On the Necessity to Exclude Exercise Studies / Prof. Dr. Aqeel Abdul Hussein
On the Necessity to Exclude Exercise Studies
The Presentation of the Book " Enigmas' Problems in Concept and Description"
By Dr. Salah Hassan Hawi
Presented by Aqeel Abdul Hussein
The phenomenon of confusion in academic studies is not only found in Iraq – but also elsewhere! - In dealing with concepts, curricula and terminology coming, in an unfamiliar or hidden manner, to academic studies from Western culture, for those concerned with research problems and its social and cultural value. It is not limited to the field of new rhetoric, or discourse analysis. But it is present in narrative, linguistics, cultural studies, and criticism in general. Therefore, the book “The Enigmas' Problems in Concept and Description,” by Dr. Salah Hassan Hawi, Professor of Rhetoric and Discourse Analysis, at Basra University, College of Arts, Department of Arabic Language, addresses the problems of the enigma concept, its use and application in academic studies. It, meaning the concept, suffers from ambiguity, as the book says, paralleled by researchers 'ease in understanding it, or using it in research, until it became "a lesson from no lesson ”. And his studies turned into something like exercises that give the rule, or the type of enigma, then make texts a field of application, and research is an exercise, without spirit or purpose, reminding of the study of traditional rhetoric, in transforming poetic texts into exercises, to reveal the types of rhetoric and discourse .
The book seeks to "save the concept of enigma" by looking at it at what the author calls the four systems: the Qur’an, language, logic, and rhetoric. In any one of them, it is subject to a special system imposed by the system, and it forces the researcher to reconsider the concept of enigmas, which in the Qur’an cannot be a substitute for controversy or conflict, and their connotations related to the Qur’anic context. It was not present in the language system, which was linked to verbal expression more than with physical and psychological actions. Nor is it present in the system of logic that did not extend the argument to the concept of enigmas known today, nor in the system of rhetoric, which tended to the organizational logical dimension.
The book invites us to be careful and slow in using the concept in research, to look at the peculiarity of the studied field: Qur’anic studies, rhetoric, language, etc., to let us be able to present objective knowledge, useful for research, and for the reader, and being capable of growth and flowering. Otherwise, research in this field remains marked by naivety and superficiality, or rumination and imitation at best.
The book was published as part of the New Rhetoric and Discourse Analysis Series, the second book, by Shahryar House, Basra, 2018. It contains 80 pages of medium volume.
