Iltifāt and Related Departures from Expected Expression

1. Where iltifāt belongs in rhetoric

Iltifāt concerns a change in how a connected meaning is expressed through the perspectives of speaker, addressee, or absent third party. This is not a random change of pronouns. A first construction establishes an expectation, and a later one departs from it for a rhetorical end.

الْتِفَاتٌ
Turning or shifting from one mode of expression to another.

If a person is first spoken of in the third person and then addressed directly, the change may renew attention. Yet not every pronoun or tense change is automatically iltifāt: there must be an intelligible connection and a discernible change relative to what the audience expected.

2. The three perspectives of expression

The traditional analysis is organized around first-person speech (takallum), direct address (khiṭāb), and third-person reference (ghaybah). Each indicates a different relation between the words, the speaker, and the referent.

PerspectiveIndicative formsReference
First personأنا، نحنThe speaker
Second personأنت، أنتمThe addressee
Third personهو، همSomeone spoken about

A shift can be identified only after its starting perspective is established. Merely noticing a second-person or third-person ending in isolation does not establish iltifāt.

3. The six directional transitions

Each of the three persons can shift to either of the other two, making six directional possibilities. The count concerns discourse perspectives, not the sheer number of verb or pronoun forms.

Initial perspectivePossible later perspective
First personSecond or third
Second personFirst or third
Third personFirst or second

For example, an entity previously referred to as absent may become the immediate addressee. If two grammatical persons simply refer to wholly different participants without a contextual turn in the same discourse, the example cannot be classified merely by counting the pronouns.

4. The majority definition and al-Sakkākī’s broader analysis

The familiar or majority account focuses on an actual change from one previously used mode of expression to another while referring to the same connected subject matter.

Al-Sakkākī’s treatment is broader: it can include selecting one perspective in place of another expected from the apparent context, even without an explicitly preceding expression of that same content in the other person. He consequently includes some cases excluded under the narrower account.

The question is whether an actual shift between successive expressions must already be visible, or whether departure from the contextually expected perspective suffices. Mixing the two definitions obscures the reason for disagreement about examples.

5. A shift must resist a contextual expectation

The mere appearance of «أنا» and then «هو» is insufficient. One must identify which expression the first clause led the audience to expect at the second position, and what rhetorical purpose makes the departure appropriate.

وَمَا لِيَ لَا أَعْبُدُ الَّذِي فَطَرَنِي وَإِلَيْهِ تُرْجَعُونَ
Why should I not worship the One who created me, while to Him you will be returned?

The speaker begins with his own case and then directly reminds the hearers of their return to God. The shift draws them into the admonition; the matter is not confined to the speaker’s personal stance.

6. From third person to direct address in al-Fātiḥah

مَالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ ۝ إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ
Master of the Day of Recompense; You alone we worship and You alone we ask for help.

God is first described in the third person through attributes of praise. «إِيَّاكَ» turns to direct address. The movement takes the reciter from describing divine majesty to direct devotion and supplication.

This is the classic third-person → second-person shift. The fronting of «إِيَّاكَ» separately creates restriction or exclusivity; the change of grammatical address is iltifāt. These two rhetorical functions should not be conflated.

7. From address to third person: the ship passage

حَتَّىٰ إِذَا كُنْتُمْ فِي الْفُلْكِ وَجَرَيْنَ بِهِمْ
Until, when you are aboard ships and they sail with them.

«كُنْتُمْ» addresses the participants, while «بِهِمْ» speaks about people in the same narrated situation in the third person. The shift changes the angle from direct involvement to viewing the event as a scene.

It is a second-person → third-person example. Its relevance lies not simply in changing pronoun endings but in recasting how the event is presented to its audience.

8. From first person to third person in al-Kawthar

إِنَّا أَعْطَيْنَاكَ الْكَوْثَرَ ۝ فَصَلِّ لِرَبِّكَ وَانْحَرْ
Indeed We have granted you al-Kawthar; so pray to your Lord and sacrifice.

