"Al-Basṭ" البسط | Sourced form my forthcoming book, “THE MANFALUTIAN CHRESTOMATHIC FLORILEGIUM”

Описание: The Text of this Video is taken from my forthcoming book, “THE MANFALUTIAN CHRESTOMATHIC FLORILEGIUM: An English Translation of ‘Mukhtārāt Al-Manfalūṭī:’ Edited & Anthologized Originally in Arabic by Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti; Rendered & Annotated by Mohamed Abulinein (Under processing & In Striving Search of a Potential Publisher or Patronage, and under whose aegis, and at whose disposal it would be).

Given the fact that that both of ’ījāz and ’iṭnāb form a conceptual pair in Arabic literary theory and balāghic tradition, denoting respectively “brevity/ concision/ laconism/ brachylogy” on the one hand, and “verbosity/ prolixity/ circumlocution/ periphrasis” on the other hand, the very terminus-technicus, basṭ, is, in its own turn, stands as an Arabic rhetorical technique that is in contrariety to al-’ījāz, and is something other than al-’iṭnāb.

By basṭ, it is purported acceptationally and epexegetically in balāghic discourse that many a discourse-conveyor, or just a discourser, would apply himself/ herself to reveal the one and same meaning and/ or conceit that could have been signified by employing a modicum of lexical items or verbal expressions (i.e., words, or chains of words—verba singula, or verba coniuncta (sentence-continua)), and would rather howbeit multiply the same by means of a plethora of lexical items or verbal expressions in moreness than that which is usually required in order for himself/ herself to import other added meanings and/or conceits, by means of which this very discourse-conveyor (or discourser) would render the very discourse to be more augmentatively elegant, concinnous, and felicitous.

Such an augmentation of discoursal elegance, concinnity and felicity would not have taken place, had it not been for such instantialities of basṭ (i.e., expository verbosity) by dint of employing a plethora of lexical items or verbal expressions; e.g., al-Buḥturī versified as follows:

أخْجَلْتَني بِنَدَى يَدَيْكَ فسَوَّدَتْ  مَا بَينَنا تِلْكَ اليَدُ البَيْضَاءُ
صِلَةٌ غَدَتْ في النّاسِ وَهِيَ قَطِيعَةٌ  عَجَبًا وَبِرٌّ رَاحَ وهُوَ جَفاءُ

’akhjaltanī bi-nadá yadayka fa-sawwadat
mā baynanā tilka l-yadu l-bayḍā’u
ṣilatun ghadat fī n-nāsi wa-hiyā qaṭī‘atun
‘ajaban wa-birrun rāḥa wa-huwa jafā’u

Thou madest me blush by dint of thy whitened
upper hand and generosity,
whereby the reach between us was blackened
by dint of such a favor.
It is such an openhandedly-granted and bestowingly-lavished
gift of reunion went forth among people
albeit there is being a rift in relations. Ugh!!!
It is naught but such an act of openheartedness
that went back albeit being met in offishness.