Rejected Rhetorical Devices

    From The Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric

    Introduction

    The Arabic rhetorical tradition contains many named phenomena and classificatory labels used in manuals, commentaries, and works on poetry and rhetoric. Not every source-attested label, however, is sufficiently distinct, bounded, or operational to be represented as an independently annotatable rhetorical device in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric.

    Principle 1 and Principle 2 of the Encyclopedia's Design Principles govern which rhetorical devices are included. These principles are operationalised through the Inclusion Criteria, which determine whether a source-attested candidate can function as a distinct and reliably annotatable device.

    This page records candidate Arabic rhetorical phenomena that have been encountered and considered during development of the Encyclopedia but are not currently included as independent rhetorical devices. Their presence here does not deny their existence, historical importance, or rhetorical value. Rather, the page records the methodological disposition reached during the Encyclopedia's research and verification process. It reflects a methodological decision aimed at taxonomic stability and reliable annotation.

    The status of a candidate is not necessarily permanent. Subsequent source evidence or taxonomic analysis may justify reconsideration. Stable candidate identifiers are therefore retained even if a candidate's status later changes.

    List of rejected devices

    Astonishment (al-taʿajjub)[1]

    Definition
    When an expression of astonishment, amazement, surprise, or exclamation is used for a pragmatic effect.
    Reason for rejection
    • The device is attested in relatively few of the sources examined
    • The device does not have a defined linguistic operation.
    Rejection category
    Insufficient sources (Criterion 1); No linguistic operation (Criterion 2)
    Date
    16 August 2026

    Chronogram (al-taʾrīkh)[2]

    Definition
    A word or combination of words the numerical equivalents of which add up to the year one wishes to specify.
    Reason for rejection
    • The device is attested in relatively few of the sources examined
    • The sources do not attest to any rhetorical effects caused by this device.
    Rejection category
    Insufficient sources (Criterion 1); No rhetorical effects (Criterion 4)
    Date
    16 August 2026

    Flowing Identification (al-iṭṭirād)[3]

    Definition
    In a single verse, give the praised person's name, laqab, kunya, descriptive title, father's name, grandfather's name, tribe, etc., in their proper genealogical order, as many as possible, without awkwardness or intrusive wording.
    Reason for rejection
    • The device is attested in relatively few of the sources examined
    • The sources do not attest to any rhetorical effects caused by this device.
    Rejection category
    Insufficient sources (Criterion 1); No rhetorical effects (Criterion 4)
    Date
    16 August 2026

    Lipogram (al-ḥadhf)[4]

    Definition
    "Denying oneself the use of a letter of the alphabet or more, or of all the dotted or undotted letters, or having alternate words consisting entirely of dotted and undotted letters, and so on."[5]
    Reason for rejection
    • The device is attested in relatively few of the sources examined
    • The sources do not attest to any rhetorical effects caused by this device.
    Rejection category
    Insufficient sources (Criterion 1); No rhetorical effects (Criterion 4)
    Date
    15 August 2026

    Lisping (al-taṣḥīḥ aw al-muntaḥal)[6]

    Definition
    Compose an utterance whose words remain meaningful if systematically mispronounced by someone with a particular speech defect.
    Reason for rejection
    • The device is attested in relatively few of the sources examined, and this is confirmed by Cachia
    • The sources do not attest to any rhetorical effects caused by this device.
    Rejection category
    Insufficient sources (Criterion 1); Does not involve a cognitive relationship (Criterion 3); No rhetorical effects (Criterion 4)
    Date
    16 August 2026

    Al-idmāj (الإدماج)[7][8]

    Definition
    A statement expressed for one primary meaning simultaneously contains another meaning that is not explicitly stated. The secondary meaning is embedded within the primary expression and is understood through context, association, or rhetorical intention without separate articulation.
    Reason for exclusion
    • The device is found in very few sources.
    • The mechanism is not defined with sufficient structural precision to distinguish it reliably from other devices such as Simile, Metaphor, Allegory and Implicit Reference, or from general implied meaning.
    Alternative annotation to be considered
    Simile, Metaphor, Allegory, Implicit Reference.

    Al-istitbāʿ (الاستتبع)[9]

    Definition
    Rather than only one statement of praise or criticism, the communicator links together two or more related statements of praise or criticism. This creates a more intense rhetorical effect.
    Reason for exclusion
    • The device is found in very few sources.

    Al-istihzāʾ (الاستهزاء)[10]

    Definition
    The communicator indirectly rebukes someone by saying something positive while meaning the opposite.
    Reason for exclusion
    • While well-recognised as a rhetorical effect, Sarcasm operates through evaluative reversal that depends upon other underlying mechanisms such as Antithesis. Since the Encyclopedia classifies only those phenomena that introduce a distinctive and reproducible structural transformation of linguistic or semantic structure, Sarcasm is treated as an effect arising from shared mechanisms rather than as a standalone rhetorical device.
    Alternative annotation to be considered
    Antithesis, Metaphor.

    Al-taslīm al-khaṭābī / Epitrope (التسليم الخطابي)[11]

    Definition
    A rhetorical device in which the speaker appears to concede to an opponent's accusation or argument, only to follow it with a justification, mitigating explanation, or rebuttal. The goal is often to soften opposition or redirect the audience's judgment.
    Reason for exclusion
    • Rhetorical Concession is an argumentative technique rather than a rhetorical device. It is not found in classical sources of Arabic rhetoric.

