al-Mughni fi Tasrif al-Afal
- Author died
- 1404 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Ḥadīth
al-Mughni fi Tasrif al-Afal (The Enricher in Verbal Morphology) is a specialized treatise on Arabic morphology focusing on the conjugation, patterns, and derivation of verbs, written by the Egyptian grammarian and philologist Muhammad Abd al-Khaliq Udayma (1328–1404 AH / 1910–1984 CE) .
Composition and Publication History
Udayma compiled the work as an exhaustive study drawing upon the breadth of classical grammatical and morphological literature available to him . The preface to the first edition was dated 22 Rabi al-Awwal 1375 AH (7 November 1955 CE) in Cairo, with a subsequent preface dated 19 Safar 1382 AH (21 July 1962 CE) . Following the appearance of the second edition in 1955 CE, the author prepared a substantially revised third edition . This revision incorporated material from previously unprinted morphological and grammatical manuscripts that were published in the interim—such as al-Khasa'is and al-Munsif (the commentary on al-Mazini's al-Tasrif) by Ibn Jinni, as well as al-Zajjaji's Idah Ilal al-Nahw—alongside insights gained from extensive readings of works like Ibn Sidah's al-Mukhassas and Ibn al-Sikkit's Islah al-Mantiq . The book was published in Cairo and later issued by the Islamic University of Madinah in 1408 AH .
Methodology and Scope
The work is characterized by several distinctive methodological features:
- Sourcing and Referencing: Udayma systematically documented the classical origins and citations for every morphological issue discussed in the text .
- Quranic Evidence and Readings: The book pioneered a method prioritizing evidence from the Quran and its diverse canonical and non-canonical variant readings (qira'at) . Udayma argued that earlier grammarians had excessively relied on pre-Islamic poetry and at times unjustly accused Quranic readers of grammatical error (lahn), whereas Quranic variants offer authoritative substantiation for grammatical and morphological rules .
- Inductive Verification: Morphological rules are assessed against comprehensive textual surveys of the Quran . For example, while grammarians traditionally maintained that emphatic suffixes (nun al-tawkid) frequently attach to imperative verbs, Udayma documented through exhaustive induction that over 1,840 instances of the imperative in the Quran across the seven and ten readings are entirely devoid of this suffix .
The treatise covers the core areas of verbal morphology, including basic and augmented verb structures (al-mujarrad wa-l-mazid), weak and sound verbs, and specialized topics such as morphological alignment (al-ilhaq) and dialectal intermixing (tadakhul al-lughat) . The extensive indexing and inductive research undertaken during the preparation of al-Mughni laid the groundwork for Udayma's later multi-volume work, Dirasat li-Uslub al-Quran al-Karim .
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