Introduction
Taḍmīn in Arabic literary theory is most often defined as “quotation,” although, as we will see, it is also employed to describe other linguistic phenomena. As a literary device, taḍmīn can be thought of as a tool to achieve literary allusion, and (direct) intertextuality more broadly.1For a definition of direct intertextuality in classical Arabic poetry, see Bauer, Altarabische Dichtkunst, 1:259. Also see Bauer, “Mamluk Literature as a Means of Communication,” 35–44. Even though “quotation” may seem to be an inconsequential device—compared to ubiquitous, hefty devices such as metaphor or simile—the fact that some Arabic literary theorists spill quite a good amount of ink on the phenomenon points to the figure’s importance.2For instance, Ibn Ḥijja al-Ḥamawī’s (d. 837/1434) entry on taḍmīn in his Khizānat al-adab, spans a good 57 pages. To put this into perspective, metaphor (istiʿāra) occupies 18 pages of the same work and simile (tashbīh) 36 pages. Only a few devices occupy more space than taḍmīn, such as paronomasia (jinās), in all its forms, at 92 pages, insijām at 97 pages, and tawriya (double entendre), at a whopping 365 pages! See Ibn Ḥijja al-Ḥamawī, Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), table of contents (in vol. 5). Moreover, studies have shown that quotation, including the quotation of scripture, can play a significant role in many literary traditions, such as Occitan and middle English.3See, e.g., Kay, Parrots and Nightingales, 7; and Alford, “The Role of the Quotations in Piers Plowman” Also see Kay, “How Quotation Changed the Subject of Poetry.” How taḍmīn was aesthetically conceptualized in Arabic literary theory can give us language to think about quotation—as well as allusion and intertextuality—and their aesthetic purchase across literary cultures.
Although there are exceptions, Arabic literary theory usually differentiates between the quotation of “secular” and “religious” texts. Iqtibās is the quotation of the Qurʾan and hadith (sayings of the Prophet),4For an overview of iqtibās, see Orfali, “Iqtibās.” while taḍmīn is the quotation of any other kind of text.5Exceptions to this distinction include Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ (d. 654/1256) and Shihāb al-Dīn al-Nuwayrī’s (d. 733/1333) discussions of apt quotation (ḥusn al-taḍmīn) in their Taḥrīr al-taḥbīr and Nihāyat al-arab, respectively; they consider the quotation of any kind of text to be taḍmīn. Amidu Sanni also mentions Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr (d. 637/1239), as possibly the first theorist who collapses taḍmīn and iqtibās. See Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 13–14; Ibn al-Athīr, al-Mathal al-sāʾir (ed. al-Ḥūfī and Ṭabāna), 3:203ff (not explicit in his definition but seen in his examples); Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, Taḥrīr al-taḥbīr (ed. Sharaf), 140; and al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab (ed. al-Muʾassasa al-Miṣriyya), 7:126. While I will not discuss iqtibās in this entry, I think that many of the points I argue here, regarding the aesthetics of taḍmīn, are applicable to iqtibās as well. Other terms related to the practice of taḍmīn, such as īdāʿ (lit., depositing) and istiʿāna (lit., relying on), will be discussed in due course.
Besides signifying quotation, taḍmīn also has other meanings in different fields of knowledge, namely, grammar (naḥw), eloquence (balāgha), philosophy, and prosody (ʿarūḍ). This makes sense once the lexical meaning of taḍmīn is considered. Taḍmīn is the verbal noun derived from the verb “ḍammana.” Its non-technical, lexical definition is ضمّن الشيءَ الشّيءَ “to include something [in] something else” (it takes two direct objects in Arabic), which means “to place the thing [in] that” (or more lit., he made this thing include that thing).6See Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, s.v. “ḍ-m-n” (13:257). Its technical definitions, which span three fields, can be subsumed under this general definition. The first definition of taḍmīn belongs to the fields of grammar and eloquence; I will call this “taḍmīn as implication.” One word “includes” the grammatical properties and/or meaning of another word. The second definition belongs to the field of prosody; I will call this “taḍmīn as enjambment.” A subsequent verse must take into account (roughly, “include”) the meaning of the prior verse for it to make sense. The third definition belongs to the field of stylistic devices (badīʿ); I will call this “taḍmīn as quotation.”7I use the “taḍmīn as” structure to point to the different taḍmīns’ practical functions in these fields, and to avoid marrying a certain function of taḍmīn to a specific field of knowledge. My nomenclature differs significantly from Amidu Sanni’s in his “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse.” What I am calling “taḍmīn as enjambment” Sanni calls “grammatical taḍmīn,” since, as he explains, enjambment involves breaking up a sentence grammatically. There would have been no objection to such a label had there not been a grammatical-proper kind of taḍmīn (i.e., “taḍmīn as implication”). What I am calling “taḍmīn as quotation” he calls “rhetorical taḍmīn.” He finally calls al-Rummānī’s understanding of taḍmīn “hermeneutical taḍmīn,” or “entailment.” I find that it falls under “taḍmīn as implication.” A poem, or verse, “includes” verses, or words, from another poem, or verse.
