Majaz

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Madschāz ( Arabic مجاز, DMG maǧāz ) is a term used in Islamic Koranic exegesis , which initially referred to different types of explanations for the Koran text , but over time has developed into a term technicus for the tropical use of words. The contrast between the tropical use of a word ( Madschāz ) and the use of the word in the actual, non-figurative sense ( Haqīqa ) was particularly evident in the text hermeneutics of Muʿtazilitic theology and Islamic legal theory ( usūl al-fiqh ). Arabic rhetoric viewed majaz as a stylistic device and developed its own system of different majaz types. The Jewish-Arab exegesis of the Middle Ages also used the concept of the majaz.

Majāz at Abū ʿUbaida

The term majaz appears first in the context of the philological exegesis of the Koran, which strives to develop a linguistically correct interpretation of the sacred text. The meaning of the term majāz was initially not limited to tropes in the strict rhetorical sense, but generally encompassed all phrases that appeared in need of explanation in semantic , lexicographical or syntactic terms. The term appears in this broad meaning in the "Book of the Majāz of the Koran" ( Kitāb Maǧāz al-Qurʾān ) by Abū ʿUbaida Maʿmar ibn al-Muthannā (d. 824), the first philological commentary on the Koran. Abū ʿUbaida introduces many of his explanations of Quranic expressions with the formula "and his majāz is" ( wa-madschāzu-hū ). In examining Abū ʿUbaida's work, Wansbrough came to the conclusion that what is referred to here as majāz is either the addition of an elliptical expression or the dissolution of synthetic constructions. Because of this, he took the view that Madschāz in Abū ʿUbaida means "periphrastic exegesis". Almagor, who dealt with Abū ʿUbaida's work after Wansbrough, showed, however, that the term majāz often also serves to establish equivalence relationships between two different phrases belonging to different linguistic spheres. She explains the term majāz with recourse to the Arabic verb "dschāza, yadschūzu" as that which is possible or common in a certain linguistic sphere.

The majaz-haqīqa opposition

A contrast between the transferred meaning ( majāz ) and the actual meaning ( haqīqa ) of a text was probably first constructed in the circles of the Muʿtazilites in the 9th century . The Muʿtazilites needed this distinction in order to be able to defuse anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the Koran, which contradicted their abstract doctrine of God, as metaphorical expressions. The idea that God speaks in a figurative sense in the Qur'an, that is, refers to Madschāz, was later adopted by theologians and legal theorists from other disciplines . Even some followers of the Hanbali school, which in itself opposed the teachings of the Muʿtazila, advocated this doctrine, claiming that Ahmad ibn Hanbal himself had accepted the existence of Madschāz in the Koran. In order to theoretically underpin the opposition between Madschāz and Haqīqa , a separate theory of language was developed, according to which the primary meaning of words comes about through "placement" ( Wadʿ ) of a language community.

In the field of Islamic legal theory, the prevailing view was that the interpretation of the religious texts (Koran and Sunna ) first had to be based on the Haqīqa meaning of the words, because this precedes the Madschāz meaning. Only if it could be proven that the Haqīqa-meaning was not meant at the point could the interpretation be made to the Majāz-meaning.

However, there were also various Islamic scholars who completely rejected the distinction between Haqīqa and Madschāz. The most important of them was Ibn Taimiyya . In his book "The Faith" ( Al-Īmān ) he advocated the theory that the meaning of linguistic utterances is only constituted in the respective context and therefore a distinction between primary and secondary levels of meaning in words is not possible. According to him, what the correct meaning of a linguistic utterance is only results from the speaker's intention, which must be inferred by the Faqīh . M. Mohamed Yunis Ali has tried to show that Ibn Taimiya relies on arguments similar to modern pragmatics in justifying his position . However, Ibn Taimiyya also rejected the Haqīqa-Majāz distinction because, in his view, it represented an illegal innovation in the sense of a bidʿa .

Majaz classifications of Arabic rhetoric

The Arab rhetoricians , who regarded majaz as an important stylistic device, developed their own system of different types of majaz. ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurdschānī (d. 1078) introduced the distinction between madschāz ʿaqlī (" intellectual trope ") and madschāz lughawī ("lexical trope "). A madschāz ʿaqlī occurs when "an object is given a predicate that is not actually due to it, but only indirectly through its relationship to the true subject." As an example, the expression "your trade made no profit" is given in Sura 2:15, where the expression "trade" ( tiǧāra ) stands for the people involved. For the madschāz lughawī , however, a lexicographical basis must exist. Furthermore, the Madschāz distinguishes between simple ( mufrad ) and compound ( murakkab ) forms, and depending on whether the transferring meaning is based on a comparison or not, between istiʿāra (" metaphor ") and madschāz mursal ("detached majāz"). The Ashʿarite scholar Fachr ad-Din ar-Razi distinguished a total of twelve different types of majāz.

