The Twelfth Matter
Speech may be correct and be honed and moderate by allotting each part its right and due and clothing it in the appropriate style. Also, if recounting a tale, the speaker should put himself in the place of the one recounted.
That is, if he is describing another’s feelings and thoughts, he should enter into that person, visit his heart as a guest, and speak with his tongue.
While if he is directing his own affairs, he should dispense justice by allotting care and attention, the sign of worth, taking into account the right, capacity, and rank of each part, and should fashion the garment of the literary styles and devices in accordance with the disposition of each. Then each of the aims will acquire a striking beauty from the style that is appropriate to it. For there are three basic styles or modes of speech:
The First is a sheer or detached style, like the uncomplicated style of the works of Sayyid Sharīf and Naṣīr al‑Dīn al-Ṭūsī.
The Second is the embellished style, like the brilliant, shining style of ‘Abd al‑Qāhir’s Dalā’il al-I‘jāz and Asrār al-Balāgha.
The Third is the high style, like some of the majestic writing (kelâm) of al‑Sakkākī, al‑Zamakhsharī, and Ibn Sīnā. Or like the Arabic pieces in the Turkish translation of this book, especially the disorderly yet sound pieces in the Third Article. For the loftiness of the subject fashioned this book in the high style; the influence of my own skills has been negligible.
In Short: When speaking of theological matters and the principles of religion and describing them, you should not depart from the high style, which comprises intensity, power, and grandeur.
When engaged in oratory and persuasion, never give up the embellished style if you can, which is ornamented and brilliant and both encourages and alarms. But you should not be pretentious, artificial, or vulgarly ostentatious.
When engaged in business, discussions, or the instrumental sciences, make do with the detached style, which is characterised by its faithfulness, conciseness, correctness, fluency, and naturalness, and displays its innate beauty through its simplicity.
The Conclusion of This Matter: Speech may be self‑sufficient, independent, and ardent when the style is not sought outside the context. It is like this:
when you want to fashion a literary style commensurate with the meaning’s stature, it should at least be pieced together with parts necessitated by the subject or story that the speech comprises or its art and be sourced from the subject’s factory, and it should be sewn in a style out of the pieces of the secondary meanings. It will certainly add power to the speech if, as long as there is no need, you don’t fix your gaze beyond and you boycott the outside – if the expression’s not mistaken, for this is one of the main ways to prevent your wealth being dissipated.
In this way, both meaning and context and art may assist what the speech alludes to with its arrangement. Just as speech indicates the meaning through its manner of composition, so does the style or mode point through itself to the meaning. If you would like an example, take a look at the Arabic pieces in the Ninth Matter.
Consider the speech of the Most Merciful, Who taught the Qur’an: which of your Lord’s verses=signs does not manifest this truth? So woe upon those literalists who dub what they do not know “repetition”.
If you wish, take a look at the story of Moses, for it is more useful than the parts of a staff, the Qur’an took it in its shining white hand and the wizards of rhetoric prostrated in love and wonderment at its eloquence.
Take a look at the prefaces of the books on the instrumental sciences; even if their rhetorical eloquence is not overly subtle and elegant, their introductory lines furnish good introductions to this truth. Also, in the preface of this book when alluding to miracles, our Prophet’s (UWBP) person is shown to be a miracle of his prophethood. Also, in the preface of the Third Article, the two parts of the profession of faith are shown to testify to each other. Also, in the Seventh Premise it is said to those who added to the Splitting of the Moon that it descended to the earth: “You’ve been the cause of the moon of the miracle being eclipsed and a sun‑like proof of prophethood being obscured!”
Making analogies, you can find numerous examples of this truth in this book. For like myself, its way is to boycott the outside. Indeed, as long as it is not necessary, it is to boycott ideas, matters, examples, and styles. But there may be coincidences, for the truth is one. You will see the same thing, whatever door you enter by.
Conclusion
It has been said that one should look to what is said, not to the one who said it. But I say: Who said it? To whom did they say it? In what context did they say it? For what reason did they say it? In respect of eloquence these should be considered as well as what is said; indeed, this is of the utmost importance.
Indication It should be known that according to eloquence, the features of the sciences of Ma‘ānī (the semantics of syntax) and Bayān (figurative speech) are dependent on your showing your aim and purpose by planting signs and allusions indicating them. For randomness renders them worthless.
While the science of Badī’ (the embellishment of speech) and verbal ornamentation (tezyinat‑ı lafziyye) are dependent on chance and the lack of intention, or to be close to the true meaning as though by chance.
Allusion It is no secret that the most penetrating of instruments that points to external truths and fastens a mental proposition to the external law, and if one may say so, rends the veil and discloses the truth behind it, is the intensive particle inna. It is due to this characteristic of inna that it is used frequently in the Qur’an.
Note Brother! You should not be misled by the subtle laws described in this article standing aloof from these wretched styles of mine and their disliking them. For instance, one should not think that if the laws had been good, they would have given a good lesson in rhetoric to the person who included them, and they would have donned a fine style. But the person who included them is illiterate and his style of writing is wretched too. But don’t get carried away imagining this,
for all those knowledgeable about a science are not necessarily expert in it. Moreover, the power of attraction, which is centripetal, prevails over the power of repulsion, which is centrifugal. For the ear is near the brain and close to the intellect, whereas the heart, the source of speech, is distant from the tongue and a stranger to it. Also, very often the tongue does not understand the heart’s tongue. Especially if the heart tintinnabulates from the depths of some matter, like from the bottom of a well, the tongue will not hear it at all, so how could it interpret it?
In Short: It is easier to understand than to make understood, and that’s that!
Apology Patient and steadfast friend who has accompanied me on this narrow, sharp, dark road! I reckon you have only been an astonished observer in this Second Article, not a listener. Because you haven’t understood it. You’re quite justified, for the matters are very profound, the conduits are lengthy, and the phrases extremely concise and obscure. My Turkish is also somewhat deficient and confused, and I have little time, am in haste, my health is impaired, and my head is full of cold. In such a disarranged field, only these words could emerge: Apologies are accepted by the noble!
Brother! Combine the Element of Reality as the greater (the major premise) with the Element of Rhetoric and Eloquence as the lesser (the minor premise). Pass an accurate intuition (hads‑ı sâdık) through them like an electric current so that they may infuse your brain with the ability to produce the impassioned, shining, and light‑filled Element of Doctrine.
Now we shall seek the Element of Doctrine in the Third Section.
I am beginning, thus…