Asrar al-Balagha

ʿAsrār al-Balāgha (Arabic: أسرار البلاغة, romanized: Secrets of Eloquence) is one of the seminal works of Arabic rhetoric, authored by the renowned 11th-century grammarian and literary theorist ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 1078/1079). The work explores imagery and figurative speech, providing a systematic framework for the identification, classification, and analysis of simile and metaphor. It remains a foundational reference for the study of comparative imagery in both traditional and modern Arabic literary criticism, and constitutes one half of al-Jurjānī’s twin contributions to the development of ʿilm al-balāgha (the science of eloquence).