Corpus
Various kinds of texts discuss each of the three different uses of taḍmīn outlined above. The first is described in two bodies of work: (a) books on grammar such as Ibn Hishām’s (d. 761/1360) Mughnī al-labīb, and (b) books on eloquence in and the inimitability (iʿjāz) of the Qurʾān, such as al-Rummānī’s (d. 384/994) al-Nukat fī iʿjāz al-Qurʾān and al-Bāqillānī’s (d. 403/1013) Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān. The second use is described in books on prosody, such as al-Akhfash al-Awsaṭ’s (d. 215/830) Kitāb al-Qawāfī and Ibn Kaysān’s (d. 299/911) book of the same title. Enjambment is sometimes also discussed in books that collect scholars’ opinions about poetry, such al-Marzubānī’s (d. 384/994) al-Muwashshaḥ8See van Gelder, “Breaking Rules for Fun,” 25. and in works of literary theory and practice, such as Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr’s (d. 637/1239) al-Mathal al-sāʾir. The third use is found in works on stylistic devices (badīʿ) starting with ʿAbdallāh Ibn al-Muʿtazz’s (d. 296/908) Kitāb al-Badīʿ, as well as in general works of poetics and practical criticism (naqd), such as Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī’s (d. 456/1063–4 or 463/1071) al-ʿUmda. The tradition of badīʿ then develops into the field of ʿilm al-badīʿ (the science of stylistic devices), which from about the seventh/thirteenth century onwards, takes the form of a badīʿiyya—“a poem illustrating the various figures of speech and stylistic embellishments collectively known as badīʿ and usually takes the form of an ode on the prophet Muḥammad”—and an auto-commentary.9Van Gelder, “Badīʿiyya.” A staple text in this genre is Ibn Ḥijja al-Ḥamawī’s (d. 837/1434) Khizānat al-adab, whose entry on taḍmīn I will discuss in some detail below.
Terminological Analysis and Historical Semantics
Taḍmīn as Implication
Discussions of taḍmīn as implication occur first in grammar, whose insights are adopted and extended by scholars of eloquence. One can track a sustained interest and debate about the classification and function of taḍmīn as implication up until the eleventh/seventeenth century at least. Relatively late works that discuss taḍmīn as implication include scholar and judge Ibn Kamāl Bāshā’s (d. 940/1534) essay “Risāla fī al-taḍmīn,”10Ibn Kamāl Bāshā, Majmūʿ rasāʾil (ed. al-Abdullah et al.), 4:87-109. This text briefly discussed in Hamed, al-Taḍmīn fī al-ʿarabiyya, 72–79. and anthologist and scholar Shihāb al-Dīn al-Khafājī’s (d. 1069/1659) second séance (majlis) in his Ṭirāz al-majālis.11al-Khafaji, Ṭirāz al-majālis (ed. al-Najjar), 49ff. I owe this reference to Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 19n89. Also see Fudge, “Taḍmīn,” 488–489. I will not delve here into the intricacies of taḍmīn as understood by the Kufan and Basran grammarians of the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries;12For this discussion, see Gully, “Taḍmīn” For an overview of these two schools—and a critique of this oversimplified classification—see Versteegh, Greek Elements in Arabic Linguistic Thinking, 107–12. Also see Baalbaki, “Arab Grammatical Controversies and the Extant Sources of the Second and Third Centuries AH.” I will instead give the definition of taḍmīn as it occurs in the work of Ibn Hishām’s Mughnī al-labīb in the eighth/fourteenth century.
In Ibn Hishām’s pithy and felicitous definition, taḍmīn is “the infusion (yushribūn) of a word with the meaning of another word, giving [the former word] the qualities (ḥukm) of [the latter] […] and its purpose is that one word fulfills the function of two.”13“Qad yushribūn lafẓan maʿnā lafẓin fa-yuʿṭūnahu ḥukmahu wa-yusammā dhalika taḍmīnan wa-fāʾidatuhu an tuʾaddī kalimatun muʾaddā kalimatayn.” Ibn Hishām, Mughnī al-labīb (ed. al-Khatib), 6:671; cf. al-Khafaji, Ṭirāz al-majālis (ed. al-Najjar), 49. In general, following Adrian Gully, we may consider discussions of taḍmīn in grammar and eloquence to play the role of the “implication of meaning,”14Gully, “Taḍmīn” that is, one word implying the meaning of another—in addition to its strict lexical meaning. But that is the function, or purchase, of taḍmīn; from a purely grammatical point of view, taḍmīn as implication is the transference, or “embedding” (hence, taḍmīn), of the grammatical properties from the implied, unstated word to the employed, stated word. It is this grammatical embedding that gives the initial indication to search for an implication of meaning.
Many of Ibn Hishām’s examples come from the Qurʾān; one such example is: “God knows (yaʿlam) the one who causes mischief / from the one who sets things right” (Q2/Baqara: 220). Ibn Hishām explains that the verb “to know” (yaʿlam) implies the verb “to discern” (yumayyiz). Usually, the verb yaʿlam takes only a direct object, while the verb yumayyiz takes a direct object and an indirect object via the particle “from” (min). Here, however, yaʿlam is rendered transitive not only with a direct object, but also via the particle min (ʿuddiya bi-min lā bi-nafsihi).15Ibn Hishām, Mughnī al-labīb (ed. al-Khatib), 6:673. From a grammatical point of view, the verb yaʿlam “incorporates,” or is “infused with,” the characteristics of the implied verb yumayyiz. From the point of view of eloquence, this incorporation serves a purpose at the level of meaning-making: it signifies the primary meaning of the stated verb—to know—but also implies or suggests the meaning of the implied verb—to discern. Indeed, the goal of taḍmīn as implication, some medieval scholars have argued, is kind of kināya (roughly, metonymy)—a stylistic device.16Hamed, al-Taḍmīn fī al-ʿarabiyya, 15–16; Gully, “Taḍmīn,” 472–473. On translating kināya as “metonymy,” see Harb, Arabic Poetics, 171n1,195–200.
Many examples of taḍmīn as implication involve verbs, whose transitivity is usually altered to imply the meaning of another verb with a similar meaning through the transference of grammatical properties. Nonetheless, taḍmīn as implication extends to non-verbs as well. This occurs when nouns “imply” the role of particles. By default, nouns in Arabic ought to be subject to inflection (iʿrāb), but some are non-inflected (mabnī; verbal noun, bināʾ). Early grammarians explained this anomaly by arguing that some nouns’ non-inflection is a result of their playing the role of, or “implying” the meaning of, particles.17Bawaris, “al-Taḍmīn al-naḥwī: ashkāluhu wa-dalālātuhu,” 58–61. Also see Gully, “Taḍmīn,” 468–469. For example, the word “who” (man), considered a noun in Arabic, “contains” or “implies” the interrogative particle (ḥarf al-istifhām, i.e., a), which, according to some grammarians, explains its non-inflection.18Bawaris, “al-Taḍmīn al-naḥwī: ashkāluhu wa-dalālātuhu,” 60; Hamed, al-Taḍmīn fī al-ʿarabiyya, 48–49, citing the grammarian Abū al-Barakāt Ibn al-Anbārī’s (d. 577/1181) discussion of taḍmīn in his Asrār al-ʿarabiyya (ed. Baytar), 30.
