SPM Al-Adab wa al-Balaghah flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

'Ilm al-Ma'ani

The rhetorical science studying how sentence forms (khabar, insha', qasr, ordering) are matched to the requirements of the situation and the addressee.

Muqtada al-hal

The exigency of the situation: the contextual demand that dictates which sentence form, emphasis level, or ordering a speaker should choose.

Khabar

A declarative utterance that can be judged true or false, such as 'the student succeeded'. It may be stated plainly, with emphasis, or heavily reinforced.

Insha'

A non-declarative utterance that cannot be judged true or false. Its main types are command, prohibition, question, wish, vocative, and oath.

Qasr

Restricting a predicate to its subject, achieved by negation with exception, innama, 'atf with bal, or fronting. It asserts exclusivity.

Fasl and wasl

Fasl omits the conjunction waw when clauses are strongly linked or contrasted; wasl joins them with waw when they share a role or lack a strong link.

Ijaz and itnab

Ijaz conveys meaning with fewer words than expected; itnab expands beyond expectation through repetition, parenthetical remarks, or explanatory apposition. Both are judged by communicative need.

Taqdim and ta'khir

Fronting an element in the sentence or postponing it. Fronting signals importance, exclusivity, or attention; postponing signals secondary status or suspense.

'Ilm al-Bayan

The rhetorical science explaining indirect expression through three devices: simile, trope, and allusion. It studies how one meaning is conveyed by another form.

Tashbih

A simile with four pillars: the subject, its analogue, the comparison particle, and the point of resemblance. It is explicit comparison, unlike metaphor.

Tashbih baligh

The most eloquent simile, in which both the comparison particle and the point of resemblance are omitted, leaving only the two compared things, as in 'he is a lion'.

Majaz

Using a word outside its literal sense, with an indicator that blocks the literal reading. It divides into lexical trope and intellectual trope.

Majaz 'aqli

Attributing an act to something other than its true doer because of a strong relation, as in 'the spring revived the earth'.

Isti'arah

A trope based specifically on similarity. It is explicit when the borrowed term is named, and implicit when only one of its qualities is hinted.

Isti'arah makniyyah

An implicit metaphor that suppresses the borrowed term and hints at it through one of its qualities, as in 'death showed its claws'.

Kinayah

An expression whose literal meaning remains possible but a secondary meaning is intended, without any indicator blocking the literal sense.

'Ilm al-Badi'

The rhetorical science of embellishments, verbal and semantic, that beautify discourse whose meaning is already correct at the levels of ma'ani and bayan.

Jinas

A verbal embellishment pairing two words that are identical or near-identical in form but differ in meaning. It is complete or partial.

Tibaq

A semantic embellishment pairing two opposites in one context, such as night and day or life and death, to sharpen the contrast.

Muqabalah

A semantic embellishment placing several paired opposites in parallel across two clauses, so each term of the first is matched by its counterpart.

Tawriyah

Using a word with a near meaning that first comes to mind and a distant meaning the speaker actually intends, often to create surprise.

Husn al-ta'lil

A semantic embellishment that grounds a description in an invented, imaginative cause rather than a real physical one.

Saj'

Rhymed prose with matching endings in successive short clauses. When forced at the expense of meaning, critics count it a defect.

Qasidah structure

The traditional ode's sequence: an erotic prelude, a desert journey, then a main purpose such as panegyric, elegy, boast, or satire.

Sadr and 'ajuz

The two hemistichs of a classical line of poetry. The first is the sadr, the second the 'ajuz, and both share one rhyme.

'Arud and qafiyah

'Arud is the science of poetic meter based on the sixteen Khalilian meters; qafiyah is the science of rhyme, its letters, and its defects.

Maqamah

A rhymed Arabic prose narrative with a trickster hero and an eloquent narrator, perfected by al-Hariri and his predecessor al-Hamadhani.

Mu'allaqat

Seven canonical pre-Islamic odes, including those of Imru' al-Qays and Zuhayr, regarded as the classical standard of Arabic poetic craft.

Al-Mutanabbi

The Abbasid master of panegyric and wisdom verse, famed for dense metaphor and proud tone; his collected Diwan is a central school and exam text.

'Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani

The rhetorician who systematized the theory of nazm in Dala'il al-I'jaz and Asrar al-Balaghah, arguing that eloquence lies in syntactic arrangement, not isolated words.

Mahjar literature

The output of Arab emigrant writers in the Americas, notably Gibran and Nu'aymah, blending romantic imagery with themes of exile and spiritual longing.

Nazm theory

Al-Jurjani's doctrine that rhetorical excellence resides in the syntactic arrangement of meanings, not in ornamented vocabulary alone.