The Historical Background of īhām

Īhām (or tauriya, as it is more commonly called in Arabic) is one of the most prominent semantic strategies in Persian and Arabic poetry. Although this literary technique is theorized in the twelfth century, it has a longer history in practice, and scholars have verified its examples even in the Qurʾan and the works of early Arab poets.Footnote ² This figure of speech becomes especially popular among both the Persian mannerist and mystic poets and is one of the essential features of their poetry.Footnote ³ Therefore, studying the aesthetic mechanism of īhām, the way this stylistic device deepens and beautifies literary discourse, paves the way for a better comprehension of some of the semantic intricacies of Persian and Arabic works of literature.

We cannot say with certainty what book first introduced this definition of īhām. Two contemporary literary scholars, Vaṭvāṭ and Usāma b. Munqidh, delineated this technique in the twelfth century, but we cannot determine who came first.Footnote ⁴ The function of this artifice differs slightly in the examples they cite; however, in general the two definitions of this technique are very similar. Nevertheless, indisputably, neither author discovered or created this figure of speech. Ibn Munqidh, in the introduction to his book, says that he only introduces stylistic devices known in his time.Footnote ⁵ Vaṭvāṭ also refers to another name for this technique (takhyīl), and we can infer that this designation was employed by some authorities of that era.Footnote ⁶ Nonetheless, an autobiographical anecdote Vaṭvāṭ narrates may indicate that īhām was still in its infancy at the time, and that not all litterateurs were familiar with it.

Nevertheless, in several premodern books on stylistics, in discussions of double meaning, a relevant quotation is attributed to Jār Allāh Maḥmūd al-Zamakhsharī (1074–1143), medieval theologian, linguist, and interpreter of the Qurʾan: “We do not see any category in the art of eloquence that is more exquisite and delicate, as well as more profitable and favorable than this category, especially for the interpretation of allegorical verses (al-mutashābihāt) in the speech of Allāh and His Prophet.”Footnote ⁷

This attribution to Zamakhshari would make him the first scholar who consciously spoke about double meaning as a category in balāgha (the study of literary eloquence), because he was born some decades earlier than Vaṭvāṭ and Ibn Munqidh and authored his primary works before they appeared on the scene. Nevertheless, this statement is not found in the extant works of Zamakhsharī. In his study, Bonebakker researched the history of these lines and painstakingly examined its sources. Citing authoritative evidentiary materials, he argues that this quotation is fundamentally erroneous, resulting from misinterpretation of the word takhyīl in Zamakhsharī's Qurʾanic exegesis, popularly known as al-Kashshāf (The Revealer). Without denying Zamakhsharī's possible familiarity with īhām, Zamakhsharī does not assign him a place in the history of identifying and theorizing this stylistic artifice.Footnote ⁸

Īhām: Its Name and Definition

As referenced above, this literary technique, at the time of Ibn Munqidh and Vaṭvāṭ, was called īhām (lit., creating illusions) and tauriya (lit., concealment). Throughout the history of Islamic poetics, these names have been considered synonymous and utilized interchangeably. Ibn Munqidh was the first scholar to use tauriya. Two centuries later, Ibn al-Ḥijjat al-Ḥamawī, in his relatively detailed treatise devoted to the study of double meaning in Arabic poetry, found tauriya the most appropriate name among the several designations that had been applied to this stylistic device.Footnote ⁹ Tauriya is often used by scholars of Arabic literature today. Vaṭvāṭ, however, preferred the term īhām, and there was no mention of tauriya in his book; perhaps he was not aware of it.

The term īhām, as utilized in this article, is not found in books preceding Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr. Use of the word in this sense by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1150–1210) and Sirāj al-Dīn al-Sakkākī (1160–1229), two bilingual authorities of the thirteenth century who had access to the contents of Vaṭvāṭ's treatise, was undoubtedly influenced by Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr.Footnote ¹⁰ This term's entry into subsequent Arabic works of balāgha is one of Vaṭvāṭ's direct impacts on the scholars of Arabic poetics. Persian books on stylistics have followed Vaṭvāṭ's name for this device; tauriya is rarely used in Persian to refer to this figure of speech.

This succinct definition, analyzed thoroughly, offers illuminating insights. First, to Vaṭvāṭ only one of the two potential senses that a polysemous word conveys is intended by the poet; the other is merely illusive and without validity.Footnote ¹³ His primary purpose for using this technique is to create an illusion (īhām) and not to speak in a veiled way (tauriya); this is his reason for using the term īhām. Furthermore, Vaṭvāṭ chose to employ the words qarīb and gharīb. The “near” sense refers to the word's connections with other components of the sentence. It is near them because, in appearance, they all belong to one semantic field. The “strange” meaning has no congruence with other words in the sentence (it is an outsider) and consequently generates a feeling of wonder and surprise when comprehended in the way it is intended.

