Iqtibās and Taḍmīn: Quoting Scripture and Incorporating Poetry

1. Iqtibās: a new literary device

الاقتباس
Iqtibās, the incorporation of scriptural wording.

Earlier topics considered how one human poet might draw on another. Iqtibās concerns the insertion of something from the Qur'an or Hadith into a new prose or poetic composition as part of that composition.

Its defining concern is not mere verbal resemblance. The writer's manner of using the words also matters. Explicitly reporting a verse or a Hadith as a source is different from integrating its wording into an independent literary expression.

2. The technical definition of iqtibās

أما الاقتباس فهو أن يضمن الكلام نظما كان أو نثرا شيئا من القرآن أو الحديث، لا على أنه منه
Iqtibās consists of including something from the Qur'an or Hadith in verse or prose, not as an explicit quotation identified as coming from that source.

Yuḍammina al-kalām means incorporating wording into one's composition. Nazman kāna aw nathran includes both poetry and prose. The final qualification excludes the straightforward act of introducing the passage as a formal citation.

The incorporation may be short; reproducing a whole verse or narration is not a requirement.

3. Literary incorporation versus explicit attribution

كما يقال في أثناء الكلام: قال الله تعالى كذا، وقال النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم كذا
For example, a speaker explicitly says that God stated such-and-such or that the Prophet said such-and-such.

In that case the audience is expressly being informed of the separate source. Literary iqtibās, by contrast, integrates recognized wording into a newly composed expression to serve its immediate literary purpose.

The distinction is between attributed reporting and artistic incorporation. The textual origin still needs to be respected and identified accurately when explaining the example.

4. Four possible source-and-form combinations

To classify an incorporation, distinguish the source of the borrowed words from the new form in which they appear.

SourceNew composition
Qur'anPoetry
Qur'anProse
HadithPoetry
HadithProse

These four possibilities explain the breadth of the definition. The wording, intended use and context still determine how a particular example is analysed.

5. Unaltered scriptural wording

One major form preserves the original words within a new sentence or poem. The author need not invent a new scriptural meaning or distort the recognized wording.

Two contexts remain analytically distinct: the passage's setting in its original source and the effect it acquires in the new composition. Familiar words can recall their source while contributing to the local meaning and sound of the new text.

Recognition alone is not proof of a particular source; the alleged origin should still be checked.

6. Quranic incorporation: kalamḥ al-baṣar

فلم يكن إلا كلمح البصر أو هو أقرب حتى أنشد فأغرب
It happened in no more than the twinkling of an eye, or even less, until he recited and astonished his audience.

The recognizable expression kalamḥ al-baṣar aw huwa aqrab comes from the Quranic wording about the swiftness of the Hour (Qur'an 16:77). In this prose sentence it expresses the speed of a particular incident.

It is Quranic incorporation in prose: the wording is recognizable, while the immediate topic of the new passage differs.

7. Changing literary context is not changing the source

كلمح البصر أو هو أقرب
Like a blink of an eye, or even nearer.

The same short phrase can evoke extraordinary speed in different situations. Its literary reuse need not interpret every aspect of the Quranic context; the new author may employ its recognizable verbal image for a different immediate purpose.

Do not confuse the source's subject with the new passage's purpose. They share the image of speed, not the same underlying event.

8. Poetic incorporation: fa-ṣabrun jamīl

إن كنت أزمعت على هجرنا من غير ما جرم فصبر جميل
If you have resolved to abandon us without any offense on our part, then patient endurance is the fitting response.

The closing words fa-ṣabrun jamīl recall the wording of Qur'an 12:18, where Jacob speaks of beautiful patience. In the new poem they mark restraint in the face of an undeserved separation.

The excerpt finishes the poetic thought while recalling a recognizable scriptural expression. Its placement matters to the structure and effect of the line.

9. Placement of a borrowed phrase in verse

In the example ending with “fa-ṣabrun jamīl,” the newly composed words first present a condition: an unjustified separation. The incorporated phrase then provides the response to that condition.

Both syntax and rhetorical design matter. Grammatically, the conditional structure requires a response. Rhetorically, the familiar concise phrase supplies an effective answer to the emotion described.

A successful incorporation does not merely decorate a sentence; it completes its local sense.

10. Hadith incorporation: shāhat al-wujūh

شاهت الوجوه
May the faces be disgraced; a strong expression of denunciation.

This recognizable formula is transmitted in Hadith as words of the Prophet, and the textbook treats its reuse as a literary incorporation. The past-tense form with “faces” carries an emphatic sense of rebuke.

The example establishes that iqtibās is not restricted to Quranic wording. Hadith expressions may also be incorporated when used within a new composition rather than introduced solely as a narrated report.

