نشریه بحوث فی اللغه العربیه
پیاپی 1 (پاییز و زمستان 1388)

The inner self (‘batin’) in the Quran is set in opposition to the outer appearance (‘zaher’). ‘Batin’ may have a variety of interpretations the most well-known of which are intended to be documented in this paper. Different interpretations of ‘batin’ based on different opinions are as follows: 1) Those interpretations arrived at by the researcher's inference from the verdicts; 2) those interpretations extracted from the neighboring and suggestive meanings which have no direct relations to the words themselves and are only arrived at by reasoning; 3) those interpretations gained by comparing different verses in the Quran called ‘jari’; and finally 4) those interpretations gained by relating a verse to other verses the researcher likes the most. The way of interpretations in stages 3 and 4 are not always extracted from the forms and the outer appearances of the verses, thus some interpreters have mixed wrongly the two stages. This paper in particular attempts to demonstrate differences of approach in stages 3 and 4 with rejection of the latter approach.

Every thinker and man of letters who pursues a goal in his or her works has a utopia. After introducing utopia by Plato, Farabi and St. Augustine, Gibran Khalil Gibran established the foundations of his own particular utopia. The features of his utopia are as follows: 1) freedom; 2) kindness; 3) justice; 4) undue inclination towards knowing the world; 5) innovative moral and human qualities; and 6) the idea of eternality. The present paper attempts to elaborate on the characteristics of Gibranian Utopia in his literary works.

Abul-Atahiya was born and grown up in Kufa-Iraq, a city chosen as the central city by Shias and the Abbasid dynasty publicized their government there. He lived in a period which slander was common so he kept company with adulterous people and acted dishonorably. He started composing poetry and soon became famous. He praised rulers in his poetry and grasped their gifts. He was able to get such a stand that ordinary people knew him and rulers and seniors set him a high position. He became acquainted with Soda and composed poetry for her to sing them in funerals. After they did not get along well any more, he went to Baghdad and met Otba -- the slave girl of Mahdi -- and composed amatory poetry about her. He then turned to piety and later was imprisoned. He was accused of paganism because nothing was seen in his virtuous poetry than memory of death. However, he defended the accusation and found the right way based on Islamic teachings. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on some aspects of his life and poems.

In the first half of the last century, the contemporary poetry both in Arabic and Persian was presented as the traditional and new form. It seems that the focus of the new poetry was on the wisdom and affection and their effects on the human life. This paper is a comparative study on the rhythms of new Arabic and Persian poetry, with interpretation of some examples from the verses of 'Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab' and 'Nima Yooshij'. The paper finally explains a new phenomenon in both Arabic and Persian poetry which is a mixture of the two rhythms.

The word ‘eghterab’ in human sciences has different concepts which could be classified into three groups: 1) Westernization and tending to western culture or being alien with eastern authenticity; 2) nostalgia and homesickness caused by being away from his/her motherhood land and hometown. Most of this group of poets are emigrants or are in exile; and 3) having the sense of nostalgia but being in home country. It means that this group of poets have very high ideals which no one in their homeland can take and bare these ideals. The poet perceives that ideals which are essential for him/her are higher than the society in which he/she lives can grasp. This essay makes an attempt to study the various concepts of ‘eghterab’ by focusing on Ahmad Matar as a prominent poet with regard to the third concept and deal with the third concept of Eghterab from three points of view: political, social and spiritual. This article examines some samples of these three parts in Ahmad Matar's poetry.

Ibn Khafaja is one of the poets and men of letters in Spain. He is titled to Sanobari of Spain. He is one of the masters of description. Hence, the analysis of successful techniques he has used in the descriptive art could illuminate the way for others. Al-Taswir al-harfi (graphic description) is a term which denotes the highest and most detailed poems. On this basis, the best descriptive poem is one which is closer to a painting. He has used some elements called conforming elements of description which contain: imagination, feeling, faculty, and dialogue as well as three other elements: to be inborn in description, enchanting nature and convenient life. This article is going to give an analysis of the reasons for Ibn Khafaja’s success in description and portrait making.