For a better understanding of Vaṭvāṭ's definition, examine the initial part of the long sentence that Vaṭvāṭ quotes from al-Maqāmat al-Baghdādīyya (the assembly in Baghdad) of al-Ḥarīrī (1054–1122): “lam yazal ʾahl-ī wa baʿl-ī yaḥullūna °ṣ-ṣadr^a, wa yasīrūna °l-qalb^a, wa yumṭūna °ẓ-ẓahr^a wa yūlūna °l-yad^a” (My kin and my husband used to seat themselves at the foremost place [of the assemblies] and march in the center [of the corps], and provide [the others] with steeds, and endow [the others] with gifts).Footnote ¹⁴ The words ṣadr (chest), qalb (heart), ẓahr (back), and yad (hand), when used to refer to body organs, indeed belong to a single semantic domain, and in this regard, they are near each other. This proximity makes them come to mind sooner, but this is an illusion. Following the logic of īhām, one realizes the intended meanings are “place of honor,” “center,” “mount,” and “gift,” respectively. These second meanings are outsiders in a semantic field of body organs. This example illustrates Vaṭvāṭ's intentional use of qarīb and gharīb in his definition.

Thus, īhām is not just a vague use of a polysemous word, but a deliberate tactic that embeds the concepts of semantic fields and literary defamiliarization. Semantic fields are groups of words that are related to each other based on categorization, lexical paradigms, co-occurrence, and adjacency. These fields create linguistic habits of mind, making the meaning of individual words predictable in a sentence.Footnote ¹⁵ Literary defamiliarization, on the other hand, is a technique that disrupts readers' habitual ways of perceiving the language by presenting familiar objects or concepts in a new, unexpected way, thereby creating a sense of wonder and unfamiliarity.Footnote ¹⁶ Vaṭvāṭ's definition of īhām involves a deliberate disruption of language patterns. It demonstrates his awareness of the context-sensitivity of meanings, and the fact that īhām, or double meaning, occurs intentionally through a combination of lexical items in a syntactic system. Īhām, according to Vaṭvāṭ, entails mentioning the constituents of a semantic field, where one or more of these members can receive different interpretations that are not immediately connected to the semantic field. The reader or listener is led to believe that a certain meaning is intended, based on customary language patterns, but is surprised when a different, unexpected meaning is revealed. This stylistic device prevents over-automatization of language processing and it is, in essence, a specific type of literary defamiliarization.

To reconcile the above explanation with Vaṭvāṭ's terminology, it can be stated that in the mechanism of literary amphiboly, a polysemous word can convey a meaning that is not intended by the author, and this uninteded meaning is linked through semantic relations to other sentence components (qarīb). However, the syntactic principles of the language or the logic of the context in which it is used reveal this meaning to be illusory and unacceptable. Instead, the syntax and context support the other, more hidden intention, which is unexpected by the audience as it is an outsider (gharīb) in the semantic field, and thus, throws them into a state of illusion (īhām).

When defining īhām, Vaṭvāṭ emphasizes that its primary purpose is to create an illusion in the audience. Throughout this chapter, when explaining his examples, he insists on this point. In some cases, he uses the idiom khāṭir ba [chīz-ī] raftan (drifting of mind toward [something]). For instance, after citing the aforementioned passage from Ḥarīrī's Maqāmāt, he briefly comments: “When the audience hears all that is contained in these phrases, their minds will drift toward the body organs, while the [author's] intention is something else.”Footnote ¹⁷ Elsewhere, he utilizes pindāshtan (to fall into the illusion). For instance, in a short remark after a Persian evidentiary verse, he says, “they fall into the illusion that he is referring to the foliage of the trees.”Footnote ¹⁸ This corroborates the significance of creating an illusion as part of Vaṭvāṭ's understanding of this semantic technique. It also confirms that, from Vaṭvāṭ's point of view, although the sentence is capable of expressing two purports, only one can be considered valid; the other is an illusion.

