AL-Majma

Semantic and Aesthetic Dimensions in Prison Poetry: The Poetry of Abdel Nasser Saleh

2025-08-28T07:59:02+00:00

This study examines the semantic choices and aesthetic qualities that manifest in prison poetry, primarily focusing on the work of Palestinian poet Abdel Nasser Saleh, who transformed incarceration into a creative space infused with nationalistic and humanistic visions. The semantic and aesthetic dimensions of Abdel Nasser Saleh’s poetry and his selected themes of resistance, hope, sacrifice, and identity make his work very distinctive. Consequently, this analysis investigates the poetic imagery, semantics, symbolism, rhythmic structures, and language employed in Abdel Nasser Saleh’s prison poetry and situates the discussion within the framework of Palestinian prison literature. Furthermore, the study underscores the role of poetry in preserving collective memory and fostering a resistance consciousness across successive generations.

While previous studies have examined Abdul Nasser Saleh’s poetry from various perspectives, this study aims to complete the picture by emphasizing imprisonment, a central theme in his poetic work. Using an analytical approach linking historical and critical contexts, the study demonstrates how the poet transformed his suffering into a poetic message with a nationalist and humanist significance that transcends both time and place. Ultimately, this research enriches the critical literature on Palestinian prison poetry and opens new avenues for exploring other poetic experiences that blend national struggle with artistic expression. It reaffirms that poetry remains a powerful tool that preserves memory and fosters hope.

The Motif of Blood and Its Significance in the Literature of the Martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali in (Maqatil) Shia Literature

2025-08-28T08:17:58+00:00

This study examines the motif of blood in Shia literature, especially concerning the martyrdom of al-Husayn Ibn Ali. It starts with a historical overview of the Battle of Karbala, analyzing its causes and consequences, leading to the martyrdom (maqtil) of al-Husayn and his companions. The influence of this event on Shia literary tradition and the development of maqtil (martyrdom) literature among Shias are also explored. The maqtil is a Shia literary genre featuring many recurring motifs, with the blood motif particularly significant. The presence of the blood motif in maqtil literature encompasses various linguistic and religious meanings, such as the sky turning red, the idea of fresh blood, tears of blood, rain of blood, the blood of al-Husayn, blood in dreams, the sky reddening after his death, the shedding of the killers’ blood in this world, and the soil of Karbala turning into blood. The study shows that the blood motif frequently appears in stories of Hussain’s martyrdom (maqtil literature), suggesting that Shia writers use this motif to evoke community emotions.

Semantic Interpretation: A Historical Corpus Linguistics Study on the Development of Interpretive Concepts

2025-08-28T08:47:53+00:00

This historical corpus linguistic study explores semantic interpretation as a concept in Arabic. This concept arose to address the syntactic deviations that seemed to violate the standard grammar rules in both classical Arabic and the Qur’anic text. The core issue revolves around whether this phenomenon is legitimate within Arabic grammar theory and how it influences the understanding and analysis of linguistic structures. The study thus traces the origins and evolution of Arabic semantic interpretation, moving from instinctive, usage-based interpretations to systematic theories. It highlights key moments and expressions of the phenomenon in Qur’anic readings, classical poetry, and modern usage. Employing a descriptive-analytical approach, the study examines the diverse perspectives of Arabic grammarians—from supporters to critics. Additionally, the study explores how the phenomenon transitioned from a spontaneous linguistic practice to a formal concept within the framework of Arabic grammar.

The findings show that Arabic semantic interpretation is a genuine linguistic phenomenon that demonstrates the flexibility of the Arabic grammar system. It allows grammarians to view non-standard and irregular structures as natural extensions of usage rather than errors. The study also emphasizes the potential usefulness of semantic interpretation in analyzing modern linguistic structures and teaching Arabic in ways that mirror real language use. It concludes by suggesting the creation of a textual corpus to provide examples of the phenomenon for further statistical and contextual analysis.

Semiotic Thresholds and Their Role in Embodying the Author’s Conflict with Society: An Analysis of Maysoun Asadi’s Min Shakāwā al-Mubdiʿīn [Among the Complaints of Creatives]

2025-08-28T08:56:00+00:00

This study examines the semiotic thresholds in Maysoun Asadi’s literary collection Min Shakāwā al-Mubdiʿīn [Among the Complaints of Creatives]. In this collection, Asadi uses semiotic thresholds to express her relationship with herself and society. She goes beyond semantics to include visual symbols, especially by presenting paintings before each story. This highlights that she surpasses the semantic expression of suffering by conveying the narrative through paintings that reflect her deep pain. In other words, the meanings, visual symbols, metanarratives, intertextuality, and hybridity in Asadi’s collection establish semiotic thresholds on which the author depicts a reality that fails to do justice to female writers and other creative artists. Asadi’s collection shows how linguistic and non-linguistic representations act as semiotic thresholds that illustrate concepts both effectively and affectively—creating symbolic spaces that reflect not only the author’s own internal conflict and struggle with society but also that of other women.

