The Legacy of ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī in the Arabic East before al-Qazwīnī’s Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ

Abstract

Abstract ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078 or 474/1081) is recognized today as one of the greatest literary theorists in medieval Islam, but in his own lifetime he was known as a grammarian. It would take nearly three centuries for his theories to take hold in the form of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī’s (d. 739/1338) Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ, which launched the standardized science of rhetoric. Even in later centuries al-Jurjānī remained little-known, a situation that would only change at the turn of the twentieth century with the endeavors of Rashīd Riḍā and Muḥammad ʿAbduh, who produced the first editions of al-Jurjānī’s Asrār al-balāgha and Dalāʾil al-iʿjāz. Keeping al-Jurjānī’s larger trajectory in mind, this article takes a closer look at his impact in the time leading up to al-Qazwīnī, with a focus on the Arabic East (Greater Syria and Egypt) where al-Qazwīnī was based. Through an analysis of biographical, bibliographical, and literary critical writings, this study follows the early readership of al-Jurjānī’s rhetorical oeuvre and recontextualizes his place in the history of Arabic literary theory.