Before closing the discussion of the definition of īhām in Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr, and before starting the analysis of examples, it is necessary to consider Bonebakker's criticism of Vaṭvāṭ's presentation. Importantly, Bonebakker believes that Vaṭvāṭ's definition of īhām is not “very strict.” He gives a translation of the passage quoted above, but he uses the word baʿīd (far) instead of gharīb and translates qarīb and baʿīd as “obvious” and “not obvious,” respectively.Footnote ¹⁹ Relying on this inaccurate translation, he concludes that Vaṭvāṭ “does not specify by what means this “not obvious” meaning should come to the mind of the hearer.”Footnote ²⁰

However, I have not been able to locate the source for the use of baʿīd in this section. In the published version of Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr, and in all its old manuscripts, as well as its modern Arabic translation, the word gharīb (strange, outsider) is used.Footnote ²¹ Also, contrary to Bonebakker's translation, qarīb is not defined as “obvious” in reliable Arabic and Persian dictionaries; this word, in its primary usage, means “near,” and even its figurative meanings are all related to the concept of nearness. In fact, the concept of nearness and close relation sheds light on Vaṭvāṭ's perception of īhām and its structure. Because Bonebakker has another interpretation of qarīb in mind, he apparently interpolates baʿīd into the text, leading to a false, distorted translation and misunderstanding. His premise is not well-grounded and, consequently, his conclusion unproven. By analyzing examples, it will become more clear that the definition presented by Vaṭvāṭ is helpful to our understanding of the mechanism of īhām.

Īhām in Practice

Most of the examples that Vaṭvāṭ includes in the chapter under consideration have a structure similar to the passage cited from Ḥarīrī's Maqāmāt. A set of lexical units create a semantic field, but one or more of the category members has a double meaning. The poet or prose writer clearly intends the second connotation, which is not related to the semantic field built by the associated items, and if one were to assume the first sense, which interconnects with that set, the sentence would be devoid of logical purport. For example, in Ḥarīrī's first sentence, the near meaning, which actually belongs to the category of body organs, leads to a logically weak, meaningless, and ridiculous sentence: “My kin and my husband used to seat themselves at the chest, and march in the heart.”

Another illustration that follows this structure is the verse Vaṭvāṭ quotes from the Siqṭ al-Zand (The Falling Spark of Tinder) by Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī:

In this verse, the words jadd (grandfather), ʿamm (paternal uncle), and khāl (maternal uncle) all belong to the lexical category of kinsmen. However, for the verse to have a logical message, other definitions of these words (respectively, “fortune,” “public,” and “imagination”) must be considered.

Literary scholars of later ages considered these examples part of a subcategory of īhām, known as īhām-i tanāsub (amphiboly through congruence). Al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī (1267–1338) was the first theorist to introduce this subcategory, in a continuation of his chapter on murāʿāt al-naẓīr (observing associated items).Footnote ²³ The observance of associated items here is a lexical categorization and formation of a semantic field in a context. This is a common part of language. Vaṭvāṭ seems to be aware of this point, as, at the end of his chapter on murāʿāt al-naẓīr, he writes: “There are few Persian or Arabic poems that are not adorned with this figure of speech; however, they are at different levels of [stylistic] grace.”Footnote ²⁴ In many examples, īhām is creating an illusion through categorization: in the sentences quoted from Ḥarīrī's Maqāmāt, we see the lexical category of body organs, and in the quoted verse from Maʿarrī the category of kinsmen.

However, in some examples of amphiboly, the sentence may have justifiable meanings for more than one definition conveyed by the polysemous word. Vaṭvāṭ disregards this distinction and does not subdivide his examples. Moreover, despite this capacity of īhām to induce two logical meanings, he believes that only one of these is intended by the author, namely the one not belonging to the semantic field built by the associated items.Footnote ²⁵

Some of the examples given by Vaṭvāṭ are instances of pure īhām. For instance, at the end of the Persian tale of the villager and Avicenna, when the sheep-seller says: “bara dar muqābala-yi tarāzū bāshad” (Aries is opposite to Libra), he creates a kind of illusion by bringing two members of the category of butchery items (lamb and scales) to mind, but intending the names of Zodiac signs, because in Persian astrological terminology, bara (lamb) and tarāzū (scales) are designations of Aries and Libra, respectively.Footnote ²⁶ In the context of trading, the audience might imagine that the shepherd means for the lamb to be weighed and paid for, after which the customer can take it. But according to Vaṭvāṭ, the sheep-seller wants to impress Avicenna by stating a scientific point. Therefore, in actuality, he means Aries stands opposite to (dar muqābala) Libra, as the first one occurs at the spring equinox and the latter on the first day of autumn. Vaṭvāṭ comments that this was uniquely intelligent speech and in proportion with Avicenna's sagacity.Footnote ²⁷ The meanings intended by the speaker are outside the category of butcher shop items. Nevertheless, unlike the previously discussed passage of Ḥarīrī's Maqāmāt, interpreting this line's message using either of these potential meanings will not lead to an irrational or absurd statement.