The Arabic Language between Authenticity and Modernity

2025-08-28T09:03:01+00:00

This article examines the history and importance of the Arabic language by focusing on three main themes: the link between language and art, language as a marker of identity, and efforts to conserve and modernize Arabic to meet contemporary needs. First, art depends on language for its growth and reach; it facilitates interpretation, analysis, and sharing to promote engagement. Similarly, art supports language; as human creativity advances, both art and language evolve together. Language, therefore, acts as a cultural vessel that preserves a nation’s thoughts, heritage, values, and creativity. In fact, Arabic has preserved the most important works of Arabs during their pioneering periods in science, philosophy, medicine, and literature, making it an essential part of Arab identity.

Language thus encapsulates a nation’s intellectual endeavors, concerns, beliefs, and ideas throughout its historical development. As such, it is imperative to preserve the Arabic language while modernizing pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of both current and future generations. Arabic encounters considerable challenges, including static curricula, the encroachment of social media language, and insufficient support from official institutions to modernize Arabic in an effective way. The most applicable strategy for linguistic modernization involves safeguarding its roots and authenticity, then revising outdated teaching methodologies to enhance accessibility for contemporary learners. Such advancement can solely be realized through institutions underpinned by official authorities.

Al-Qalb [The Heart], Its Synonyms and Semantics in Language, Religion and Poetry

2025-08-28T09:15:16+00:00

This article explores the concept of al-qalb [the heart] and its synonyms in Arabic, including al-lubb [core], al-janān [innermost self], al-fu’ād [inner soul], and al-ṣadir [chest], clarifying their semantic differences. It examines how these terms have developed historically and semantically within Arabic texts. The study aims to address two main questions: How are the meanings of al-qalb [the heart] and its synonyms expressed in the Arabic language, religious texts, and poetry? And how have the connotations of these synonyms changed across different literary periods?

The research issue stems from subtle differences in the lexical meanings of al-qalb’s synonyms and the semantic shifts in their idiomatic use across various fields such as religion and poetry. Some synonyms may be unfamiliar to many, while others have undergone semantic changes over time. Key findings show that the word qalb [heart] reflects both emotion and reason, while al-janān [innermost self] signifies hidden feelings. Furthermore, al-lubb [core] relates exclusively to reason, while al-fu’ād [inner soul] denotes fleeting emotions, and al-ṣadir [chest] acts as a vessel for the heart, containing both emotion and reason. Accordingly, the study highlights how al-qalb [the heart] in Arabic functions as a center of will, emotion, and reason, and in Islam, it serves as a symbol of faith and morality.

Al-Barzakh in the Sufi Thought of Muhyī al-Dīn Ibn ῾Arabī

2025-08-28T10:15:44+00:00

In Sufi thought, the concept of al-Barzakh [the isthmus] constitutes a complex dialectical issue within medieval Islamic Sufi literature. The Sufi mystic Muhyī al-Dīn Ibn ῾Arabī engaged with this significant, controversial subject, endowing it with a profound philosophical dimension that diverges from the interpretations found in the writings of other medieval Muslim mystics. Indeed, the notion of al-Barzakh is one of the central tenets in the intellectual framework of the esteemed scholar Muhyī Al-Dīn Ibn ῾Arabī. Through this concept, Ibn ῾Arabī conveys that al-Barzakh [the isthmus] serves as an intermediary between the worlds; a notion associated with life, death, and the phenomena that exist in the interval between them.

