Argumentative Oaths
We have learnt that the Arabs in their oaths bore witness and called God’s
witness to what they intended to asseverate. Among oaths brought to witness
some claims, the oath taken by the name of God Almighty best communicates the
intention of the oath-taker. That is why swearing by God abounds in the conversations
as well as the literature of the Arabs. Those lacking a proper understanding of
the Arabic styles of expression and discipline of balāghah assume that
originally only God could be held witness in oaths because of the glory He
possesses.
However, a thorough analysis of the Arabic literature reveals that,
besides other things, they even swore by things they neither worshipped nor
respected. They only intended to evidence a fact by making the muqsam bihī
a witness for the muqsam ‘alayhi. Even purely religious oaths were
characterized by this aspect of evidencing a fact, as will be established in
section 15. For now, we only intend to present the examples of the
argumentative oaths so that the true signification of such oaths is brought to
light. Abū al-‘Aryān al-Ṭā’ī, while eulogizing Ḥātim, says:
People know and the cooking pots and the
shining sharp edges of knives, which flow continuously, bear witness that you do
not take more time to entertain a night visitor than is taken in unsheathing the
sword (to slaughter an animal).[1]
Al-Rā‘ī says:
Indeed, the heavens, the wind, the earth,
the days, and the city, all bear witness. I made Banū Badar taste the consequences of their
recalcitrance in the combat of Hibā’, an unparalleled battle.[2]
Nābighah al-Dhubyānī says:
The horses bear
witness that, at the time of intense spearing, we proved a scourge of
punishment for some and a blessing for others.[3]
‘Antarah
says:
Horses and the
horsemen bear witness to that I rent their force asunder through a decisive
spearing.[4]
Notice the use of cooking-pots, knives, heavens,
winds, the earth, days, cities, horses and horsemen as proofs to the statements
of the oath-takers. They mean to say: “Ask these things. If they could speak,
they would bear witness to what we state.”
This style of evidencing a fact by specific things has
been employed in the following statement of al-Faḍal b. ‘Īsā b. Abān in one of
his sermons:
Ask the earth: “Who
has engraved your streams, planted your trees and harvested your fruits?” If it
does not speak by tongue its very state will testify.[5]
I believe the Book of Job echoes this in the
following part of the sermon.
Ask the beasts, and
they will teach you; and the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak
to the earth, and it will teach you; and the fish of the sea will explain to
you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this,
in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all
mankind? (Job 12: 7-10)
Similarly it has been said in Deuteronomy:
I call heaven and
earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life
and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that both you and your
descendants may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19)
By this testimony, the Prophet Moses (sws) intends
to say: “This covenant between you and me is not a secret. Rather we formalize
it openly making it known to all. Dishonoring it would earn you everlasting
disgrace. You will then continuously face curse and punishment from the heavens
above and the earth below.”
The Prophet Moses (sws) has thus presented heavens
and earth to exemplify perpetual disgrace which must follow a breaking of the
pact. It is as if he appointed two witnesses over them, which may not abandon
them even for a moment, and appointed two signs, which may always remind them
of the pact.
What fully uncovers the true nature of the
argumentative oaths, in which the state of some inanimate thing is made to bear
witness over a claim, is the fact that just as the oath-takers make things to
bear witness over a fact using the words yashhadu (he bears witness), ya‘lamu
(he knows) and similar expressions, they also employ words which connote
swearing and even such words and particles as were coined to express an oath
including wāw of qasam or the la‘amrī (upon my life) and
the like.
For the benefit of those who have not been convinced
by the aforementioned examples, we refer to examples where oaths have been sworn
by inanimate objects which can only speak by their state. ‘Urwah b. Murrah
al-Hudhalī says:
And Abū Amāmah said: O
Bakr, help! I said: “By the Markhah tree (wa markhatin), what an
inflated claim!”
The poet satirizes Abū Amāmah’s call to the tribe of
Bakr for help. He means to say: “This is an awfully inflated claim. What an
insignificant people to rely on!” He swore by an unmeaning tree that cannot
even shelter a man. He depicted the tree as proverbial for weakness and
inability to provide shelter. This meaning is also clear in the following verse
ascribed to Abū Jundub al-Hudhalī:
I am a man who tucks
up loincloth to the middle of his calf (i.e. I instantly get ready for the
task) when called for help by a neighbor. You should not take my neighbor as a
man seeking shelter under a Markhah tree. Nor should you mistake him as
a mild grass growing in a low land.[6]
The oaths Hajras swore, after he had slain Jassās, the
killer of his father, are also relevant:
By my horse and its
ears, my spear and its edges, and my sword and its blade, one cannot spare the
killer of his father when he sees him.[7]
Hajras has sworn by things which evidence his
statements. He means to say: “How can I spare the killer of my father while I
am able to advance and retreat, spearing and fighting with a sword.” Thus he
has sworn by such things that are supposed to ratify his statement and prove
his claim.
Ṭarafah says:
By the blood ties and
by your grandfather, whenever you will encounter danger I will come to your help.[8]
Ṭarafah
says that he will never fail to attend a meeting of his blood relatives held
for the settlement of an important matter. He could never disregard blood ties.
Blood relation meant everything to the Arabs. They would, therefore, take an oath
by God as well as by blood ties. The poet swears by it in order to furnish
evidence for his commitment to his relatives and to externalize it.
Another example is found in a verse ascribed to al-Ḥaṣīn
b. Ḥammād who, while lamenting the death of his friend Na‘īm b. Al-Ḥārith,
says:
We killed five (men)
and they fell Na‘īm. It is honorable for a respectful young man to be killed. By
the women lamenting the death of Na‘īm, his murder has been hard on us.[9]
By swearing by the lamenting women, the poet intends
to point to their apparent condition which evidences the havoc created by the
event. It reveals how badly the relatives of the murdered man have been
affected. This kind of oaths is not very common because of the delicacy involved
in it and due to the currency of other forms of oaths signifying the same
meaning. However, it has been a well established form of taking an oath
containing multifaceted rhetorical beauty (balaghah). This issue will be
discussed in detail in the seventeenth section.
We, on the basis of very sound arguments, maintain
that this form of oath taking has been applied both by the Arabs and the non-Arabs.
It would not be inappropriate if we referred to the Greek literature to support
our viewpoint.
[1]. I have no access to the source of this couplet too.
[2]. al-Jāḥiẓ,
al-Bayān wa al-Tabyīn, 1: 82.
[3]. Nābighah,
Dīwān, 106.
[4]. ‘Antarah b. Shaddād, Dīwān, 2nd
ed., (Beirut: Al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1983), 134.
[5]. al-Jāḥiẓ,
al-Bayān wa al-Tabyīn, 1: 81.
[6]. Dīwān
al-Hudhaliyyīn, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub
al-Miṣriyyah, 1995), 92.
[7]. Aṣfahānī,
al-Aghāni, 5: 67.
[8]. Ṭarafah,
Dīwān, 27.
[9]. Aṣfahānī, al-Aghānī, 14: 12.
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