In many cases, the capacity of polysemous words to convey two logical messages in literary discourse leads to different inferences by commentators. A famous example of this interpretational disagreement comprises the following verses attributed to Jamīl ibn Maʿmar (d.701), an Arab ʿUdhrī poet, which are also quoted anonymously by Vaṭvāṭ in Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr:

By considering the first meaning of the words ʿayn (eye/guardian), ghurr (whiteness [of the teeth]/greatness), anyāb (teeth/nobles), and qawādiḥ (blackness [of the teeth]/notoriety), which all belong to the lexical category of parts of the face, the second verse can be interpreted as follows: May God throw dust in Buthayna's eyes and [throw] blackness on the whiteness of her teeth.

Buthayna was Jamīl's beloved, and logically the poet does not want suffering and unhappiness for her. Vaṭvāṭ, with certainty, interprets the verse with the second meaning of the four above-mentioned words and considers their apparent meanings—which come to mind first because they belong to the category of parts of the face—to be illusory.Footnote ²⁹ But since this sentence, even when glossing those words as body parts, is not logically devoid of justifiable meaning, other commentators have different interpretations of this verse. In Kitāb al-Zahra (the Book of the Blossoms), for example, after mentioning a commentary on this verse that is in complete agreement with Vaṭvāṭ's, Ibn Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī (d. 909) writes that he asked Abū al-ʿAbbās Thaʿlab (815–904), a renowned literary scholar and the author of Qawāʿid al-Shiʿr (The Rules of Poetry), for his opinion on this commentary. Ibn Dāwūd relates that Thaʿlab said this interpretation was pointless, and that he considered the presence of negative words in this verse in accordance with the traditions of ancient Arabic literature, in which cursing a magnificent thing when one is exceedingly impressed by it is a common matter and even a type of eulogization.Footnote ³⁰ Of the medieval authorities, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Zauzanī (d. 1093), the famous commentator on the Muʿallaqāt (The Suspended Odes), also construes this verse according to its apparent meaning and believes that it was composed to protect Buthayana by warding off the evil eye.Footnote ³¹ Other commentators, among them the Muʿtazilī theologist al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (965/6–1044), have maintained that the meaning of the dust falling in Buthayna's eyes signaled reduction of her vision due to her long life, and that blackening of her teeth was also a sign of old age. Therefore, Jamīl has wished his beloved longevity, and this verse, contrary to its apparent meaning, is a good prayer for her.Footnote ³² However, Ibn Sinān al-Khafājī (1032–1073), the medieval scholar of poetics who authored Sirr al-Faṣāḥa (The Secret of Eloquence), taking the literal meanings of all the components of this verse into account, views this curse to be the result of the bard's loss of patience and calls it a flaw in his poetry.Footnote ³³ It is stated in Kitāb al-Aghānī (The Book of Songs), a tenth-century encyclopedic compendium of Arabic poetry, that Buthayna herself (like al-Khafājī and unlike Vaṭvāṭ and other interpreters), comprehending this poem based on the apparent purports of the words, had considered it as an imprecation and was offended by Jamīl's composition.Footnote ³⁴ The poet did not deny it.Footnote ³⁵ The fact that this poem conveys justifiable messages with both significations of its polysemous words has led to these controversies.

There also is a strong possibility (supported, to some extent, by Kitāb al-Aghānī's narrative) that the composer of the verses was unaware of the ability of his words to induce a double meaning. This often occurs in cases in which a line has logical purports with two (or more) interpretations of its polysemous words. Quoting an autobiographical anecdote, Vaṭvāṭ addressed this phenomenon in the final example of his chapter on literary amphiboly.Footnote ³⁶ He mentions an unknown bard named Anbārī with whom he had friendship during his stay in Termez, who used to ask Vaṭvāṭ's opinion about his poems. Vaṭvāṭ says that this poet was not aware of the technique of īhām and learned it from him. However, this figure of speech occurred frequently in his verses due to his natural disposition, rather than knowledge or intention. Reflecting on Anbārī's verse, we can see that this poem has reasonable interpretations with both meanings of the word lab (lip/edge [of the bread]), and that the amphiboly used in it, similar to that in Jamīl's verse, is an example of īhām:

Lab, because of its juxtaposition with baker and bread, may be interpreted in the first reading as the edge of bread (he does not treat us to a single slice). However, Vaṭvāṭ considers this an illusory meaning (pindārand ki lab-i nān kh^wāsta ast: they might become illuded that he means the edge of the bread). The poet's intention was the young baker's lip, Vaṭvāṭ believed, in accordance with his definition: this was obviously an outsider (gharīb) in the lexical category of the bakery.

