Argumentative Discourse in the Poetry of Muhammad Hussein Al Yassin: The Value of Islamic Unity and the Rejection of Division as a Model

Abstract

This study examines the value of Islamic unity and the rejection of sectarian division in the poetry of Muhammad Husayn Āl Yāsīn from the perspective of argumentative rhetoric. It proceeds from the hypothesis that the poetic text, in this poet’s practice, is not a self-enclosed aesthetic construct but a persuasive discourse addressed to a specific audience, one that builds its arguments, orders them, and advances them gradually in order to influence belief and conduct and to secure the adherence of the recipient. The study thus seeks to move beyond the descriptive rhetorical approach, which confines itself to identifying images and embellishments, classifying them, and noting their points of beauty, toward a functional approach that interrogates the inferential effect of these structures in the mind of the recipient and their role in constructing conviction. The research adopts the descriptive-analytical method, drawing on the tools of the New Rhetoric in its taxonomy of argument types and degrees of agreement, while employing the investigations of ʿilm al-maʿānī in the Arabic rhetorical heritage as an operative resource rather than merely a historical background.

The study concludes that the poet begins from a prior agreement with his audience grounded in Qurʾanic and prophetic authority as uncontested common ground, then proceeds gradually through the three classes of argument: quasi-logical arguments (restriction, analogy, definition, resolution of contradiction), arguments based on the structure of reality (causal linkage, the pragmatic argument, the person–act relation, historical precedent), and arguments establishing the structure of reality (the model, argumentative metaphor, inversion of symbolic meaning). It further concludes that what traditional rhetorical study regards as ornamental figures — antithesis, counterpoise, restriction, fronting and postponement, and enjambment — performs an inferential rather than decorative function in this discourse: antithesis becomes a procedure for separating the two competing theses, and restriction becomes an instrument for confining truth to one party alone. The study finally argues that the investigations of ʿilm al-maʿānī contain a latent argumentative theory that has not been sufficiently exploited in applied studies, and that its exploitation promises to renew the reading of contemporary Arabic poetry of reformist orientation.