GRPDIV: Grouping Then Dividing
| GRPDIV: Grouping Then Dividing | |
|---|---|
| Category | Linguistic Embellishments (‘ilm al-badī‘) |
| Subcategory | Grouping & Distinguishing |
| Balaghascore.com | |
| Code | CB-3 |
| BalaghaBase.org | |
| Code | Q85 |
| OpenAlex.org | |
| ID | W4415372678 |
| Cite this page | |
| 🔗 DOI | 10.64393/balagha.Q85 |
| Download PDF | |
| Taxonomy | |
| ARDT | v0.1.0, v0.1.1 |
Definition
Grouping Then Dividing (al-jamʿ maʿa al-taqsīm) is an Arabic rhetorical device where two or more entities are first brought together under a shared governing judgement (jam'), and then the gathered elements are divided (taqsīm), or conversely, the divisions appear first and are later unified under a shared governing judgement.[1][2][3][4]
Mechanism
The device operates through two possible patterns:
- Gather then divide: The speaker begins with a comprehensive statement covering multiple cases or entities under one ruling, then elaborates by returning to each entity separately and assigning it what belongs to it.[1][2][3][4]
- Divide then gather: The speaker first presents distinct divisions with their specific properties, then unifies them under a single collective ruling.[1][2][3][4]
Recognition
Grouping Then Dividing may be present when:
- Multiple entities are first brought under one shared ruling, then redistributed into distinct outcomes.
- Or multiple distinct outcomes are first stated, then unified under one collective ruling.
- The device may operate in either direction: gathering then dividing, or dividing then gathering.
Diagnostic Rhetorical Effects
The first subtype — gather then divide — is considered more beautiful and more effective on hearts than the second, and it is the form predominantly used by the composers of badīʿiyyāt poetry.[3][4]
Applying the Recognition Framework
The information on this page can be used to evaluate whether this device is present in a candidate lexical item using the Specific Device Recognition part of the Universal Framework for Identifying Arabic Rhetorical Devices:
Types of Grouping Then Dividing
Type 1: Gather then divide
The speaker first gathers multiple entities under a single governing ruling, then divides that ruling by assigning each entity what belongs to it.
- Source Example
ٱللَّهُ يَتَوَفَّى ٱلْأَنفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا وَٱلَّتِى لَمْ تَمُتْ فِى مَنَامِهَا فَيُمْسِكُ ٱلَّتِى قَضَىٰ عَلَيْهَا ٱلْمَوْتَ وَيُرْسِلُ ٱلْأُخْرَىٰٓ إِلَىٰٓ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى
God takes souls at the time of their death, and those that did not die [He takes] during their sleep; then He retains those for whom He has decreed death, and releases the others until a specified term.
Qur'an 39:42- Explanation
- The verse first presents the general act of God taking souls, then divides that act into two distinct categories: those taken at death and those taken during sleep. The collective act is thus distinguished between the two categories.
- Source Example
حتى أقام على أرباض خرشنة تشقى به الروم والصلبان والبيع
للرق ما نسلوا والقتل ما ولدوا والنهب ما جمعوا والنار ما زرعوا[Sayf al-Dawla led the armies] until he had control of the suburbs of Kharshana, the Byzantines and their crosses and churches made utterly miserable through him: destined for captivity was what they had married, for massacring what they had given birth to, for plundering what they had gathered, for the fire what they had sown.
al-Mutanabbī
- Explanation
- The first verse gathers the Byzantines, their crosses, and their churches under the single ruling of misery. The second verse then divides that ruling, returning to each group — wives, children, wealth, crops — the fate that belongs to it: captivity, slaughter, plunder, and burning.[2][3][4]
- Source Example
سأطلب حقي بالقنا ومشايخ كأنهم من طول ما الثموا مردُ
I shall seek my right by the spear and by elders who, from the length of their silence, seem beardless.