Another related understanding of taḍmīn as implication was advanced by scholars of Qurʾanic inimitability, namely, al-Rummānī and al-Bāqillānī. It is the implication of the existence of an entity despite its absence in the text. As al-Rummānī puts it in an example, the existence of a killer (qātil) implies the existence of someone killed (maqtūl).19al-Rummānī, al-Nukat fī iʿjāz al-Qurʾā (ed. Aḥmad and Salam), 103; Fudge, “Taḍmīn,” 479; Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 17. For al-Rummānī, there is yet another meaning of taḍmīn: every verse in the Qurʾān “implies” or “contains” a sort of theological suggestion that needs to be deduced. See Fudge, “Taḍmīn”; and Carter, “Linguistic Science and Orthodoxy in Conflict,” 228ff. This kind of taḍmīn is a means to achieve brevity (ījāz),20See, e.g., al-Rummānī, al-Nukat fī iʿjāz al-Qurʾā (ed. Aḥmad and Salam), 103; al-Bāqillānī, Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān (ed. Saqr), 413; Jar Allah, “Ījāz al-taḍmīn wa-īḥāʾāt al-dalāla,” 257ff. a quality held in high regard in Arabic literary theory.21See Taha, al-Ījāz, esp. 29–67.
Modern Arabic scholarship sometimes differentiates between taḍmīn in grammar and taḍmīn in balāgha,22See, for example, Hamed, al-Taḍmīn fī al-ʿarabiyya, 5–17,41–42; cf., to a lesser degree, Sultan, al-Taḍmīn wa-l-tanāṣṣ, 21–22, 26. although they describe the same phenomenon, that is, implication.23See Gully, “Taḍmīn,” 471. Indeed, Ḥāmid (al-Taḍmīn fī al-ʿarabiyya, 41) argues that difference between taḍmīn in grammar and taḍmīn in eloquence lies in goals of the grammarian and the scholar of eloquence. While grammarians are interested in describing the phenomenon as such, balāgha scholars are interested in the aesthetic purchase of taḍmīn as implication, especially when it comes to its occurrence in the Qurʾan. One could say that the balāgha scholars took the grammarians’ discussions and applied them to Qurʾanic aesthetics.24Another related use of “taḍmīn as implication” can be found in philosophy. One of the three kinds of signification is called “signification by inclusion/entailment” (taḍammun, same root as taḍmīn). But this discussion falls outside the scope of this essay. On this topic, see Sheyhatovitch, Distinctive Terminology 194–195; Abed, “AVICENNA iii. Logic”; Mousavian, “Avicenna on the Semantics of Maʿnā,” 121–123; and Strobino, “Per Se, Inseparability, Containment and Implication.”
Taḍmīn as Enjambment
As employed in the field of prosody, taḍmīn refers to what modern scholars would call “enjambment.” Medieval scholars considered there to be taḍmīn as enjambment when the meaning of a verse relies on the following verse25Some definitions by premodern Arabic authors are cited in Hamed, al-Taḍmīn fī al-ʿarabiyya, 34. Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 2–3, classifies taḍmīn as enjambment (what he calls “grammatical taḍmīn”) into “syntactic” and “semantic,” but this distinction is not explicit in the sources. Also see van Gelder, Sound and Sense in Classical Arabic Poetry, 195–199; Scheindlin, Form and Structure in the Poetry of al-Muʿtamid b. ʿAbbād, 10–16; and van Gelder, Beyond the Line, passim. (but not vice versa).26See Scheindlin, Form and Structure in the Poetry of al-Muʿtamid b. ʿAbbād, 15. The most recurrent example of taḍmīn as enjambment is a line by the pre-Islamic poet al-Nābigha al-Dhubyānī:27On this poem as the example of enjambment, see van Gelder, “Breaking Rules for Fun,” 25; Sanni, “On Taḍmīn (Enjambment),” 465; and Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 2.
وهم وردوا الجفارَ على تميمٍ وهم أصحابُ يومِ عكاظَ إنّي شهدْتُ لهم مواطنَ صادقاتٍ أتينَهم بودِّ الصّدرِ منّي
They headed to Jifār despite Tamīm,
and they are the winners of the Day of ʿUkāẓ. I certainly
bear witness to their brave fights
for which I bear heartfelt love for them28The original poem is found in al-Nābigha al-Dhubyānī, Dīwān (ed. Ibrahim), 125–129, here at 127–128. Translation based on Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 2; and van Gelder, “Breaking Rules for Fun,” 25. Also see Derenbourg’s translation in al-Nābigha al-Dhubyānī, Le Dîwân (ed. Derenbourg), 344.
The first line ends mid-sentence with the word “innī” (I certainly), necessitating the next line to complete not only the meaning but also the sentence. This phenomenon, according to most critics, is reprehensible.
