Awdah al-Masalik ila Alfiyyat Ibn Malik
- Author died
- 761 AH
- Editions
- t Habud
Awdah al-Masalik ila Alfiyyat Ibn Malik (أوضح المسالك إلى ألفية ابن مالك), commonly known as al-Tawdih, is an Arabic grammatical work composed by the Egyptian grammarian Ibn Hisham al-Nahwi (708–761 AH / 1309–1360 CE) to explain and rearrange the famous grammatical didactic poem al-Alfiyya (also titled al-Khulasa) by Ibn Malik (d. 672 AH / 1274 CE) .
Background and Purpose
In the introduction to the book, Ibn Hisham notes that while Ibn Malik's al-Khulasa al-Alfiyya was modest in size and rich in content, its extreme conciseness rendered it akin to enigmas and riddles for students . He composed Awdah al-Masalik to assist learners by deciphering the poem's expressions, elucidating its meanings, analyzing its syntactic structures, and refining its fundamental rules . Rather than following the conventional method of appending running commentaries beneath each poetic verse, Ibn Hisham reformulated the grammatical and morphological material into systematic, coherent prose .
Method and Contents
Ibn Hisham structured the treatise around the general sequence of grammatical chapters found in al-Alfiyya, though he occasionally diverged from Ibn Malik's detailed categorization and internal ordering where he deemed it pedagogically clearer . His approach in Awdah al-Masalik is characterized by:
- Providing illustrative examples and textual attestations (shawāhid)—drawn from the Quran, Hadith, and classical Arabic poetry—for every grammatical rule and issue discussed .
- Documenting scholarly disagreements among grammarians and evaluating differing positions with grammatical arguments and justifications .
- Critiquing Ibn Malik’s stances and departing from his grammatical and morphological judgments whenever evidence warranted .
- Maintaining sequential transitions between chapters and subtopics while eliminating repetitive filler and digressive material .
The treatise spans the full spectrum of Arabic grammar and morphology established in al-Alfiyya, commencing with the definition of speech (kalam) and parts of speech, indeclinability and declension, and proceeding through the noun cases, verbal syntax, and morphological processes .
Commentaries and Reception
Awdah al-Masalik became one of the most widely studied grammatical works and inspired numerous commentaries and supercommentaries . The most prominent classical commentary is al-Tasrih bi-Madmun al-Tawdih by Khalid al-Azhari (d. 905 AH), who praised the work's unmatched organization and aimed to blend his explanations with Ibn Hisham's prose, complete and attribute the cited poetic verses, clarify omitted conditions, and link the prose directly back to Ibn Malik's poetic lines .
Other notable glosses and commentaries include:
- A supercommentary by Izz al-Din Muhammad ibn Jama'a (d. 819 AH) .
- A supercommentary by Badr al-Din al-Ayni (d. 855 AH) .
- Raf' al-Sutur wa-l-Ara'ik 'an Mukhba'at Awdah al-Masalik by Abd al-Qadir ibn Abi al-Qasim al-Suri al-Abbadi al-Makki (d. 880 AH) .
- Hidayat al-Salik ila Awdah al-Masalik by Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Ali al-Suyuti al-Minhaji (d. 880 AH) .
- A supercommentary by Sayf al-Din Muhammad ibn Qutlubugha al-Biktamuri (d. 881 AH) .
- A supercommentary by Burhan al-Din Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Karaki (d. ca. 890 AH) .
- A supercommentary by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 911 AH) .
- A supercommentary by Nasir al-Din Muhammad al-Laqani (d. 958 AH) .
- Marginal annotations by Yasin ibn Zayn al-Din al-Ulaymi (d. 1061 AH) on al-Azhari's al-Tasrih .
In modern times, the work was edited and published with extensive scholarly annotations by Muhammad Muhyi al-Din Abd al-Hamid, and further expounded by Muhammad Abd al-Aziz al-Najjar in his two-tier commentary Diya' al-Salik ila Awdah al-Masalik .
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