Idah Shawahid al-Idah
- Author died
- 550 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī
Idah Shawahid al-Idah (Clarification of the Evidentiary Verses of al-Idah) is an Arabic grammatical work by Abu Ali al-Qaysi (al-Hasan ibn Abd Allah al-Qaysi, d. c. 550 AH / 1155 CE), dedicated to explaining the poetic test verses cited in the grammar treatise al-Idah of Abu Ali al-Farisi (d. 377 AH / 987 CE).
Background and Purpose
Abu Ali al-Qaysi composed the work in response to a request from a student or colleague who sought a thorough exposition of the poetic citations (shawahid) in Abu Ali al-Farisi's grammatical text, desiring clarification of their exact evidential points (mawdi al-shahid) and the resolution of their obscurities.
Structure and Method
The work follows the structural arrangement of chapters in al-Farisi's al-Idah, beginning with chapters such as the inflectional endings of declinable nouns (ahkam awakhir al-asma al-mu'rabah). In his commentary, al-Qaysi adopted a comprehensive method designed to spare the reader reliance on other references:
- Attributing each cited poetic verse to its author whenever known.
- Explaining complex points of syntax and grammatical parsing (i'rab).
- Connecting the cited verse with subsequent lines from the original poem.
- Providing relevant lexical explanations, common proverbs (amthal sa'irah), and rare anecdotes (hikayat nadirah) related to the verses.
Manuscript and Publication
A manuscript copy of Idah Shawahid al-Idah is preserved in the El Escorial library in Spain under MS No. 42. The work was edited by Muhammad ibn Hammud al-Da'jani and published by Dar al-Gharb al-Islami in Beirut in 1408 AH (1987 CE).
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