A critical edition and analysis of Sa'd al-Dîn al-Taftâzânî's Sharḥ Miftâḥ al-'Ulûm (Part on semantics)

During the earliest four centuries of Islamic calendar, the science of rhetoric ('ilm al-balāgha) was not yet an independent scholarly field of study, but instead it was treated scatteredly under various topics of some other independent academic disciplines such as grammar (naḥw), Qur'ānic exegesis (tafsīr) and theology (kalām). Scholars like 'Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī contributed greatly to this field through their comprehensive works dedicated specifically to it and made the science of rhetoric an independent scholarly discipline. For the most part, the development of the Islamic science of rhetoric reached its completeness with al-Sakkākī's Miftāḥ al-'ulūm. This work was quite influential on the works of scholars of theology and philosophy on topics related to the science of rhetoric. Many commentaries were later written on this work and Sa'd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī's Sharḥ Miftāḥ al-'ulūm was one of the most distinguished ones. Prior to this commentary, al-Taftāzānī wrote two other works on rhetoric, namely Muṭawwal and Mukhtaṣar. His outstanding performance in these two works proved his high qualifications and competency in scholarly circles. In our thesis, we have concentrated on various manuscripts of Sharḥ Miftāḥ al-'ulūm available at libraries and analyzed its content from the beginning to the chapter entitled al-Fann al-rābi'. Due to the huge length and size of the complete manuscript, we have not covered the whole work. We have aimed at providing a critical edition and analysis of the parts in question. Key words: The Science of Rhetoric, Sakkākī, Miftāḥ al-'ulūm, Sa'd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī, Sharḥ Miftāḥ al-'ulūm