11. A second familiar Qur’anic expression

وإن تبدلت بنا غيرنا فحسبنا الله ونعم الوكيل
If you replace us with someone else, God is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs.

The concluding formula ḥasbunā Allāhu wa niʿma al-wakīl occurs in Qur'an 3:173. Here it answers a charge of personal betrayal with trust in God and detachment from the addressee.

The success of the incorporation depends on more than recognizable sound. It provides a meaningful response suited to the new situation.

12. Reordering words drawn from Hadith

دعني ووجهك الجنة حفت بالمكاره
Leave me alone: confronting your face is like approaching a paradise surrounded by hardships.

The expression draws on the Hadith wording and sense ḥuffat al-jannatu bi-l-makārih, that Paradise is surrounded by hardships. The new literary use applies that known image to a complaint about an addressee.

Word order and address have been adapted. Accordingly, iqtibās does not always require repeating an entire scriptural sentence verbatim.

13. When incorporation changes a phrase’s direction

A further mode of iqtibās involves shifting a recognizable phrase toward a new literary application. The addressee, subject or immediate sense may change, sometimes with a slight verbal adjustment that leaves the source identifiable.

Two boundaries matter: the source must not be misrepresented, and the new author's interpretation should not be retroactively attributed to the original revelation or narration.

The analysis therefore respects the source wording while explaining the new literary intention.

14. Biwādin ghayri dhī zarʿ: transferred setting

لقد أنزلت حاجاتي بواد غير ذي زرع
I deposited my needs in a barren valley where no crop grows.

The phrase biwādin ghayri dhī zarʿ is part of Qur'an 14:37. In the Quranic context it describes a physical valley; in the poem a barren place becomes an image for fruitless hopes or unrewarded needs.

This is a transfer of application: the verbal image remains recognizable, but its connection to “my needs” creates a new complaint.

15. Distinguishing the remembered phrase from its new image

In “I deposited my needs in a barren valley,” the speaker presents requests to a person or source from which no benefit came. The phrase “valley without cultivation” thus functions beyond a geographic description: it stands for an unfruitful object of hope.

Recognition of the Quranic words establishes the incorporation, while the new relation between a barren valley and unmet needs creates the figurative image.

Iqtibās may coincide with another rhetorical technique, but the grounds for identifying each should be stated separately.

16. Innā lillāh: adjustment and application

إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ
We belong to God, and to Him we return.

This Quranic formula (2:156) expresses return to God when calamity strikes. The literary example in this section draws on that recognition after a feared event, but the wording in the new expression is not simply a full verbatim reproduction of the verse.

The rule of analysis is to distinguish the exact source text from the author's shortened or reordered use. Do not present the altered literary form as if it were an identical quotation of the entire verse.

17. Small adjustments that preserve recognition

ولا بأس بتغيير يسير في اللفظ المقتبس
A slight change in incorporated wording is not necessarily objectionable.

Taghyīr yasīr is a limited adjustment that preserves recognizability and fitness within the new utterance. A minor shift of wording or order may accommodate meter or the intended speaker's address.

It does not license unlimited distortion. If the expression loses its identifiable connection to the source or misattributes a transformed meaning to the source itself, the example requires a different and more cautious analysis.

18. A comparison of incorporation methods

AspectPreserved phraseSlightly adjusted phrase
WordingRecognizable phrase retainedMinor change in words or order
SourceQur'an or Hadith identifiedSource must remain identifiable
UseInserted into a new contextAdapted for the new literary context
CautionDo not misstate the original contextDo not label the altered text as an exact source quotation

The comparison tracks source, use and extent of change, not just the number of words shared.

19. Taḍmīn: a distinct poetic practice

التضمين
Taḍmīn, incorporating another poet's words.

After iqtibās comes a related but distinct device: a poet inserts a portion of another poet's verse into a new poetic composition so that it functions as part of the later verse. The source is another poet, not the Qur'an or Hadith.

Taḍmīn can enhance expression, but it also raises a question of literary integrity: when should the writer alert the audience that a portion belongs to someone else?

20. The defining elements of poetic taḍmīn

وأما التضمين فهو أن يضمن الشعر شيئا من شعر الغير
Taḍmīn is to incorporate something from another person's poetry into one's own verse.

Here al-shiʿr identifies the new genre, while shiʿr al-ghayr identifies the source as someone else's poetry. Neither repeating one's own poem nor borrowing a Quranic phrase satisfies those two conditions in this specific definition.

The borrowed unit may be a whole line, more than a line, a hemistich or a smaller segment. The issue is its fitting incorporation into new verse.

