Abstract:

The concept of al- badī‘, which means rhetoric until the third century Hijri, later became synonymous with the science of al-Balāgha, including the ʿIlm al-maʿānī and ʿIlm al-bayān. In the seventh century Hijri, it is seen that this term, in its current form, was used as the upper title of literary arts that beautify the word. In this study, the definitions, classifications, and sub-titles of ten of the Arabic rhetoric books written in the modern period were examined. It has been observed that some of the al-badī‘ arts, which reached more than a hundred numbers in the classical period, were included in modern rhetoric books and the authors were selective in this regard. In this research, it is aimed to bring together different perspectives on the current state of the ʿIlm al- badī‘ and to compare the definitions, classifications and different numbers of badī‘ arts by modern Arab rhetoric writers. The fact that a similar study was not found in modern Arabic rhetoric before this research, which was based on chronological order, was one of the issues that made the research important. The authors of modern Arabic rhetoric have largely adhered to the understanding of ʿIlm al- badī‘, which was shaped by Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sakkākī (d. 626/1229) Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī (d. 739/1338) in the classical period, in their definitions and classifications of ʿIlm al- badī‘.

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