Al-Akhfash al-Awsaṭ and Ibn al-Athīr are two scholars who do not find enjambment reprehensible.29Van Gelder, “Breaking Rules for Fun,” 29. Al-Akhfash is rather terse and lukewarm on the issue;30al-Akhfash al-Awsaṭ, Kitāb al-Qawāfī (ed. al-Naffakh), 70–72. Ibn al-Athīr, on the other hand, provides an extensive defense of enjambment.31See Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse” 7; and cf. Bencheikh, Poétique arabe, 150 and 150n15. He claims that there is no difference between poetry and (unmetered) rhyming speech; therefore, if enjambment occurs in the Qurʾan, then there is no reason to find it reprehensible in poetry, which is simply metered, rhyming speech. He says:
والفِقَرُ المسجوعة التي يرتبط بعضها ببعض قد وردت في القرآن الكريم في مواضع منه، فمن ذلك قوله عز وجل في سورة الصافات
(فَأَقْبَلَ بَعْضُهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ يَتَسَآءَلُونَ (50) قَالَ قَآئِلٌ مِّنْهُمْ إِنّي كَانَ لِي قَرِينٌ (51) يَقُولُ أَءِنَّكَ لَمِنَ ٱلْمُصَدِّقِينَ (52) أَءِذَا مِتْنَا وَكُنَّا تُرَابًا وَعِظَـٰمًا أَءِنَّا لَمَدِينُونَ (53))
فهذه الفقر الثلاث الأخيرة مرتبط بعضها ببعض، فلا تفهم كل واحدة منهنّ إلا بالتي تليها، وهذا كالأبيات الشعرية في ارتباط بعضها ببعض، ولو كان عيبًا لما ورد في كتاب الله عز وجل
Rhyming phrases that rely on one another occur in in some places in the Qurʾan, such as in Sūrat al-Ṣāffāt, when He says (Q37:50–53):
50. They will draw near to one another, asking each other questions.
51. One of them says, ‘I had a comrade,
52. Who would say,
“Are you one of those who believe [the message]?
53. When we are dead and become dust and bones,
shall we be judged”?’32(trans. Alan Jones), 409–410.
These last three phrases are reliant on one another; you cannot understand one without that which comes after it. This is similar to lines of poetry relying on one another. Had this reliance been a flaw, then it wouldn’t have occurred in God’s Book.33Ibn al-Athīr, al-Mathal al-sāʾir (ed. al-Ḥūfī and Badawī Ṭabāna), 3:201.
Enjambment occurs across all the verses cited here but is especially prominent between verses 51 and 52. Indeed, this phenomenon is not so different from what we saw in al-Nābigha’s verses. The difference is that in al-Nābigha’s case, the word that begins the following sentence is the last word of the verse; this exacerbates the sense of disconnect between the two verses, a point that Arabic critics have made.34Sanni, “On Taḍmīn (Enjambment),” 464; Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī, al-ʿUmda (ed. Shalan), 1:273.
Taḍmīn as Quotation
Taḍmīn as quotation is arguably the most common understanding of taḍmīn. The practice involves the quotation of an earlier author/poet by a later author/poet. For some theorists, taḍmīn also includes the quotation of famous sayings, proverbs, or aphorisms, as well as the Qurʾan and hadith.35See Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, Taḥrīr al-taḥbīr (ed. Sharaf), 140; and al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab, 7:126. Here, however, I will focus on the quotation of poetry in poetry.
The earliest theoretical work to discuss taḍmīn as quotation is Ibn al-Muʿtazz’s Kitāb al-Badīʿ.36For earlier instances of critics or philologists identifying quotation in poetry—without using the word taḍmīn—see Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 8. It is not one of the five main poetic devices (badīʿ) he lists, but one of the pleasantries of speech (maḥāsin al-kalām).37Van Gelder, “Taḍmīn”; van Gelder, “Badīʿ.” He provides three examples of what he calls apt quotation (ḥusn al-taḍmīn).
One of the examples, by an anonymous poet, is:
عوَّذَ لمّا بِتُّ ضيفًا له أقْراصَهُ بُخْلًا بياسينِ فَبِتُّ والأرضُ فراشي وقدْ غنّتْ قفا نبك مصاريني
He sought to preserve—when I was his guest— his bread, out of stinginess, by [reciting/invoking sūrat] Yāsīn38For the understanding of “yāsīn” as a reference to sūrat Yāsīn (Q36), see Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, Taḥrīr al-taḥbīr (ed. Sharaf), 141. I stayed over, the floor my bed, my intestines exclaiming, “stop, let us weep!”39Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Kitāb al-badīʿ (ed. Kratchkovsky), 64; cf. Meisami, “Imru’ al-Qays Praises the Prophet,” 225, with an extra line in between these cited lines, sometimes added to this poem.
The quotation is from the most famous phrase from Imruʾ al-Qays’s Muʿallaqa, that is, its first two words, “stop, let us weep!” (qifā nabki).40al-Anbārī, Sharḥ al-qaṣāʾid al-sabʿ (ed. Haroun), 15.
Ibn al-Muʿtazz’s examples of taḍmīn incorporate half-verses or less from other poems. This suggests that his understanding of taḍmīn did not involve quoting whole verses, but rather mentioning keywords from other poems—just enough to signal to the original text.
As the theoretical literature developed, taḍmīn, as the theorists and critics understood it, skewed toward the incorporation of at least half a verse—as their examples demonstrate—even though they did not preclude quotations of less than half-verses from being considered taḍmīns. Thus, between the fifth/eleventh and seventh/thirteenth centuries, the definition of poetic taḍmīn seems to have expanded, allowing for the quotation of anything from a few words to a complete verse (or even more). For example, ʿAlī b. Khalaf al-Kātib (fl. 437/1045–6)—who wrote a manual for secretaries entitled Mawādd al-bayān41See van Gelder, “ʿAlī b. Khalaf al-Kātib” and the sources cited therein.—had a more capacious definition of taḍmīn: he states that it is the inclusion of “a verse, half a verse, quarter of a verse, or a word from a verse.”42ʿAlī al-Kātib, Mawādd al-bayān (ed. al-Latif), 353–355, here at 354. Also see Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 12.
Around the same time as Ibn Khalaf, Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī, writing in modern-day Tunisia, defines taḍmīn similarly in his al-ʿUmda. But he places the more weight on quoting full verses; the majority of his examples involve the quotation of a whole verse as is.43Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī, al-ʿUmda (ed. Shalan), 2:719–27. Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī, al-ʿUmda (ed. Shalan), 2:728–33; translation from Naaman, “Collaborative Composition of Classical Arabic Poetry,” 166. See Naaman’s article for more on this practice. He then points out that “some poets” incorporate only half a verse, what he calls a “qasīm.” Toward the end of his discussion, however, he nonetheless acknowledges Ibn al-Muʿtazz’s understanding of taḍmīn and seems to accept it, while noting that it is the “least frequent” kind. This kind, says Ibn Rashīq, involves “allusion” (ishāra) to another verse.44Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī, al-ʿUmda (ed. Shalan), 7:726.
