Role of medieval scientists in evolution of the science of balāǧat

Abstract

In development of Human civilization, besides the “exact” sciences, there was a strong demand
for the study of the Qur’ān which covered such issues as interpretation, jurisprudence, beliefs and
philology. The linguistic views covering theoretical and practical issues have developed in the structure of
the philological sciences as a set of multibranch and complex scientific theories like vocabulary,
morphology, syntax, the art of speech and its object of study has become the language, linguistic
phenomena and the speech, the expression of language. The language has been estimated as a system of
complex symbols.
The science of balāǧat (the art of speech) which considered in the system of philological sciences was
founded in the early 9th century by Abu Ubaidah Ma’mar (728-824) in the work “Majāz al-Qur’ān”
(Periphrastic Exegesis). During the following years this science improved itself and in 12th century a
scholarship from Kharezm Abu Yāqub Yusuf as-Sakkākī (1160-1229) joined the sciences ma‘ānī
(semisiology), bayān (exposition) and badī’ (arts of speech/literary arts) to a uniform system and called it
“the science of balāǧat”. This science is common among Arab, Persian and Turkic people and had been
taught as a discipline in the educational institutions of Central Asia including Uzbekistan until the
beginning of 19-20th centuries. The theoretical views of the science of balāǧat that was taught and
studied by our ancestors during several centuries are also topical in the modern linguistics.