1.11.4
“The reason for this is that the inventor of this magnificent science was no sultan with the authority to force everyone to follow up on it and unceasingly pursue it. On the contrary, he was a just poor man who fell in love with the subject and whose heart God had made receptive to the laying out of its principles. Thus his eyes had only to fall on a particular thing for his mind to come up with a way of dealing with it. If, for example, he saw the sun rising, he’d say, ‘How are we to understand the “rising” of the sun here? Is it “literal” or “metaphorical,” and would the metaphor here be “conventional” or “linguistic”?’ Likewise, if he were to see green plants sprouting in the spring, he’d say, ‘How should we analyze the words of the one who said, “The spring caused the plants to sprout”? Can we correctly trace the sprouting back to the spring, which itself is born of the revolution of the earth around the sun, this revolution being without doubt a contributing factor? At the same time, however, there can be no doubt that the one who makes the earth revolve is God, Mighty and Majestic, in which case his words “the spring caused the plants to sprout” would be a two-step metaphor, for the spring is caused by the revolution of the earth and the revolution of the earth is caused by the ordinances of the Almighty Creator. The same applies to the expressions “the ship sails” or “the mare runs.”’192 There are also three- and four-step metaphors and some with more steps than the stairway of a minaret. Some of these stairways are smooth, some spiral, some winding, and others something else.
1.11.5
“The originator of this science went on thinking about these rhetorical figures until he came to the end of his life, and he died leaving much undecided. After him, another, similarly enamored, arose and fleshed out many areas left by his predecessor, continuing to debate with and contradict him until he too passed away, making room for others. Next came someone who reconciled the two with regard to a number of cases, while declaring them both at fault with regard to others, but he died without finishing what he’d set out to do, and after him another came along, who did to him what he’d done to the rest, and thus it is that the doors of criticism have remained open down to these days of ours. One will say, ‘This expression belongs to the category of “subordinate metaphorization,”’ while another will claim that it is ‘propositional.’ Certain scholars have said that metaphors may be divided into the literal and the analogical, the literal into the categorical and the presumptive, and the categorical firstly into the make-believe and the factual, secondly into the primary and the subordinate, and thirdly into the abstracted and the presumed, with some claiming that this last may be sub-divided into the aeolian,193 the ornitho-sibilant,194 the feebly chirping, the tongue-smacking,195 the faintly tinkling, the bone-snapping, the emptily thunderous, and the phasmic, while the aeolian itself may be sub-divided into the stridulaceous, the crepitaceous, and the oropharyngeal, the crepitaceous may be sub-sub-divided into the absquiliferous, the vulgaritissimous, the exquipilifabulous, the seborrhaceous, the squapalidaceous, and the kalipaceous, the crepitaceous into the panthero-dyspneaceous,196 the skrowlaceous197 and the skraaaghhalaceous,198 as well as the transtextual and the intertextual,199 and the oropharyngeal into the enteric, the dipteric, the vermiculo-epigastric, the intestinal, the audio-zygo-amatory, the anal-resonatory, the oro-phlebo-evacuative, the capro-audio-lactative, the ovo- (or assino-) audio-lactative, and other ‘may-besub-divideds.’ A book’s prologue200 is required to bring together all of these kinds of metaphor, just as attention should be paid, there and throughout, to the specific kind known as ‘opposition.’201 For example, if someone writes in a certain paragraph ‘he went up,’ in the next he has to write ‘he went down,’ and if he says ‘he ate’ he has to say afterward, without let up, ‘he vomited’ or ‘** ****.’ Over all, the prologue should be as difficult as possible to understand; a prologue that isn’t serves notice that the book as a whole is poorly written and not worth the reading.”
1.11.6
The pupil, who by now had turned pale, asked his teacher, “Did all the grammarians too die before completing the rules for that science? And does the fact that I’ve studied it at your hands relieve me of the need to go over it all again with someone else here? And is the student obliged to learn grammar as it is understood by the people of every country he travels to, or is it a science that has to be learned only once?” The shaykh told him, “As far as the first’s concerned, my response would be that the story of the rhetoricians is that of the grammarians. Al-Farrāʾ202 said, ‘I shall die still pondering the meaning of ḥattā,’203 and Sībawayhi died still unsure as to certain questions relating to when *nna should be realized as anna and when as inna.204 Al-Kisāʾī died of tetters he was so exercised over the difference between connective fāʾ, causative fāʾ, clarifying or deductive fāʾ, consequential fāʾ, and binding fāʾ,205 while al-Yazīdī206 died of a headache (and what a headache!) caused by connective wāw, resumptive wāw, affirmative wāw, supplemental wāw, and negative wāw.207 Al-Zamakhsharī died with ulcers on his liver from the differences between the right-related, ascriptive, proprietorial and semi-proprietorial, purposive, emphatic-negative, and other uses of lām,208 and al-Aṣmaʿī209 died with a goiter on his neck from worrying about the glottal stop. In sum, if a student wants to acquire an in-depth knowledge of just one of these particles, he will have to give up all other concerns and interests and devote himself to what has been said about it and the refutations thereof, which is why we have such proverbs as ‘You may give all of yourself to scholarship but it will give only part of itself to you.’
1.11.7
“As to your question whether you should study grammar with others than myself here, meaning in this country of ours, that will not be necessary. None of our countrymen have read any books other than the very one you are reading. Indeed, few are those who have read that and understood it or can apply its rules. As for your third question, I’d say that it is not necessary for you to go over the same science in every country. However, wherever you go and in whichever direction you head, you will find people who will criticize you for your way of speaking. Thus, if you use wāw, for example, they will say that fāʾ is the more correct, and if you use aw, they will say that am210 is preferable, while in some countries, if you put dots below the letter yāʾ in the words qāʾil or bāʾiʿ,211 you will lose all respect in people’s eyes. I read in some work of belles lettres that a certain scholar paid a visit to a friend of his who was sick in bed and caught sight of a notebook in which the word qāʾil was written with two dots below the yāʾ, so he turned on his heel and said to his companion, ‘We have wasted our steps in coming to see him.’