six in all: proper name, personal

pronoun, demonstrative pronoun,

r~lative

pronoun, definite

noun, first member of a construct phrase (provided the second


meni>er J.a a ma'rifah).

Since the last two involve construe-

tiona, al-!JI does not deal with them.


The reaaon why the subject of a sentence is properly

a. ma.<rif'ah is a.a follows.


sentence Which refers

.The subject is that part of the

demonstr~tively

to something with which

the speaker and hearer are both familiar.

It is customary

when malting a statement first to identify that which the statement is about.

The ma'rifat are the demonstrative devices

which make this possible.

I.

once the identificatiOn is made,

99

the speaker gets on with his statement, i.e. attaches a predicate to the suhj.ect

. In rhetorical writings one senses a Close affinity


between the idea of th_e maC.rifah and that of the. particular.
one of ~e tenets for Which the orthodox contended in their

battle with the philosophers was the

ticulara .l

d~vine knowl~dge

Of par-

The knowledge of particulars was considered to

bethe highest' knowledge, i.e. knowledge in the truest sense


of the word.

Bence statements about particulars were t;he most

truly informative.

zayd is. a scribe is more informative

than everYtbing exists_.

The degree of information incl'.eases

with the delimit.ation (takhaio) of the subject. 2

tation necessarily eDds with particulars.

This delimi-

Since particulars

are what is known in the truest sense of the word, they


also the most susceptible to deai~nstrative reference.

~e

Bence

the maCrifah may be defined as an expression.wh~ch typ~cally


(though not always) refers demonstratively to a particular.
With respect to. the foregoing there wa~. general agreement in al-:ljI,.'s time.

What was not agreed upon was the use

Of the terms universal" and .particular" as characterizations

1!'1-Ghazzllll:, Taha:fut al-falln!ifah, pp. 192ff.

2al-Taftaz&n-x, al-Mutawwal 'ala al-TalkhI's, p. 54.

100

of the ma~rif~t (or, more exactly, the non-complex ma'riHt).

Al-Ijr

chose tocall all the ma~rifa:t particulars; the an-

cients reserved this designation for the proper name and

called the rest universals. 1


Why did the "~ients call the macriHt other than

the proper name universals when they knew that in actual speech
0

situations a ma'rifah refers demonstratively to a parti9ular?


The answer is: they made a distinction between the meaning
of a maC.rifah and that to which it- refers in actual speech

ituations.

Thus the problem boiled down.to the "meaning of

mearu.ng (to lift a phrase out of context): what is the mean-

1ng of an expression?

It was generally accepted that a

ing is that for which an

expr~ssion

mean~

is established CwudiCa).

The eat~lishment of expressions was understood

_.:1:-n

a simple,

atraight-foI:ward manner: the author of language 2 forms ideas


of all the.things that make up the world; for these ideas
he ap.Pointa expressions. so that the ideas become the meanings
of the expressions.

Thus meanings appear to, be located in

the mind of the author of language.

1-c.Abd al-R~ l(ha.J.af. Khulaeat C.ilm al-wade., p. 5.


2i.e. the w~dic; this term appears thr6ughout the literature of wade... Though the identity of the ~ (God or
man?) is not ~eterm.ined, that language has an author is not
doubted.

101

I.

llhen this atrai9ht-forward way of thinkin9 was applied


to mac.rifat (exo8pt the proper name) it led to the follow-

ing formulationz
d~monstrative

Personal pronouns, relative pronouns, and

pronouns are established for universal ideas

ari11inq in the mind of the a~t:hor of language.

Por example,

..

he is established for the idea of a single male person who


i absent (gh~"'ih) from the speech situatiOn 1
ill on a par .with man.

As such 9b.e

lloth aigJiifY ari idea under whic:h an


There is nO

indefinite nUl!lber of particulars is subsumed.

difference in kind between ai.Dgle male

p~re9nabaent

the speech situation and raonal animal.

from

Both ideas are

abstract, comp~ehensive, universa.lr hence both 9he and

mari

are uDJ.versala.
The rationale foi this atraight-fotifard approach Wasi

The meaning of an expression.is that for which


language has established the expressioJ'.l.

In

~e

author of

the case of ex-

.preaaiona like he, it is impossible that the author of language should be able to take into account, i.e. form an idea
of, all those things to whicb the expressions refer in count-

I
I'
I

1sote the absence of strictly .grammatical terminoloCJY


in our translation, i.e. sin(:Jillar, masculine gender, third
person. .Gran:matical terminOlogy has reference to th~ prope~
ties of expressions, whe~eas w~ are here Concerned.with the
properties of things of which we form ideas.

102
leaa peach situations.

TO -do so he would himael.f have- to

be present at every speech situation, and this ia bbviously


untb,inkable sinc.e expressions are established prior to speech
aitua~ns.

TherefOre rather than establi~hing an expression

.for all those countless particulars to Wllich the expression


. will refer in all future speech situations, the author of
language eatabliabeS it for a.

particulars.

g~neral

idea embracing all those

This idea, being that for which the expression

ia established, is then its true meaning.


context ha.a a strong resemblance to

lexic~l

MeanJ..ng in this
definition.

If

one were to look up the .;meaning of be" in a lexicon~ one


would certainly not exPect to find an exhaustive list of all
those particUlars which '"he" has referred to or can. refer to:
rather one would expect t9 fi:.nd Some sort of abstract.ion.
irliougb. this view meant that the meanings of expreSsioiis
like "'baa were to ,,e located outside act~al speech Situations,
the ancients made an e_ffort to link the expressions with_
speech situations by devising the following fornula: The
exp~essions

are established for general ideas .!m. condition

that in actual. apaech situations they be used for particulars


subsumed under those ideaa~l

lal-Shubrh'l:, al-Minhah a1-1i'ahfyah, pp. 8-9.

-.

103

AB for the question whether expressions like "he should


be characterized as universal or particular", the logical
Conclusion of this view was that since these terms applied
to expressions only with reference to their meanings, and since

a meaning is tbat for which an expression is established,

such expressions

we~e

properly to be conSidered as universals.

In order to appreciate this line of thinking, we must

keep in nq.nd the underlying concern to affirm the givenness


&very expression, every ele-

of language in its entirety.

ment, is established, ordained, appointed for

TO exclude a

p~rt

~ome

meaning.

of language (e.g. the ma'rifat) from this

establishment wPuld be to deprive that part of its givenness.

'J!he anCients in maintaining that expressions like "he" were


eatahiished for uniVersal ideas were t~ing to give a basis
for .the g~~nness of such words in ianquage .
11bat was olJj.?ctiOnable, for the point of view of al-

!Jr, about. the view of the ancients was that this view did
not give an adequate basis for the givenness of the demonstrative character of expressions like

11

he."

The

inclusion of

a.proviso clause in the formula of establis:hment was not enough.


in.stead of affirming that expressions like "he'" Were established for universal ideas on condition that they be used to
refer to particulars subSumed under the universal ,ideas, it

..

104

wa necessary to aff irin that such words were established for


particular ideaa.
maC.rifah
too

only in

t~is

way could the 9ivennesa of the

mac.rifah be affirmed.

heavily on pseudo-meanings

The ancients relied

~ideas

in the mind of the author

of language) which had little to do with the real meanings

which

~epe

expressions have in every day usage.

Accordingly, al-!jY advanced a new theory of the establishment of personal pronouns,_ demonstrative pronouns, and

relative pronouns.
alao to particles.)

(Later we will see that this theory applied


Unlike other

express~ona

(for which the

old theory was q\iite adequate), these eXpresaions are not


estal>liahed for ideas arising in the mind of the author of
language.

Rather their establishment occurs in this manners

The author of lanquag'e forms an idea.

an

Instead of establishing

expresaionsfor th~ idea.as such, he esta?lishes it for each

particul-ll subsumed under the idea.


cular (kull wJbid min
. cial.

The phrase eaCh parti-

al-mus~aklikhaSat

bi khusUsihi) is cru-

Tl:le author of language doea not:eatabliah

sion for a class, i.e. the class of all thc1e


subsumed under the idea.

Hae. does not

It signifies a sin9le particular.

th~ ~i:'ee

part~ulars

si~nify.a

c~nsequently

st;ressed that be is established for each

class.

it must be

par;~icular

in such

a way that when the expreSsion is used one and only one par-

'

105
ticular 1 understood. 1
Al:IO al-Olleim al-SamarqandI (fl. 1483) elucidates the
phrase each particular by means of a disjunction;

,,I

ae ia

1aid to be establish8d for "thia particular, or that particular, or that particular, etc~ of the particulars falling

under the universal idea single male person absent from the
apeech aituation.2
The identity of the particular for which "he" is used
in a given speech situation is of course not known t9 the
author of language, who establishes expressions Prior to all
peech aituatiODS.

