Models of Cohesion Mechanisms in al-Maqāmah al-Bishrīyah by al-Hamadhānī

Abstract

This study examines models of textual cohesion mechanisms in early narrative discourse, taking al‑Maqāmah al‑Bishrīyah by Badiʿ al‑Zamān al‑Hamadhānī as an empirical case, within the framework of text linguistics. The investigation views the way maqāmah, as a narrative genre predicated on disguise and verbal play, achieves a high degree of textual cohesion despite interweaving anecdote with argumentation, narration with humor, and multiplicity of voices and segments.

The significance of the study lies in reconsidering the status of classical Arabic’s narrative text by extracting its structural system and demonstrating its amenability to analysis by the tools of text linguistics. Thereby, this reveals the depth of internal organization in canonical texts and refutes the view that lacks systemic structure.

The research adopts the descriptive‑analytical approach based on a text‑linguistic perspective that integrates syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic analysis, while drawing on classical rhetorical and poetics conceptions, especially those of Abd al‑Qāhir al‑Jurjānī and relating them to modern concepts as articulated by Halliday and Hasan (1976).

The study is of two main parts. Theoretically, it views the concept of textual cohesion and text linguistics and their relation to early Arabic narrative. Practically, it analysed al‑Maqāmah al‑Bishrīyah through four principal mechanisms that include deletion (ellipsis), repetition, intertextuality, and semantic relations (such as causality, generalization, and specification). The research demonstrates how these mechanisms contribute to tightening the textual structure, regulating narrative rhythm, guiding reception, and constructing a coherent semantic unity.

The analysis concludes that al‑Maqāmah al‑Bishrīyah constitutes a highly coherent textual model in which the conditions of textual cohesion are realized through a complex network of linguistic and semantic links. It also showed that classical Arabic narration possesses generative and interpretive structural potential, rendering it amenable to rigorous modern linguistic study.