Conversely, the rhetorical majaz doctrine had an effect on the understanding of the Koran. The Shiite scholar al-Sharīf ar-Radī wrote a work on the various majāz forms of the Koran ( Talḫīṣ al-bayān fī maǧāzāt al-Qurʾān ) at the beginning of the 11th century in order to demonstrate the high aesthetic value and rhetorical model character of the Showing the Koran.

Madschāz in Jewish-Arab exegesis

Finally, the majaz concept also became effective in the Jewish-Arab exegesis of the Pentateuch . In the 10th and 11th centuries the Jewish scholars Saadia Gaon and Samuel ben Chofni resorted to it, and in the 12th century the scholar Moses ibn Esra , who lives in Granada, developed in the work "The Garden on the Significance of Majāz and Haqīqa" ( al - Maqāla bi-l-ḥadīqa fī maʿnā al-maǧāz wa-l-ḥaqīqa ) a comprehensive majāz theory of its own that included philosophical considerations.

See also : PaRDeS

literature

Arabic majaz literature
  • Abū ʿUbaida Maʿmar ibn al-Muṯannā: Majāz al-Qur'ān = A commentary of the Qur'an: from the point of view of stylistic grammar . Ed. Fuat Sezgin, Fabian Käs. Frankfurt / Main 2010.
  • Sharīf ar-Raḍī: Talḫīs al-bayān fī maǧāzāt al-Qurʾān . Cairo: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Kutub al-ʿArabīya 1955.
Studies
  • M. Mohamed Yunis Ali: Medieval Islamic Pragmatics. Sunni Legal Theorists' Models of Textual Communication. Richmond, Surrey 2000.
  • Kamal Abu Deeb: "Studies in the Majāz and Metaphorical Language of the Qurʾān: Abu ʿUbayda and al-Sharīf al-Raḍī." in Issa J. Boullata (ed.): Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur'an. Richmond, Surrey 2000. pp. 310-353.
  • Ella Almagor: "The Early Meaning of Majāz and the Nature of Abū ʿUbayda's Exegesis." In J. Blau, S. Pines, MJ Kister (eds.): Studia Orientalia memoriae DH Baneth dedicata. Jerusalem 1979. pp. 307-326.
  • Wolfhart Heinrichs: "On the Genesis of the Ḥaqīqa and Majāz Dichotomy" in Studia Islamica 59 (1984) 111-140.
  • Wolfhart Heinrichs: "Contacts between scriptural hermeneutics and literary theory in Islam: the case of majaz" in Zeitschrift fur Geschichte der Arab-Islamischen Wissenschaften. 7 (1991-92) 253-284.
  • Jasmin Henle: "Saadia's method of interpretation based on the maǧāz concept against the background of his conception of language" in Johannes Thon; Giuseppe Veltri and Ernst-Joachim Waschke (eds.): Language awareness and language concepts in the Old Orient, Old Testament and rabbinic Judaism . Hall 2012. pp. 211–231.
  • Benedikt Reinert: Art. "Ma dj āz" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. V, pp. 1025b-1026b.
  • John Wansbrough: "Majāz al-qur'ān: periphrastic exegesis" in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 33/2 (1970) 247-266.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Almagor 317.
  2. ↑ See Heinrichs 117.
  3. ↑ See Reinert 1026b.
  4. ↑ See Heinrichs 116f.
  5. ↑ See Heinrichs 116 and Ali 15-40.
  6. ↑ See Ali 71.
  7. ↑ See Wael Hallaq : Islamic Legal Theories. An Introduction to Sunni uṣūl al-fiqh. Cambridge 1997. pp. 42f.
  8. ↑ See Ali 105.
  9. ↑ See Heinrichs 117.
  10. ^ AF Mehren: The rhetoric of the Arabs . Copenhagen-Vienna 1853. p. 30.
  11. ↑ See Reinert 1026a.
  12. ↑ See Mehren 31.
  13. ↑ See Reinert 1026a.
  14. ↑ See Abu Deeb 339 and Reinert 1026b.
  15. ↑ See Henle's essay on this.
  16. ↑ See Paul B. Fenton : Philosophy et Exégèse dans le Jardin de la métaphore de Moïse Ibn 'Ezra, Philosophe et Poète Andalou du XIIe Siècle. Leiden 1997.