أقسام التأليف السبعة
أقسام التأليف السبعة
Hajji Khalifa's seven legitimate kinds of authorship — invention of what none preceded in, completion of the deficient, explication of the obscure, epitome without loss of meaning, collection of the scattered, ordering of the muddled, correction of a predecessor's error — plus the five benefits a late book must add and the eight conventional ru'us every author states in his opening 1.
At a glance
- Era
- The Gunpowder Empires
- Region
- Anatolia
- Review
- Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it
Overview
In Kashf al-zunun, in the chapter on authors and their works, Haji Khalifa says that authorship has seven divisions, and that no reasonable scholar writes except in one of them. 2
The seven divisions
An author may present something no one has preceded him in, which he invents; or something incomplete, which he completes; or something obscure, which he explains; or something long, which he abridges without harming its meanings; or something scattered, which he gathers; or something mixed, which he arranges; or something whose author made an error, which he corrects. 2
The benefits of a book
Whoever writes in a field that others have preceded him in should ensure that his book has five benefits: drawing out what was difficult, gathering what was scattered, explaining what was obscure, good arrangement and composition, or removing superfluity and excess length. 2
The eight heads
It has been the custom of authors to set out at the head of each book the headings that announce it, which they called the ru'us. There are eight: the purpose, the benefit, the title, the author, the kind of knowledge, and others. 2
Sources
- Kashf al-Zunun an Asami al-Kutub wa'l-Funun — Hajji Khalifa (Furqan ed.), p. 115-117
- Kashf al-Zunun an Asami al-Kutub wa'l-Funun — Hajji Khalifa (Furqan ed.), p.115-117
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “أقسام التأليف السبعة”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/aqsam-al-talif-saba/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Accessed 2026-10-17.