Khitab al-Mardi wa Manhajuhu fi al-Nahw
- Author died
- -
- Editions
- The Islamic University of Madinah
Khitab al-Mardi wa Manhajuhu fi al-Nahw (Khitab al-Mardi and His Method in Grammar) is an academic study in Arabic grammar by Hasan Musa al-Shaer, associate professor in the Faculty of Arabic Language at the Islamic University of Madinah . It investigates the biography, scholarly output, and grammatical methodology of the fifth-century AH Andalusian grammarian Abu Bakr Khitab ibn Yusuf ibn Hilal al-Mardi .
Background and Scope
The study addresses the scarcity of independent biographical records on Khitab al-Mardi, whose grammatical legacy survived primarily through fragments, quotations, and summaries in later grammatical works . Al-Shaer places al-Mardi within his historical setting during the first half of the fifth century AH in al-Andalus, amidst the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate and the Amirid state in 399 AH and the rise of the Taifa kingdoms, specifically the Kingdom of Badajoz under al-Muzaffar ibn al-Aftas .
The author analyzes al-Mardi’s origin in Cordoba, his settlement in Badajoz, and his nisba to Merida (Marida), addressing textual corruptions of his name found across manuscripts and editions—such as al-Mawardi, al-Madiri, al-Maziri, and al-Mardini . It documents his teachers—including Abu Abd Allah ibn al-Fakhar (d. 417 or 419 AH), Abu Umar Ahmad ibn al-Walid, and Hilal ibn Urayb—and notes that al-Mardi taught Arabic for an extensive period and that his works were transmitted by his sons Abd Allah and Umar . Al-Shaer dates al-Mardi's death to around 460 AH, at the close of the reign of al-Muzaffar ibn al-Aftas (who died in 460 or 461 AH) .
Examination of Kitab al-Tarshih
A central portion of the study is dedicated to al-Mardi's major grammatical work, al-Tarshih fi al-Nahw, which was composed in opposition to Duryud's commentary on the grammatical treatise of al-Kisa'i . Al-Shaer examines the textual transmission of the work, noting that Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi summarized its first volume (al-sifr al-awwal) across twenty-five pages in Tadhkirat al-Nuhat .
The study critically resolves the confusion between the title al-Tarshih and the variant al-Tawshih found in Ibn Khayr al-Ishbili's Fihrist and Hajji Khalifa's Kashf al-Zunun, demonstrating that al-Tarshih is the correct reading attested across major grammatical sources such as Abu Hayyan's Irtishaf al-Darb, Ibn Hisham al-Ansari's Awdah al-Masalik, Khalid al-Azhari's al-Tasrih, al-Suyuti's al-Ashbah wa-l-Naza'ir, and Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdadi's Khizanat al-Adab . The author also clarifies the distinction between al-Mardi's extensive multi-volume al-Tarshih and a much shorter grammatical compendium bearing the same title by Ibn al-Tarawa (d. 528 AH) .
Grammatical Method and Analysis
Al-Shaer reconstructs al-Mardi’s methodology through the surviving quotations of his work, highlighting several characteristics:
- School Affiliation: Although al-Mardi did not explicitly declare a school affiliation, his frequent reliance on Basran grammarians indicates an affinity for their doctrines, though he maintained independent judgment and critical selection rather than rigid partisan alignment .
- Linguistic Evidence (Sama'): Al-Mardi maintained strict criteria for transmitted linguistic evidence, employing technical qualifiers such as rare (qalil), ungainly (qabih), and anomalous (shadh), and he insisted that rare or anomalous attestations must be preserved as heard without analogical extension .
- Analogy (Qiyas): While he utilized analogical deduction extensively, he prioritized adherence to established scholarly consensus over novel deductions whenever an analogical deduction lacked precedent among earlier authorities .
- Grammatical Opinions: The study surveys al-Mardi's individual positions on various syntactic and morphological questions, such as his allowance of semantic implication (al-tadmiyn) in transitive verbs functioning like sayyara, his treatment of the patterns of the shortened feminine alif, and rules governing adverbs and uninflected elements .
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