- Explanation
- The speaker gathers two instruments of seeking his right — the spear and the elders — under one governing act, then specifies each through what distinguishes it.[2]
- Source Example
ثقال إذا لاقوا خفاف إذا دعوا كثير إذا شدوا قليل إذ عُدوا
Heavy when they meet [the enemy], light when called, many when they charge, few when counted.
- Explanation
- Multiple qualities are gathered under one subject, then each is divided and assigned to its specific circumstance.[2]
- Source Example
أبادهم فلبيت المال ما جمعوا والروح للسيف والأجساد للرخم
He destroyed them: to the treasury went what they had gathered, to the sword their souls, and to the vultures their bodies.
Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī
- Explanation
- The poet gathers the rebels under the single ruling of destruction, then divides that ruling by assigning their wealth to the treasury, their souls to the sword, and their bodies to the vultures.[3][4]
- Constructed Example
عانى الطلاب جميعاً في الامتحان: فأخطأ أصحاب الرياضيات في حساباتهم، ونسي أصحاب التاريخ تواريخهم، وخلط أصحاب اللغة في قواعدهم
The students all struggled in the examination: the mathematicians failed their calculations, the historians forgot their dates, and the linguists confused their grammar.
- Explanation
- The students are first gathered under the single ruling of struggling, then each group is divided and assigned its specific failure.
Type 2: Divide then gather
The speaker first presents the divisions, assigning distinct properties to distinct subjects, then unifies them under a single collective ruling.
- Source Example
قوم إذا حاربوا ضروا عدوهم أو حاولوا النفع في أشياعهم نفعوا
سجية تلك منهم غير محدثة إن الخلائق فاعلم شرها البدعA people who, when they fight, harm their enemy, and when they seek benefit for their followers, they benefit them — that is a character innate to them, not newly acquired; know that the worst of traits are innovations.
Ḥassān ibn Thābit
- Explanation
- The first verse divides the tribe's qualities into two distinct properties — harm to the enemy in war, and benefit to allies in peace — and then gathers both under the single collective ruling in the second verse: that this is their innate character, not a novelty.[2][3][4]
- Constructed Example
قاتل الجندي بشجاعة في ميدان المعركة، وكدّ العالم بلا كلل في مكتبه، وكدح الفلاح من الفجر إلى الغسق في حقله — كلهم خدام وطنهم
The soldier fought bravely on the battlefield, the scholar laboured tirelessly in his study, and the farmer toiled from dawn to dusk in his fields — all of them servants of their nation.
- Explanation
- The three figures are first divided with their distinct roles, then gathered under the single ruling of service to the nation.
See Also
Notes
- The device was placed by al-Sakkākī among the المحسنات المعنوية (meaning-based embellishments). Its definition was attested without material variation by Ibn Mālik in al-Miṣbāḥ, al-Ḥalabī in Ḥusn al-Tawassul, al-Nuwayrī in Nihāyat al-Arab, al-Qazwīnī in al-Talkhīṣ, Ibn Ḥijja al-Ḥamawī in Khizānat al-Adab, al-Suyūṭī in al-Itqān, Ibn Maʿṣūm al-Madanī in Anwār al-Rabīʿ, and Jurjānūs Farḥāt in Bulūgh al-Arab.[4]
References
- ↑ a b c W. P. Heinrichs, ‘Rhetorical Figures’, in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey (London: Routledge, 1998), 658, ISBN 0415068088. DOI: 10.4324/9780203020425
- ↑ a b c d e f g Aḥmad al-Hāshimī, Jawāhir al-Balāgha fī al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ (Windsor: Hindāwī Foundation, 2019), 376, ISBN 9781527316386.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 464.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Atīq, ʿIlm al-Badīʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2002), 158-160.
Page history
- 2026-02-10 - Migration to Semantic Device Identifiers: Renamed from CE-5: Grouping Then Dividing to GRPDIV: Grouping Then Dividing.
- 2025-11-20 - Page incorporated into the Arabic Rhetorical Device Taxonomy (v0.1.1).
- 2025-04-14 - Page created: Grouping Then Dividing.
