Dirasat li-Uslub al-Quran al-Karim
- Author died
- 1404 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Hadith
Dirasat li-Uslub al-Quran al-Karim (Studies on the Style of the Noble Quran) is an encyclopedic grammatical and morphological study of the Quran by the Egyptian scholar and al-Azhar University professor Muhammad Abd al-Khaliq Udayma (d. 1404 AH / 1984 CE).
Purpose and Scope
Udayma devoted twenty-five years to compiling the work, intending it to serve as a comprehensive grammatical and morphological dictionary for the Quran. His objective was to provide students and researchers with a reliable reference enabling them to determine whether a given construction occurs in the Quran, how frequently it appears, and whether it is attested in canonical (mutawatir) or anomalous (shadhdh) variant readings.
He also aimed to broaden the horizon of Arabic grammar beyond the limited and repetitive standard examples found in conventional textbooks, and to defend classical Arabic grammarians against accusations that they had borrowed Arabic syntax from Latin, Greek, or Syriac models or had artificially invented inflectional endings.
Structure and Contents
The book spans eleven volumes divided into three main parts:
- Part One (3 volumes): Covers particles of meaning and syntactic instruments (huruf al-ma'ani wa-l-adawat), arranged alphabetically. In this section alone, the author surveyed or referenced over 28,700 verses and variant readings.
- Part Two (4 volumes): Dedicated to Quranic morphology (sarf), analyzing noun and verb templates, augmentations, and phonetic variations across the Quranic text.
- Part Three (4 volumes): Focuses on Quranic syntax and grammar (nahw).
Method and Features
The work is founded on an exhaustive induction (istiqra') of Quranic usage across all transmitted readings. For every particle, form, and syntactic rule, Udayma documented its occurrences, surveyed the interpretations and disagreements of major grammarians and Quranic commentators—such as Sibawayh, al-Mubarrad, al-Farra, al-Zamakhshari, Ibn Malik, Abu Hayyan, and Ibn Hisham al-Ansari—and supplemented omissions in earlier linguistic scholarship. To balance thoroughness with conciseness when patterns occurred abundantly, he indexed surah and verse numbers rather than citing full texts repeatedly.
The first part of the work was dated by the author in Helwan in Jumada al-Akhirah 1392 AH / July 1973 CE, with initial publication occurring around 1392 AH / 1972 CE. The later parts were completed and finalized in Shawwal 1401 AH / August 1981 CE, printed in Cairo while the author was working in Riyadh.
Reception and Forewords
The work was received as a landmark reference in Quranic linguistic studies. The Egyptian scholar Mahmud Muhammad Shakir contributed a foreword commending the author for embodying an exhaustive and masterly grasp of Arabic syntax, morphology, and stylistic nuances. Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Muhsin al-Turki, then rector of Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, wrote introductory forewords for the second and third parts, praising the book's extensive source base and its significant enrichment of Arabic grammatical scholarship.
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