Abstract

The study briefly investigates one of the basic concepts that is the duality in intention, which is frequently addressed in the research don by Arab and Western scholars. Ambiguity of intention is a mark of the creativity of the work and if food for mind for the reader to follow immediate and far-fetched, hidden intentions. Understanding this duality or double intention is a challenge, no doubt because the immediate intention is obvious and, hence constant, and all audience can get it but the far-fetched intention is variable because it is implied and only the intelligent, well-versed and attentive readers can discover it. This study aims at the following: defining intention and double intention; double intention in old Arab research; double intention in Western research; a comparative study of Arab and Western research on duality of intention, pinpointing the similarities and differences. The conclusion is that the idea of dual intention exited in the thinking of early Arab scholars without this label. They, too, divide meaning into two types. Comparing the two traditions clarifies more commonalities than differences. This point to strong, explicit or implicit, intellectual connections between them, as there is one goal and that is interpretation and analysis of intentions.