A Linguistic Study of Whole Word Rhyming in the Works of Khaghani

Whole word rhyming or "Radeef" has always attracted meticulous rhetoricians as a perfect element in poetry; it makes poetry more pleasing to the ear by adding to its eloquence and rhythm provided that it is perfectly in line with the semantic structure of the work and that the work needs it in fact. Khaghani is expressly fond of using whole word rhyming schemes in his poetry; few before him are known to have drawn so extensively upon the element of radeef and its various linguistic types.The radeefs in Khaghani's works have usually been selected by the poet based on the general meaning of the work; thus, there is a harmony between the speech and meaning. The radeefs of most of his works are semantically congruous with his poems’ texture and contents and represent their emotional atmosphere. Most of his verses have whole word rhymes the larger part of which consists of verbs in various poetic frameworks, although other parts of speech, such as nouns, postpositions, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, sentences and semi-sentences are also found as radeef in his Diwān. His radeefs in a single work are sometimes not synonymous, nor do they have similar grammatical structures. The radeef in each verse, along with other elements in the verse, constitutes the literary “array” which, in addition to its rhetorical function, is musical and rouses deeper feelings.