Around seventh/thirteenth century, some scholars, who may be considered strict adherents of Ibn al-Muʿtazz on this issue, sought to restrict taḍmīn to the quotation of keywords only.45See, e.g., Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, Taḥrīr al-taḥbīr (ed. Sharaf), 380, where he says that some scholars confuse īdāʿ and taḍmīn. Since Ibn al-Muʿtazz does not define taḍmīn but only provides examples, his “definition” was probably interpolated, based on his examples. They then used two other terms—istiʿāna (reliance [upon an earlier verse]46Or, “seeking help.” See G. J. H. van Gelder, “Taḍmīn”), to refer to the practice of quoting complete verses, and īdāʿ (lit., depositing), to refer to the practice of quoting half-verses.
This differentiation is found most clearly in Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ’s (d. 654/1256) Taḥrīr al-taḥbīr. One of his illustrations for apt quotation (ḥusn al-taḍmīn) is a verse by the Abbasid poet Abū Tammām (d. 231/845 or 232/846):
لَعَمْروٌ مَعَ الرَّمْضَاءِ والنّارُ تَلْتَظي أَرَقُّ وَأَحْفَى مِنْكَ في ساعةِ الكَرْبِ فضمّن بيته كلمات من البيت المشهور وهو: المستجير بعمرو عند كربته كالمستجير من الرمضاء بالنار
Indeed, ʿAmr, the fire (nār) blazing and the ground burning (ramḍāʾ),
are softer and gentler than you in times of distress
He included (ḍammana) in his verse words from the following famous verse:The seeker of refuge in ʿAmr in times of distress
is like the seeker of refuge from a burning ground (ramḍāʾ) in fire (nār)47Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, Taḥrīr al-taḥbīr (ed. Sharaf), 141. Interestingly, this verse is also proverbial, thus troubling the distinction between quoting a verse and quoting a proverb. It is not attributed by Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ; cf. Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 11. Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī, al-ʿUmda (ed. Shalan), 2:727, had already mentioned this poem as an example “least frequent” kind of taḍmīn, that is, what I am calling Ibn al-Muʿtazz’s type.
Al-Khaṭīb al-Tibrīzī (d. 502/1109) tells us in his commentary on this poem that what is intended by ʿAmr in this case is “either the famous ʿAmr b. Hind [the king of al-Ḥīra, r. 554–570 CE48On ʿAmr b. Hind and his reputation, see Wensinck, “ʿAmr b. Hind”], or the famous saying, ‘al-mustajīr…’.”49Abū Tammām and al-Khaṭīb al-Tibrīzī, Dīwān Abī Tammām bi-sharḥ al-Khaṭīb al-Tibrīzī (ed. Azzam), 4:170–171. The famous saying’s backstory refers to a different ʿAmr—ʿAmr b. al-Ḥārith—who, in the story, played a role in the events leading up to the pre-Islamic War of Basūs; he kills an opponent who asked for water as he was dying, hence the saying.50See al-ʿʿAbbāsī, Maʿāhid al-tanṣīṣ (ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd), 4:201–202; and Fück, “Basūs.” Some sources attribute the saying to a certain al-Tiklām al-Ḍubaʿī.51With a variant: “al-mustaghīth” instead of “al-mustajīr,” two words that are nonetheless synonymous. See al-Bakrī, Faṣl al-maqāl (ed. ʿAbbās and ʿĀbidīn), 377–378; cited by Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 11 (who does not point out the variant and mistakenly gives al-Tiklām the wrong nisba, al-Ḍabbī). Also see Ibn al-Kalbī, Jamharat al-nasab (ed. Umar), 1:419.
Based on the example, it is clear that for Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, taḍmīn is not a direct quotation of a verse, or even half a verse. The key phrase in the passage that introduces the poem is “some words from the famous verse.”52Also see Ibn Munqidh, al-Badīʿ fī naqd al-shiʿr (ed. Ahmad Badawi and ʿAbd al-Majīd), 249, who gives a similar definition about a century earlier. For the elegant (laṭīf) taḍmīn, according to Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, is not a wholesale lifting of one verse from a poem, but only some index words—in this case “ʿAmr,” “burning ground,” “fire,” and “distress.” This understanding of taḍmīn tracks with Ibn al-Muʿtazz’s.
Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ coins another term, istiʿāna, to refer to the practice of the quotation of whole verses.53Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, Taḥrīr al-taḥbīr (ed. Sharaf), 383–385. The word istiʿāna is used a little bit earlier by Ibn al-Athīr in the context of taḍmīn but not as a technical term; Ibn al-Athīr, al-Mathal al-sāʾir (ed. al-Ḥūfī and Badawī Ṭabāna), 3:203. He moreover uses a separate term—īdāʿ (lit., depositing)—to refer to the direct quotation of half-verses.54Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, Taḥrīr al-taḥbīr (ed. Sharaf), 380–382. Thus, he differentiates between three practices: taḍmīn (keywords), īdāʿ (half verses), and istiʿāna (full verses).55A clear definition of these terms—perhaps thanks to hindsight—is provided by Marʿī b. Yūsuf al-Karmī (d. 1033/1623–4) in Yūsuf, al-Qawl al-badīʿ (ed. al-Samil), 111–112. Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī (d. ca. 750/1349), in his Sharḥ al-kāfiya al-badīʿiyya, maintains this differentiation, but uses the word “allusion” (talmīḥ) in the place of taḍmīn.56al-Ḥillī, Sharḥ al-kāfiya (ed. Nashawi), 266 (īdāʿ), 271 (istiʿāna), 328 (talmīḥ). For a brief discussion of al-Ḥillī’s use of the word talmīḥ instead of taḍmīn, see Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 15. Another scholar who also maintains this differentiation is Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Jurjānī (d. 729/1328) in his al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt, 289; see Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 15.