It should be kept in mind that the semantic field also can be created through lexical paradigms (such as synonymy, antinomy, derivation, etc.). Traditional scholars of poetics have not been oblivious to the possibility of creating illusory meanings by paradigmatic disruption, and in classifying īhām they have included a subcategory for īhām-i taḍādd (amphiboly through antithesis). Al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī introduces this technique in his discussion of al-ṭibāq (antithesis) as a literary technique.Footnote ³⁸ In this stylistic maneuver, two lexemes, at least one of which has multiple meanings, are the antithesis of each other. However, the meaning that creates semantic opposition is not the one intended by the author, and the other use of the word must be understood for the verse to have a reasonable message. This is illustrated in a humorous verse by an anonymous poet:

The words yasār (left) and yamīn (right) have opposite meanings, and they build a paradigm-based semantic field. However, these meanings cannot be considered valid in this poem; rather, one must apply other senses of these two words (respectively, “money” and “vow”) for it to be commonsensical and acceptable.

Among the evidentiary Arabic verses that Vaṭvāṭ quotes are four lines composed by Masʿud-i Saʿd-i Salmān (d. 1121/22), a great Persian poet. Since Masʿud-i Saʿd's Arabic divan did not survive, preserving these poems has an indescribable value for the history of literature:

A night as if the sun had lost her way, and there was no path for her to return to the east.

I looked at her, while the darkness was as if crows had fallen from the sky on the eyes.

The literary amphiboly is found in the fourth line, in which dhanb al-sirḥān (wolf's tail) means “zodiacal light,” and ghazāla (gazelle) signifies the sun. The semantic field of animals is created by mentioning wolf and gazelle, but the poet has used intended meanings that are considered outsiders in this lexical set. These four verses, or only the last verse, have been included in many books on Arabic stylistics, and the source was undoubtedly Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr. Some of the scholars who quote these lines propose that this verse has al-tauriaya al-mubayyana (transparent amphiboly).Footnote ⁴¹ This subcategory utilizes the polysemous word in a context that contains attributes of the meaning that is intended by the poet. In this verse, the two words “shining” and “rising” [of the sun] indicate what the poet intends by his polysemous words.

The fourth Arabic example mentioned by Vaṭvāṭ is from an anonymous source. It is riddle-like in nature and structurally crucial in explaining Vaṭvāṭ's view of īhām:

Bonebakker does not pay due attention to the difference in structure between this instance of ambiguity and that of Vaṭvāṭ's other examples in this chapter; he writes: “I will also omit the fourth and the last of the Arabic examples and the two first examples from Persian poetry, since, in my opinion, they do not contribute to our understanding of Rašīdaddīn's concept of īhām.”Footnote ⁴³ This may be because he has failed to decipher this enigmatic line. In this verse, unlike the previous examples, no word carries two meanings. Instead, the words are put together in such a way that, in the second hemistich, the syntactic roles of its components can be determined in two ways, and a different meaning can be achieved with each method of parsing the sentence. Due to the adjacency of the shaykh (old man) and jāriya (young girl), which through antithesis create a paradigm-based semantic field, the mind goes to the first reading recorded above. However, this is not the intended meaning of this line. To understand the poet's intention, the second half should be read in the following way: “shaykh^an wajā riya(t)^an fī baṭn_i ʿuṣfūr_in” ([I saw] an old man who cut a lung in a sparrow's thorax).Footnote ⁴⁴ This verse now makes sense. The structure of this illustrative verse clearly differs from typical examples of amphiboly. This unique form is referred to as shibh al-īhām (similar to īhām) by Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ Kāshifī (d. 1504), since, unlike regualr īhām, it does not rely on polysemous words to create dual meanings.Footnote ⁴⁵ Nonetheless, Vaṭvāṭ includes this verse as an example of īhām, suggesting that he does not view polysemy as a crucial component of this figure of speech. Instead, he maintains that any sentence capable of conveying multiple meanings, whether or not it incorporates polysemous words, can exemplify īhām.