This me;sils that the identity of t;.he par-

ticular to which "he refers in a given speech situa~ion cclnnot

be known by the bearer from

the.expre~si9n

itself . In the

cue of .proper names, i.e . zayd, this is not the caSes the
identity of the pai:'ticular
I.

1elf.

.!!. known from tbe expression ,1t-

Bow, _then,_can we say that the reference of expressions

like he is a demonstrative reference, since expressions-can


.only refer demnstratively to things the identity Of which is
known.

The answer is that in given speech situations, the

identity of particulars

refer~ed

to

by-_expres~ions

like he

lal-QO:sbjI,
Shilb C"ala al-Risalah a1-wadcI'yah,
pp. 41-49.
.
,
2al-Sama.rqaiid.I, Sharb CalS al-RlsX!ah

al~wadCiyah,

fol. 12b

106

!!. known.

However, it 1 known, not from the expression it-

elf, but from an identifying context (garinah

mu~ayyinah).

lfbe personal pronoun, the d8roonetrative p-ronoun, and

the relative pronoun each require a special type of identifying context. 1

In the ca1e of the personal pronoun, the

identi~ing context 111Uat be with!!' the speech situation (khi-.

t'abl.

For 1 it is the uee of the expression by a particu-

lar Jt98ker, for "you the direction of the exPresaio_n to

a particular bearer, for "he the occurrence of a previous


reference to the particular.

In the caae of the demonstrative

pronoun, the identifying context is said to be a physical


pointing to a particularJ 1n the case of the relative pronoun,
a -ntal pointing.

Physical pointing is clear enough.

When

I aay "Thi 1a a bock, I am in effect pointing physically

to aomething imnediately

pre~ent.

'!'he notion of mental pointing Jish:lrah

net quite .ao clear.

~aql'Iyah)

is.

In connection With it, al-ljI in the

cOnciuaion (khltimah) of bis treatise mentions a problem.


The identifying context for "(the one) !!!!2" (alladhi) is said

to be a phrase (silah) within the same sentence in which


(the one) ~ occurs.

Thia

~hraae

is said to Constitute

lal-QQabj%, Sharh ~all al-R1sa1ah al-wadc!Yah, pp. 69-71.

I
I
i
I
'

!
I
I.

107
a mental pointing.

1 a noble

When I aay

11

(the one) who came from saarah

I am indicating by means of the content of

man,~

the phrase came from Sasrah 11 the particular person to whom


11

(the one) l!h2,11 refers.

ThetProblem which al-!jr brings up

ia thias h<7ti1 c,an I indicate a particular by means of a mental

content CmadJnnn) which is quite universal.

The content, ie.

meaning, of the phrase "came from sasrah. 11 is universal., since

many particular Persons may be said to have come frOm. sasrah.


Bow can I identify a particular per.son by means of such a

general phrase?
while

th~

The answer given in the commentaries is that

meaning

o~

the phrase came

~rom.

sasrah" ia general

in itself, it is not general when used in actual speech aituations.


in

The

~teelf,

sp~aker

assumes that the phi;:ase, though universal

in actuality Ji subject to circumstantial 11.mita-

tion (al-inbislir

al-kh~ril'lJ

_and that this circumstantial

limitation is kii<7tiln to the hearer.


.

on account of this the

phrase serves as an identifying context.

concerning personai, demonstrativ.e, and relative pronouns in general, the question arises:. h<7ti1 can the author of
language establish such an expi:ession foZ. e~ch part.icular
subsumed under a universal idea when each particulilr is not

lal-QUshjr, SharQ ~al~ al-RisKlah al-wa9ciyah, pp. 76-79.

108
present before him in such a way that he can take it into

account.

The answer Which the commentaries develop is that

each particular .!!. present before him by virtue of the uni-

l~

veraal idea under which it is subsumed.

within a universal in the manner of

A particular exists

fan~',

a term reminiscent

-of DJY.Btic absorption. "The particular loses its identity, but

1 present nonetheless in the universal.

I
I

1 said to be a means of making

pr~sent

Thus the universal

(!lat

al-i&tibd~).

It is alab said to be an instrument of wade (!lat al-wade.),

in. that by aummoninq into the presence of the author of

language each_ particular subsumed under it, .it makes poasil>le

the establishment of an expres816n for each particular.l

Al-tJY distinquisbes between the establishment of

the.

proper nclme and that of the other. mac.rifl't by calling the

former a particula.r
establishment.
.

univers~l

es~ablishment

and the latter a universal

This is an unusual application of the terms

and

~particular, ~ut

as it--or the

~pplica~ion

of synonymous terms, i.e. qenera1 (Cantm) and special


~--becomes

conmon in the science of wad , it is impor-

tant to understand why Buch a diSfinction wU made.


Juat

the terms universal and particular may

lal-samarq~dr, Sharb cal'lr al-Ris~lah al-wadCifah, fol.


149a.

! '

109
be applied to expreaa1on8 with respect to tbe meanings, 1_.e ..
1.cleas,.wbicb.th~

signify, the same term.ii may be applied to

tha eatahlisbment

~)

of expressions with respect to the

ideas ariai.ng 1.n the mind of

the author of laiiguage.

The e8-

tabliahment of i:be proper name, e.g. Zayd, is said to be particular because the idea arising in the miild of the author ...:.

of language is particular, i.e. the idea of zayd.

Since it

happens that the concept of zayd is identical to that for which


the 4P'Pression zaya is es~ablisbed., i.e. the idea itself
,
becomes the meaning, we may speak of a particu1ar eatahliah~nt of ~ expression for a Particular meaning [al-wade. al-

khtrsa 11 mawdii~ lahu kh"l'ss, 1_.e. n-J(b.).

on the oth~r hand,

the establishment of expressions like ~e is said to be uni-

v~al., si.nt;S the idea arising 1.n the mind of the author of
language 1.a uni.vereal.

B"'ever, since the idea is not; i.n this

case that for which the expression is established_ (the idea


.and the ~aning are not identical)
~

which

particul~a

but rather the means ~)

are "aunm:lOned. into the presence of the

author of langUacje, we muBt speak of a universal establishMnt of an expression f9r a Particular meaning
C. '3J:rm

11-mawdU'

l~u kh~ss,

eatab~ishment

~d

al-

catego.ey fol-

lows close behind.

"man" is said to be univeraal, since as in the case of "he"

'rhe

.i._e. A-Kh).

~al-wade.

of expres:sions like

iio
the idea arising in the mind of the author of language ia

univex-aal.

J{ow~ver,

unlike be, this idea is also the meaninq.

consequently, we speak of a universal establishment for a


unJ.vex-sal meaning.. In this mannex-, the first of the sets of

'

. categox-ies which are employed in the "'acien.ce .of

waac

re-

ceives i.ta formulation: A-A, A.:_lCh, lCh-lCh. l


Al-fj t 'developed the cate"!ory of A-l<h also as a means

of del!lOn&trating the particularity of particles. Particles,


1)\ his view, are partic':Jlar because the meclninga they signify
u~

particular.

The "partic.ularity of these meanings _must be

Understood against the bacltground of MUslim thought about the


nature of particles.

'rh,is thought has been sum:oed up in two

traati~aa of al-Jurj.:lhT~.Jntitled al-Ria'lliah al-hilrffvOh and


al-Ri.slllah al-mir>Jt"Iyah. S.mmations also appear iii the cOmmentaries on the treatise of al-IJt.2
'1'be cbuacterization .of the particle as particular .

reveal.a . the extent .to which the principle of the name-relation


waa carried in Islam.

EVery ex:pre&aion in language is under-

stood as a name, a sign, S(tanding for an idea. The meaning


of a seritence is simply the sum total of the meaning of its
1 ~1-J'ux-jbT.

ai~sb~r,

H3.ehJYah c.a1a al-Rie11.lah al-wadc:Iyah, fol.la

Sharb.al-RisAlah al-wadciyah, pp. 37-40

2 at-12UshJr,

2. ill.

pp.

eo-eJ.

111
parts, of the aignificative units contained ~n it.
thua has its

OW1'.l

Bach unit

Thus in the sent~nCe zayd

proper mean1.ng.

fi al-difr (Zayd ie in the house), zayd stands for the idea

of the person zayd, fl' stands for the idea of "in-ne_as C&!!:-

.:m!h),

and al-d'!'r stands for the idea of a particular house.

