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Muhammad Ali Taha al-Durra

Fath al-Kabir al-Mutaal Irab al-Muallaqat al-Ashr al-Tiwal

Author died
1428 AH
Editions
Maktabat al-Sawadi

Fath al-Kabir al-Mutaal Irab al-Muallaqat al-Ashr al-Tiwal (The Great and Exalted Opening: Grammatical Analysis of the Ten Long Suspended Odes) is a multi-volume grammatical commentary on the ten pre-Islamic odes (the Mu'allaqat) by the Syrian scholar Sheikh Muhammad Ali Taha al-Durra (d. 1428 AH / 2007 CE).

Background and Composition

Al-Durra completed the fair copy of the work in 1974 CE. In his introduction, he noted that although the Mu'allaqat—both the canonical seven and the extended ten—have circulated continuously from pre-Islamic times into Islamic history, earlier scholars primarily focused on partial grammatical parses and lexical commentaries without providing an exhaustive, verse-by-verse parsing. To justify the scholarly importance of analyzing pre-Islamic poetry, al-Durra cited the statement attributed to the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab: "Hold fast to your diwan so that you do not go astray," identifying that diwan as pre-Islamic poetry because it preserves the linguistic interpretation of the Qur'an and the meanings of classical Arabic speech.

The manuscript was first published in five parts in 1986 CE by Maktabat al-Razi in Damascus. A second edition was published in 1409 AH / 1989 CE by Maktabat al-Sawadi in Jeddah.

Scope and Content

The work provides a complete parsing of the ten classical Mu'allaqat:

  • The ode of Imru' al-Qays
  • The ode of Tarafa ibn al-Abd
  • The ode of Amr ibn Kulthum
  • The ode of al-Harith ibn Hilliza
  • The ode of Labid ibn Rabi'a
  • The ode of Antara ibn Shaddad
  • The ode of Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma
  • The ode of al-A'sha
  • The ode of al-Nabigha al-Dhubyani
  • The ode of Abid ibn al-Abras

Methodology and Structure

For every ode, the author presents a full index of its lines before treating each verse individually according to a fixed tripartite framework:

  1. Vocabulary (al-Mufradat): Explanations of obscure lexical items, morphological roots, singular and plural forms, and geographical names.
  2. Overall Meaning (al-Ma'na): A concise prose paraphrase clarifying the poet's intended message and context.
  3. Syntax and Parsing (al-I'rab): A detailed grammatical breakdown of every word in the verse, specifying parts of speech, inflectional markers, governing agents (awamil), elliptical elements (taqdir), and the syntactical status of independent and dependent clauses.

Al-Durra cross-references relevant syntactic disputes and evidential verses (shawahid) throughout his discussions, occasionally referencing his parallel works on Arabic grammar and grammatical commentary.

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