The divine utterance begins in the first person through «إِنَّا», then describes God as «رَبِّكَ» in the third person. The shift presents the giver of the gift through the relationship of Lordship and worship.

It is first person → third person. The noun «Lord» also carries its own significant meaning; treating it as only a technical person-switch would flatten the rhetorical point.

9. From third person to first person: wind and clouds

وَاللَّهُ الَّذِي أَرْسَلَ الرِّيَاحَ فَتُثِيرُ سَحَابًا فَسُقْنَاهُ
God is the One who sends the winds; they stir clouds, then We drive them onward.

«اللَّهُ» and «أَرْسَلَ» refer to God in the third person; «فَسُقْنَاهُ» introduces the first-person plural. Divine agency is now narrated from a directly speaking perspective.

This is third person → first person. Where the passage also contains changes of tense, person shift and tense shift must be analyzed separately rather than attributed to a single mechanism.

10. Recognizing the remaining directions

The same condition applies to first person → second person and second person → first person: both portions should form one connected discourse rather than merely juxtaposing unrelated sentences from different speakers.

DirectionAnalytical question
First → secondWhy move from the speaker’s own concern to the addressee’s?
Second → firstWhy bring the speaker into a discussion directed to the listener?

A teaching example might mention “my action” and then directly warn “you will answer for yours.” Whether this qualifies as iltifāt depends on the precise wording and the unity of its context.

11. A first-to-second shift in Yā-Sīn

وَمَا لِيَ لَا أَعْبُدُ الَّذِي فَطَرَنِي وَإِلَيْهِ تُرْجَعُونَ
Why should I not worship the One who created me, while you will be returned to Him?

«أَعْبُدُ» and «فَطَرَنِي» are first-person forms, whereas «تُرْجَعُونَ» directly addresses the audience. The speaker begins with a reason for his own conduct and then extends its force to the listeners’ ultimate return.

The rhetorical merit is not novelty alone. The reasoning is made directly relevant to the audience, showing why explaining the purpose is more important than merely naming the transition.

12. Why not every change qualifies

An independent new address, or two unrelated participants named by different pronouns, is not necessarily technical iltifāt. Discourse continuity, identifiable reference and a departure from the expected form must be established.

«إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ» is direct address in isolation; its role as a shift emerges only against the earlier third-person phrasing. Likewise, «وَجَرَيْنَ بِهِمْ» can be classified properly only after attending to the preceding «كُنْتُمْ».

A sound analysis therefore states three things: the starting person, the destination person, and the rhetorical benefit of moving between them.

13. The general rhetorical merit of iltifāt

وجه حسن الالتفات
The basis of iltifāt’s rhetorical merit.

Continuous use of one expression can become predictable. A fitting change introduces a new angle, renews the listener’s attention, and may intensify the force of the utterance.

Yet novelty does not justify arbitrary switching. Alongside this general benefit, the book discusses functions specific to particular verses. Renewed attention and the particular argumentative or devotional purpose should be distinguished.

14. The special benefit in al-Fātiḥah

The sequence up to «مَالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ» is praise and description. «إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ» introduces an immediate sense of devotional address. The shift is more significant than simply refreshing the listener’s ear.

مَالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ ۝ إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ
Master of the Day of Recompense; You alone we worship.

The movement from praise to supplication corresponds to a worshipper recognizing divine attributes and then expressing worship directly. The change therefore serves the content of the utterance itself.

15. General and context-specific rhetorical effects

ScopeRhetorical benefit
GeneralRenewed attention and departure from monotony
WorshipMovement from praise to direct supplication
AdmonitionDrawing the hearer into personal responsibility
NarrativeReframing the scene from another perspective

Each benefit must be grounded in the actual passage. One should not claim that every kind of iltifāt simultaneously produces all effects. The special force in al-Fātiḥah is not identical to the force of the ship narrative.

16. A broader departure: unexpected address

تَلَقِّي الْمُخَاطَبِ بِغَيْرِ مَا يَتَرَقَّبُ
Addressing a listener with something other than what that listener expects.