9J,ese ideas, when asserrbled, produce the tOtal meaning of


thB sentence.
'l'hough

MU&lim thinkers assimilated particle& to name,

t;hey did so with an important qualification which ehowe th_eY


.were not naive.
Vh.t.ch is

A particle, they said, signifies an idea

1~ so~th.in.g else CfI

1
ahayrihi) , i.e. which is

not an _inde~ndent idea, but an idea which relates oti:ier ideas


and therefore is 1n thos~ ideas.

we ~ call such an idea

a relating idea, i.e. an idea whose function is to .rel~te


other ideas to each other.

.This can be elucidated by means


~From stands for the idea

of the proposition from lmin).

of frO!D""nesa, or commencement (ibti~').

BOW'ever, th~s

idea, -as the mean1.n9 of from, is not view-ed

i~dependently,

is

~t

regarded for its own sake..

J.natrument for relating other

I.t is viewed rather as ' an

i~eas

prehending other ideas as related..

to 4'.'ach other, for ap-

I.n the

se~tence ~zay~

112

came from ea,rah, from, like the other expression, stand


for: an idea, i.e.

"commenc~nt1

but unlike the ideas sig-

nified by the other expressions, this idea is 1n the ideas

aignified by the expressions surrounding from.

:rromdoes

not signifY commencment merelyJ it signifies coumencement


aa a relating idea, an -idea which relates the
and to idea of coming to each other.

id~a

of Safrah

"Prom" by itself sig-

nifies nothing1 in conjunction with_ other expressions it signifie something about the ideas sigilified by those expressions,

i.e. that they are related to each other in a.certain vay.


CoJU1equently, its meaning~ "in the meanings of tbe other

expressions.

~eases

Remove the other f!XpressionB and from

to". have meaning

.Al...:JurjaJl'I likens the relating idea. to a mirror.

One

does not look at a mirror in order to behold the mirror itself: rather one looks in order to behold what is reflected
in the mirror.

Similarly one

~oes not~view

a relating idea

aa eomething to be beheld for its own sak.e1 rather one views


it aa a mirror for beholding the related ideae, the relata.
In the sentence

11

zayd

c~

frOJ'.!l Baar ah, _the idea of

11

coomence-

ment functions as a mirror for beholding the ideas of sasrab


and coming as related in a particular way.

could. by means of

11

11

(The same ideas

to". or Some other preposition, be related

----------------------~-.~.~'

\. ....in' quite a

113

different way.)

The particularity of the particle, Which al-ljI ie


concerned to demonstrate, arises from-the following

consid~ra

The part1cU1ar1ty of expressions, as we hav~ said,

t1onaa

derives from the particularity of the ideas they


articl~s.siqnify

si9~ify.

relating ideas, and therefore are particu-

lar only in virtue of the particufarity of such ideas.


relating ideas are

part~cular

relata are parti.CUlar.

Th&t

is due to the fact that the

The particularity of a relating idea

derives from the particularity of the relata.

In the sentence

zayd came r0m Ba,rab, the idea of conmencement relates

a particular

c~ty,

i.e. aa,rah, and a particular action,

Zayd'a coming, to each other.


_aigni.f~ea

Wb.ich
1

a particular

1.~.

Therefore we may say that from

co~encment,

i.e. that conmencement

is 1n Batrah_and Zayd's coming. 1


Tb author of language, in eatabiishin9 from, cannot

of CO\:lrse take c~gnizance of all the instances i~ which 'commencement is used as a rei"atin9 idea, i.e. cannot take cognizance of all particular Commencements.

Again, this ie

because he is pri~r to all spe.ech e.ituat~one.


eetabliehes "fr.om for the

univer~al

Therefore he

idea of c.omnencement,

lal-QUshjI, Sharb <al~ al-Risalah al-wa4~1yah, pp. 80-83.

114
under which all particular conmenc-emeilt.8 are ubsumed and

in-which they iu::e present.

With reference to particular com-

mancemant.i, then, the <;J~neral idea of con:mencement is a

means of making present C!lat al-istihd!rJ,.whereby the author


.'

of lang\iage can establish the expression from for the particular coiamencements" thems.elves.

Accordingly, the

"e:Stab-

lihmeht of from, aa well aa of'a11 particles, is cha.racterize4 as A-Kh.

* * *
The econd set of.categories
and a\Jhaumptive !!M!.,. 1

of_~

is

th~

1so1at1ve

'l'he texm 1111olative characterizes

the establishment of ind1v1dua1 expressions, the author of


~anguage

idea.

isolates an expression and establishes it for an

~ua.zayd"

the combination of
vowel
I

,a and the

is established in an isolat1ve manners


~e

consonants .!.t..Ai "t09ether with the


(an

orthog~aphic

sigil Which in Arabic

stand& over the final consonant in a clos~ syllable), is

I1

singled out from all other possible combinations of consonants,

ii
t
1
[.

vowels and sl:lkuns, i .. e .. from all other expressions, and. estab-

liahe4 for the i4ea of Zay4.

poi~t

The term "suhs.;..ptive charac-

~ich

Lrbe earliest
at
these categories appear
in the literature ,of wad~ i~ in al-samarqand.r, Sharb cal~
al-Risalah al-wad~Iyah, fol~ lOb-lla.

115
terizes the establishment of formal elements in lailguage,

i.e. elements which do not in themselves constitute individual


expressions, but are present in individual expressions.

Por

example, the 3.'11-form is not in itself an individual expres-'


sion, but. is present in individual expressions, e.g. dJ:rib,
gl"'im,

~,

etc.

Similarly, the dual suffix

-!!!.

is not an

individual expression, but is present in ind,ividual expressions


such as ra1ul5n, kit-ab'!n, risalatN'n, e_tc.

In a subsumptive

establishment the author of language does not single out

any

indi~idual

expression and restrict the establishment to

itr rather he formulates a general princ.iple CaaLidah, or

gannn) under which a group of express.ions is

and

subsuin~d,

by doing so he establishes summarily, rather than individually.

the expre.ssiona belon.ging to fue group. l


The difference between the. 1aolative 11 and the

11

sub-

aumptive11 waac. may be 11een from the formulas of establishment


wbiCh the treatises in wade.attribute to the author of language.

In an 1so1at1veu w~dc., the author of language declares:

i establishthis expression for this meaning.

In a

Rs~

aumptive waae, he declaresz "I establish every expression


containing such and such formal elements for such and such

lal-Shubr&wI, al-Minhah al-ilah.Iyah, pp. 4.-6.

meaning.

In the opposition between the phrases this exprea-

aion and every- expression which " we have a clear 1nd1cation of the 1solative-subsumptive" distinctiOn.
'l'b.e recognition of the formal elements of language as
distinct .from. individual expressions probably dates from the
founding of the science of morphology (C.ila;.al-sarf) as a

aepai:ate discipline.

According to ijaJJI Khalifah, the first

to write a special work on morphology was .Abtt c.uthrn'!n al-M!ZinT,

a philologist of the ninth century (d. 863).

consequently

we may date the tise of morphology in that century, al though

morphOlogical matters had been dealt with as part of grammar .

from the time of Sibawayh1 (d. 793). , From the ninth century

011W'ard, it was c~sto~ry for ~~ilolo9ists to wfite separate


books on grammar and morphology, el1 the al-K!'flyah and

al-Shafl\rah of Ibn al-ij8Jill (d. 1248).


'file categories of "isolative" and aubsumptive wade.

were used by

encyclop~dists

to separate

of morphology from that. of lexicography.

t~e

subject matter

ijil'J j I l<halrfah,

for eXample, descr~ea morphology as the science which is


concemed with non-complex expressions which have been estab"".
lished in summary fa.shion Cal-rnufrad'!"t al-mawcruc.ah b.i al-wade.

l'ljjX IChalifah, Kash al~zuntfn, I, p. 288.

117
al-nawc.t). 1

t.exicoquphy, on the other.hand, has to do with

non-complex

exp~essiona

which have been

eatabl~shed

in 1so-

'lative fashion. 2

*
The third set of categories, i.e. dJ.rect and indJ.-.
rect wade, provides a basis for diatinguisbin9 between the

establishment of non-metaphors (bagrgahl and that of me_taphora

Cma1h).

