The Third Matter
The garment in which speech is clothed, or its beauty and form, lie in its manner of expression (üslûb); that is, in its mould or framework (kalıp). It is like this:
[the speaker’s] inclinations arise in the imagination due to the cross‑pollination of his perceptions or preoccupations or contacts or work. The manner of expression, which is illuminated and takes form from the joining of the pieces of the parabolic metaphor (istiare‑i temsiliye) which in turn is composed of the facets of those inclinations, is both the speech’s mould, and the source of its beauty and workbench of its fine garment.
As though, on the sounding of the will, which deserves to be called the intellect’s bugle, the meanings reposing in the dark corners of the heart emerge bare‑footed and bare-headed and enter the imagination, where forms reside. In the store of the imagination they don whichever form they find there. At least they tie a kerchief around their heads, or put on a slipper, or at least pin on a bauble, and emerge. Or at least they show through a button or a word where they have been raised.
If you study some speech, but one that has deviated from its nature, you will see through the mirror‑like manner of expression, the speaker, who expresses things in line with his own art. Even, if you form an image of him from his breathing and his voice and you imagine his temperament and art to be combined with his speech, you will be reproached for belonging to the Romantics School (Hayaliyyûn mezhebi).
If your imagination is sick due to uncertainty, apply to the hospital of the following lines from the Kaside‑i Bürde: Shed tears from eyes filled with forbidden things; stick to a diet of repentance. See how the physician Busayri prescribes a diet of tears and repentance.
If on regaining your appetite you wish to see how the pure water of meaning in the phial of reality known as the manner of expression, is appropriate for you and how it agrees with you, and you have appetite for that pure water, go to the tavern and ask the taverner what eloquent speech is.
He will tell you that eloquent speech is what is cooked in the cauldrons of knowledge – the elegant water‑bearers swill around the water of life which stands in the jars of wisdom and is filtered through understanding, and imbibe ideas – speech which, pervading the innermost faculties, excites the emotions.
If you do not find such drunkard’s words agreeable, listen to the news brought from Saba’ by Solomon’s Hoopoe, a deviser of water‑works. See how it describes the All-Glorious One Who sent down the Qur’an and created the heavens and earth. The Hoopoe says: I came across a people which does not prostrate before Allah, Who discloses what is hidden on the earth and in the heavens.(cf. 27:24-25) See, out of the attributes of perfection [the Qur’an] chose only the above-mentioned, which alludes to the Hoopoe’s water-divining.
Indication What I intend by the manner of expression (üslûb) is the form of speech and its mould (kalıp). Others say otherwise. Its rhetorical value is its bringing together and uniting the parts of a story and its disparate pieces. The intention, in accordance with the rule, “If something is established, it is established together with its corollaries,” is, by prompting a part, to invigorate the whole of the story. As though, by the speaker pointing out a corner of his expression (üslûb), his addressee will himself be able to see all of it, if only faintly.
Consider the word ‘combat’; wherever you are, it displays the battlefield like a window with the battle raging in it. There are many such words. It may be said that they are the imagination’s cinema.
Note The degrees of the styles of speech are numerous. Some are so soft and light, they blow more gently than the morning breeze. Some are so secret, they are more covert than the subterfuges of war employed by the diplomats of the present. To divine them, a diplomat has to possess a keen sense of smell.
In Short: al‑Zamakhsharī divined from from the verse, Who can give life to decayed bones?, Are there any contenders for the fight? Yes, by rebelling, man in effect opposes and combats the Creator’s commands.