As part of the Doctoral Dissertations series, the ACRPS has published Perception in the Arab Intellectual Heritage (392 pp.) by Khaled Abdel Raouf Aljabr. The book addresses perception solely in Arab intellectual heritage and evaluates the subject with a degree of independence that lays the foundation for an Arab theory of perception, offering conclusions that allow us to compare between the Arab-historical and Western-modern perspectives. Next, it discusses the parties to the creative process (i.e., the creator, the text, and the recipient) and offers an overview of Arab intellectual history’s contributions on the production of meaning, modes and trends of perception, and the dialectic of the relationship between creation and perception.
The book was originally a doctoral dissertation on Arab critical and rhetorical heritage for the University of Jordan in 2002, whose author sought to be open to sources from the various fields of Arab intellectual heritage, ranging from literature, criticism, and rhetoric to philosophy, speculative theology (kalām), jurisprudence (fiqh), and exegesis (tafsīr).
Although one might imagine that the concept of the recipient in heritage is restricted to the one who receives the text in the sense of being present before the creator, reality guides us toward a more nuanced understanding. This class of recipient appears only when literary discourse is aimed at a specific recipient, especially in informative, dialectical, and argumentative styles where the recipient is the addressee. Other texts are directed toward an assumed recipient, as if the issue is largely hypothetical and a means by which critics have clarified some aspects of style – not a central question for argumentation.
One might believe that people have become superficial to such an extent that creators do not address their personal sentiments in everything they write, instead remaining focused on the intended recipient – who may be critical, hesitant, or oblivious. Yet it becomes readily apparent upon closer inspection that it depends on the creator themselves, because texts – even those that are informative, dialectical, or persuasive and have an intended recipient – are impacted by the author’s awareness of the recipient.
It might seem obvious to discuss how recipients differ in their perception of a text, as heritage makes inevitable, but to speak of the difference in itself is not a justification unless this heritage deems it acceptable. Although this issue through history might lead researchers to wrongly assume the absence of that acceptance, most texts are difficult to misuse.
To acknowledge the divergence in the schools of jurisprudence and the interpretations of religious texts, despite the risk involved, justifies acknowledging the divergence in the perception of less significant texts and makes ample room before the variation in recipients in how they approach poetry, for instance; it is not possible for disagreement to be allowed in legal judgments derived from Qur’anic verses or the Hadith of the Prophet, yet ruled out in terms of a work of poetry.
The principle of divergence is, thus, essential to the theory of perception among the Arabs, because most theorists, critics, and exegetes agree on it. Researchers should not strengthen the justification of this phenomenon with reasons from outside of its context; it suffices to say that to accept differences of understanding makes room for each of those understandings.
The text is a central concept in Arab intellectual heritage. It applies not only to the Qur’an but also to literature, criticism, and philosophy, and “the diversity of methods and critical inclinations in studying literary texts is merely a difference in how one defines the essence, properties, and functions of texts”. This concept may have a clear effect on the variety of approaches and viewpoints, the attempt of each to take up a particular view of the text, and a style that embodies this view in how it addresses the text in a full or partial framework.
If this is the case, there is another problem revealed by the flexibility afforded by the centrality of the text. Every text has multiple aspects, one of which may dominate how it is understood – regardless of how accessible it appears to the reader. These layers and objectives may not be readily apparent all at once, leading to a variety of opinions on its perception when there are multiple recipients – each examining the text at a different level. Interpretation in itself is predicated on a plurality of meanings; hence, the notion of there being a “single, higher truth” can be refuted in favour of a “probable, relative truth”, as is perceptible in the variations in the exegesis of a given Qur’anic verse.