21. How much verse may be incorporated?

بيتا كان أو فوقه أو مصراعا أو ما دونه
Whether a full verse or more, one hemistich or less.

The definition does not restrict taḍmīn to a fixed number of words. Borrowing a whole verse and borrowing a short segment may have very different expressive consequences and levels of recognizability.

The key distinction is between accidental shared wording and the deliberate integration of a known portion of another poem into one's new composition. Literary context helps identify the latter.

22. Unfamiliar poetry requires an identifying signal

مع التنبيه عليه إن لم يكن مشهورا عند البلغاء
With an indication of borrowing if the source verse is not well known among literary specialists.

An unfamiliar borrowed line may otherwise be mistaken for the later poet's independent wording. A signal such as “as a poet said” clarifies its origin and distinguishes disclosed integration from concealed appropriation.

The condition concerns literary attribution. Putting a borrowed line into a fresh metrical context does not by itself make the original wording the new writer's invention.

23. A familiar poetic line can identify itself

إن لم يكن مشهورا عند البلغاء
If it is not famous among those skilled in rhetoric.

The qualification implies that a very famous line can announce its borrowing through its own recognizability. The same explicit warning that is needed for obscure poetry need not accompany every widely known citation.

This is a convention of literary recognition, not a guarantee that every audience knows the verse. When teaching an example, identifying its source remains useful even if the original readership would have recognized it at once.

24. A famous borrowed hemistich: aḍāʿūnī

على أني سأنشد عند بيعي أضاعوني وأي فتى أضاعوا
At the time of my sale I shall recite: “They wasted me—and what a capable man they wasted!”

The closing words aḍāʿūnī wa-ayyi fatan aḍāʿū form a famous hemistich. Its original continuation speaks of usefulness “on a day of hard combat and in guarding a frontier.”

The later speaker uses this well-known lament to portray himself as undervalued. Because the earlier words are consciously woven into a new poem, it illustrates incorporation of a poetic hemistich.

25. Why the familiar hemistich fits the new poem

The quoted hemistich about being “wasted” centers on failure to appreciate a person's worth. In its original poem the loss related to military usefulness; the new poem brings it into the circumstance of being sold.

Thus the core complaint survives while the external situation changes. The new composition gains the force of a memorable earlier line without treating that line as an entirely fresh invention.

This is not mere borrowing of an idea: the earlier poetic wording itself has been retained.

26. An explicit cue for a less familiar borrowing

When an incorporated line is not broadly recognized, the audience may mistake it for the new poet's own independent language. A verbal cue can direct the reader to the presence of an earlier poem.

For example, a new image may lead into an old hemistich; without a signal, the point of incorporation might be missed or misconstrued. Such a cue need not always be a full bibliographic attribution. It should be enough to distinguish borrowing from fresh authorship in the intended literary setting.

The essential aim is to prevent confusion between incorporation and independent invention.

27. Borrowed verse can be fitted into a new structure

Taḍmīn requires the borrowed portion to fit the syntax, setting and meaning of the new verse. Appending a famous hemistich to an unrelated sentence is not sufficient evidence of elegant incorporation.

Some examples let an older line complete a new image; others produce an additional allusion or tawriyah, a play between nearer and remoter meanings. The critic asks what new gain the later poem has achieved through the older words.

Thus the merit of taḍmīn depends on organic fit, not merely the presence of recognizable borrowed material.

28. A borrowed line fitted to a new vignette

أعذاره الساري العجول توقفا ما في وقوفك ساعة من بأس
Hold back the hurried night traveller; an hour's pause would do no harm.

The poetic wording presents a hurried night traveller and a call to halt. In the textbook's discussion, an earlier hemistich is brought into a new poetic scene; the image is made to fit the second composition.

When the scene concerns features appearing on a face, the relation between a restraint on travel and the new visual details becomes part of the literary effect. The borrowed words do more than repeat their earlier context.

29. Al-ʿUdhayb and Bāriq: layered associations

إذا الوهم أبدى لي لماها وثغرها تذكرت ما بين العذيب وبارق
When fancy showed me her lips and teeth, I remembered the region between al-ʿUdhayb and Bāriq.

The names al-ʿUdhayb and Bāriq evoke places, while their forms also recall sweetness and a flash of light, suited to the lips and shining teeth.

The example shows how poetic incorporation may coexist with double meaning or allusion. These remain different tests: one concerns borrowed wording; the other concerns the word's possible senses.

30. Jarr ʿawālīnā and majrā al-sawābiq

وذكرني من قدها ومدامعي مجر عوالينا ومجرى السوابق
Her figure and my flowing tears recalled to me the movement of spears and the courses of racing horses.

