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Saj'

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Saj‘(Arabic:سجع) is a form ofrhymed prosedescribed as the oldest form of artistic speech inArabic,appearing inpre-Islamic Arabia.[1]Saj' was also the dominant artistic speech inAbyssinia,both in the ecclesiastical poetry inGe'ezand OldAmharicfolk songs.[2]A single clause or phrase in saj' is can be called asajʿah(pl.sajʿāt), or afaṣl(fuṣūl), or afiqrah(pl.fiqar), or aqarīnah(pl.qarāʾin).[3]

Saj' has received its name because of its evenness or monotony, or from a fancied resemblance between itsrhythmand the cooing of adove.Characterized by a kind of rhythm as well asrhyme,it can engender either a highly artificial or a powerfully resonant style. Saj' is used in sacred literature, including the majority of theQuran,[4][5]and in secular literature, as in theOne Thousand and One Nights.In the literary and artistic history of Arabic, saj' predates the use ofmeter.[6]

Saj' is also used in Persian literature, in works such asSaadi'spartly prose, partly verse, book theGolestān,written in 1258 CE.

Description

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In English, Saj' is commonly just translated as "rhymed prose", but as a form of writing, involved additional rules (rarely explicated by Arab critics) beyond being that prose which rhymes.[1]Traditionally, saj' has been defined as prose (nathr,manthūr) divided into phrases or clauses, each of which end in a common rhyme. The basis of saj'prosodyis formed by the word as opposed to the syllable. As such, a mistaken or misunderstood way to describe saj' would be to try to describe it by a typical number of syllables per clause, as opposed to a typical number of words per clause.[7]Saj', and while it does not havemeter,it has some metrical qualities. The length of one clause (sajʿah) is equal or nearly equal in length to its partner clause, a property that has been called "balance" (iʿtidāl), and the number of words in a clause closely corresponds to its number of syntagmatic stresses (beats). Al-Bāqillānī defends the principle of balance in saj' against his interlocutors in the following manner:[8]

One part of what they callsajʿhas segment endings close to each other and segment cuts near each other. The other part is stretched so that its segments can be twice as long as the preceding ones and a segment can return to the original measure (wazn) only after plenty of words. Suchsajʿis not good and does not deserve to be praised. Someone might say: "When the balancedsajʿhas been stated, it ceases to besajʿat all. The speaker is not obliged to make all his speechsajʿ.He can say something insajʿ,then turn away from it, and then return to it once more. "Our reply is:" When one of the hemistichs of abaytis different from the other, it leads to disorder and imbalance. And it is exactly the same, when one of the hemistichs (miṣrāʿ) of asajʿutterance becomes disorganized and dissimilar to the other, as it also leads to imbalance. "We have shown that the Arabs blame any sajʿ which deviates from the balance of parts (ajzāʾ) so that some of its hemistichs are made of two words, and others of many words; they consider this weakness not eloquence.

Another common feature of saj' writing, also found in theQuran,is the presence of an introductory formula to the rest of the text that does not itself follow the ordinary structure of saj'. Thesajʿātproper begin after the introductory phrase.[9]In terms of length,Ibn al-Athirdistinguished between short saj', where each clause has between two and ten words, with long saj', where each clause has eleven or more words, without any set limit. Ibn al-Athir produces an example containing nineteen words per clause (Quran 8:43–44).Zakariya al-Qazwinisays that there are short, middle, and long forms of saj', but without specifying their boundaries, although unlike Ibn al-Athir, he does propose a limit to the number of words in long saj' (nineteen). ForAl-Qalqashandi,since the Quran represented the height of literary elegance, he recommended against composing saj' any longer than nineteen words, which is the longest example of saj' found in the Quran. Medieval critics also typically preferred shorter versions of saj'.[10] Devin J. Stewartoffers the following definition of saj':[11]

Sajʿ,though generally considered a sub-category of prose (nathr), is a type of composition distinct from both free prose (nathr mursal) and syllabic verse (naẓm). It consists of rhyming phrases termedsajaʿāt(singsajʿah). The rules governing the rhyme insajʿare slightly different from those governing the rhyme in theqaṣīdah,the most noticeable difference being that the rhyme-words insajʿgenerally end insukūn.Sajʿconforms to an accentual meter: eachsajʿahtends to have the same number of word-accents as its partnersajʿahs. Therefore, the fundamental unit ofsajʿprosody is the word,lafẓah(pl.Iafaẓāt), and not the syllable or thetafʿīlah.

In the Quran

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Medieval Arabic critics debated the presence of saj' in the Quran, although the majority believed that the Quran contained a significant amount of saj'.[12]For Ibn Sinān al-Khafājī, the mode of Arabic in the Quran was consistent with existing custom and usage. On the other hand, those concerned with the doctrine ofQuranic inimitabilitybelieved that saying saj' could be found in the Quran would muddy the distinction between the speech of God and that of humans. For example,Al-Baqillani(d. 1013 AD) in a work of his entitledIʿjaz al-Qurʾān( "The Inimitability of the Quran" ), went to great lengths to dispute that any of the Quran could be described as saj'. For some, the Quran was not saj'per se,although it was similar to saj'. Others argued that one should withhold from referring to the Quran as saj' merely out of respect for the Quran. Some proponents of the presence of saj' in the Quran solved this problem by creating a distinction between divine and human saj'.[13]For example,Abu Hilal al-Askariargued:[14]

Qur'anic discourse which assumes the form ofsajʿandizdiwājis contrary to human discourse which assumes this form in its ability to convey the meaning, its clarity of expression, its sweetness and musicality.

In effect, al-Askari argued that unlike human saj', the Quran applies saj' and achieves the greatest possible elegance and meaning, even as it took on the literary limitations and formal constraints of saj'. The Arab critics also associated saj', to some extent, with the perceived nonsensical manner of speech attributed to soothsayers and diviners, which could not be associated withGodorMuhammad.The hadith of the fetus played a role in this debate as well, since it involved a statement on the part of Muhammad, in the context of a blood money dispute between two factions, where Muhammad is either argued as condemning or not condemning the use of saj' in general after it is used by one of the participants of the dispute.[13]

See also

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References

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Citations

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  1. ^abStewart 1990,p. 101.
  2. ^Brockelmann 2017,p. 23.
  3. ^Stewart 1990,p. 113.
  4. ^Stewart 1990,p. 108–109.
  5. ^Deroche 2022,p. 29.
  6. ^History of Muslim Philosophy,published by Pakistan Philosophical Congress online, Book 5, which is "A History of Muslim Philosophy: With Short Accounts of Other Disciplines and the Modern Renaissance in Muslim Lands" (1999)ISBN817536145X
  7. ^Stewart 1990,p. 111–116.
  8. ^Frolov 2000,p. 115–117.
  9. ^Stewart 1990,p. 116–118.
  10. ^Stewart 1990,p. 118–120.
  11. ^Stewart 1990,p. 132–133.
  12. ^Stewart 1990,p. 133.
  13. ^abStewart 1990,p. 102–107.
  14. ^Stewart 1990,p. 106.

Sources

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Further reading

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