Yûsuf b. Hüseyin el-Kirmastî’nin Usûlü’l-ıstılâhâti’l-beyâniyye Adlı Risalesinin Tahkik ve Tahlili

Abstract

Yūsuf ibn Ḥusayn, a 15th century Ottoman ulama member, is known as al-Kirmāstī in reference to his hometown, Kirmasti, in the Bursa district. He attended Hocazade Muslihuddin’s classes. He taught in a number of madrasas, including Sahn-i Seman, and worked as a judge in Bursa and Istanbul. He penned many works in the fields of jurisprudence, theology, logic, and disputation. He contributed to the literature of rhetoric by writing foundational textbooks, including al-Tabyīn, al-Tibyān (al-Tabyīn’s commentary), al-Muntakhab (al-Tibyān’s abridgement), al-Mukhtār, and a gloss on al-Muṭawwal and al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s al-Miṣbāḥ. Following al-Sakkākī, who treated the main disciplines of the science of rhetoric in a semantic unity, the works in this field evolved into the genre of commentaries and glosses, which examined issues in detail. After the 14th century, when the number of works of commentary and gloss increased, works related to rhetoric were viewed as unimportant and belonging to a period of intellectual decline. However, even if one does observe a foundational change in the science of rhetoric after al-Sakkākī, one cannot convincingly argue that commentaries and glosses on works of rhetoric were useless and unimportant. In this context, the tradition of commentaries-glosses was not a regurgitation of the main text but was instead a genre filled with contemporary discussions. The period during which al-Kirmāstī wrote corresponded with a period in which the tradition of rhetoric matured in respect to vocabulary and textualization. Al-Kirmāstī undertook a detailed examination of the science of eloquence (‘ilm al-bayān) with his treatise titled Uṣūl al-iṣṭilāḥāt al-bayāniyya, which I examine here. I will reproduce a critical edition of this treatise and examine its contribution to the science of eloquence. Al-Kirmāstī formulates his treatise by the definitions and classifications of the main concepts of the science of eloquence. In the introduction, he briefly lists the five types of words in respect to philosophy of language as adopted by scholars of rhetoric (namely ḥaqīqa: literal meaning; majāz: figurative meaning; istiʿāra: metaphor; tashbīh: simile; and kināya: metonymy). He then examines al-Sakkākī’s two formulations of literal and figurative meanings in a lengthy and detailed way and defends the position of al-Sakkākī, who was criticized by others on the issues of metonymy, rational figurative meaning, and metaphor by allusion. He explains five issues on which al-Sakkākī disagreed with earlier scholars of rhetoric. He mentions briefly al-Qazwīnī’s three different categories, i.e. literal meaning, figurative meaning, and metonymy and identifies the points of disagreement. In the last chapter, al-Kirmāstī dwells on his own classification. Therefore, he compares the classification of words by al-Sakkāki and al-Qazwīnī and underlines their points of disagreement. In this treatise, Al-Kirmāstī offers a comparative reading of the science of eloquence in respect to its classifications and conceptual framework. While maintaining important concepts and findings of al-Sakkākī’s, he adopts a critical perspective in respect to simile. While al-Sakkāki defined the science of eloquence as an effort to convey a single meaning in various ways, he kept simile provided by literal usage outside of this science and based it on figurative language and metaphor, because he based it on rational signification. However, he re-includes simile, an instrument and introduction to metaphor with a figurative meaning, into the science of eloquence as a third element. Al-Kirmāstī considers it an unreasonable argument that simile is kept outside of the science of eloquence by a logical-philosophical limitation. Despite this critique, al-Kirmāstī never ventures to adopt a rejectionist perspective that would damage al-Sakkākī’s system. Al-Kirmāstī summarizes the issues on which al-Sakkākī disagreed with other scholars of rhetoric in the following way: according to al-Sakkākī, the imaginary metaphor was of lexical figurative meanings but not of rational figurative meanings. The metaphor by allusion was the word of the thing compared but not the word of the thing compared to that which was obtained by an imaginary way. The secondary metaphor was considered as belonging to the thing compared. The rational figurative meaning was not a separate part of the figurative meaning but rather being of the thing compared. The figurative meaning by addition or subtraction was not a separate part of the figurative meaning but belonged to the figurative meaning.