    Al-īghāl (الإيغال)[12]

    Definition
    A type of hyperbole (mubālagha) specific to rhyming positions (qawāfī), occurring in poetry and rhymed prose equally. The term derives either from al-ibʿād ("going far"), in the sense that the poet has gone to the furthest extreme in hyperbole, or from surʿat al-dukhūl fī al-shayʾ ("rapid entry into something"), in the sense that he hastens into hyperbole at the rhyme. It was distinguished from al-mubālagha generally by Qudāma ibn Jaʿfar, who defined it as the poet's completing his verse's meaning before arriving at the rhyme, then using the rhyme to add a further meaning beyond what the verse already contained. Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī defined it as the full rendering of the speech's meaning before the end of the clause, followed at the clause's end by an additional meaning that increases clarity, elaboration, and reinforcement. True īghāl is what the meaning itself demands and what the speech requires for completion of the poem's rhyme or prose fāṣila; any completion that the poet or prose-writer contrives artificially does not count as īghāl from the standpoint of maʿnā.
    Reason for exclusion
    • The device is found in very few sources.

    Al-muwāzana (الموازنة)[13]

    Definition
    A type of embellishment occurring in both prose and verse, consisting in the metrical equivalence of the closing words (fawāṣil) of two parallel clauses or cola without requiring rhyme. In prose, the fawāṣil of consecutive clauses must be metrically equal; in verse, the first and second hemistichs must be metrically equal word-for-word. It differs from sajʿ in that sajʿ additionally requires the fawāṣil to share a terminal rhyme-letter, making sajʿ the more specific category: every sajʿ is a muwāzana, but not every muwāzana is sajʿ.
    Reason for exclusion
    • The device is found in very few sources.

    Luzūm Mā Lā Yalzam (لزوم ما لا يلزم)[14]

    Definition
    A type of embellishment occurring equally in prose and verse, in which the writer or poet voluntarily commits, before the rhyme-letter (ḥarf al-rawī) or the prose fāṣila, to one or more additional letters that are not technically required. It is also called al-iltizām. Al-Qazwīnī defined it as the poet or prose-writer bringing, before the rhyme-letter or fāṣila, something that is not obligatory in sajʿ. The device is considered among the most difficult of verbal embellishments to produce, yet when it arises spontaneously — with the meaning leading the writer to the form rather than the form leading to the meaning — it counts among the finest qualities of speech.
    Reason for exclusion
    • The device is found in very few sources.

    Al-tatmīm (التتميم)[15]

    Definition
    A type of embellishment first identified by Ibn al-Muʿtazz, who called it iʿtirāḍ ("parenthetical interjection"). Qudāma ibn Jaʿfar later named it al-tatmīm and defined it as the poet's mentioning of the conditions (aḥwāl) by which a meaning is completed and its soundness perfected, such that nothing arrives except through that mention. Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī further developed the definition and added the alternative name al-takmīl, defining it as the full rendering of the meaning its due share of quality and soundness, leaving no meaning ungiven its completeness except through a word that reinforces it. It occurs in two types: tatmīm maʿnawī (semantic completion), which serves the purposes of hyperbole and precaution; and tatmīm lafẓī (metrical completion), which serves to complete the metre, the better variety of which simultaneously contributes an additional embellishment such as muṭābaqa. The device is distinguished from al-īghāl, which completes a poem's meaning at its rhyme and adds a further benefit beyond what the meaning required.
    Reason for exclusion
    • The device is found in very few sources.

    References

    1. ↑ Ayman Amin Abd Al-Ghani, Al-Kāfī fī al-Balāgha: Al-Bayān, wa al-Badiʿ wa al-Maʿānī (Cairo: Dār al-Tawfīqiyya lil-Turāth, 2011), 264-269.
    2. ↑ Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), pp. 42-43; §63, ISBN 9783447040327.
    3. ↑ Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), pp. 43; §64, ISBN 9783447040327.
    4. ↑ Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), pp. 39-40; §60, ISBN 9783447040327.
    5. ↑ Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), p. 39, ISBN 9783447040327.
    6. ↑ Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), pp. 41-42; §61, ISBN 9783447040327.
    7. ↑ Ḥafnī Nāṣif, Muḥammad Diyāb, Sultan Muḥammad and Muṣṭafā Ṭammām, Durūs al-Balāgha (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012), 107, ISBN 9786144162798.
    8. ↑ Aḥmad al-Hāshimī, Jawāhir al-Balāgha fī al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ (Windsor: Hindāwī Foundation, 2019), 368, ISBN 9781527316386.
    9. ↑ Ḥafnī Nāṣif, Muḥammad Diyāb, Sultan Muḥammad and Muṣṭafā Ṭammām, Durūs al-Balāgha (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012), 107-108, ISBN 9786144162798.
    10. ↑ Hussein Abdul-Raof, Arabic Rhetoric: A Pragmatic Analysis (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), 256, ISBN 9780415386098. DOI: 10.4324/9780203965399
    11. ↑ Hussein Abdul-Raof, Arabic Rhetoric: A Pragmatic Analysis (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), 250, ISBN 9780415386098. DOI: 10.4324/9780203965399
    12. ↑ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Atīq, ʿIlm al-Badīʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2002), 112-117.
    13. ↑ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Atīq, ʿIlm al-Badīʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2002), 239–241.
    14. ↑ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Atīq, ʿIlm al-Badīʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2002), 232–239.
    15. ↑ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Atīq, ʿIlm al-Badīʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2002), 117-122.

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