Analysis of Semantic Components of Science Based on Syntagmatic Relations in Nahj al-Balagha

A method to discover the meaning of words in Nahj al-Balagha is through attention to concepts sitting next to each other. This method plays a supplementary role in understanding what the book means by the words it uses. The present study seeks to analyze the word “science” (ilm) based on syntagmatic relations. The word is one of the most frequently used in Nahj al-Balagha in a variety of derivative forms. Enjoying divine eminent knowledge, Imam Ali (PBUH) invites, for the sake of the excellence of human beings’ status and of human values, to learning beneficial science, and proscribes non-beneficial science. The research results show that semantic components of knowledge can be presented on two syntagmatic axes: requirements, and effects and results. Words such as “forbearance”, “thought”, “reasoning”, and “practice” are the requirements of science and those such as “understanding”, “insight”, “wisdom”, “knowledge” (ma’rifat), “certainty”, “benefit”, and “good” are among the effects and results of science and centered upon science in an oppositional relation to words “ignorance” and “ignorant” form a configuration whose parts in one semantic field sit next to the word science in order to amplify its meaning. The words sitting next to “science”, namely, “thought”, “reasoning”, “practice”, and “forbearance” have a significant relation with the word and heighten its meaning.