The figure suggests the slenderness or uprightness of a spear, while the flowing tears invite a comparison to movement or a course taken. The imagery therefore creates several connections, not one accidental match of words.

Read together with the companion verse naming places, it demonstrates how an incorporated expression can be adapted into a fresh network of images.

31. Taḍmīn can coexist with other devices

Several rhetorical relations may occur in one poem:
Taḍmīn: identifiable wording taken from another poet.
Tawriyah: a term carrying a near and a less obvious meaning.
Tashbīh: relating two things through a shared quality.

In examples involving al-ʿUdhayb, Bāriq and the movement of spears, separating these functions reveals why the composition is more layered than an isolated rhyme. Multiple figures can coexist, but each must meet its own technical criterion.

32. Minor alteration in incorporated poetry

ولا يضر في التضمين التغيير اليسير لما قصد تضمينه
A slight alteration in the wording intended for incorporation does not invalidate taḍmīn.

Meter, pronouns or address may require a modest adjustment. If the intended borrowing remains identifiable, that change does not erase the technical relation between the earlier and later verse.

If alteration becomes so extensive that neither the cited words nor their distinctive function can be recognized, a vague similarity is not enough to classify the result as this kind of poetic incorporation.

33. Anā ibn Jalā: adapting the speaker

أنا ابن جلا وطلاع الثنايا متى أضع العمامة تعرفوني
I am Ibn Jalā, one who scales difficult passes; when I remove my turban you will recognize me.

The original boast speaks in the first person: anā, aḍaʿ, taʿrifūnī. In the textbook's example the same famous wording is adapted to describe someone else: huwa ibn Jalā and matā yaḍaʿ al-ʿimāmah taʿrifūh.

Pronouns and verbs change, yet the recognizable literary allusion survives. It demonstrates a permissible small adjustment of the incorporated verse.

34. Other names for particular patterns of borrowing

Poetic taḍmīn also has associated labels based on the amount and use of borrowed verse. Istiʿānah concerns a full verse or more, while īdāʿ and rafw are discussed for a hemistich or a smaller portion.

The word rafw suggests mending or joining, as borrowed wording is woven into a new poem. These labels identify patterns of incorporation; they should not be treated as completely interchangeable terms without attention to their particular usage.

35. Separating appropriation, iqtibās and taḍmīn

DeviceSourceDistinctive feature
IqtibāsQur'an or HadithScriptural words inside a literary composition
TaḍmīnAnother poetRecognizable or signalled borrowed verse
Concealed appropriationAnother writer's poemPassing borrowed language or thought off as one's own
IlmāmAnother poet's ideaTaking a distinctive meaning without the earlier wording

The table links current and prior discussions. Source, amount, alteration and disclosure are separate dimensions of analysis.

36. A four-part analysis of a borrowed phrase

A borrowed expression can be classified through four questions:
1. Identify the source: Qur'an, Hadith, earlier poetry or only a shared theme.
2. Determine what was taken: a phrase, hemistich, full verse or only a distinctive idea.
3. Examine its use: an expressly attributed quotation or words woven into a new text.
4. Check adjustment and disclosure: preserved wording, limited adaptation or a cue identifying unfamiliar borrowed poetry.

Only then apply the rhetorical label. This is more reliable than identifying a device from one isolated word.

37. Worked contrast: structure and intention

قال الله تعالى: فصبر جميل
God said: “Then beautiful patience.”

As presented here, this is an explicit source attribution. Its communicative purpose is to report a text.

إن كنت أزمعت على هجرنا من غير ما جرم فصبر جميل
If you have resolved to leave us without cause, then beautiful patience is the response.

In this second sentence, the same scriptural words complete a newly composed poetic thought. That makes their literary function iqtibās. Shared words alone do not settle the classification; use and framing matter.

38. Consolidated lesson summary

Iqtibās: incorporating Quranic or Hadith words into original prose or verse as a literary component, not merely reporting them with explicit attribution.
Taḍmīn: inserting a portion of another poet's verse into one's own poetry and indicating the borrowing when the source is unfamiliar.
Minor alteration: a limited adjustment that leaves the earlier expression recognizable and suited to its new context.

Core examples:
“kalamḥ al-baṣar aw huwa aqrab” — Quranic incorporation.
“fa-ṣabrun jamīl” — scriptural words concluding a poem.
“aḍāʿūnī wa-ayyi fatan aḍāʿū” — a famous poetic hemistich incorporated.
“huwa ibn Jalā ... taʿrifūh” — poetic incorporation with adjusted pronouns and verbs.

In each case examine the source, wording, context and extent of change separately.