Al-Khalil made good use of the peculiarities of Arabic script, in which the face of each word is a guide to the quantity of its syllable: one individual ‘moving’ consonant (harf mutaharrik), i.e. a consonant with a vowel sign (e.g. قَ , بِ) , corresponds to what we call a short syllable, and two consonants, of which the first is ‘moving’ and the second ‘quiescent’ (saakin) (e.g. قَدْ , لَوْ , في) , correspond to what we call a long syllable. There are only a few fixed spellings which fail to comply with this rule (e.g. آخَرُ = أاخَرُ , وَالْ = وَلْ , بٌ = بُنْ بِنْ , ذلِكَ = ذَالِكَ , قَتّلَ = قَتْتَلَ). Thanks to this pecularity of the Arabic script, Al-Khaliil was able to take the face of the verse as a basis for his treatment of Arabic metres. In order to be independent of the changing shape of the letters, graphic symbols were introduced, namely the symbol ? for the ‘quiescent’ and the symbol ? for the ‘moving’ consonant (e.g. قفا نبك = o
o
oo).
Both al-Hariiri and Ibn Khallikaan report that Al-Khaliil had noticed the different rhythms produced by the hammering in different copper-workshops in the bazaar in Basra, and that this gave him the idea of developing a science of metre, in other words, of determining the rhythm in the structure of the ancient poems. This late report agrees with the earlier one by Al-Dhahiz, who states that Al-Khaliil was the first to distinguish between different metres, that is to say, that he was the first who in listening had distinguished different rhythmic structures in the ancient verses, and that he was the first to analyse this rhythm, by dissecting it into its metric elements. His theory was supplemented in its details by later Arabic prosodists, but these additions made no difference to the basic conception. Even today, the 16 metres are still given in the very order in which Al-Khalil gives them, because it is only in this order that they can be united in the graphic presentation of the five metric circles (dawaa’ir , sg. daa’ira) .
According to him, every metre comes into being by the repetition of the 8 rhythmic feet which recur in definite distribution and sequence in all metres. The term applied to these feet is djuz’ , pl. adjzaa’ (“part”). In accordance with the common practice of Arabic grammarians, he represents each of these 8 “parts” by a mnemonic word, derived from the root f’l, of these eight mnemonics, 2 consist of five consonants each, namely: fa’uulun فعولن and faa’ilun فاعلن , 6 of seven consonants each, namely mafaa’ilun مفاعيلن , mustaf’ilun مستفعلن , faa’ilaatun فاعلاتن , mufaa’alatun مفاعَلَتن , mutafaa’ilun متفاعلن maf’uulatu مفعولاتُ. The following table of the 5 metric circles will clarify how the 16 metres are made up of these 8 feet. For the sake of clarity, the circles are opend out and given as straight lines, and only one hemistich is given in the rhythmical mnemonic words for each metre (see Circle 1-5, p. 670).
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ـ[سليمان أبو ستة]ــــــــ[28 - 11 - 2009, 08:19 م]ـ
Circle 1
Tawil
FA’U -lun MAFA -‘i- lun FA’U -lun MAFA -‘I -lun
Basit -‘ILUN fa -‘ILUN
mus -taf -‘ILUN fa -‘ILUN mus -taf-....
Madid -ILUN
fa -ILA -tun fa -‘ILUN fa -‘ILA -tun -fa….
Circle 2
Wafir
MUFA -‘ala -tun MUFA -‘ala -tun MUFA -ala -tun
Kamil -‘ILUN
muta -fa ILUN muta -fa -ILUN muta -fa-…
Circle 3
Hazadj
MAF? -‘i -lun MAF? -‘I lun -MAF? -‘I -lun
Radjaz -‘ILUN
mus -taf -‘ILUN mus -taf -‘ILUN mus -taf...
Ramal -‘IL? -tun
f? -‘IL? -tun f? -‘IL? -tun -f?-…
Circle 4
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