Ilal al-Nahw
- Author died
- 381 AH
- Editions
- مكتبة الرشد
Ilal al-Nahw (The Causes of Grammar) is a fourth-century AH treatise on Arabic grammatical theory and justification by the Baghdadi grammarian Ibn al-Warraq (d. 381 AH / 991 CE) .
Author and Context
The author, Abu al-Hasan Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn al-Abbas, known as Ibn al-Warraq al-Nahwi, was a scholar based in Baghdad who specialized in grammar and its underlying rationales ('ilal) . He was the son-in-law of the prominent grammarian Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi, having married his daughter, and he studied variant Quranic readings under Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Miqsam . Ibn al-Warraq died on Sunday, 4 Jumada al-Ula 381 AH .
Ilal al-Nahw emerged during a period in the fourth century AH when scholars dedicated specialized monographs to exploring the logical, philosophical, and functional explanations for Arabic grammatical rules, alongside works by contemporaries such as Abu al-Qasim al-Zajjaji . In classical bibliographies, it is recorded as one of Ibn al-Warraq's primary works alongside Kitab al-Hidayah, his commentary on the grammatical abridgment of Abu Umar al-Jarmi .
Method and Content
The work is organized dialectically, using a question-and-answer format («فإن قال قائل... قيل») to pose theoretical problems and systematically provide their justifications . Ibn al-Warraq begins by examining fundamental linguistic categories, such as the division of speech into nouns, verbs, and particles, explaining the conceptual necessity of this tripartite classification and the reasons for their specific technical names .
Throughout the text, he addresses:
- The essential definitions (hudud) and distinctive properties (khasa'is) of nouns, verbs, and particles .
- Morphological derivation, such as why verbs are derived from verbal nouns (masadir) rather than directly from time or temporal nouns .
- The causes governing inflection (i'rab), analyzing why declension inherently belongs to nouns to prevent ambiguity in meaning, and why the imperfect verb shares aspects of nominal inflection due to structural and semantic resemblances .
Editions
Ilal al-Nahw was edited and published by Mahmud Jasim Muhammad al-Darwish in a modern edition released by Maktabat al-Rushd in Riyadh (1420 AH / 1999 CE) .
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