الإشكالية المنهجية في كتاب البديع لابن المعتز

Abstract EN

The main purpose of Ibn al-Mu'tazz's Kitäb al-Badi'is to draw a conclusion that the new style, known as Badi' and used by some Abbasid poets who are called muhdathü n, as opposed to al-mutaqaddimü n, is not new, and that the mutaqaddimun are the pioneers of Badi' poetry and have employed it in their poetry and prose.

Ibn al-Mu'tazz explicitly mentions this in his book preface.

To achieve his purpose, Ibn al-Mu'tazz divides the new stylelBadi' into five kinds: metaphor, paranomasia, antithesis, repetition of a word from the first half of a line at the second half, and the method of kaläm.

He starts to list examples of Badi' by mutaqaddimÜn and muhdathün.

By listing examples, Ibn al-Mu'tazz believes that he successfully proves that muhdathÜn are not pioneers of Badi', and that the difference between mutaqaddimün's and muhdathün's Badi' poetry is only the quantity, which is a minor difference.

This paper aims to review Ibn al-Mu'tazz's conclusion, display his methodological mistakes, and survey stu- dies which have discussed this issue before, such as the studies of Shawqi Dhayf, Muhammad Mnadur, Suzanne Stetkevych, and Saud al-Ruhaili.