Ibn Jinnī

• اللف والنشر

Al-laff wa-l-nashr (اللفّ والنشر) is a rhetorical figure of arrangement in classical Arabic poetics that operates through the sequential distribution of corresponding elements. Literally meaning “wrapping” and “unfolding,” the device evokes the image of folding multiple elements together (laff) and subsequently spreading them out through explanation or attribution (nashr). First systematically defined by al-Sakkākī as a meaning-based beautifying device, laff wa-nashr requires the audience to infer the correct correspondence between paired elements. The figure is central to Arabic rhetorical theory owing to its prevalence in both Qurʾanic discourse and poetry. Al-Qazwīnī provided its most influential typology, dividing it into separated (mufaṣṣal) and composite (mujmal) forms, with further subdivisions based on order. Subsequent rhetoricians refined these categories and debated exceptional cases, particularly in Qurʾanic exegesis. Historically, the function of laff wa-nashr predates its formal naming, appearing implicitly in the works of grammarians and philologists such as al-Mubarrad and Ibn Jinnī. Its later theorization reflects exegetical efforts to resolve semantic ambiguity in the Qurʾan, a process that also shaped its relationship with the earlier rhetorical device tafsīr. While both figures move from summarization to elaboration, tafsīr is author-centered and explanatory, whereas laff wa-nashr is reader-centered and organizational. The device later expanded beyond Arabic into Persian and Ottoman rhetorical traditions, demonstrating the multilingual scope of Islamic rhetoric. Comparative scholarship has also noted affinities with European correlative verse forms. Ultimately, laff wa-nashr exemplifies how arrangement, symmetry, and reader participation generate aesthetic complexity in classical poetics.

The term waḍʿ (from waḍaʿa, “to put down”) is central to Arabic language theory and legal theory. Used in the Qur’an to denote the “proper place” of a word (Q 4:46, 5:13, 41), waḍʿ evolved into a foundational concept in semantics, pragmatics, and jurisprudence. This article traces its historical and conceptual evolution, beginning with the fourth/tenth-century philosophical debate over the origin of language. Scholars such as Ibn Jinnī and Ibn Fāris contested whether language arose from divine revelation (tawqīf) or human convention (iṣṭilāḥ). While Ibn Fāris championed the divine origin, citing pre-Islamic Bedouin speech (kalām al-ʿarab) as authoritative evidence, Ibn Jinnī ultimately deemed the question unresolved (waqf), reflecting a pragmatic approach. In uṣūl al-fiqh (principles of Islamic jurisprudence), waḍʿ became a productive epistemological category, used to distinguish between literal (ḥaqīqa) and figurative (majāz) meaning. Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī and Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī employed waḍʿ to analyze how words are originally established through agreement, contrasting this with later metaphorical extensions. The distinction between dalīl waḍʿī (evidence based on convention) and dalīl ʿaqlī (evidence based on reason), articulated by Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī, became pivotal: the Qur’an’s authority rests not on logical deduction but on the collective agreement (muwāḍaʿat ahlihi) on the meaning of its signs. The article highlights how waḍʿ transformed from a philosophical question into a discipline:ʿilm al-waḍʿ. Centered on ʿAḍud al-Dīn al-Ījī’s al-Risāla al-waḍʿiyya (eighth/fourteenth century), this field developed a sophisticated taxonomy of linguistic signification. Later scholars like al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī and ʿAlī al-Qushjī systematized its categories, laying the groundwork for a formal science of language. Ultimately, waḍʿ reshaped the self-understanding of ʿilm al-lugha, which came to include not merely the lexical heritage (matn al-lugha) but the “discipline of the individual coinage of single words”, thus integrating the terminology of waḍʿ into the core of Arabic language scholarship.