The Priority of Writing over Speech in al-Qalqashandi

The notion of “the priority of writing over speech” goes back to post renaissance era of Europe and it became the dominant feature of western culture in 20th century with Derrida’s deconstruction of the binary opposition of speech/writing. In the Islamic culture، Quran، the original source of the Islamic civilization، can be regarded as a turning point in the transformation of the oral culture into the written culture. In other words، it was the means of passage from the fundamental speech to the Originary writing. Needless to say، in some areas the fundamental speech remained dominant and few people overtly discussed the superiority of prose over verse. Sobh ol-a’sha fi sana’t el ensha is an exception. After briefly introducing the author and his work، we will examine his notion of the priority of the prose over the verse and its implications.