al-Takmila lil-Farisi
- Author died
- 377 AH
- Editions
- ʿĀlam al-Kutub
al-Takmila (The Completion) is a classical Arabic treatise on morphology (taṣrīf) and linguistic structures composed by the grammarian Abu Ali al-Farisi (d. 377 AH / 987 CE) . It was written as a dedicated companion and supplement to his work on syntax, al-Idah, completing the grammatical subjects left untreated in the earlier text .
Composition and Context
Abu Ali al-Farisi composed al-Takmila for the Buyid ruler Adud al-Dawla . In its opening address, al-Farisi referred to him as "the Just King" (al-Malik al-ʿĀdil), unlike the prologue of al-Idah, where he styled him "the Exalted Prince" (al-Amīr al-Jalīl), indicating that al-Takmila was composed at a later date, estimated between 365 and 368 AH (or between 366 and 372 AH) during Adud al-Dawla's reign in Baghdad .
Biographical sources record conflicting accounts regarding the circumstances behind its writing . One narrative relates that Adud al-Dawla found al-Idah so elementary that he remarked it was "fit only for children"; when al-Farisi consequently authored al-Takmila and presented it to him, the ruler remarked, "The master grew angry and brought something neither we nor he can understand" . Conversely, another account states that Adud al-Dawla prized al-Idah so highly that he kept it exclusively for himself . Al-Farisi's student Abu Talib al-Abdi studied and read al-Takmila with the author in 376 AH, shortly before al-Farisi's death .
Scope, Structure, and Method
In the introduction, al-Farisi defines grammar (naḥw) as the knowledge of rules and standards deduced through the inductive study of Arab speech . Having addressed syntactic inflection (iʿrāb) in al-Idah, he designated al-Takmila for non-syntactic morphological changes, dividing them into two broad categories: changes affecting the endings of words without varying grammatical operators, and structural transformations affecting the internal forms and roots of words .
The arrangement of chapters mirrors the sequence found in the second volume of Sibawayh's al-Kitab, though presented with greater brevity and precision . The work covers:
- Masculine and feminine forms (al-mudhakkar wa-al-muʾannath)
- Relational nouns (al-nisba) and diminutives (al-taṣghīr)
- Shortened and extended nouns (al-maqṣūr wa-al-mamdūd)
- Phonological deflection (al-imāla)
- Verbal nouns and their derived forms (al-maṣādir wa-mā ushtuqq minhā)
- Augmentative letters (ḥurūf al-ziyāda), gemination (al-taḍʿīf), and assimilation (al-idghām)
Al-Farisi based his discussions on the Basran grammatical tradition, drawing from Sibawayh and Abu Zayd al-Ansari's al-Nawadir, alongside trusted Bedouin usage and poetic citations .
Reception and Commentaries
al-Takmila exercised a lasting influence on subsequent Arabic grammatical scholarship . Al-Farisi's student Ibn Jinni cited its arguments, textual evidence, and Quranic variant readings extensively throughout works such as al-Khasa'is and al-Muhtasib . It was likewise cited by Ibn al-Shajari in his Amali and by Majd al-Din Ibn al-Athir in al-Badiʿ fī ʿIlm al-ʿArabiyya .
Approximately twenty-five scholars wrote commentaries on al-Idah and al-Takmila . Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani produced three distinct commentaries on them: an extensive thirty-volume work titled al-Mughnī, an abridgment titled al-Muqtisid, and a further summary titled al-Ījāz . Saʿid ibn al-Mubarak (known as Ibn al-Dahhan) composed a forty-three-volume commentary . The two books were also rendered into verse by Ahmad ibn Ali al-Himsi (d. 644 AH) .
Modern critical editions of al-Takmila have been prepared by Kazim Bahr al-Marjan (Baghdad, 1401 AH / 1981 CE) and Hasan Shadhili Farhud (Riyadh, 1400–1401 AH / 1981 CE) .
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