This is related to iltifāt because the speaker changes not only grammatical perspective but sometimes the listener’s whole expectation. The audience anticipates a certain reply, instruction, or statement, yet a more significant connected point is presented instead.

The goal is not to confuse the listener. It is to redirect attention toward what matters more: the correct premise, the practical purpose, or the appropriate consequence. The unexpected answer should remain intelligibly connected to the question.

17. Redirecting an expectation in a rhetorical exchange

The source relates an exchange involving al-Ḥajjāj in which a person is expected to respond in a direct and surface-level manner, but the speech is redirected toward a more pointed meaning.

The rhetorical issue is not wit for its own sake. The expected literal course of the conversation is replaced by a different meaningful relation, thereby producing surprise and directing attention.

When analyzing an unexpected answer, identify the anticipated response, the form actually given, and why that response remains relevant to the dialogue. Mere surprise without a meaningful relation is not the intended benefit.

18. Answering the purpose rather than the literal question

A person may ask explicitly about one matter while the practical need behind the question concerns something else. In such cases the answer may appropriately address the underlying purpose rather than the wording alone.

إِخْرَاجُ الْكَلَامِ عَلَى خِلَافِ مُقْتَضَى الظَّاهِرِ
Expressing speech differently from its apparent expectation for an intelligible purpose.

This kind of redirection is meaningful only because it still answers something relevant to the original inquiry. An unrelated answer would not acquire rhetorical merit merely by being surprising.

19. The new moons: form asked about, use answered

يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الْأَهِلَّةِ قُلْ هِيَ مَوَاقِيتُ لِلنَّاسِ وَالْحَجِّ
They ask you about the new moons. Say: they are markers of time for people and for pilgrimage.

One apparent question concerns why the moon changes its visible shape. The response instead identifies its practical function: marking times relevant to people’s dealings and pilgrimage.

The answer remains connected to the inquiry but places a more useful practical knowledge at the center. It is not an irrelevant departure; it is a guided redirection of attention.

20. The spending question and what matters most

يَسْأَلُونَكَ مَاذَا يُنْفِقُونَ قُلْ مَا أَنْفَقْتُمْ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَلِلْوَالِدَيْنِ وَالْأَقْرَبِينَ
They ask what they should spend. Say: whatever good you spend is for parents and close relatives.

The visible question asks about what substance to spend; the answer highlights the deserving recipients and the direction of charitable spending. The practical good is thereby foregrounded over the bare category of property.

The reply is not irrelevant. Its force lies in prioritizing what is more important to the questioner’s correct action.

21. Unexpected shifts of tense

Departure from expectation is not limited to changing pronouns. A future event may be expressed through a past-tense form to present its occurrence as certain or vividly realized.

وَيَوْمَ يُنْفَخُ فِي الصُّورِ فَفَزِعَ مَنْ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَنْ فِي الْأَرْضِ
On the day the Trumpet is blown, those in the heavens and on earth will be terrified.

The past form «فَفَزِعَ» alongside «يُنْفَخُ» calls for attention. The future event is presented with the force of something already accomplished, stressing certainty and vivid impact.

22. Prospective meaning in participial expressions

وَإِنَّ الدِّينَ لَوَاقِعٌ
And indeed, recompense will surely occur.

The discussion also considers how participial descriptions can refer to prospective situations and thereby depart from the expression most immediately expected. However, an active or passive participle does not universally mean a future event.

Time, establishedness and certainty are recovered from the context. The rhetorical question is why this grammatical portrayal is preferred for the particular event and what degree of certainty or force it implies.

23. Certainty, vividness and expected form

Mode of expressionPossible rhetorical function
Future event in past formPresenting occurrence as assured and effectively realized
Past event in present formRe-creating a past event as a vivid scene
Participial descriptionForegrounding permanence or a particular condition where context warrants it

Past and present forms retain their grammatical identities. Their rhetorical implications arise from how the context uses those identities. Identify a form morphologically before inferring the communicative purpose of its unconventional placement.

24. Qalb: inversion of expected relations

الْقَلْبُ
Inverting the expected relation or placement of two parts of an expression.

