Matn Qatr al-Nada wa Ball al-Sada
- Author died
- 761 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Ṣumay‘ī lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘
Matn Qatr al-Nada wa Ball al-Sada (The Drops of Dew and the Quenching of Thirst) is a concise grammatical primer (muqaddima) authored by the Egyptian grammarian Ibn Hisham al-Nahwi (708–761 AH / 1309–1360 CE; another report gives his death as 762 AH) .
Overview and Purpose
The treatise was written as an intermediate pedagogical text in Arabic grammar (nahw), widely studied by students after foundational introductory works such as al-Ajurrumiyya . Ibn Hisham structured the base text concisely, focusing primarily on established grammatical rules and prevailing opinions while largely setting aside extensive scholastic disputes and convoluted grammatical rationalizations (ta'lil) . The text covers the fundamental topics of Arabic syntax and inflection, addressing parts of speech, nominal and verbal inflections, grammatical agents, and various syntactical governance rules .
Commentaries and Reception
The text gained widespread circulation and became the subject of numerous commentaries, glosses, and pedagogical treatments:
- Ibn Hisham's Self-Commentary: The author composed his own detailed commentary, entitled Sharh Qatr al-Nada wa Ball al-Sada, designed to clarify the core text's succinct points (nukat), elucidate its rules, and substantiate them with Quranic verses and poetic citations (shawahid) .
- Classical Commentaries: Ahmad ibn Jamal al-Din al-Fakihi (d. 972 AH; also dated 924 AH) wrote a commentary titled Mujib al-Nida ila Sharh Qatr al-Nada . Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Harfushi (d. 1059 AH) revised and expanded al-Fakihi's work in his commentary Dalil al-Huda, completed in 1047 AH .
- Supercommentaries (Hawashi): Multiple scholars authored marginal glosses on Ibn Hisham's commentary, including Ahmad ibn Qasim al-'Abbadi (d. 994 AH), Mahmud al-Alusi (d. 1270 AH)—completed by his son Nu'man al-Alusi (d. 1317 AH) under the title al-Tarif wa-l-Talid—and Muhammad Ghawth in India . Yasin ibn Zayn al-Din al-Himsi (d. 1061 AH) composed a supercommentary on al-Fakihi's commentary .
- Versifications and Translations: The text was rendered into verse by 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Farghali al-Ansari in Nazm al-Qatr . In modern printing history, it was published across several editions in Bulaq, Cairo, and Tunis, and was translated into French by A. Goguyer in Leiden in 1887 . Contemporary pedagogical commentaries include Ta'jil al-Nada by 'Abd Allah ibn Salih al-Fawzan and Tariq al-Huda by 'Abd al-Hamid al-Sayyid .
Answer updated