In the fourth century after Hijra (A.H), many kinds of rhetoric arts became common and popular in literary texts. In that cultural atmosphere, the Maghamat emerged. Badi al-Zaman al-Hamadani was the first to write the Maghamat in Arabic literature in the second half of the fourth century (A.H). The principal recurrent subject of his Maghamat was mendicancy. Every Maghama (singular of Maghamat in Arabic) must have a Rawi (narrator) and a hero. The narrator and the hero are repeated in all of the Maghamat. Al-Hamadani wrote 400 Maghama, only 54 of which are now available. Nearly a hundred years later, al-Hariri al-Basri appeared in the literary scene and helped the development of this literary sub-genre. Al-Hariri admitted in the introduction to his book (Maghamat) that he imitated al-Hamadani in this genre. Hence, al-Hariri’s Maghamat are both similar to and different from those of al-Hamadani. He wrote 50 Maghama on several topics. His Maghamat were longer, better organized and included more rhetorical devices.

In this article, we attempt to study Debil Al-Khozaee's poetry. We find him a person who travelled a lot around the west and the east of Islamic world. In his journey, he acquired knowledge, belles-letters, morals and also wealth. What is important for us in this research is the geographical dimension, namely the countries and cities he visited. We, thus, study his journey to Iraq (Kufa, Baghdad, Basrah and Samerra'); Hijaz, i. e. sacred lands; Egypt (as the ruler of Aswan city); Syria (Damascus and Hems); then to the east of Islamic world, i. e. Persian lands including Deynur, Samanjan, Rey, Gorgan, Neyshabur, Khorasan, Qum and Shahrezur; to the west of the Islamic world, i. e. Morocco; his return to Iraq and finally his journey from Kufa to Basrah, and to Ahwaz and then to the city of Shush where he is buried now.

Many historical events demand more reflection. One of such cases is Bashshar b. Burd about whom there are different opinions. Some people believe that he was killed because of the accusation of being atheist. However, because of the following reasons, it seems that such a view could be far from reality: 1. He was one of poets that had satire style, so, the caliphs and other government members hated him because he satirized them too much; 2. his poems seemingly show that he was monotheist but there are some poems by him which suggest otherwise; 3. the punishment for atheism was execution but he died as a result of slash (his poses another question as to his death); 4. there are some poems by him asking forgiveness from Allah for his past sins. Even if according to some opinions he was a sinner, according to Islamic education, a penitent has no sin; and 5. the confessions made by the Abbasid caliph regarding his regret about killing the poet is another indication that Bashshar b. Burd was not killed because he was an infidel. Rather, it could be argued that he lost his life because of the hatred of the government members who were criticized by him.

Words are of paramount importance in our daily life because they are used to transfer meanings and internal feelings and also make communication possible. Choice of words is a factor that may highly impress the addresses. At first, words existed only in oral form; however, later on they were gradually collected and recorded in the form of books. Pre-Safavid Arabs were mostly illiterate and unfamiliar with dictionaries. It seemed that the basic reason for collecting words was the ambiguity in meaning or pronunciation of some words especially considering the fact that Muslims were cautious not to misunderstand or mispronounce the words of the holy Quran. As such, they went to nomads and recorded the words they heard from them. This recording was topic-based. Then Khalil Ibn Ahmad wrote a dictionary which was alphabetically ordered. Numerous general and specialized dictionaries appeared from then on. Special attention was also paid to the words in the holy Quran. Ambiguous words were explained by the holy prophet or his disciples. Later on, some books appeared by the title of Gharib Al-Koran (a dictionary of ambiguous or difficult words). This article studies the development of Arabic dictionaries form that of Khalil Ibn Ahmad’s to the specialized Dictionary of Transitive and Intransitive Verbs in the Holy Quran.