In a direct wade, an.expression is established

for an idea in such a way that.it signifies that

~dea

of and

through itself1 .in an indirect wade, an expression 1a estab-

11.Bhed for

an idea in such a way that

only by means of an

~clitiOnal

it si~ifie~ that idea

factor other

the expres-

ion itself, i.e. a context (garTnah} !which indicates a.cOnnection ('-all.aah) between the proper meaning and the metaphor-

ical meaning. 3
Since the category of indirect wade is applicable

only to one of the elements dealt with in the science of

'

lip:jjr lChalrfah, Kashf al-zuniin, I, p. 2881 II, p. 781


cf. "raahk8pri1zade, Miftm, al-sa'adah, I, p. 112.

zade,

2ij&jjX lChalifah, .22 .!l.!., II, p. 3581 cf. orashkilprOI, p . 89 ..

.2 .s!t,. ,

3ai-Shubrllw:C, al-Minbah al-ilMl:CVah, pp. 3-41 a1-:i;awKbir1, al-.MUlakhkhap, p. 3.

118
wad~.

1.e. the

metapho~,

Whereas the category of auect

wade embraces all the other element&, and since there is no

.,

disagreement in the later literature of wade over the appli-

cation of thea.e categories, little atterition is given to them


in. the.~ treatises.

consequently, t1..D:.i the pages to follow,

'

which are concerned with the appiicat_J.on of the categories of

wade. to the elements of language; the thii:d set of categories


will

~t

be taken into account.

'Iba application of the categories of wade. to the elemanta of language ie the chief concern of the science of
~- .~

Before we see ~ this application ia ccirried out, we

JDU&t bavea clear conception 0 what the elements of language,\.'.Vi~

~he

Whic;h

waac.

treatise~

de.al, are.

These may

.be grouped under the folla#'ing headings.


(1) Wordsz proper names, generic names, personal pro-

nouns, demonatrat.ive pronouns, .relative pronouns.


atat.1ona.ry nouns,

source-no~ns,

morpholog~cal

~cles_,

terms

(3~il

li.e. ism i!mid, as opposed to ism al-masdar and &-ism al-mushtaqg (see Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Langua_ge,
X, p. 106). The terto generally used in the wad~ treatises is
ism al-tins, but since this is restricted.to th~ ism i3mid,
.rather than being made to embi:'ace both ism fiimid and_ ism alpasdar, as is uaually ~one. in graiamar, we w~ll employ an English
translation of ism tamid.

----------------------

i'
I

119
mau1, ate.}
(2) Formal elements occurring

.!!!. wordas

(a) suffixess

the plural suffix, the dual suffix, the .relative suffix (-.!) 1

(b) rorms:r. the form of the derived noun Cal-ism al-musbtagq),


the form of the verb, the form of the diminutive.

(3) rormal elements occurri,ng in groUpa 'of words:t


(a} particle-pl.us-noun phrasess the definite article-plus-

noun phrase <ai-muhalll bi-al), the vocative phrase (e.g


. o llubammacJ)1 (b) constructions "(murakkabi:t), i.e~ phrases
,
couJ.atinCJ of nouns, or noun-plus-verb.: the declarative sentenca Jchahar.l). the _institutive (inshl.' I) sentence, the con-

truct phrase, . the attr.lbutiVI! I tawslfU phrase.


(4)

,.a~rial

elements QCcurring in words:r. the matter

Cmrddah), i.e .. radicals, of the derived noun, the matter

or the ve:tb.
Again it should be stressed that each of these e1e-

aenta 1a treated on the order of

to be the name of some idea..

a namer

each is eatablis~

It also Should be stressed that

tbl!I above enumeration of elements" is regaided by the authors

iia exhauative:i there is no e1ement" in language which is not

1xam Zlah. ism zam~n. ism mak~n, al-sif~ a1-mushahbahah


are included_ under ism al-mushtagq~. see al-Qushji. Sharb
cal3 ai-Ris3lah al-wadCiyah, p. 66.

120
I

'1

included omewbere in the enumeration.

consequently the ap-

plication of the categories of wade. to these elements" con-

titutea an exhaustive account of the estab.lishment of lan-

guage.

llboUld be said concerning the role of. the form-

~word

matter distinction in the above enumeration.

The hylomorpbic

4aliaml constitutes one of the l~ading principles of Arabic philology.

i'

'l'he twenty-ight consonants of the alphal:>et

represent an inanimate corpse to which the vowels, aukuna,


and extraneous conao~ants giv8 life, a material substratum

upon which they. endow form.

Forms2 .;.,e particularized when

united with matter1 the result of this union is parti~ular


word~,

Wbich

~e

the subject .matter of lexicography.

Detached

from matter, forms are general embracing a plurality of words

\.
.

baving no

~esti~g

place_ <maball) in any particular word.

AB aucb, they are the aubj ect matter of morphology and are
designated by means of morphological terms

~.

are ~unted among the elemen.ts" of languaqe).


on the other band, i.e.

ra~icals

..51!!!.

radica'ls~

etc., Which

Formless matter,
are the sub-

ject matter of the major etyniology (ishtiq!q kabir).

lMa&aignon, "La Structure Primitive de'l'Analyse Grammaticale en Arabe," Arabica, x, fasc. 1, p. 12.
2 i.e. including"both word-forms and other formal elements.

.
121
It hould be noted that in the above enumeration not
all words are

~ichotomized

into form" and

ma~ter,

derived words, i.e. verbs and derived nouns.

but only

The reason for

thi is to be found in etymological considerations.

Accord-

ing to the Ba.trite theory of derivation, 1 which became stan-

dard, words were derived from a squrce-noun (masdar) by virtue


of an additional meaning which wa. superimposed upon the basal
meaning of the source-name iUelf.

The basal meaning waa car-

ried over by the radicals, i.e. the matter, of the derived


word: the additional meaning wu expressed by the

the word.

~orm

of

For example, the derived noun d'aril> andl the verb

daraba are both derived from the ~r~-nou11 ~.

In the

case of both d:!l.ril> and darabat the basal meaning of the source-

noun 111 pei:petuatea by means of the radicals1 the meanirig of


~e

radicals is identical totbe meaning of the_ source-noun.

An additional meaning is introduced by means of the forms


of the derived -words.

Diril>, by means of "its form, signifies

. a a\lbstance Cdh"at) and a relation (nisbah) 1 daraba, by means

'of it fom, signifies time (zaml!n) and a relation (nisbah).


Thus both the form and matter of derived. words constitute
~nits

of signification, which ia the "science of wad' become

lal-AnbXri, Kit11b al-ins~f. pp. lOJ-105.

122

element of language.

Thi 1 not ao in the case of 1ource-

noun11, or any 'other of the elements under the baa.ding "words 11 ,


irx:e in the case of such words the form SY,! form contributes

nothing to the meaning of the word.

The fu.nction of the ,aourc:e-

noun v11-a-v1a derived words is imply to name a meaning which


can erveaa a baai for derivation.
In the Muslim etymological system there are two basic

type

o~

meanings, substances ldJ!awSt) and actions (abdSth).

Only an actio~,can serve as the basis for a der1vat1ons an


action implies a substance, i.e. a doer, and a.

re~ation

between

doer and action, as well as a time in which the action is

'8rtormed7 therefore it

~a

conCeivable that from a word which

namea an action other wOrds may be derived which also name


the other factors implicit in an action.

A substance cannot

eerve aa the basis for a derivation because a substance does

I
I

'i

not

imply an action, or any of the other factors.'

A word which

implJ names a substance is considered to be .etymologically

atationacy llllmid), i.e. non-productive.

'!

Wrom the point of view of the science


nouns and

~tationary nounsconstitu~e

of~,

source-

in themselves elements

o~ lang\Jage, Whereas derived words, rather than themselves

constituting elements, embrace constituents, 1.e. form and


matter, which are the real elements" of langUage.

123
irhe application of the categories of

~ to

the

e1~

men ta 11 of languclge fOllCMB a standard p~ocedure in the ~

tieatises.

Fi.J:st,

categories o.f

11

~ressions

are classified in terms of the

1solative and aubsumPtive" ~f then expres-

aiona falling under each of thesecategories are further clasified in terms of the categories'of 101-101, A-ICh, A-A.

The

result is the follCMing general outline.

A-A

lCh-!Ch

A-A

Accordingly, in the following pages we.will deal fi.J:st


'
with the appliccltion
of the categories of isolative and

. aubsumptive

to the elements of language, and subse-

quently with the application of the categories of J(h-101, A-101,


and A-A.

