 ‘Ilm al-balâgha was standardly presented in a textbook by Khatîb Dimashq al-Qazwînî (d. 1325), The Abridgement of the Key. ‘Ilm al-balâgha was a science that includes a deal of material deriving from the work of the great eleventh-century grammarian and Ash‘arite theologian, ‘Abdalqâhir al-Jurjânî (d. 1078). Spurred by debate about how to judge the inimitability of the Koran, Jurjânî had tried to develop a method for evaluating rhetorical excellence.  