The concept of faṣāḥah in Ibn Sinān al-Khafājī

It is customary practice in the Arabic linguistic tradition to anchor the initial stages in the exposition of the content of technical terminologies by reference to their lexical meanings.* Adopting this strategy here, it is possible to say that, in its most general sense, faṣāḥah designates the idea of 'clarity' or 'purity'. ¹ Applied in the more restricted domain of linguistic study, faṣāḥah is generally used to designate a constellation of meanings covering, among other things, fluency in speech, the correct articulation of utterances and grammatical accuracy. It is used in these senses in both the Qur'an and the corpus of Prophetic ḥadīths as well as in poetry and prose literature of the early periods of Islamic intellectual activity.