A Critical Edition Of Al-Tabari’s Badi’iyyah Entitled Ashraf Al-Bishr Bi-Madh Ashraf Al-Bashar

Abstract

This study presents a critical edition of the Badi`iyya manuscript entitled Eşrefü'l-Beşer'i Medheden Eşrefü'l-Beşer, composed in the 11th century AH in Mecca by `Abd al-Q & amacr;dir b. Muhammad al-Tabari al-Makki (d. 1033 AH/1623 AD). The research aims to investigate al-Tabari's contributions to Arabic rhetorical terminology, analyze the poetic application of Badi` devices within the text, and present the manuscript in a reliable scholarly form. Adopting a descriptive and comparative methodology, the study relies on classical rhetorical sources for textual emendation and verification (dabc). A significant finding of this research lies in the manuscript's prose introduction, which provides concise definitions for over one hundred rhetorical terms, reflecting the scholarly conventions of the late rhetorical school. The study reveals that al-Tabari systematically integrated these devices into a unified poem following the basic meter and a single rhyme, successfully bridging theoretical exposition with practical poetic illustration. The edition, based on the sole extant manuscript, addresses scribal errors through contextual evidence and established literature. The study concludes that this Badi`iyya serves as a vital primary source for tracing the evolution of late Arabic rhetorical traditions and the development of the Badi`iyy & amacr;t genre.