L'influence mu‘tazilite sur la naissance et le
développement de la rhétorique arabe
Djamel E. Kouloughli a1 a1 (CELLMA, CNRS) ENS-LSH, 15 parvis René Descartes, 69366 Lyon cedex 07, France
Abstract
The thesis presented in the present article is not the widely-accepted one
according to which Mu‘tazilite thought indirectly influenced the birth and
development of Arab rhetoric (balaga ) as an intellectual trend at the time
that witnessed the constitution of this discipline of Arab language sciences,
but the more specific thesis that it was primarily in Mu‘tazilite thought that
the foundations of balaga as a technical discipline were truly elaborated. To
argue this thesis, we shall proceed in two stages. In the first, we shall try to
identify the indirect Mu‘tazilite sources of balaga; that is, the theses and
overall positions of this movement, an echo of which may be found in constitutive
elements of the discipline. In the second, we will try to identify some
of the direct Mu‘tazilite sources of balaga on the basis of Mu‘tazilite studies
directly devoted to the status of the Koranic text, and the concepts elaborated
to account for it.