In short, one can say that taḍmīn began as the quotation of keywords and then expanded to include the quotation of whole verses; some even inclined toward the latter. Around the seventh/thirteen century, some scholars then tried to restore taḍmīn to its “original” definition as suggested by Ibn al-Muʿtazz. By the ninth/fifteenth century, however, istiʿāna begins to fall out of use, and theorists prefer the term taḍmīn or īdāʿ to refer to the practice of quoting earlier poets—be it a couple of words or two whole verses.
A cornerstone text that sets the standard terminology for the coming centuries is Ibn Ḥijja al-Ḥamawī’s Khizānat al-adab, his auto-commentary on his badīʿiyya. Ibn Ḥijja’s discussion of taḍmīn/īdāʿ achieves two things. First, he advocates for the use of the term īdāʿ as opposed to taḍmīn, as the latter term that can also refer to a flaw in poetry: enjambment.57al-Ḥamawī, Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), 4:106. (He does, however, sometimes use the word taḍmīn throughout his discussion, hence my taḍmīn/īdāʿ.) This argument seems to stick. Three centuries later, Ibn Maʿṣūm al-Madanī (d. 1120/1708) and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1143/1731), in their works on badīʿ, use the term īdāʿ as opposed to taḍmīn.58Ibn Maʿṣūm, Anwār al-rabīʿ (ed. Shukr), 6:73–85; al-Nābulusī, Nafaḥāt al-azhār, 124–131. Also see Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician or The Schemer’s Skimmer, 122–123 (§168). Cachia translates taḍmīn as “incorporation.” Second, Ibn Ḥijja no longer upholds the distinction between taḍmīn, īdāʿ, and istiʿāna, and prefers to call any quotation of an earlier poem—whether half a verse or two complete verses—taḍmīn/īdāʿ. It is worth noting that Ibn Ḥijja’s definition is restricted to the quotation of poetry.59al-Ḥamawī, Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), 4:106.
I examine in what follows taḍmīn/īdāʿ as discussed by Ibn Ḥijja. I choose to examine Ibn Ḥijja’s treatment of taḍmīn not only because his discussion sets the standard, but also because he theorizes the aesthetic purchase of taḍmīn using copious examples, which gives us a window into the aesthetic standards that undergirded taḍmīn as quotation.60For an overview of Ibn Ḥijja’s understanding of taḍmīn and a brief discussion of his numerous examples, see Hārūn, al-Balāgha al-ʿarabiyya, 158–177. Although scholars before him made important observations about taḍmīn’s aesthetic effects, their discussions are relatively brief. For instance, al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī (d. 739/1338) states that “the best” kind of taḍmīn is that which “adds a pleasantry to the original, such as a pun or simile.”61“wa-aḥsanuhu mā zāda ʿalā al-aṣl bi-nukta, ka-l-tawriya wa-l-tashbīh.” al-Qazwīnī, al-Talkhīṣ fī ʿulūm al-balāgha (ed. Hindawi), 115; cf. al-Qazwīnī, al-Īḍāḥ fī ʿulūm al-balāgha, 582. Al-Qazwīnī discusses taḍmīn in the conclusion of both the Īḍāḥ and the Talkhīṣ under “sariqa (literary theft) and related concepts” (al-sariqāt al-shiʿriyya wa-mā yattaṣil bihā), and not under badīʿ. Al-Sakkākī does not discuss taḍmīn at all; it does not occur in his list of badīʿ devices, and he does not have a section dedicated to sariqa. His comments, however, end here. In a sense, Ibn Ḥijja takes these insights—indeed, he cites al-Qazwīnī’s aforementioned statement62al-Ḥamawī, Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), 4:108.—and applies them to specific poems; he is not only a theorist but often a close reader of poetry.
Ibn Ḥijja is particularly fond of taḍmīns that are recontextualized in the new poem. That is, the meaning of the quoted verse shifts in its new context. We see this in many of examples discussed thus far, but this aesthetic is not elaborated upon before Ibn Ḥijja, apart from some, also brief, comments in Ibn Rashīq’s al-ʿUmda. Moreover, for Ibn Rashīq, the recontextualization is simply a transfer of the quotation from one poetic theme (gharaḍ, lit., purpose/aim) to another.63Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī, al-ʿUmda (ed. Shalan), 2:721–722. This idea of transfer (naql) is articulated early on (in the 4th/10th century), but in the context of laṭīf al-saraq (elegant plagiarism) or ikhfāʾ al-saraq (concealing plagiarism) and not taḍmīn; Ibn Rashīq “was the first to relate it specifically to taḍmīn” (Sanni, “Again on taḍmīn in Arabic Theoretical Discourse,” 11). The idea was that one takes (“steals”) a meaning or motif (maʿnā), but not the wording (lafẓ), and transfers it to another poetic theme—e.g., from praise (madīḥ) to the description of wine (waṣf al-khamr). See, e.g., Ibn Ṭabāṭabā (d. 322/934), ʿIyār al-shiʿr, 123ff; al-ʿAskarī, (d. after 395/1005), al-Ṣināʿatayn, 204ff; and, later, Ibn Munqidh, (d. d. 584/1188), al-Badīʿ, 205–212. When it comes to taḍmīn, one must of course use the same words all the while transferring it to another poetic theme—similar ends but different means. As Ibn Ḥijja states, this transfer is not enough: one must, in addition, employ “an appropriate stylistic device” (mā yunāsibuhā min anwāʿ al-badīʿ).64al-Ḥamawī, Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), 4:108. Tawriya (double entendre or pun) is quite often the stylistic device of choice to be employed alongside the transfer or shift in gharaḍ. An amusing—and relatively straightforward—example that Ibn Ḥijja gives is an epigram that he himself wrote on a beautiful boy (malīḥ) named Ḥabīb:
حبيبٌ حبيبُ القلبِ أخْلى مُنَيْزِلًا به كان في عُرسِ المسرّةِ يَنْجَلي فيا صاحبَيَّ الذِّكْرُ قد لذَّ بالبُكا «قفا نبكِ من ذكرى حبيبٍ ومنزل»
Ḥabīb, the beloved, abandoned a small abode,
where he, in a wedding of joy, would reveal himself
My two friends! weeping made remembrance sweet,
so “let us weep at the memory of Ḥabīb/a lover and the abode!” 65al-Ḥamawī, Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), 4:109.
