Al-Sheikh ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjani in the Critical Perspective of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd: A Case Study of Metonymy

Document Type : Original Article

Author

‎ Ph.D in Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Foreign languages, ‎Kashan University, Kashan, Iran.‎

Abstract

The struggle over the concept of metonymy in Islamic thought is not only a rhetorical problem, but a conflict with a presence in contemporary critical discourse where the rhetoricians' opinions about the concept of metonymy were and still are the subject of interest. Nasr Hamid (1943 AD), one of the contemporary Arab thinkers, chooses relative hermeneutic theories. In his religious and critical studies, he was able to present a new reading of the thought of al-Jurjani (471 AH). This paper tries, with a qualitative approach and inductive method, to provide a clear analysis of Abdel Qaher's thought and the dilemma of metonymy as manifested through the studies of Abu Zaid. The results shows that Nasr Hamed tried to read a different reading of al-Jurjani's thoughts. In the first aspect, he presents a problem in the lexical and rational metonymies of al-Jurjani, because he sees a connotation of the utterance in the lexical metonymy as an antithesis to the duality of language and speech in his opinion. In the second aspect: he deals with a new reading of metaphor and simile, imagining that al-Jurjani does not attach rhetorical value to investigative metaphor, sensory likeness, and non-representative analogy; Because the mind falls into a confinement. He also believes that al-Jurjani presents his interpretive (relative) idea in imaginary metaphor, likeness, and representation, where representation is considered as the most important interpretation of his rhetorical achievement. In addition, obtaining the figurative meaning is considered relative truth.

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References

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History

  • Receive Date: 13 March 2024
  • Revise Date: 14 May 2024
  • Accept Date: 26 June 2024

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