Ibn Uthaymin
Mukhtasar Mughni al-Labib an Kitab al-Aarib
- Author died
- 1421 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Rushd
Mukhtasar Mughni al-Labib 'an Kitab al-A'arib (The Abridgment of Mughni al-Labib) is an Arabic grammatical work by the Saudi scholar Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymin (1347–1421 AH / 1929–2001 CE) , condensing the celebrated grammatical treatise Mughni al-Labib 'an Kutub al-A'arib by Ibn Hisham al-Ansari (708–761 AH) .
Background and Composition
Ibn Uthaymin composed this abridgment in 1389 AH (1969 CE) . The parent work by Ibn Hisham was widely regarded as an authoritative and comprehensive reference on the meanings of grammatical particles (huruf al-ma'ani) and general syntactic principles, but its extensive length and detailed dialectical discussions prompted Ibn Uthaymin to produce a streamlined summary for students and researchers .
Contents and Method
The text follows the thematic structure of Ibn Hisham's original treatise, including:
- The First Chapter (al-Bab al-Awwal): An alphabetical examination of individual particles and words, outlining their grammatical classes, contextual meanings, and syntactic governance (such as the interrogative and vocative uses of the hamzah, or the conditionality, negation, and lightening of in and an) .
- Subsequent Chapters: Coverage of broader syntactic rules, such as recurring grammatical rulings (ahkam yakthuru dawruha), the criteria for distinguishing the subject (mubtada') from the predicate (khabar), the distinctions between explicative apposition (atf al-bayan) and substitution (badal), and permissible conditions for initiating sentences with indefinite nouns .
Throughout the abridgment, Ibn Uthaymin preserves the primary grammatical definitions and conclusions while eliminating superfluous digressions, occasionally inserting his own brief annotations and analytical preferences .
Editorial History and Publication
In 1417 AH, Farid ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Zamil al-Sulaym sought Ibn Uthaymin's permission to edit and publish the manuscript . The work was first published in Riyadh by Mu'assasat Asam in 1418 AH (1997 CE) .
The editorial apparatus prepared by al-Sulaym included:
- Referencing Quranic verses by surah and verse number .
- Sourcing prophetic hadiths primarily from Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, and the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal .
- Documenting poetic textual evidence (shawahid) and attributing verses to their poets, highlighting the grammatical locus of evidence without providing full line-by-line sentence parsing .
- Differentiating the author's own manuscript glosses (marked with a dedicated symbol) from editorial footnotes .
- Appending comprehensive reference indexes for Quranic citations, hadiths, poetic verses, biographical names, locations, tribes, and subject topics .
The book was subsequently reissued under the supervision of the Scientific Committee of the Shaykh Muhammad bin Salih al-Uthaymin Charitable Foundation .
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