ar-Rummānī on Eloquence (balāġa)

The article examines a short treatise by Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā ar-Rummānī (d. 384/994) on the dogma of inimitability of the Quran: an-Nukat fī iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān (Questions pertaining to the inimitability of the Quran). In this text, ar-Rummānī discusses and presents the arguments commonly used in the 10th century during the consolidation of this dogma. The significance of ar-Rummānī’s writing lies in his exploration of the dogmatic question: the miraculous nature, i.e. the inimitability (iʿǧāz) of the Quran by human beings. He asserts that this inimitability arises from the interaction between linguistic and stylistic devices and the message being communicated, resulting in a high-level linguistic formation (ṣūra). Ar-Rummānī’s criticism and argumentation mark a significant development, as evidenced by later works addressing stylistic-rhetorical issues (ʿilm al-balāġa). At the same time, due to the Quran’s nature, we witness a philological approach primarily aimed at interpreting a given text rather than creating a new one. This discussion of rhetorical-stylistic issues thus takes a different path in medieval Arabic writing compared to, for instance, Aristotle’s Rhetoric.