The Broken Ladder (6): Critical Analysis of the “Myth of Memorization” — A Structural Critique of the Biography of Abū Ja‛far al-Warrāq: From Model to Foundations (III)
Document Type : pajoohesh
Author
Associate Professor, University of Tehran
10.22081/jap.2025.79089
Abstract
In his book Ṭu‛ūn wa shubuhāt al-shī‛a al-imāmīyya ḥawl Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī wa al-radd ‛alayhā, ‛Ādil ‛Azāzī attempts to affirm the fame and credibility of Abū Ja‛far al-Warrāq as the author of Kitāb Shamāʾil al-Bukhārī by composing a biographical narrative for him. The present article, viewing this work through the lens of the so-called “myth of memorization” surrounding al-Bukhārī and his legendary mnemonic faculty, assumes that the biography follows structural textual conventions and thus requires evaluation through literary structuralist theory. Any weakness in the biography’s structure directly affects ‛Azāzī’s portrayal of Abū Ja‛far’s scholarly character. Although such structural flaws may not be apparent at first reading, applying structuralist criticism to the text allows these deficiencies to be identified and provides grounds for judging ‛Azāzī’s success in establishing Abū Ja‛far’s reputation. The article sets out a theoretical framework for analyzing the structure of this biography: it explains the meanings of “structure” and “structurality” linguistically and conceptually, traces the cognitive and linguistic origins of structural thinking, reviews the emergence of structuralism as a literary-critical approach, and formulates specific principles for evaluating the structure of Abū Ja‛far al-Warrāq’s biography. This framework lays the foundation for subsequent research into the logic and limitations of the text.
Keywords
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