ʿAbd-Allāh ibn Abī Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī (
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
, عَبْدُ اللّهِ بْنُ أَبِي إِسْحَاقَ الْحَضْرَمِيُّ), (died
AD 735 /
AH 117)
Kees Versteegh
Cornelis Henricus Maria "Kees" Versteegh (; born 1947) is a Dutch academic linguist. He served as a professor of Islamic studies and the Arabic language at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands until April 2011.
Versteegh graduated from R ...
, ''Arabic Grammar and Qur'anic Exegesis in Early Islam'', pg. 17. Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
: Brill Publishers
Brill Academic Publishers (known as E. J. Brill, Koninklijke Brill, Brill ()) is a Dutch international academic publisher founded in 1683 in Leiden, Netherlands. With offices in Leiden, Boston, Paderborn and Singapore, Brill today publishes 27 ...
, 1993. was an
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
from
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
and is considered the first grammarian of the
Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
.
[Monique Bernards, "Pioneers of Arabic Linguistic Studies." Taken from ''In the Shadow of Arabic: The Centrality of Language to Arabic Culture'', pg. 213. Ed. Bilal Orfali. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2011. ] He compiled a prescriptive grammar by referring to the usage of the
Bedouins
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arabs, Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert ...
, whose language was seen as especially pure (see also
iʿrāb,
aʿrāb). He is also considered the first person to use linguistic
analogy
Analogy (from Greek ''analogia'', "proportion", from ''ana-'' "upon, according to" lso "against", "anew"+ ''logos'' "ratio" lso "word, speech, reckoning" is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject ( ...
in Arabic.
[
Two students of Ibn Abi Ishaq's were ]Harun ibn Musa Abu Abdullah Harun ibn Musa al-'Ataki al-A'war (d. 170AH/786AD) was an early convert from Judaism to Islam and a scholar of the Arabic language and Islamic studies.M.G. Carter, ''Sibawayh'', pg. 21. Part of the Makers of Islamic Civilization series. ...
and Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala'
Abu ʻAmr ibn al-ʻAlāʼ al-Basri ( ar, أبو عمرو بن العلاء; died 770 CE/154 AH) was the Qur'an reciter of Basra, Iraq and an Arab linguist.
He was born in Mecca in . Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, translated by William ...
. His student al-Thaqafi seems to have had more prescriptive views while al-'Ala's were more descriptive. Their differences have been suggested to lie at the core of the late division of Arabic grammar
Arabic grammar or Arabic language sciences ( ar, النحو العربي ' or ar, عُلُوم اللغَة العَرَبِيَّة ') is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities with ...
into the schools of Kufa
Kufa ( ar, الْكُوفَة ), also spelled Kufah, is a city in Iraq, about south of Baghdad, and northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000. Currently, Kufa and Najaf ...
and Basra
Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is hand ...
. Ibn Abi Ishaq was said to be more proficient with the rules of grammar than the analysis of common speech.[Gregor Schoeler, ''The Oral and the Written in Early Islam'', pg. 187. Trns. Uwe Vagelpohl, ed. James E Montgomery. Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures. London: Routledge, 2006. ]
Abi Ishaq's work was considered influential upon later grammarians, as he was quoted as an authority by Sibawayhi
Sibawayh ( ar, سِيبَوَيْهِ ' or ; fa, سِیبُویه ' ; c. 760–796), whose full name is Abu Bishr Amr ibn Uthman ibn Qanbar al-Basri (, '), was a Persian leading grammarian of Basra and author of the earliest book on Arabic ...
in his seminal work on Arabic grammar
Arabic grammar or Arabic language sciences ( ar, النحو العربي ' or ar, عُلُوم اللغَة العَرَبِيَّة ') is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities with ...
seven times.[
]
See also
*List of Arab scientists and scholars
This is a list of Arab scientists and scholars from the Muslim World, including Al-Andalus (Spain), who lived from antiquity up until the beginning of the modern age, consisting primarily of scholars during the Middle Ages. For a list of cont ...
References
735 deaths
8th-century Arabs
8th-century writers
Arab grammarians
Medieval grammarians of Arabic
Year of birth unknown
{{Linguist-stub