An Analysis and Criticism of Ibn Meysam's Istishhādāt and Arabi's Amthāl in Nahj al-Balaghah 's Commentary

The commentary of Ibn Maysam al Bahrani is one of the prominent commentaries of Nahj al-Balaghah, but more attention has been paid to its theological and philosophical aspects and its literary aspects have been neglected. One of the features of this commentary, which shows its literary status, is the commentator's effort to use Arabic poems and proverbs in the commentary. This article, by considering the literary importance of this commentary, and using a comparative and analytical method, have studied the various uses of poems and anecdotes in this commentary and showed that Ibn Maysam has referred to poems and anecdotes in various cases such as describing the words, defining the meaning of phrases and explaining the morphological and syntactic rules. Beside the description of the poems and anecdotes in the speech of Imam (A.S) , sometimes he has completed the poems, and he has referred to the matla of the ode and its poet. Ibn Maysam did not suffice with the poets of a particular period and referred to the poems from the pre-Islamic era to the contemporary poets, as well as the poetry of poets of various sects such as the Shiites, the Kharijites, and others. However, there are also some criticisms of his work, including the fact that sometimes he did not mention the name of the poet and sometimes he did not write the verses completely. Also, in some cases, the poems in Ibn Maysam's commentary differs from the original ones, which has reviewed and corrected in this article by referring to diwans and other sources.