The sources on which we will concentrate will be:

Mu(i~afll :Lbn Mul)ammad al-ljafawr (18th century)' . Rielllah fi al-wad


Mu~aumad

ijajarz5de

(19~

century),

Ris~lah

fi

al-wad~'

:tbrahim ibn .l(halil al-Ak!n! (19th century), . al-Rielilah al-Rahml:yah

...'",j

124
c.Ab4 al-Malik al-Patnr (19th century), 'Agd al-La>a1I

YOau:f' ibn A>;ua.ad al-DijwI (20th century), JChulasat al-wade


~Abd al-R~n

JChalaf (20th century), Khulasat c11m al-wade

AJ>d al-JChl!liq al-ShubrliwI (20th century), al-Minhah al111.h~yah fi al-gaw~cid al-wadtiyah


MUhamma~

al-ijuaaynI

al-~aw:lhirI

(20th century), al-Mulakh-

lchaa fI 'ilm al-wadC

With the exception of the treatise of


work.a were published.

al-~afawr,

all of these

Since they are for the moat part recent,

we may take them to represent the sc::ience of wadt" at the


:f'inal

at_~ge

of its development.

* * * *
With respect to the application of the c'tegories .of
1aol~tive

and "subsui:nPtive wade. to the "elementsn of lan-

guage, our authors

~re

in

al.most complete agreement.

All

agree bn the following: (1) that among the "words" p;c:oper


names,_

gen~ric

names, personal pronouns,

de~nstrative

pro-

nouns, particles and stationary nouns are established by "isolative wade_: (2) that all_ formal elements", both those occurring in words and those occurring in groups of words, are
establ~shed

by a subsumptive wade.

The "elements" over

which disagreement occurs are: source-nouns, morphological


tfjrms, and the

11

material elements."

the disagreement is slight,

inv~lving

In each case, however,


only one or two dissenters

fr~

the general consensus ..


All regards the source-noun, CAJ:id

al-Ratun~

1
I<halaf

differs with the other seven authors in maintaining that it


ill established by a subsumptive. wade ... He takes the form
of the source-noun seriously. irrespective of the fact that
it ha& no separate meaning.

Thus, the author of language de-

clares; x establish every source-noun (i .. e. every expression


having the form of a source-noun) for such and such meaning.
'rhe other authors, to the contrary, attribute an "isolative
~to

source nouns:. I establish darb fOr striking' and

giySm for 'standing'. etc ..


'?he disai:Jreement over m_oiphological terms is a matter
not so much of a conflict Of views, as a refusal on the part
o.f 11ome to express any view at all.
vi~

(al-Patnt, ij.ajarzMe,

morph_ologic~l

a.1.-~afawI.,

Those who do express a


al-Ak[nI) agree that.

terms are establish_ed by a "subsumptive" wade ..

The rationale for this view is most fully given by a nineteenth


century Shaykh of al-AZhar, MU.Qammad il>n MUl).arranad al-ImbabI,
in a treatise entitled

Ris~lah

fi

al-wad~.

The declaration

is as follows:. "I establish every word containing the radicals


.!~..!as

the name of the form inhering in it."

Thus in a

lc.Abd al-RaJ:un"!n l(halaf, ai-MU.lakhkha,, p. 13.

126
ingla instance the author of language establishes aaet of
names for all the forms dealt with iron morphology.

Those

d,,..

authors who remain silent qn the subject of morphological


terms do not take these terms into

consi~eration

at all as

of language

el~nta

.Aqain in the case of the ma'terial ele~ents, there

i only the dissent of the feW from the opinion of the majority.
The

view is that the material substratum of deriyed

COillDOn

words, i.e. the r"adicala, are established by an "iaolativa


~r

~on

the author of language isolates a particular combina-

JJf radicals,

e.9 .

,4 . H_, and establishes ~t for a mean-

Thia view presupposes a:n underlying .unity of

ing.

family

of derived words .with respect to the radicals they share;


all diversity is based on form.

A f~ly is produced when

a airigle combination of radicals is united with a plurality


of forms.

Dhib, madrUb, daraba,_ etc., are menibers Qf a

family s the

rad~cals

,. . , represent one and the same ele-

ment 'in all of the several.words1 their 9(:cUrrence in eacih


word constitutes only '"toke~" _in.stances of a single "elemerit. .
I.

-On the other hand,

d~rib,

k&:tib, qa .. im

are not members of

. a family: the lexicons ar~ not arranged accordi1'9 to ~orms;


b~t

according to radicals.

to think of

~e

Consequently, it would be

Wro~g

forms of these words as token'" instances of

127

a ingle element, to which radicals are added, producing


41veraity.

It la upon such considerations as these that the

coninon view is based, according to which an 1solative.

wad~

ia _assigned to radicals of derived words.


Thoae, on the other hand, who assign a s~~umptive
~

o"J!

to the radicals

th~

(al-~afawI,

ail-DijwI) treat the matter

derived wo_rda on the analogy of the form; both matter"

.!!!.

and form are elements. which appear

individual expres-

aiona, therefore both are established subsumptively.


u

~-form

the

Just

appears in a _plurality of words, e.g. dUib,

ki.tih, q'! >1m, etc., so the coni>ination of radi.cals

.4 . !!. ap-

pears 1.n. a plurility of wor:ds, e.g. dllrib, mad,rUb, daraba,

etc.

Accordi.nqly, consonantaare established by the declara-

tions

J. . ~

:for such and such meani:ng .. ~


.

establish eye:[y derived word containing the radicals

~e

~rgea

clisaenting

aside, the general picture that

respecting the application of the Categories of

lative and

su~sumptive"

i as follows..
.

vi~s

wade to the elements of lanquage

Those "elements which are

i.aolative wade. are:

p~oper

an

names, _g_eneric names, personal

sour~e-nouns,

the matter of verbs.

es~ablia.hed by

pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative


stationary nouns,

~~so-

pron~uns,

particles,

thematter of derived nouns,

Those "elements which are established

128
by a eubeumptive" wade ares all the '"formal element enu-

merated earlier (eee above, p. 119), namely, the definite


article-plus-noun

the vocative phrase, the declara-

phras~,

tive sentence, the 1nstitutive seritence, the construct phrase,


the attributive phrase, the plural suffix, the dual suffix,
the relative suffix, the "form 11 of the derived noun, the form"
of' the verb, the diminutive.

fr

* *

'!be application of the categories Kh-Kh, A-Kb, and

A-A to the elements of language is more fraught with

dif~

1culty, and the authors are more divided among themselves as


to bow it should be done.

The d;isagreement touches primcllily

those element.a which are established by a a_ubsumptive

Concerni.Dq the "ele_mente"

estab~ished

there 18 complete accord, the _reason

~.

by an "isolative wade,
~eing

that the applica-

tion 0 tbe categories Kh-!Ol, A-Kb, and A-A to these eleJIM;'nts


vaa settled by al-ljI and the earliest conmentatora on his
treatise.
-authors.

!hei~

precedent

~s

not challenged by the later

Thus the following qroupinq of elements is uni-

veraally acCepted: Kh-lCh--proper names, generic names: A-Kh-personal prqnouns, demoristrative pronouns, relative pronouns,
particles; A-A--stationarY nouns, source-nouns, the matter
of derived nouns, the matter of

ve~s.

129

Th dieagreement over the application of the categorie


of KhKh, A-Kh, A-~ to the element" Htablihed by "uhump-

tive wiidt centers on th'! following three gmupa of element.81


(l) the vocative phrase, the diminutive, the plural auffix,

the dual auffix, the relative suffix; (2) the con11tructions,


1.e . the declarative sentence, the institutive 1entence, the
construct

~hraae,

th~

attributive phraae1 (3)

th derived noun and the form. of the verb.

~he

form. of

The only e1e-.

'manta upon :Whi~h there ia agreement are Diorphological terms,


which are .c::haracter1.zed aa Kb-Kb, and the definite articleplua-noun phraae; Which 1a characterized aa A-Kh.
(l) Concerning the firs.t group of controveraial "element .opinions

ar~

evenly divided..

l'our of our authors (al-

Sbuhrllwl, llbd al-Jla\lmln Khalil., al-~..WU.ir'I, alDijwY) maintain that these words are established for particulars

.2! universal ideas,

.!!!!!i!!!.!!.

in the manner in Which pronouns and par.:..

ticles were ao.id to be established by al-IJI.

The otlu!r four

(al-PatnI, ijajarzade, al~~afawI, al-lll<lnl) maintain that they


are eBtabliahed for universals.
The central issue, with. respect both to this group of
. elements and the c;>ther groups, is whether the formal elements in language ar_e to be regarded ae uniyereals or particulara1 they are universal. if they are eetabliahe'd directly

130

tor universal

ideu1 they are particular if they are estab-

liahed for particular ideaa through the i;,,.trumentality of


univereal ideas.

('l'hat they are established directly for

particulars ie precluded by all.)

otherwise stated, .the issue

1 whether the formal elements are established for meanings


which they have in tbeioaelvea, or for.meanings which they
vben appearing
~aninga

of

1Jl words.

