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Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

Nam
(2,010 words)

1. In metrical speech. Literally meaning stringing (pearls, beads, etc.), in early Abbsid times
nam acquired the meaning of versifying, versification, and became almost synonymous
with poetry, sh ir [q.v.], especially when contrasted with prose, nath r , literally scattering.
The comparison of a poem to a necklace, or verses to pearls, is apt in view of the relative
independence of the individual verses, held together on the string of the uniform metre and
rhyme. The image has pre-Abbsid origins, and although the noun nam was not used in the
sense of verse until later (and udma b. D jafar [q.v.] still does not do so in his poetics), at
least the related verb had already been used, when the 1st/7th century poet al-Nad j sh said
Sa-animu min urri l-kalmi adatan I shall string/compose an ode of noble speech (altim, ilyat al-muara , Bag h dd 1979, i, 426). Yet Ab Nuws [q.v.] could still speak, in an
ode addressed to al-Amn, of my scattering ( nath r ) pearls on you ( Dwn , ed. Wagner, i,
241). The many discussions on the relative merits of prose and poetry regularly employ the
terms nam and nath r (on this debate, see e.g. Ziyad al-Zub, Das Verhltnis von Poesie und
Prosa in der arabischen Literatur-theorie des Mittelalters , Berlin 1987). Not rarely, however, a
distinction is made between sh ir as true poetry and nam as merely versifying, i.e. either
prosodically correct but unintentionally bad poetry, or didactive verse (see e.g. Is b.
Ibrhm b. Wahb, al-Burhn , Cairo 1969, 130; Ibn K h aldn, The Muqaddimah , tr. F. Rosenthal,
Princeton 1967, iii, 381-2).
(G.J.H. van Gelder)

2. In urnic studies. Here, the arrangement of pearls on a string is used metaphorically to

indicate ordering of words- cum -meanings, i.e. composition (note that talf is sometimes
used synonymously with nam), or, more freely, the style of the urn. In this sense it is
closely connected with the discussions of the dogma of id j z al-urn [q.v.]; more
particularly, it is evidently the backbone of the conception of id j z as stylistic inimitability
of the urn.
The first known work devoted to this notion is the K. fi l-itid j d j li-nam al-urn wasalmatih min al-ziyda wa l-nun of al-D ji (d. 255/868-9 [q.v.]), which is unfortunately
lost (Ch. Pellats reference in Nouvel essai dinventaire de luvre iienne , in Arabica , xxxi
[1984], 117ff., no. 191, to a ms. copy of this work preserved in the Escorial library is erroneous,
see J. van Ess, Theologie , vi, 314). The work is usually cited with the brief title Nam al-urn .
Al-h ayy describes it as follows: No book is known concerning the argument for the wellorderedness (nam) and the wondrous composition of the urn, and that it is proof for the
prophethood of MuammadGod bless him, except the book of al-D ji ( al-Intir , ed.
A.N. Nader [Beirut 1957], 111). This description contains all the elements of the id j z concept,
as generally adopted later. Al-D ji radically breaks with the arfa notion of his teacher alNam [q.v.], who did not believe that the composition of the urn was stylistically
unattainable and who thought that Muammads pagan contemporaries, challenged to
produce something like a sra, were turned away by God from carrying out this task.
Claude Audebert has compiled a list of works on nam up to the time of al-K h ab, eight in
all ( al-ab , 58-61). The most explicit titleand mostly we have but titlesis the one
given to the Mutazil al-Wsis (d. 306/918 or 307/919) book: K. Id j z al-urn f namih watalfih (ibid., 59). It states the connection between id j z and nam and the near-synonymity of
nam and talf It is remarkable that the authors of these works are partly mutakallimn and
partly traditionists.
Al-h ab (d. 386/996 or 388/998 [q.v.]), in his treatise Bayn id j z al-urn , postulates a
triad of elements that make up speech ( kalm ), namely, lafun milun wa-manan bih
imun wa-ribun lahum nim words as carriers, meaning subsisting in them, and a
connection that orders both of them (ed. M. h alaf Allh and M.Z. Salm, 24 l. 11; tr.
Audebert, al-ab, 120, cf. also 87). The third element is usually called nam; al-K h ab not
infrequently also uses the plural num to refer to the syntactic-stylistic structures or
molds (this plural is not in the dictionaries). In all three elements the urn is the superior
text, as the continuation of the quoted passage says. The workings of nam are several times
metaphorically characterised (the various types of ordering [ rusm al-nam ] are a bridle
on the words and a rein on the meanings [ lid j m al-alf wa-zimm al-man ]; cf. ed., 33; tr.