The last hemistich of the second line is a taḍmīn of the first hemistich of the first line of Imruʾ al-Qays’s Muʿallaqa, perhaps the most famous hemistich in the history of Arabic poetry. In the original poem, ḥabīb (a lover) refers to an unnamed lover—one could even say to the notion of the lover—but in the epigram, it primarily refers to a specific person, his lover Ḥabīb. Moreover, the manzil in the original line refers to the abandoned campsite of the beloved in a general, abstract sense, whereas the munayzil most likely refers to a built structure occupied by a specific person, Ḥabīb—even in the case that he is a fiction of Ibn Ḥijja’s imagination. The skill of the poet then lies in being able to riff on a most famous line in light of a given circumstance: the desire to write a poem for a beautiful boy named Ḥabīb, who seems to have disappeared, leaving his little house (munayzil) behind.
He also gives an example by Ibn Nubāta al-Miṣrī (d. 768/1366), who was “the master of this art,” i.e., of tawriya, in which he incorporates another line from Imruʾ al-Qays’s Muʿallaqa. In this poem, he lampoons a certain ʿAlī al-Bāniyāsī for his bad poetry:
أتاني عليُّ البانِياسيُّ مُنشدًا فيا لكَ مِنْ شِعْرٍ ثَقيلٍ مُطَوَّلِ «مِكَرٍّ مِفَرٍّ مُقْبِلٍ مُدْبِرٍ معًا كَجُلْمودِ صخرٍ حَطَّهُ السَّيلُ مِن علـ[ـي]»
ʿAlī al-Bāniyāsī came to me, reciting [his] poetry;
Oh how your poetry is heavy and prolix!
It “charged and retreated, back and forth,
like a boulder that the rain brought down from high/because of ʿAlī”66al-Ḥamawī, Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), 4:108-109. The poem is also found in Ibn Nubāta's Dīwān, with one recension of the Dīwān (Bashtakī α; see Dīwān (Prototype Digital ed.), BAlam70) giving the poem with the following heading: “he said of Shaykh ʿAlī al-Shāwish/the sergeant” (wa-qāla fī al-shaykh ʿAlī al-shāwish); al-shāwish—from the Turkish çavuş, which means a sergeant or officer—seems to be another epithet of ʿAlī’s besides al-Bāniyāsī, which may or may not refer to his actual career. The poem also occurs in the printed Dīwān of 1905 without any header, with a minor variant, and with the name ʿAlī al-Bālisī: Dīwān, 422. On the different recensions of Ibn Nubāta’s Dīwān, see Bauer, “Ibn Nubātah al-Miṣrī, Part II”. The editors of the digital edition call the figure tawjīh instead of tawriya, but I follow Ibn Ḥijja in calling it a tawriya. Cf. Rizzo, New Perspectives on Tawriya, 67. The other kind of tawjīh (what Rizzo calls tawjīh1), also known as ibhām (obscuring), need not concern us here. (See more on tawjīh1 in Rizzo, New Perspectives on Tawriya, 103n41.) For more on tawjīh generally, see Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician or The Schemer’s Skimmer, 44–45 (§67); and Bauer, “Ayna hādhā min al-Mutanabbī!,” 13–14 and 13n10. Cachia translates tawjīh as “the deceptive series,” but a more succinct translation is “misdirection.”
In the Muʿallaqa, Imruʾ al-Qays uses this line to describe his brave horse (kumayt), which he is able to easily control, whether to charge or to retreat. The comparison to a boulder highlights the horse’s sturdiness and speed.67See al-Anbārī, Sharḥ al-qaṣāʾid al-sabʿ (ed. Haroun), 83–84. Here, Ibn Nubāta uses this same phrase to lampoon ʿAlī’s poetry, as if it is unstable and lost, charging and retreating, what modern Arabic critics would call shiʿr muḍṭarib (unskilled poetry, lit., disturbed poetry). In light of this description, the comparison of his poetry to a boulder flips the verse’s original intent on its head.68See Hārūn, al-Balāgha al-ʿarabiyya, 160–161. The poetry is so heavy (thaqīl) that it is like a boulder that the rain brings down (with a bang, one might imagine). Ibn Nubāta further employs a tawriya, such that the phrase min ʿalī, “from high up,” can also mean “because of ʿAlī.” In this reading, ʿAlī’s poetry freefalls, like a boulder brought down (from a cliff) by heavy rain, thanks to ʿAlī’s lack of poetic skill.
Ibn Ḥijja has this to say about these two epigrams:
قلتُ ما شكَّ مَن عنده أدنى ذوق أنّ المقطوعتَيْن في الإيداعين تميّزا بمحاسن التورية وغريب النقل إلى غرضِ كلٍّ من النّاظِمَيْن […] وهذا هو المذهب الذي انتهت غايات المتأخرين إليه
Anyone who has the bare minimum of [literary] taste would not deny that these two epigrams stand out with their quotations (īdāʿayn), thanks to their laudable use of tawriya and marvelous transfer [of the original lines’ point] to the [later] poets’ intended point. […] This became the path that the later poets took. 69al-Ḥamawī, Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), 4:109.