If the latter is the case, then

h~ve

the

Which they seem to have in themselves are instruments

'l'O take a case in point is the form

:! fullln (O

SO-and-so) established for the universal idea someone'& preaence 1 desired or for the piirticular ideas which it conveys
Vben found in indivJJual expressions, e.9. v! Muhammad (0
_,,,,,.ad), vl! zavci (O zayd), ei:c.

If the iatter is the case,

then the univeraal idea someone's presence is desired is


an instrument of wade, i.e. a gathering or summo~1n.9 med~u:m.
vbicb gathers the particular ideas for which the author of

language wishes to establish the_ word:

Mu~anmad s

.ia deSired, zayd 'a presence ia desired,: etc.

presence

The fact

that the authors of the moat recent treatise:s on wade. a.re


div~ed

on the question is evidence that the issue was never

resOived.
(2) In the case of constructions, the issue is the
same, though our authors a.re differently divided.

Al PatnI:,

131

Abd al-Ra\lmlln Khalaf,

al-~awllhirI,

al-DijwI,

al-~afawI

clas-

ify constructions as ~A; al-ShubrawI, ijajarzlde, al-AkinI


classify them as A-Kb.

Again the questio~ is whether the

form of the declarative sentence, for example,


I.

jus~aposition

1.~. th~

of a subject term Cmusnad ilayhi) and a predi-

cate term Cmus~ad), is eatabli~hed '.ft;Jr the genera_l idea. of

a complete relation Cal-nisbah al-t!mmab), or for particular


ideas which ar_e "gathered" by this general ideas a complete
relation

~etween ~ayd

and

standin9 111 (in zayd

g~aim),

'

complete relation between ~ayd and ~triking'" (in zayd dSrib),


etc.

Once more,

~e

iesue is not resolved.

(3) The disagreement is somewhat


to the form of the

deri~d

noun and the

make out a majority opinion: the


falla _under the category A-A~

lea~

11

keen with respect

verb~

sere we can

forin. of t:J:le derived nOun

The. form of the verb is given

a double clasB~.fication, in terms of its tWo meaning-components, i.e. relation (nisbah) and timS (zam1ln).

With

resp~t

to its aiqniiicati-on of relation, it is classified. a.a A-Kb.


With respect to its eignificati?n of time, opinion is again
divided: some class~fy it as A-Kb, some a~ A-A.
Lrb.is is the only instance. _in which two Categories of
. wad., are applied to one a.nd. the same "element." It suggests
that the form of the verb comprises two "sub-elements" corresponding to the two Meaning-components, i.e. relation aild
time.

132

The raUonal.e for the above cii.asaifica.tion of the "fom


of the derived noun and the form" of the verb is

t~

be

~ound

in a theory of syntax which is worked out in the conanent~ies

on 1-fj I' treatise. 1

The cardinal point in this theory is

that languaqe seeks to express particular relations.

(This

i8 in keeping with the basic Islamic principle that the know-

ledge of particulars is the highest kind of knowledge.)


primary means by which this is done is the sentence.

The

The sen..;.

tence characteristically expresses a particular relation between a particular substance and a particular action..

The

key term in the relation, upon which the particularity of

the action and the relation itself depends, is the &~stance.

Xf x eay zayd went to saqhdad, I am asserting a relation


between ~ particular substance, i.e. zayc:J, and a ;Particular
action, i.e. hia.goin9 to Baghdad.

The idea_of "going to

Baghdad is in itself universal, but when predicated of zayd


~t becomes a particular "qoing to saghdad , i.e. zayd' a goinq

to eaghdad.

~e idea of zayd is, on the other hand, in itself

particular.
xn the above statement,

11

the sentence characteristically

lai~Isfar&~Inl, Sharb.Cal~ al-Risalah al-wad'lyah,


fol. 30a-36b, 47a: a1-QashjI, Sharh cal~ al-RiS~lah al-waQ~
ixah, pp. es-91.

133
expresses a particular relation between a particular substance
and a plltiCul&r action,

11

the qualificatioii "cha~acteristically

.1 necessary because there are sentenCes which do not express


a relation between a substance and an action, but rather a
relation between substance and subst3.nce, e.g .zayd is a
man..

&owever, this sort of relat.ion does no~ hold much in-

terest for.the writers on wade. though it does hold interest


for the loqiCians.

The syntactical theory of the science

of~ is based exclusively on the substance-action rela-

t1on and baB very l.1.ttl.e to do with purel.y 109J.cal r.ela~ions,

which are the preoccupation of the 1091.cians.

this is to

be

The reason for

found in the general orientation of MU&lim. thought

to narrative (badith).

The essence-of a statement

iB

that

aometbin9 happens: what happens must be reported (Jchabarl ~


)lus~im.

iegal, historiographical, and

reli~ious literatur~

takes the form of hadtth (a cognate of badath, ha~penin9).


zt is thus fitting that the Substance-action relation should
occupy such a prominent place in syntactical
true subject is a

aubetan~e,

th~ory.'

the true predicate:

a~

The

action ..

The central question to which the syntactical theory


of the science of wa9c. attempts to supply an answer is:
how do 'sentences express particular substance~action relatio~e?

zri brief, what the theory

~firms

is that a ,sentence expr7ssee

134
a part.1.cular substance-action

rel~tion

by incorporating words

(either derived nouns, or verbs) which themselves express that


J:11lati.on.

The underlyinq principle is that the signification

of the vb.ala (the sentence) is derived from the signification


of one of' the parts (the derived noun, or verb)..
fona.

~tself

The sentence-

conveys only the vexr general idea of relation,

wi.thout ati.pulati.ng anythi.ng about ei.ther of 'the terms (reiata)


of' the

relation~

The derived noun and the verb are more ape-

A aantence

w~ich expre~ses

ci.fi.c.

~latio~

by means of a

der~ved

a particular suhstapce-action

noun is a nominal aentencer

a aelitence w~ch does so by means of a Verb is a verbal -sentence.

Bach of these 1.s

the

aenteDc:e-types will

t:wQ

4)

an~lyzed

b~

differently, and therefore

discussed in turn ..

IJ.'b,8 nominal sent~~ce zayd a~>im (Zayd is standing)

convey11 .a particular relation betWeen a.particular substance,

t.e. zaJ'd, - and a particular act.ion, i.e. zayd a ~tanding.


Raw does .it do this?

It would: be wronq to say that the Sen-

tence Zayd aa>im conveys what it does because

it

coneiBt~. Of

t:wO parts, one part signifyin9 a particular substance and the


other a particular action.

aa>im signifies more than an action.

Xf y~u conjoin zayd with a word signifying no'thinq more than .


tanding11 ,

i .. e.

giy~,

you de not prodUce a sentence, but

135

only a liat.

A sentence require.a that the relation between

'auhatance and action itself be expressed by one of its parts.


In the sentence zayd ga.>1m, the rela1;.ion betwel;'n Zayd and
standing is expressed by the form of

~.

A derived noun signifies altogether three meaningcomponentas1 a substance, an action, and a relation.
action ia signified by the material

substratu~,

The

i.e. the ra-

dicala, and the substance ana relation are aign1.fied by the

form-.

Thus all the factors present in the meaning of a

aentence are

pre~ent

J'or tbia reason. the


aentence.

al.so in the meaning of the derived noun.


~erived

noun may be said to prefigure the

The prefiquration, bowever, is_ pot the real

th~ng.

The me_aning' of a~~ini lac~ th~ particularity that characterizes


the meaQJ.ng of zayd
ia universal, and,

g~.,im.
~s

The substance which it signifies

stated before, the substance is the

key term upon which the universality or .Pl!-rticularity of the


ac.tion and relation depen~.
clused aa a universal\

consequently,

ga' 1m

must be

aavever, though ur.versal, it plays

.J..ihe term "meaning-conipbnents" is used. in order ti.ot to


give the impression _that substance, action and relation as
siqiiJ.ficata of the derived noun ar'e separate meiinings.
Isam
al-Din al-Isfara ini emphasizes the.fundamental.unity of the
derJ,ved noun: the signific"ata a;-e "ndaed toget1.1era so as to
fo~ . a single meaning, See al-Isara ini, Sharh c:.a1a al-Risa'.lah
al-wad<lyah, fol~ 36a.

136

an important ayntac:t.ical rOle in th"e sentence zayd qi" imt


it ignifiea a universal relistion which is particulari"zed

when placed in juxtaposition to a noun which signifieS a_

particular substance..

