Linguopoetic Analysis of the Shawāhid in Ibn Manẓūr’s Lisān al-‘Arab

Ibn Manẓūr's multidisciplinary dictionary Lisān al-'arab (13th cent.) is of great importance in terms of linguopoetic issues. The purpose of this article is to shed light on some linguopoetic aspects by analyzing a number of examples of poetry, shāhid bayts (shawāhid), used by Ibn Manẓūr. Determining the role of shāhid bayts for philological studies in the medieval scientific environment is also among the objectives of the article. The article has a multidisciplinary character: alongside the literary and grammatical issues, the cultural-historical and mythic-religious problems are discussed here as well. The paper examines the bayts containing the words used in the Accusative case (al-manṣūbāt). The author argues, with the intertextual approach, that the medieval Arabic explanatory dictionaries are of great value as literary sources because they cover tens of thousands of bayts. The shāhid bayts are the unique Arabic literary tradition which has not yet received its deserved attention in Western scholarship. They contain information on the mystical thoughts, ideology, and worldview of the ancient Arabs and explain important linguopoetic issues. Grammarians played the main role in the formation of the concept of shāhid as a term. Since the Arabic language was the medium that ensured the development of all sciences in the Middle Ages and carried the burden of this common development on its shoulders, at the initial stage books related to grammar, which is a part of literary sciences, were mostly written. Among literary sciences, the first developing field of science was Arabic grammar. In all the books dedicated to this field, the main source, the mean to prove the idea, the correctness of the rule, consists of poetic examples or shāhid bayts related to Arabic poetry. Shāhid bayts, which were subsequently applied to other areas of Quranic science, actually became one of the main tools ensuring the formation and development of medieval science.