Tawriya, one of the quintessential figures of postclassical Arabic literature, is employed with a taḍmīn, thus rendering these lines even more aesthetically effective. In a sense, one could say that the whole taḍmīn itself has a double meaning, the meaning in its original context and its new meaning in its new context.70See Rizzo, New Perspectives on Tawriya, 222. Alev Masarwa describes a similar process of recontextualization in Māmayya al-Rūmī’s quoting of the Qurʾan (iqtibās) in his poetry. See Masarwa, “Poetisch wider Willen.” Relatedly, it is worth pointing out that in the aforementioned epigrammatic examples, the taḍmīn—alongside the stylistic device, if there is one—plays the role of the “point,” “punchline,” or “witty turn” of the epigram, a common feature of Arabic epigrams.71Talib, How Do You Say “Epigram” in Arabic?, 20 and passim; and van Gelder, “Epigram, classical Arabic”. Similar to how the pun occurs in the last hemistich of the epigram, the taḍmīn—which may or may not contain a pun—also occurs in the last hemistich of the epigram. Cf. Jones, “Final Taḍmīn in the Poems of Abū Nuwās,” 69. But while I have discussed only epigrams here, taḍmīn is of course not restricted to short poems and is employed extensively in longer poems.72Ibn Ḥijja discusses many examples in his chapter on taḍmīn. These include an exchange between Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ṣafadī (d. 764/1363) and Ibn Nubāta, in which they both quote half-verses from the Muʿallaqa of Imruʾ al-Qays (Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), 4:130–134), as well as a poem by Ibn Makānis (d. 794/1392), who describes a man’s hairy nose, also by quoting half verses from the same muʿallaqa throughout his poem (Khizānat al-adab (ed. Diyab), 4:135–138). Imruʾ al-Qays’s Muʿallaqa was often imitated and parodied; for further examples and discussion, see Rababia, “Ẓāhirat al-taḍmīn al-balāghī”; al-Ghubari, “al-Tanāṣṣ fī shiʿr Ibn Nubāta al-Miṣrī,” 145–148; Meisami, “Imru’ al-Qays Praises the Prophet”; Antoon, Poetics of the Obscene , ch. 2; and al-ʿAbbāsī, Maʿāhid al-tanṣīṣ (ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd), 4:157ff. Other examples of taḍmīns of Imruʾ al-Qays’s Muʿallaqa include a mujūn poem by Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī and another by Ibn Nubāta. For al-Ḥillī’s poem see his Dīwān (ed. Maẓlūm), 2:181–182; and Dīwān, American University of Beirut, MS. 892.71:Ha481dwA, fols. 233v–234r for better vocalization. For Ibn Nubāta’s poem, see Talib, How Do You Say “Epigram” in Arabic?, 134–135 (poem 8). This poem by Ibn Nubāta occurs in part three, chapter eight (on licentious poems [fī al-mujūn]) of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Ḥijāzī al-Khazrajī’s (d. 875/1471) Rawḍ al-ādāb, which Talib edits in his book. The poem occurs as well in Ibn Nubāta al-Miṣrī, Dīwān (ed. al-Qalqīlī), 424–425.
Sometimes, poets put words in a singer’s or speaker’s mouth; this should be considered taḍmīn only if these words come from preexisting texts or known sayings (with the caveat, of course, that certain phrases may be quotations that we are unable to identify). This practice occurs in qaṣīdas (odes in “classical” meters and language), as well as in muwashshaḥs (strophic poems) and other “non-classical” forms. Otherwise, one should follow Alan Jones in calling this practice “quasi-quotation,” that is, putting words (not from preexisting texts) in a singer’s or speaker’s mouth.73Jones, “Final Taḍmīn in the Poems of Abū Nuwās,” 66; and G. J. H. van Gelder, “Taḍmīn” who states that “[t]he k̲h̲ard̲j̲a of the muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥ normally poses as a quotation, which it often is” (emphasis mine)—but not always. I have not found evidence in the sources I have consulted that suggests that taḍmīn was used when “quasi-quotation” was concerned. For instance, Ibn Sanāʾ al-Mulk (d. 608/1211), in Dār al-ṭirāz, his treatise on the muwashshaḥ form, uses “taḍmīn” only when poet quotes from a preexisting poem.74Ibn Sanāʾ al-Mulk, Dār al-ṭirāz, 33, 74–75. Taḍmīn in the muwashshaḥ also means “internal rhyme.” See Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry , 26, cf. 19–22, 63–65. It is a peculiar use of the term taḍmīn that does not fall into my tripartite schema. If the speaker of the poem is a non-person—e.g., “war” or “love”—he uses the phrase “put in the mouth of…”75Ibn Sanāʾ al-Mulk, Dār al-ṭirāz, 31, 32, 68, 70, 71. He is silent when it comes to “quasi-quotations.”
Conclusion
When Ibn Ḥijja states that the tawriya-based taḍmīns are marvelous thanks to their “transfer [of the original lines’ point] to the [later] poets’ intended point,” he puts his finger on an aesthetic that undergirded good taḍmīns at least since Ibn al-Muʿtazz. As the theoretical literature matured, critics began to tease out this aesthetic of variation or transfer that was always present in examples of taḍmīn but not articulated. Simply reusing a line could surprise a listener or speak to her broad poetic heritage, but not much else. Instead, twisting the meaning of a well-known line could elicit a more profound reaction in the listener. By (re)using their predecessors’ words to achieve their own aims, taḍmīn becomes a tool for poets to toe the line between being original and situating oneself within a literary tradition that stretches back centuries.
In this entry, I have attempted to give an overview of taḍmīn’s semantic range and aesthetic purchase. This can help us read and appreciate intertextual poems, especially poetic amplifications, wherein a poet takes someone’s poem (or parts of it) and adds verses in between the original verses.76The most popular kind of poetic amplification is the takhmīs (lit., making quintets). For more on this phenomenon, see Kennedy, “Takhmīs”; and Masarwa, Memory, Mimesis, and the Modern, 21–31. Practically speaking, these kinds of amplifications are a type of taḍmīn. Moreover, taḍmīn’s place vis-à-vis other related phenomena remains to be fully explored. What is the relationship between taḍmīn and sariqa (literary theft)? And what about the relationship between taḍmīn and muʿāraḍa (emulation)? And the elephant in the room: what of originality and imitation? Taḍmīn’s place in the history of Arabic letters has yet to be written.
