Morphological Deviation as a Counter-Discourse Strategy in the Letters of Nahj al-Balāgha

Document Type : .

Authors

1 Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Iran

2 Graduate of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Iran

10.30465/alavi.2026.55390.2842
Abstract
Morphological deviation—the conscious departure from morphological norms—has the potential to function as a discursive strategy serving the stabilization of meaning and the reinforcement of the speaker's authority. Despite previous research on deviation in Nahj al-Balāgha, the counter-discursive analysis of these devices in the Letters has remained neglected. Integrating the counter-discourse approach with morphological deviation, this study employs a descriptive-analytical method based on qualitative content analysis to examine all fifty-three Letters of Nahj al-Balāgha. The findings indicate that morphological deviations occur in four major domains: deviation from present to past tense (115 cases), through violating the maxim of quality, generates counter-discourses of certainty, urgency, inevitability, and transhistoricity in political commands and descriptions of the Hereafter and death. Deviation from active to passive voice (126 cases), through the omission of the subject, activates counter-discourses of magnification, predestination, generalization, degradation, threat, passivity, and victimhood portrayal. Deviation in derived forms (4 cases) adds implications of gradualness, exaggeration, and participation to the discourse, while deviation in derivation (53 cases) and infinitives (1 case) renders concepts more objective, enduring, and transhistorical. Through these strategies, Imam ʿAlī (AS) establishes the monotheistic discourse as a stable and unalterable principle within the order of existence, elevating the Letters from administrative correspondence to a transhistorical text.

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