In this podcast Ehab and Mohamed proffer a glimpse of a domain which European Arabists have neglected for many years (cf. G. Ueding, Rhetorik, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2005, p. 284). It might be useful to set up a link with the podcast entitled “Letter from granddad”. To my knowledge this is the only other podcast in which the term “balagha” (ﺒﻼﻏﺔ has been used. “Balagha” means “eloquence”, and “’ilm al-balagha” (ﺍﻠﺒﻼﻏﺔ ﻋﻠﻢ is the Arabic equivalent of “rhetoric”.

Since the subject of this challenging new podcast is the use of metaphorical language (ﻜﻨﺎﻴﺔ, it might be profitable to examine a metaphorical phrase which Mohamed’s grandfather uses in his letter. That phrase is “musalahiin bil’ilm”. “Musalahiin” (ﻤﺴﻠﺤﻴﻦ literally means “armed”, but in the present instance it is used figuratively. When we are told that a person is “armed with knowledge” a metaphorical image imposes itself upon our imagination. The person becomes a soldier, his knowledge a weapon.

At first sight, this metaphorical expression might seem original, but, as Terence said, “nullumst iam dictum quod non sit dictum prius” (Nothing has yet been said that has not been said earlier. [Eunuchus, Prologus, v. 41]). If we were to run a Google search we would in all likelihood discover that the phrase under discussion is a cliché – one of those defunct metaphors which have fallen into the public domain.

I don’t know who coined this metaphor, but the fact that it has found its way into many different languages suggests that it is very old. The Latin equivalent of “musalahiin bil’ilm” is “multa eruditione praeditus”, which literally means “equipped with much knowledge”. “Equipped” isn’t the same as “armed”, so the image conveyed by the Latin expression is not necessarily that of a soldier.

By contrast, there are closely parallel expressions in English, French and German. Thus, for instance, we can say “Armed with this knowledge, you can finally sit in the car […]” (The Guardian 14.11.1996: 16), “le disciple, armé de connaissances” or “mit vielseitigen Kenntnissen gerüstet”. (The sources of the French and German examples can be found on the Net) A closer examination of such word combinations reveals a marked tendency to qualify the noun denoting knowledge. In English, for instance, we find adjectives like “encyclopaedic” (“armed with an encyclopaedic knowledge”), demonstrative pronouns like “this” and “that” (e.g. “armed with that knowledge”) and subordinate clauses introduced by “that” (e.g. “armed with the knowledge that […]”. In French we find adjectives like “solide” (e.g. armé de connaissances solides), and in German we find adjectives like “vielseitig” or “profund” (e.g. “mit profunden Kenntnissen gerüstet”).

Since Arabicpod listeners come from the four corners of the globe (another defunct metaphor!) and speak a wide variety of languages, they might be able to provide more detailed information about the origin or the distribution of the metaphor I have analysed here.

In conclusion I’d like to mention a somewhat bothersome software problem I have repeatedly encountered. When I write an Arabic word combination from right to left and copy it into the box reserved for comments the order of the words is automatically reversed. As a result, my readers get the impression that I do not know how Arabic is written. Does anyone know how to resolve this problem?

We love your contributions Desmond, very informative.

With regards to the issue you have when copying Arabic and it getting reversed, It sounds like the software you’re using might not have right-to-left support. We can try to help fix the problem if you tell us the name of the software

Ya Shabab I've noticed none of the Advanced lessons show up on the podcast. Any idea why that is? Is it easy to fix?

Ahlan ya abu ashabab Jookieapc, I presume you mean the RSS & iTunes feeds. The reason why the advanced lessons don’t show up, is because we’re not sure how to mix Arabic and English text together in one RSS feed. The feed complains when we do this, but we will research a solution and see if we can come with one in the near future

Ok great, thanks Moshaya. You don't want to just have the plain English for the Advanced lessons in Arabic? Anyway, I think somehow there will be a way. feeds.aljazeera.net/video/bilalhodood has some podcast listings in Arabic and some in English.

the saying is from naghal balagha the book of saying s and history and words of wisdom by imam ali as and his khutaba it is it has a deep spirtual meaning the saying when your intellect increases your speech decreases very deep spitual meaning hardn to be explained in a short time.