Akhbar fi al-Nahw = Akhbar al-Nahwiyyin - Abu Tahir ibn Abi Hashim
- Author died
- 349 AH
- Editions
- t al-Dali
Akhbar fi al-Nahw (Arabic: أخبار في النحو, lit. 'Reports on Grammar'), also titled Akhbar al-Nahwiyyin (أخبار النحويين, 'Accounts of the Grammarians'), is a short treatise (juzʾ) compiled by the Iraqi Quran reciter and scholar Abu Tahir ibn Abi Hashim (280–349 AH / 893–960 CE) containing twenty-five narrated reports on the origins of Arabic grammar, early grammarians, grammatical solecism (laḥn), and the virtue of learning the Arabic language.
Titles and Transmission
The author did not assign a definitive title to the compilation, leading to variations across manuscript traditions:
- Akhbār fī al-naḥw in the Bodleian Library manuscript.
- Al-Ḥathth ʿalā taʿlīm al-naḥw (Exhortation to the Teaching of Grammar) and Juzʾ fīhi faḍl al-naḥw wa-al-ḥathth ʿalā taʿallumih (Section on the Virtue of Grammar and Exhortation to Its Study) in the Zahiriyya Library manuscript.
- Akhbār al-naḥwiyyīn in the Egyptian National Library copy and in the bibliographical work Ṣilat al-khalaf bi-mawṣūl al-salaf by al-Rudani.
The text is transmitted via chains stemming from Abu Tahir's student Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Ahmad al-Hammami (d. 417 AH), who transmitted it to Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Allaf (d. 505 AH). From Ibn al-Allaf, several transmission branches preserved the work, including lines running through Abu Tahir al-Silafi, Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Ali (known as Sibt al-Khayyat) to Abu al-Yumn al-Kindi, and Abd Allah ibn Mansur ibn al-Mawsili.
Content and Structure
The work comprises twenty-five discrete reports received by Abu Tahir from various teachers, including Muhammad ibn Ali al-Tawzi, Abu Bakr ibn Mujahid, Ahmad ibn Ishaq ibn al-Buhlul, Waki' Muhammad ibn Khalaf, and Abu Muzahim al-Khaqani.
The reports address several main themes:
- The founders of grammar: Traditions identifying the earliest developers and pioneers of the discipline (reports 4 and 5).
- The virtue and study of grammar: Exhortations encouraging the learning of the Arabic language and highlighting its importance (reports 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, and 25), including the role of clients (mawālī) in teaching grammar (report 7), and an instructional poem attributed to al-Kisa'i on the importance of grammatical mastery (report 25).
- Grammatical error (laḥn): Anecdotes illustrating distaste for speech errors, punishments or reprimands for committing them, vigilance in avoiding them, and seeking divine forgiveness for grammatical lapses (reports 3, 9, 12, 14, 15, 18, 21, and 22).
- Profiles in eloquence and error: Accounts identifying specific historical figures noted for never making grammatical errors (reports 1, 2, and 8) alongside instances of prominent individuals who committed solecisms (reports 19, 20, 23, and 24).
- Biographical evaluation: Critical remarks regarding specific transmitters and figures (reports 6 and 18).
Manuscripts and Editions
The treatise is preserved in multiple manuscripts, notably:
- MS Bodleian Library (Huntington collection, no. F 77, fols. 47–51), fully vocalized, bearing the audition of Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Abi al-Hajjaj under Abu al-Yumn al-Kindi in 599 AH.
- MS Zahiriyya Library (Damascus, majmūʿ no. 1148, fols. 71–75), containing audition notes under Abu Tahir al-Silafi from 575 AH and Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Khabri from 588 AH.
- MS Egyptian National Library (Cairo, no. 2187 Hadith, fols. 1–6), including an audition dated 668 AH.
The text was first edited by Muhammad Ibrahim al-Banna under the title Akhbār al-Naḥwiyyīn, published by Dār al-Iʿtiṣām in Cairo (1981), based solely on the Cairo manuscript. Muhammad Ahmad al-Dali later re-edited the work using the Bodleian and Zahiriyya manuscripts, publishing it first in the Journal of Damascus University (1988) and subsequently in an expanded edition with biographical commentary and documentation of transmission chains.
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