[Andalusi Studies] New article in TIS: Balāgha is not rhetoric: The untranslatability of Arabo-Islamic literary terms

[Hany Rashwan]

Dear friends and colleagues,

I hope this message finds you and your beloved ones in the best health.

I am pleased to share with you the publication of an article that tackles
deeply the untranslatability of Arabo-Islamic terms. The article is open
access and can be accessed through this link:
https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/tis.25037.ras#html_fulltext

Here is the article's abstract for your consideration:
This article examines the untranslatability of Arabo-Islamic literary
terms, focusing on balāgha and its persistent mistranslation as ‘rhetoric.’
Drawing on comparative rhetoric, translation studies, and post-Eurocentric
literary theory, it argues that such equivalences obscure the indigenous
conceptual frameworks embedded in premodern Arabo-Islamic literary
cultures. The study demonstrates how balāgha emerged within a distinct
intellectual genealogy, intertwined with Qurʾānic exegesis, logic, and
poetics, and cannot be fully captured by Greco-Roman rhetorical traditions.
The article evidences that translating balāgha into ‘rhetoric’ risks
imposing Euro-American categories laden with connotations of manipulation,
emptiness, or sophistry, thereby distorting the intellectual and ethical
frameworks of Arabo-Islamic literary cultures. Instead, balāgha must be
studied as an indigenous category whose conceptual richness cannot be
reduced to the historically and culturally burdened term ‘rhetoric.’ The
article advocates for an emic–etic dual approach: grounding interpretation
in indigenous terms (emic) while situating them within a broader
comparative framework (etic).

  Rashwan, Hany. *et al.* (2025) ‘Balāgha is not rhetoric: The
untranslatability of Arabo-Islamic literary terms’, *Translation and
Interpreting Studies: The Journal of the American Translation and
Interpreting Studies Association*. doi: 10.1075/tis.25037.ras.
-- 

Best wishes,

Dr Hany Rashwan

Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature

United Arab Emirates University (UAEU)

Honorary Research Fellow

School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music

University of Birmingham (UoB)

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/HanyRashwan

https://bham.academia.edu/HanyRashwan

PhD in  Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies (CCLPS)

Languages & Cultures Faculty

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
University of London
SOAS, University of London, is a world-leading higher education institution
specializing in the study of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. It has a
unique focus combining both disciplinary and regional expertise with
language scholarship. Founded in 1916, with its first students enrolled in
1917, the School celebrated its Centenary in 2016-17.
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