Specification (al-Ikhtiṣāṣ)
الِاخْتِصَاصُ
Verses 620–621 · chapter 52 of 78
The chapter treats the specifying construction, in which a speaker names a group to single it out as the referent of a first-person pronoun (e.g. ʾanā … ʾayyuhā l-fatā, naḥnu l-ʿurba …). It has the outward form of a vocative without the particle yā. The noun appears either as ʾayyuhā/ʾayyatuhā plus a noun with al, or as a noun with al alone, which is then in the accusative. AI
- 620
Metre: not scanned
As vowelled here, this verse does not fit al-rajaz, the metre of the poem; it is left unscanned rather than forced.
Ibn Jinnī on al-rajaz, “the trembling”
وهو على ستة أجزاء مستفعلن مستفعلن مستفعلن مستفعلن مستفعلن مستفعلن
It has six feet: mustafʿilun, six times. Kitāb al-ʿArūḍ, lines 842–843 (p. 101) ↗
Scanned by rule, not by a model. The vowelled text is read as it is pronounced, as Ibn Jinnī says scansion must be: doubled letters count twice, tanwīn adds an n, long vowels lengthen, the connecting alif drops inside the line, the article's l merges into a sun letter, and the last vowel of a line is drawn out. The syllables, long (–) and short (∪), are then fitted to each metre's feet with the common licences (zihāfāt) and line-endings. A poem has one metre: the one that fits most of its verses. A verse that does not fit it is marked 'not scanned'; nothing is guessed. Vowels scanned: AI vowelling (no vowelled edition is available to us).
Scanned by rule English: AI translation AI
Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002), Kitāb al-ʿArūḍ, ed. Aḥmad Fawzī al-Hayb (Kuwait: Dār al-Qalam, 1407/1987). Digital text: 0392IbnJinniMawsili.Carud.JK000956-ara1 (OpenITI RELEASE v2025.1.9). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (OpenITI digital text); the classical text is public domain, the modern edition is not.
[Specification is formed] like a vocative without yā, as ʾayyuhā l-fatā after irjūnī [irjūnī ʾayyuhā l-fatā, 'place your hope in me, I being the young man'. ʾayyu is built on ḍamm and stands in the accusative position, as it does in the vocative. The meaning is singling out the speaker, and no one is being called].
AI note on the transcription: الِاخْتِصَاصُ كَنِدَاءٍ دُونَ يَا: the opening word al-ikhtiṣāṣu has been dropped. It is the subject of the sentence (kanidāʾin is its predicate), and without it the hemistich is one foot short of rajaz (ʾa-likh-ti-ṣā | ṣu ka-ni-dā | ʾin dū-na yā).
- 621
الرَّجَزal-rajaz∪–∪–مَفَاعِلُنْ––∪–مُسْتَفْعِلُنْ––∪–مُسْتَفْعِلُنْ∪–∪–مَفَاعِلُنْ––∪–مُسْتَفْعِلُنْ––∪–مُسْتَفْعِلُنْ
Ibn Jinnī on al-rajaz, “the trembling”
وهو على ستة أجزاء مستفعلن مستفعلن مستفعلن مستفعلن مستفعلن مستفعلن
It has six feet: mustafʿilun, six times. Kitāb al-ʿArūḍ, lines 842–843 (p. 101) ↗
Scanned by rule, not by a model. The vowelled text is read as it is pronounced, as Ibn Jinnī says scansion must be: doubled letters count twice, tanwīn adds an n, long vowels lengthen, the connecting alif drops inside the line, the article's l merges into a sun letter, and the last vowel of a line is drawn out. The syllables, long (–) and short (∪), are then fitted to each metre's feet with the common licences (zihāfāt) and line-endings. A poem has one metre: the one that fits most of its verses. A verse that does not fit it is marked 'not scanned'; nothing is guessed. Vowels scanned: AI vowelling (no vowelled edition is available to us).
Scanned by rule English: AI translation AI
Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002), Kitāb al-ʿArūḍ, ed. Aḥmad Fawzī al-Hayb (Kuwait: Dār al-Qalam, 1407/1987). Digital text: 0392IbnJinniMawsili.Carud.JK000956-ara1 (OpenITI RELEASE v2025.1.9). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (OpenITI digital text); the classical text is public domain, the modern edition is not.
This [construction] is sometimes found without ʾayy, [as a noun] following al [i.e. a noun with the article, put in the accusative], as in naḥnu l-ʿurba ʾaskhā man baḏal ['we, the Arabs, are the most generous of those who give'. al-ʿurba is accusative by an implied verb such as ʾakhuṣṣu, 'I mean specifically'].
Ibn ʿAqīl on verses 620–621Arabic
الاختصاص يشبه النداء لفظا ويخالفه من ثلاثة أوجه
Ibn ʿAqīl, OpenITI line 6186 · vol. 3, p. 296 ↗أحدها أنه لا يستعمل معه حرف نداء
والثاني أنه لا بد أن يسبقه شيء
والثالث أن تصاحبه الألف واللام
وذلك كقولك أنا أفعل كذا أيها الرجل ونحن العرب أسخى الناس وقوله صلى الله عليه وسلم نحن معاشر الأنبياء لا نورث ما تركناه صدقة
وهو منصوب بفعل مضمر والتقدير أخص العرب وأخص معاشر الأنبياء