128), but not defined and explicitly discussed. A large part of al-h abs Bayn is devoted to
linguistic-stylistic criticisms (i.e. criticisms of the nam) of urnic passages by others,
followed by the authors refutation (al-ab, 97-102).
Al-Billn (d. 403/1013 [q.v.]), in his Id j z al-urn , lists the excellent nam of the urn as
the third reason for its inimitability (after [1] prophesysing passages, and [2] the illiteracy of
the Prophet, which proves Divine instruction about creation, etc.). He enumerates ten aspects
of this nam: (1) The urn is sui generis as a literary genre (35). (2) The Arabs had not
produced any eloquent text of such enormous length (36). (3) The urn is homogeneously
eloquent in all its subgenres ( wujh ), such as narratives, admonitions, argumentations, etc.,
whereas a poet may excel in panegyrics but not in invective, or vice versa (36-8). (4) The
smooth transition from one topic to the next in the urn is unrivalled (38). (5) Not only man
is unable to produce anything similar to it, but so are the jinn (38-41). (6) All stylistic and
rhetorical possibilities occur in the urn (42). (7) Expressing new ideas, rather than wellworn ones, with beautiful words is the highest level of language mastership ( bara ); this the
urn does when it speaks about legal and religious matters (42). (8) When a urnic phrase
is quoted, it stands out in its new textual surrounding through its beauty (42-4). (9) The
mysterious letters at the beginning of twenty-eight sras show an amazingly regular
selection of phonemes, when measured against the various groups of phonemes that the
grammarians have established (44-6). (10) The style of the urn is easy though impossible to
imitate ( arban il l-afhmi yubdiru manhu l-lafa il l-alb wa-huwa maa d h lika
mumtaniu l-malab ); it is equally distant from lexical uncouthness ( wash ) and
unusualness ( g h arb ) [q.vv.], on the one hand, and from affected artfulness ( al-ana almutakkallafa ), on the other (46).
The list clearly shows that al-Billn is not interested in the micro-analysis of what
constitutes nam, nor does he establish, as al-K h ab does, the strict correlation between
nam and the two other elements of speech, words and meaning. He focuses more on the
overall linguistic-literary quality of the urnic text.
Abd al-hir al-D jurd j n (d. 471/1078 or 474/1081 [q.v. in Suppl.]), in his Dalil al-id j z
(Proofs for the Inimitability), comes again closer to al-K h ab, who may be called his
precursor in matters of nam. But al-D jurd j n surpasses him by far. Over hundreds of pages
he subjects urnic phrases, or syntactic phenomena in general, to the most painstaking
semantic analysis and thus manages to fill the notion of nam with real content. He defines it
as tawakh kh man l-naw (minding the meanings of syntactic relations). The syntacticsemantic phenomena discussed include inter alia: word order ( tadm wa-takh r ), ellipsis (
ad h f ), syndetic and asyndetic coordination ( wal wa-fal ), and the various functions of the
sentence-initial particle inna (see also Weisweiler, in Bibl .)