Qalb is another form of departure from expected wording. A normal relation between two parts of an utterance is presented in reversed form, while the context still allows the audience to recover the intended meaning.

Inversion is not always commendable. If it merely corrupts the meaning and offers no discernible literary point, it cannot count as successful rhetoric. The source also reports disagreement about the unconditional acceptability of this device.

25. The camel and the watering trough

عَرَضْتُ الْحَوْضَ عَلَى النَّاقَةِ
I presented the trough to the she-camel.

عَرَضْتُ النَّاقَةَ عَلَى الْحَوْضِ
I presented the she-camel to the trough.

The source offers the second expression as the inverted counterpart of the first. Presenting water to an animal is the ordinary sense; speaking of presenting the animal to the trough reverses what is presented and what receives the presentation.

The intended outcome remains that the camel should drink. Context and knowledge of the ordinary situation make the reversed wording understandable.

26. When inversion has a subtle rhetorical point

Two questions must be separated in qalb: whether the expression departs from the expected relation, and whether that departure contains a subtle rhetorical consideration. Reversal alone does not prove eloquence.

The text reports objections that inversion contradicts the intended relation, alongside explanations in which context makes the meaning clear and the inverted image carries a special exaggeration or effect.

A careful reading identifies the ordinary relation, the reversed form, the contextual indication and the resulting literary effect instead of automatically approving every inversion.

27. Poetic inversion and exaggeration

In poetic examples of qalb, a comparison is sometimes expressed in the inverse direction from the one normally expected. This can strengthen hyperbole by making the thing ordinarily used as a standard appear to derive its quality from the other.

لَوْنُ أَرْضِهِ
The color of his land.

The rhetorical point lies in the unexpected direction of comparison. Simile, hyperbole and qalb can coexist but are not synonyms: inversion concerns relations, simile concerns resemblance, and hyperbole concerns the degree of the attributed quality.

28. Qalb versus an accidental mistake

CaseDiagnostic
Purposeful qalbNormal relation recoverable, inversion meaningful, contextual clue present
Unmotivated reversalNo reliable clue and no intelligible rhetorical purpose
Ordinary rearrangementPermitted word order variation without reversing the intended relation

Moving a phrase forward or backward is not itself qalb if the semantic relation stays unchanged. Nor does an unintelligible reversal gain literary value merely through unusual arrangement.

29. Putting the related devices side by side

DeviceCharacteristic departure
IltifātShift among speaker, addressee and third-person viewpoints
Unexpected receptionMeaningful speech other than what the addressee anticipates
Pragmatic redirectionAnswering the more important purpose of the question
Tense shiftPresenting past or future events in an unexpected temporal form
QalbReversing an ordinarily expected semantic relation

All are related through a purposeful departure from expectation, but their syntax and objectives differ. The broad category should not erase the specific diagnosis of each construction.

30. Worked classification across the whole passage

Example 1: «مَالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ» followed by «إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ»
Third-person to direct address: iltifāt; fronted «إِيَّاكَ» also conveys exclusivity.

Example 2: the answer «مَوَاقِيتُ لِلنَّاسِ» to «يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الْأَهِلَّةِ»
Directing the inquiry to the useful function rather than only the apparent shape-question.

Example 3: future judgment scenes described with «فَفَزِعَ»
Past form portraying the future as certain and vivid.

Example 4: «عَرَضْتُ النَّاقَةَ عَلَى الْحَوْضِ»
Inversion of the ordinary relation, provided the context reveals the intention.

A complete rhetorical diagnosis identifies both the construction and its intended benefit.

31. Transition to the states of the predicate

The preceding discussion has concerned the states of the subject of predication and several related departures from the expected surface form. It has repeatedly shown that word order, reference and perspective influence the transmission of meaning.

أَحْوَالُ الْمُسْنَدِ
The rhetorical states of the predicate.

The next heading turns to the predicate: its mention or omission, definiteness, ordering and other features. Understanding the devices just studied helps maintain the distinction between the grammatical relation of subject and predicate and the contextual purposes guiding their expression.