Before concluding the analysis of examples, it is necessary to consider the last example that Vaṭvāṭ cites in his chapter on al-muḥtamil li al-ḍiddayn (the potential for two opposite meanings), because, in terms of structure, it is not different from īhām. To create this figure of speech, the poet intentionally places, combines, and arranges the words of a single sentence such that the verse contains meanings of both praise and condemnation. In other words, through semantic and syntactic ambiguities, it becomes possible for the reader to make two logically opposite inferences from a single statement. Vaṭvāṭ mentions four evidentiary verses in this chapter. In the first three, the arrangement of sentence elements and syntactic structure are designed so that two opposite interpretations are possible. However, the fourth example is based on the lexical ambiguity of a polysemous word, and in this respect, it functions like īhām:

In this verse, there is no categorization or mention of associated items, but rather a semantic field based on lexical paradigms is created through derivation (zadan [infinitive] and zan [present stem]). The constituents of the compound word ‘rūspī-zan,’ used as an adjective for muḥtasib (sharia-supervisor) in this verse, can be parsed in two ways, depending on the two meanings of zan (wife/beater). If it is taken to be the present stem of the infinitive zadan (to strike), it becomes a hyphenated compound, meaning “prostitute-punisher,” the description of this man's job. On the other hand, if it is interpreted as “wife,” it will be an exocentric compound meaning “one whose wife is a prostitute,” obviously an insult to the supposedly pious sharia-supervisor. Following Vaṭvāṭ's definition of īhām, this second glossing should be considered valid, because zan, as the wife, is an outsider in the above-described semantic field. However, unlike his īhām examples, here Vaṭvāṭ's comments do not confer a definitive interpretation of this verse. Instead, he considers both meanings acceptable. The structure is not different from īhām, except that the two different interpretations of a compound word lead to two opposite messages.

Vaṭvāṭ, as the first theoretician of īhām, selected a considerable number of evidentiary verses to illustrate this stylistic device. These examples belonged to various literary genres, such as anecdotes, panegyrics, lyrics, satires, and conundrums.Footnote ⁴⁷ The technique of double meaning did not appear exclusively in one type of literary discourse, and, depending on context, it had different functions. Therefore, it may not be possible to draw a continuum of the thematic use of īhām in Persian literature, as variable forms of amphiboly have always been present in noble literary discourse and many literary and nonliterary jests and riddles.Footnote ⁴⁸

Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr introduces a figure of speech that becomes the basis of the most extensive semantic strategies in Persian literature in later ages. The numerous examples that Vaṭvāṭ provides are comprehensive of the principal categories of this stylistic device. However, he did not think to classify them. From this it can be inferred that īhām was in the initial stages of theorization in the twelfth century, and that scholars of poetics had yet not proposed the taxonomies that are founded upon the subtleties of this literary technique.Footnote ⁴⁹

The fact that Vaṭvāṭ, contrary to his general approach in Ḥadāʾiq, does not include an example of his own poems in this chapter does not indicate that he did not apply this figure of speech in composing his panegyrics. For instance, in the following verse, which he composed in praise of Atsiz Khawarizmshah, he intended the double meaning of barg-i bīd and used it in an artistic manner:

Barg-i bīd has two acceptations: “willow leaf” and “[a type of] arrow.”Footnote ⁵¹ The second meaning belongs to the semantic field of martial terms and is linked to khanjar (the dagger) and qamʿ (obliteration); therefore, it comes to the reader's mind through illusion. However, it is the other meaning, an outsider to this category, that is intended. That is, the Earth, performing a service to the king, changes the willow leaves into daggers to eliminate his enemies. As another example, one may consider this laudatory verse:

In this verse, using the literary technique of double meaning, the word mihr (affection/sun) has created an īhām. The juxtaposition of this word next to “day” and “night” brings “sun” to the reader's mind, and the second hemistich can be interpreted as: “Wherever his sun shines, the night becomes [as bright as] the day.” However, by giving heed to its opposite word in the first half of the verse, namely, kīn (hatred), one can gather that, in this line, the poet intends “love.”Footnote ⁵³ In the history of Persian literature, many poets have created īhām with the meanings of mihr.

The stylistic minutiae of īhām, in theory and practice, continued to develop over the two centuries following the authorship of Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr, and in the fourteenth century they reached perfection in the ghazals of Ḥafiẓ of Shīrāz (1325–90). In his poetry, Ḥafiẓ, in addition to other elements of literary ambiguity, establishes īhām as a semantic expedient and turns his Dīvān into a collection of mysterious poems. Due to their capacity to express multiple meanings, his ghazals will remain a source of contention among scholars.