Jerusalem’s Intellectual Life during the Seljuks Era

2025-08-28T11:22:16+00:00

In 463 AH, the Seljuks restored large parts of the Levant from the Fatimids. By 465 AH, Atz ibn Awq al-Khawarizmi controlled Jerusalem, implementing political, civil, and religious changes. This era saw the rise of the Abbasid caliphate, Sunni doctrine, the opening of schools, and efforts to spread Islam. The Fatimids enforced Ismaili Shiism on Sham, and in 469 AH, a military campaign by Arabs, Turkmens, and Seljuks failed to restore Egypt under the Abbasids. The Seljuks held Jerusalem until 489 AH, when the Fatimids reclaimed it until it fell under the control of the Crusaders in 492 AH. This paper discusses Seljuk-Fatimid relations, Crusader interactions, and alliances to control Sham and suppress the Seljuks, with Crusaders seeking the north and Fatimids the south. It highlights the role of the Aqsa Mosque in fostering religious and cultural activity and the influence of Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and Sheikh Maqdisi Nabulsi in spreading knowledge and combating negative beliefs. The study shows how Ghazali’s writings and the efforts of Seljuk rulers—Artek bin Aksk, Elghazi, and Suqman—were vital in reforming and stabilizing Jerusalem’s Muslim community and intellectual life.

Poetry and Its Role in Shaping Historical Narratives in Mamluk Historiography in Egypt

2025-08-28T11:37:00+00:00

This study examines historical writings from the Mamluk period (1250–1517). Previous research on Mamluk historiography shows that the use of literary and narrative elements was more prominent among non-scholarly historians, especially military figures who were mostly Egyptian. However, these studies have largely overlooked poetry’s role in producing historical narratives and historiography. This research offers a detailed comparison of how a group of historians from the Mamluk period in Egypt used poetry creatively. It treats historical texts as literary works, going beyond the idea that they are simply sources of historical information for researchers and scholars. In fact, Mamluk historical literature includes numerous poems because of their semantic and aesthetic approaches to historical narration. While these texts provide historical knowledge, their authors aimed to go beyond presenting information and, instead, craft a new, imaginative depiction of events. In other words, these historians relied on semantic and aesthetic tools, especially poetry, to create new meanings when depicting social reality. In Mamluk historiography, poetry was not just decorative; it actively shaped historical narratives and further immortalized events.

Oppression and Alienation: A Study of Saniya Saleh’s Short Story Collection Al- Ġobār [The Dust]

2025-08-28T11:42:47+00:00

Not all short story collections receive enough critical attention when published, which can cause them to fade into obscurity due to a lack of readers or scholarly reevaluation. One such overlooked work is Saniyya Salih’s short story collection, al-Ġobār [The Dust], which has not been given the scholarly analysis it deserves. This study introduces the author Saniyya Salih and highlights her most important literary contributions, including the significance of the collection’s title and her experience writing short stories. The research examines the narrative structure of the collection and offers an interpretive reading that sheds light on its main themes and content. The main goal of this study is to answer the following question: What techniques did Salih use to portray the themes of alienation and oppression in her short story collection? This involves analyzing the aesthetic elements of the narrative—such as setting, time, style, and language—and showing how poverty, hunger, and suffering are portrayed through Salih’s characters and narrative framework.

Linguistic and Stylistic Changes in the Poetry of Ronny Somek: A Diachronic View

2025-08-28T11:46:42+00:00

The poetry of Ronny Somek—with its unique literary and linguistic nature—has earned respected literary status as well as popular appeal. In this study, I examine linguistic changes in Somek’s poetry with particular emphasis on syntax. For this purpose, two books of poetry were chosen to serve as research corpus: Golé [Exile], his first book, published in 1976, and Kol kakh harbé elohim [So Much God], his most recent book, published in 2020. This study demonstrates that Ronny Somek’s language in the later period has undergone syntactic changes. The changes involve a new diversity in conjunctions whose usage has increased, especially time conjunctions, and special usages that diverge from standard Hebrew, such as biglal shé- and sha’a shé-, and real conditional im, used mostly as the conditional word for hypothetical conditionals instead of lu or ilu. Other syntactic changes in his late work are also apparent in using asyndetic structure. Further, there are other special language usages, such as syntactic agreement. However, the usage of complex tense denoting ongoing action happening over time was dropped in his late work.

Wisdom in Contemporary Palestinian Folk Poetry: Mūsā Ḥāfiz’s Diwan “The Pain of Years” as a Model

2025-08-28T11:50:11+00:00

Palestinian folk heritage is deep-rooted and significant, often expressing the experiences and concerns of the Palestinian people. Palestinian folk poetry has preserved many of the components of this heritage despite the significant changes that have occurred in Palestinian society in light of recent digital development and modernity. Evidence of this is the prevalence of folk poetry among a wide segment of various social groups in contemporary Palestinian society. The Palestinian folk poet, Mūsā Ḥāfiz, from the city of Jenīn, is perhaps the most prominent of these influential poets in the field of modern Palestinian folk poetry. His poetry collection, “The Pain of Years” is replete with poems that address various real-life themes and issues, reflecting the people’s suffering. This study aims to pause on the theme of wisdom in the diwan to attempt to describe it and analyze the social values that Palestinian folk poetry advocates for preserving and rooting in a rapidly changing reality.