The ordering (nam) creates a specific shape/form ( ra ) for a general g h ara (intention)
in the mind and, parallel to it, in the language; the meaning ( man ) and the
expression/wording ( laf ) of a proposition ( kalm ) thus become mirror images. The
inherited but, according to al-D jurd j n, misunderstood dichotomy laf-man is thus
reinterpreted: the wording (laf) is no longer a garment for a naked man. The two are
inseparable, no meaning can be expressed by two wordings equally well; the two
wordings would express two different meanings.
K. Abu Deeb ( Poetic imagery , 24-64) and, more recently, N. Kermani ( Gott ist schn , 253-84,
esp. 264, and n. 144) have argued that, with many of his deep-cutting analyses, al-D jurd j n is a
precursor of modern semanticists or even on a par with them. As a whole, his book is indeed
highly original but not very well arranged. Fakh r al-Dn al-Rz (d. 606/1209 [q.v.]) and alSakkk (d. 626/1229 [q.v.]) later turned his ideas into a textbook format, thus creating the
discipline called ilm al-man (i.e. man l-naw ) [see MAN WA-BAYN ].
All authors so far discussed restrict the notion of nam to single urnic or poetic phrases
(lines, verses). Ibn Rash (d. 456/1063 or 463/1071 [q.v.]), in his handbook on poetry, includes a
chapter on nam, in which this notion has at times a wider compass, referring as it does to the
cohesion of consecutive lines ( Umda , i, 258-63). A similar approach to structures within a
sra can sometimes be found in books on the urn. Al-K h ab al-Iskf (d. 421/1030), in his
exegetical work Durrat al-tanzl wa-g h urrat al-tawl f bayn al-yt al-mutash biht f Kitb
Allh al-azz (Beirut 1995), several times tries to do just that: a knitting of part to part, as
Hamori calls it ( Iskf , 40-2). Some scholars seem to have gone even further and asked about
the meaning of the place, within the urn, of individual sras. Al-Zarkash (d. 794/1392 [q.v.])
mentions one Ab Bakr al-Nsbr, who whenever the Koran was read to him, used to ask:
Why is this verse put next to that one? For what reason does this sra stand next to that one?
(G.J. van Gelder, Beyond the line, Leiden 1982, 100; the author suggests that we are possibly
dealing here with Abu l-sim [!] al-asan b. Muammad al-Nisbr, who wrote a Kitb alTanzl wa-tartbih , see n. 214). However, al-Zarkash also mentions that this subject did not
attract much attention ( al-Burhn f ulm al-urn , ed. M.A. Ibrhm, Cairo 1972, i, 36).
In the modern period this has changed. In the Indian subcontinent we find amd al-Dn
Abd al-amd Farh (d. 1349/1930) and his disciple Amn Asan Il (d. 1997) upholding the
idea of the coherence (nam) of the urn on all levels (see M. Mir, Coherence , in Bibl.). The
main motivation behind this seems to be traditional Orientalist criticism of the urn that
stressed its structural incoherence on all levels. It should be noted that in more modern
Western literary approaches the perceived incoherence is considered to be rather one of the
strengths of the Holy Book (see Kermani, Gott ist schn, 281).

(W.P. Heinrichs)

Bibliography
1. Texts. K h ab, Bayn id j z al-urn, ed. Muammad K h alaf Allh and Muammad
Zag h ll Salm, in T h alth rasil f id j z al-urn, Cairo n.d., 19-65, tr. C.F. Audebert, alab et linimitabilit du Coran: traduction et introduction au Bayn iz al-urn,
Damascus 1982
Billn, Kitb Id j z al-urn, ed. al-Sayyid Amad ar, Cairo 1963, 35-48
Abd al-hir al-D jurd j n, Dalil al-id j z, ed. Mamd Muammad Sh kir, Cairo 1404/1984
Ibn Rash , al-Umda f masin al-sh ir wa-dbih, ed. M.A.A. A, 2 pts., Beirut 1422/2001.
2. Studies. J. van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. Eine
Geschichte des religisen Denkens im frhen Islam, 6 vols., Berlin New York 1991-7
Kamal Abu Deeb, Al-Jurjns theory of poetic imagery, Warminster, Wilts. 1979
Navid Kermani, Gott ist schn. Das sthetische Erleben des Koran, Munich 1999
Amad Ab Zayd, Muqaddima fi l-ul al-fikriyya li l-balg h a wa-id j z al-urn, Rabat
1409/1989, 51-122
Andras Hamori, Did medieval readers make sense of form? Notes on a passage of al-Iskf, in
A.H. Green (ed.), In quest of an Islamic humanism. Arabic and Islamic studies in memory of
Mohamed al-Nowaihi, Cairo 1985, 39-47
Mustansir Mir, Coherence in the Qurn. A study of Ils concept of nam in Tadabbur-i
Qurn, Indianapolis 1986.
Cite this page
van Gelder, G.J.H. and Heinrichs, W.P., Nam, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van
Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 06 January 2017 <http://dx.doi.org.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_8857>
First published online: 2012
First print edition: ISBN: 9789004161214, 1960-2007