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UMI; Foreign Characters Omitted
The Theology of Meaning: Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani's Theory of Discourse. By MARGARET LARKIN. American Oriental Series, vol. 79. New Haven: AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY, 1995. Pp. 220. $35. [Distributed by Eisenbrauns.]
The vast contribution of Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani (d. 471 or 474/1078 or 1081) to Arabic literary theory has come to the fore during the last few decades. A great deal of scholarly interest has rightly been given to his sophisticated theory of discourse. There can perhaps be no higher praise bestowed on al-Jurjani than the words of Aziz al-Azmeh, for instance, who in his Arabic Thought and Islamic Societies (London: Croom Helm, 1986), 120, described al-Jurjani's theory of poetic and Qur anic composition as "one of the most sustained, refined, rigorous and durable attempts to construct a theory of the production of meaning in discourse analysis in any language and at any time." Yet in spite of some of the detailed analyses of al-Jurjani's two main works, Dala il al-l jaz and Asrar alBalagha, the theological influence in his writing has perhaps been underestimated. However, Margaret Larkin has produced a fine work which sets out to harmonize the theological nature of the doctrine of the inimitability of the Qur an with its linguistic or rhetorical aspects. In emphasizing al-Jurjani's theologically inspired motives Larkin establishes that he was much more than just a literary critic.
This book comprises five main chapters in addition to the detailed introduction and conclusion. The first of these gives a necessary and carefully argued background to the "speculative theology" (p. 25) of al-Qadi Abd al-Jabbar (d. 415/1024), the Mu tazili mutakallim whose scholarship appears to have been a main focal point for al-Jurjani in his development of a theory of discourse. The remaining chapters are based on an assessment of four terms and concepts which are axiomatic to an understanding of al-Jurjani's theories, and, as the author shows, to a deeper cognizance of their epistemological foundation; hence a chapter is devoted to each of the terms ma na (and its sisters), majaz, sura, and takhyil. There is also a long appendix containing the sections of Arabic texts which have been used and translated in the main body of the work. The presentation of these texts is extremely...