Balāgha is not rhetoric The untranslatability of Arabo-Islamic literary terms

Abstract

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 Qur'anic 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). © John Benjamins Publishing Company.