The study aims to uncover the type of folk social norms and values that the poet Mūsā Ḥāfiz employs in his diwan, “The Pain of Years,” and to identify and understand their place in their social reality from the perspective of the poet and contemporary Palestinian folk poetry.

Errors in Foreign Language Writing: English Grammar Errors among Arab 8th -Grade Students in Israel

2025-08-28T11:54:39+00:00

This study investigates English grammar errors produced by Arab students in Israel. It examines the types and number of errors found in 8th-grade Arab students’ English writing samples and how they correspond to their proficiency levels in English as a foreign language (EFL). A corpus of 180 writing samples was collected from sixty students and evaluated using Gass and Selinker’s (1994) framework based on Corder’s Error Analysis model (1974). This framework includes six stages: data collection, error identification, error classification, error quantification, analysis of error sources, and error remediation. The study used quantitative and qualitative methods to collect and analyze the data. The findings reveal fifteen grammatical errors produced by Arab EFL students in Israel; these are errors in tenses, fragments, pronouns, agreement, word order, prepositions, articles, parts of speech, plural forms, irregular verbs, infinitives, possession, conjunctions, relative pronoun omission, and voice. Tense errors were found to be the most frequent type of error, whereas voice errors were the least common. All errors were attributed to two primary sources: interlingual (stemming from the negative influence of first-language transfer, i.e., Arabic) and intralingual (arising from the incomplete or inaccurate knowledge of the target language, i.e., English). The study further identified significant statistical differences based on students’ English proficiency levels. Linguistically weaker students produced the highest number of grammatical errors, with fragments being the most challenging category for them. In contrast, the more advanced students made only a few errors, most of which were related to tenses.

Reading al-Fārābī's View of Language through the Lens of Wittgenstein: “Language as a Form of Life”

2025-08-28T12:00:04+00:00

Language resembles a living organism that constantly grows and evolves. Yet, the origin of language remains unresolved, highlighting the ongoing conflict between religious and scientific views. The key question is whether language originates from divine revelation or is a social agreement for communication, beginning with gestures, sounds, and calls, and gradually developing into modern language. This article shows that al-Fārābī's view of language is integrative; it is both ‘conventionalist’ and aligns with contemporary approaches to language, while also not conflicting with religion. His effort to reconcile Plato, who believed that all knowledge is essentially a recollection of the Forms, with Aristotle’s empirical approach ultimately led him to develop his own unique theory of knowledge and the invention of language. His view intersects with Wittgenstein’s conception of language as a ‘form of life,’ suggesting the impossibility of a ‘private language,’ as presented in his book, Philosophical Investigations. Viewing al-Fārābī's writings, a Muslim philosopher from the tenth century, through Ludwig Wittgenstein’s twentieth-century conceptual lens reveals the profound depth of al-Fārābī's philosophy and its ongoing significance for modern readers.

A Critical Cognitive Semiotics Approach to Character Construction and Heroism:

2025-08-28T12:03:59+00:00

This study examines the pivotal role of the main character in Mahmoud Al-Khatib’s novel ʾAṣluhā Thābit, focusing on how the character’s construction conveys how meaning and significance are produced and comprehended. The novel’s main character, marked by both centrality and heroism, shapes and reflects the novel’s thematic depth through recurring motifs and influence. Following Ibrahim Taha’s critical cognitive semiotics approach, the analysis uncovers the various layers of meaning and significance embedded in Al-Khatib’s novel. The novel particularly highlights the existential concern and ideological need to preserve land and resist the power structures of colonialism that seek to marginalize the Arab Palestinian minority living in Israel. These dynamics frame the main character’s journey, demonstrating his role as a ‘semi-hero’ who achieves particular objectives but whose quest remains unsuccessful due to the circumstantial constraints found in his context. Al-Khatib’s main character thus illustrates the dynamic and anecdotal nature of meaning and significance as they evolve through continuing cycles of real and fictional interpretations and reinterpretations, further showing how characters are not only constructed for fictional semiotic purposes but also to depict real human subjects.

Authors

2025-09-10T07:10:42+00:00

The list of the authors of volume 21 of Al-Majmaa journal