Thus J!I!l and g!.'im complement each

other in a way t;hat ~ and qiy!m cannot.

In i:he combina-

t_imi zayd giyXm there is nothing to tell us that "standing"


ill related to Zayd1 in zayd g!.'im there isi g~'im (which may

be

tr~lated,

in accordance with its essentially'substantival

character, a standing one") siqnifies that the action


hg

i~

related

~stand-

.!.2!!!!. aubetoance, zavd identifie.s, i.e. par-

ticularizes, the substance, and in so doing particularizes


. the action and relation.
ia the atandi.Dg one.

From zayd a! 1 im we learn that zayd


In this manner, the nominal sentence

expresses a particUlar substance-aCtion relation.


(b) With the verbal sentence, the matter is quite
otherwise.

the

The sentence gama zayd (Zayd Stood); no less ~an

aenten~e

zayd ga>im (Zayd is the standing one), expresses

a particular relation between zayd and atandingM: and it does


o by means of one of its

par~,

i_.e .. the verb..

But the role

of the verb in expressing a particular relation is quite diff~ent

from the role of the derived noun...

the derived noun prefigures the sentence;

t;

'

~t
'l-'

We have said that


i~

signifies a uni-

v8raal meaning (i.e .. universal relation between a universal

137

ubtance and action) which 1 particularized When conjoined


with a name. 119nifyin9 a particular Substance.

the other hand, signifies a particular meaning.

The verb, on

The component

of tbi meaning area a particular action, a particular relation,

and a

time (past, present, or future).

Since not all the

meaning-components of the sentence are present in the meaning

of the verb--the missing component being substance--the verb


cannot be 11aid to prefigure the sentence.

Moreover, unlike

the derived noun_, the action and relation which aie 19Jlif1ed

are a particular action and relations therefore, the verb aigni.fie nothing universal to be particularized by an attached

noun.

Further, since.the verb signifies a relation without

19nt:fying l:?2.!:b, relata,

1~

total meaning ia not complete,

not independently comprehensible (qhayr mustaqill bi al-maf-

hllm!yah)

A relation simply cannot be grasped i f one or both

of the relata are missing.

Therefore, a verb .!!!.!!!!. be accom-

panied by a noun indicating tbe substance.

Since the

ve~b

always appears in discourse as a~ adjunct~ a noun which


~upp~ies

a particular substance, the relation expressed by the

form of the verb is always a

parti~ular

To atate :the matter in terms of

relation.

~ubject

and predicates

in the case of a nominal sentence, the subject particularizes

the meaning of the predicate (a derived noun).

In the case

138

of a verbal entence, the subject completes the meaning of


the predicate (a verb).

xn l>oth casee, the result i a par-

ticular meaning for the eentence as a whole (i.e. a particular


subs~ance

relation between a parti.cular

. It i fitting,- then,, that the

noun be claas1f1ed ae

A-A, and

11

and a particular actioh.)

form of the derived

the form of the verl>--ith

repect to the relation it aigniiies--as A-Kh.


of language establishes

the

When the author

form of the derived noun, he

apprehend a universal idea and makes it the mel'l!ing of the

form.

When he establishes the "form of the verb, he ap-

prehends a univers.al idea_ (relation) , but_ uses this idea as

an instrument l>y which

to. establish

the form for countless

perticular relations sUl>amoed under it.l


The fo~ of the ve.Et>, ~Ow~ver, has a meaning-component
Vb_ich 1. other than a relation or relatum: tinie _(zam&1).
Wi~

reap_ect to this meUing-component, some

fo~

of the verb as A-Kh. others as A-A.

classi~

the

The issue was

vbether time is of such a nature that it can be particularized.


I the time expressed

~ qama

zayd. for example. a univers.al

J.dea. i.e. past time (a1-D@li) with which one characterizes

the action of

st~.ing.

or is ~t a particul~r time. i.e.

lxu'1anmad .,:ajarzade. Ri.sfilah fi al-wade., pp. e-9.

139

the exact point in time in which zayd stood?1

ia not

This issue

~eaolved~

l.MUl}anmad ~aj arzade, Risa'.lah fi al-wad', p .. 11;


al-Minh<ih al-ilabl:yah, p. 19.

al-Shubr~r.

conclusions
In thia dissertation we have been concerned with.the
role of language in orthodox Muslim thought.

our general con:-

tention has been that language occupies the plaCe of a qiven


.upon which Islam, as a way_ of life centered upon sacred law,
in the final analysis depends.

God has spoken once and for

all to mankind through the Prophet, and

His.wor~s

have been

recorded in a Book: it ~s for man to take heed and obey.


In the absence of any natural revelatiOn, the Book is the
aole expression of the divine will.
tive. that th~ Book be understood.

Therefore it is imperaIn this, man has no other

recourse than to the language in which the Sook is written.


If he masters the lan~age, ~e may understand w~at God has
aaid.

In religious system predicated exclusively upon the

apoken woi4, in the most literal sense, la~guage is the only


point of contact between God and man.

Since th~ word is

a~en once and once only, language mUst be a constant and

unchanging given.

The meanin9s which expressions have in

the Book are the meanings with which they are iD.exfz;-icab~y
connected in language.
The problem to which the discussions of the origin

141
of language, in the ninth and tenth centuries_, were directe.d
vu how to fihd .a basis. for the givenness of language..
propo~ed

TWO

solutions were ultimately rejected by the or~odox:

that of the naturalists" and that of the early traditioniats .


The. naturalist view of language as posited in nature,

i"

i.e. in tbe natural affinity betw~en vocal sound~ and meanings,

Waa ahort-lived in Islam, mainly because it presupposed a


concept of nature, predicated on a notio.l of causality which

was essentially alien to the Jlualinl occasionalist view of


the world.

The ~dea that expressions signify meanings by

tbemsel ves Cbi dhatih'!) , i.e. are the cause of ~eir awn sig-

nification, granted tc language_ an efficacy which properly


belong!3d to God.

N.ot even among the MU tazilite11, who were

the intellectual vanguard ~~ ninth century Islam, did the


nat~ralist

view gain a permanent footing.

lfb.e tradi tionist view of language, on tbe other hand,


vaa widespread in early xslam and linge~ed on, even after the
ortbodox h~ implicitly rej~~ed it, amo~g ultra-c~nservatives.
Accord~g to this view, language was a tranecendenta~ realit1

which was bestowed upOn Adam at creat~on by instrUction or


inspiration.

This view of language was an implicate of the

doctriQe of the uricreatedness of diviri~ speech, which was


equated with the Koran.

Language was bound ~P with the arti-

142
culateness of God himself.
What was ohjectioriable, from the point of view of later
orthodoxy, about the tr_aditioniat view of 1B11quage aa a tranacendenta1 given was the corollary emphas.18 upon the discontinu"i ty between the J.an911age of the Koran and that spoken by
the Arabs in the Proplieta time.

All apo)!:en icinguage was

considered to be a corruption of the transcendental archetype.


Language in its pure archetypal form. was grB11ted oi:ily to prophets.

This accorded perfectly with the tradi.tionist principle

that .only the Prophet could .interpret the Koian, sine~ only
ha had command of ~e pure language.

cons~entJ.Y t::ti.e givens

of lanquage were beyond the reach of the ordinary man.

ClGlri-

fication of expressions in the Koran was possible only by means


of t.J::aditions issuing from the Prophet or a Companion who
could apealc. on behalf of ehe Prophet~
.

'?he result was a 'uiuch

too gr8at dependence On tradition.

so long as -tradJ.tions

werJt in the making, the principie that interpretation issues


from the Prophet appeared valid.

But once the proliferation

of t.J::aditions had ~ed to reactionary criticism and the final


consolidation of tradition in the canonical books,. this principle ah~ed its limitations.

There Were important matters

of interpretation which were simply not covered by tradition .


a.aving rejected

______________________....

..._

.":f!

th~

naturalist and early traditionist

143
attempts to pravid,;, a basis for the giveii.ne.111 of language,

the later orthodox found the required baaia in the notion of


language aa eatah.lished".

Language thus came to be under-

toOd under the category of sunnah.

AB such, it waa neither

a tran&cendental reality nor a phenomenon of nature.

vaa

nonethe~eaa

But it

a qivenr for it ia characteristic of the

sun~

n.l.te mentalit that What is established is regarded as most


tzuly givenr what is established is permanent and unchanging.
'!b.1 -emphasis on the givenness of

bad defin1te practical advBntaqes,

tradiUoniata had
-

create~

languaq~-as-established

xt closed the.breach which

between the "language of the .Arabs"

the ianguage of the Koran.

l!stahlished meant established

among the Arabs (though not necessarily by the Arabs).

