An Analysis on the Meaning of the Term “Exaggeration” in Shawqi Dhaif’s Books

In spite of brilliant thoughts and ration-oriented manners in Shia discourse, during the history and in practice, Shia has always been looked down upon by its rivals; thus, at times by the establishment of superstitious and deviant ideologies seeking the distortion of Shia reputation and also by the manipulation of some deviant ideological groups such as exaggeraters (Ghulūt), despising Shia and its ideas. Shawqi Dhaif in his books has utilized the term “exaggeration” about most of the poets of Abbasian era, and calls them exaggerators. The present study, in reference to dictionaries and other resources, and by presenting various definitions, attempts to illuminate the meaning of the term “exaggeration” from Dhaif’s point of view; therefore basically clarifying what meaning he has been seeking by “exaggeration” as an analysis on most of the poets of the era. The present study by the account of text analysis approach and through a descriptive-analytic method has made an effort to extract the meaning of the term “exaggeration” among his writings and to put them under scrutiny and inspection. The statistical population of this research includes a series of books on the history of Arabs Literature and the book "al-fan wa Maḍᾱhibuhū fi al-shiʿr al-aʿrabi". Firstly, all Shiite poets have been identified, then biographies and comments about them have been carefully studied. This study included all the items that Shawqi Dhaif used the term exaggeration for a poet with a witness in the text of the article, and brought some examples of poems that he regards them as poems include exaggeration. The results of the study suggest that among different meanings of exaggeration, Dhaif has taken that respect of exaggeration into consideration in which the meaning is more concerned with hatred an overthrow towards Sunni Caliphs and this is the same meaning Ibn Abdi Rabah and Ibn Khaldun have already pointed out.