What

the orthoClox were aff;rminq in speaking o.f the establishment

of language (wad al-luqhah)was the validity of the "language


of

th~

Arabs" as a poirit of reference in the interpretation

~f aa.cred texts, as a qivenvis-a-vis the wh01e system' of

acr8d law.
irhe :idea of language-as-established was a

fEom the Muctazilitea..


of al-Sh"!fi'l:..

herita~e

The Muc.t.azilitea in turn were heirs

Al-Sh~fi'I"

had emphasized the fundame.ntal

importance for legal theory of

knowi~_g

Arabic

we~l.

In this

respect he &hO'flllS himself free Of the negative attitude Of

144
the atrict traditioniata toward philological studies.

The

81ailah eu99eat8 strongly that philological studies have an


ianenee bearing on the interpretation of the sacred texts.
The 1angua9e of the

~abs

is very much a 9iven for a1-sbaf1I.

The MIJCtazilitea, following in al-Shifi'I's footsteps, were


the firet to work out the idea of.the givenness of language
in terms of the category established.

It was they who intro-

duced wade. al-lu9hah into the vC>cabul.arl'. of Islam.

For th"lll

eatabliahed meant not only established among the Arabs, but


eatablished

!?.

the Arabs as well.

ID tbe early tenth century

Abii' Bl'ahim. advanced a "conventionalist view of language,


according to which all language ..,... established by collaboration.

Thie vi"" was held by .those follower of llbu Hlihim

who exercised such an inmense i.D:fluence on the development

of legal theory: cAbd al-Jabbir and AbD al-flusayn.

It was

not uncontested, however. .M>6 Bl'shia himself was countere-d


by al-Ashc.arI, who maintained

origin.

~t

language was of divine

To what extent al-AshC..arI'atbe.ologic:;al 11 view. reBernbled

the traditioniat view cannot be determined.

It seems .quite

clecir, howeyer . that later Asb<arites advanced a


view quite unlike that of the traditionists.

~theological"

According to

ti.11 v_iew, God established language, i.e. brought it into

being.

TIU.a could not be said of a transcendental archetype.

.145

The fact that the issue was framed as it wH (i.e. by Whom


i language est'!blished?) shows that the
half the battle.

Mu~tazilites

had won

Both sides admi tte4 that language was eatab-

lishe4, that language belonged to the realm of aunnah.

This

wu a victory of the philological enterp_rise over the reeis-

tance of strict traditionism,

s~ce

it represented a return

to the 1anguage of the Arab& as the given.


In time the question of vbo established language lost
i.te importance.

Al-B~qilli.U,

in effect, brought to an end

the controversy over the origin of language by declaring that

both the

~conventionalist

and theological viei1s were but

logical possibilities, neither of


dence to support it.

wh~ch

What -.ttered

had conclusive evi-

~nceforth

was that lan-

guage was in fact established, 1.rrespective of the identity .


of the agent or agents of t41s estahlis~nt.

duct of convention or

d~vine

like eunnah, established

11

Whether a pr?-

fiat, language was in any case,

among. the Arabs, indeed among Muslims

iii general.
The idSa of language-as-established took on a special
impbrtance for the
~ad

scholaeti~

legal theorists.

come to consider certain features of

Le9al theorists

langu~ge,

i.e. metaphor,

homonymity, ~ynonymity, generality, idiom, as constituting


the basic facts with which the exegete

JI11,1St

deal and upon

146
vhich he mu1t base hia pr.inciples of interpretation.

ac:holaatic were

conc~rned

to justify their

The

hermen~utical

effortl: by 1howin9 that these features were eatabliahed1


accordingly the:;ir formulated. linguistic premises 11 which em-

bodied all the facts of lan.f'Uage relevant to the task of inte~reting

t8xts.

Wbat-is-estabiished in language became

an ~ltimate given upon which the ac~ence of the principles


of juriaprudence, conceived on the model of an Aristotelian

acience, reata.
Once the givenness of language came to.be understood
in tenis_ of the establishment of language Cwadf.. al-luqhahO;i,

there remained the ta8k of working out the idea of the eetab-

liebment of language in full.


of~.

Thie was done in the science

From.its inception, the idea of the establishment

of language meant the est~iisbment

express~ons for idea.a.

It wae asumed that language in its entirety was so established.


The treatises in wade carry this assumption to its logical
conclusion.

Lan9uage is segmented' into conetituent elements,

and each element" shown to be establishe.d for an idea.


elements include every

co~ceivable

The

unit of signification.

The earliest advocates of the view of

languag~-as-established

in all probability thought in terms of a simple establishment


of words :;for ideas; words are most easily treated as the names
'
'i.

147

of things.

The science of

waa~w

goes beyond words1 it searches

out all aignificative elements in language, even formal elements, uchaa suffixes, radicals, construction-forms, etc.,
and treata each as a name.

Even though a formal element is

v~ewed as 1Ii:her1ng in a plurality of individuai words, it


is nonetheless regarded as a name, since it is assigned to

a meaning. ,Particles, too, many of which, e.g. conjunctions,


would be

are

regarde~

~reated

by modern _linguists as purely functional,

as names.

Thus

t~e

principle of the

n~-rela

tion, according to Which the meaning of an expression is the

idea.for which it

s~ands,

is applied to everything in language

down to the last jot and tittle.


'l'be assimilation of all the

to names was an

inevit~le

11

elernents 11 of language

consequence of

c~rtain

presupposi-

tions Which were implicit from the b_eginning in the .i.~ea of


language-as-established.

One of these presuppositions wa~

that language was the result of conscious deliberation. _The


identity.of the author of language may have been relegated

to the unknCNn, but that language has an author was never


doubted.

The formulas .of establishment which appear through-

out the literature

0: waac., e.g. "I establish this word for

this meaning, bear witness to a notion of the establishment


of language as a fully deliberate, fully ratiorial act.

148

Expressions are methodically correlated with pre-existent


ideas.

Conae~ently, eVerything in language, every conceiV-

able element, must be accounted for in terms of this initial


act of deliberation.
b~ing

A word like and is

est~lished

by

established for an idea: in no other way is its estab-

lishment conceivable.
Ariother presupposition is that information about language is a matter of information about the meanings for which
expressions have been established.
to be established at a fixed

poin~

Since language is conceived


in the past, there is a

pre-occupation with information about lanqua.ge.

This infor-

mation must be properly transmitted through reliable chartnels.


.. , __~ For this reason iegal theori~ts and philologists alike are
comj?elled to give attention to the
aion of linguistic informati.on.
.~age

of the transmis-

To know any element in lan-

is to be informed by reliable transmitters that the

element has been


other

ques~ion

w~y

establish~d

is the knowledge of

for a certain meaning.


languag~

conceivable.

In no
Thus to

know and" is to know, not that it has a certain function


w~thin language, but that it has been established for a par-

ticular meaning, i.e. "combination"

C1am~).

The scienc_e of wadt 11 brings the- develo'pment of the


idea of the givenness of language to a Co~clusion.

So exhaUs-

149

t.ive is the account of haw' the .11 elements" of language are

established for

iUeanin9s

that Muslim orthodox thought Seems

to have reached a natural limit


ceivabJ.y goa

~eyond

which

~t

cannot con-

The science of wade." is the most thorough-goiny

statement of the constanc::Y of language imaginable. - zt is a


truly zslamic phenomenon, for only iD Ialam does constancy
in J.anquage play auch an important role.

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157

piasertation .Abstract
Tbi diaaertation is concerned with the idea of the
givenneaa of lanquage as a fundamental Islamic idea..
phrue which qivea expression to this idea is

(establishment of ianguage).
three sections.

wade.. al-lughah

The d~aaertation compriaea

The first is devoted to the controversy

among Kualima over the oriqin of language.


ill Yi-d u

The

Thia controversy

a background for the underatanding of the early

UvelopMDt of the idea of the qivenneaa of langu&qe a.net the


ultimate articulation of that idea' by meana of' the phraee
Wad~

al-lughilh.

ilevalopmant

o~

'!he aecond section deals with the further


the idea

W~thi_n

the

aci~nce

of J\lrillprudence ( "1.lm lioiil al-fiqh),.

of the principJ.ea

'rile criicial role of

the tera ~ within the lingulstic premises (al-il@adI' al-

lughavI'Yilh). of that science ia examined.

'l'b.e final aection

i concerned with the final cryatallization of the idea of


the givenneaa of language in the science of ~ ( c.11m

al-wadL), a acience which, grew out of the science of the


princ~plea

of juriaprudence.

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