Sharh al-Tashil li-Ibn Malik
- Author died
- 672 AH
- Editions
- Hajar li-l-Ṭibāʿah wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīʿ wa-l-Iʿlān
Sharh al-Tashil is an extensive commentary on Arabic grammar and morphology composed by Ibn Malik (d. 672 AH / 1274 CE) on his own seminal treatise, Tashil al-Fawa'id wa-Takmil al-Maqasid (Facilitation of the Benefits and Completion of the Objectives) .
Composition and Scope
Ibn Malik authored the base work, Tashil al-Fawa'id, as a comprehensive grammatical compendium containing foundational rules and rare linguistic cases in highly condensed prose . In his preface to the commentary, he explains that colleagues requested an explanatory work to clarify its obscure issues and substantiate its rules with full evidence and argumentation .
Ibn Malik was unable to complete the work before his death . According to Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi, he reached the chapter on verbal nouns of non-triliteral verbs (masadir ghayr al-thulathi), which constituted slightly more than half of the text . Other sources state that he stopped at the chapter on verbal nouns of triliteral verbs (masadir al-fi'l al-thulathi) or verbal nouns in general . The remaining sections were later completed by his son, Badr al-Din Ibn al-Nazim (d. 686 AH / 1287 CE), covering the chapter on the inflection of the verb and its governing agents (i'rab al-fi'l wa-'awamiluh) . An alternative account recorded by later bibliographers claims that Ibn Malik did complete the work, but his student Shihab al-Din al-Shaghuri took the complete manuscript with him to Yemen after being passed over for his master's post in Damascus, leaving behind an incomplete copy among the scholars of the city .
Method and Scholarly Reception
In Sharh al-Tashil, Ibn Malik explains his own concise grammatical definitions, provides supporting evidence from the Quran, Hadith, and classical Arabic poetry, and compares various doctrines within grammatical traditions .
The commentary served as an essential reference for subsequent grammarians engaged with the Tashil. In his commentary Tamhid al-Qawa'id, Nazir al-Jaysh incorporated virtually the entirety of Ibn Malik's text, introducing passages with the formula "the author said" (qala al-musannif) before subjecting them to critical discussion alongside objections from Abu Hayyan . Abu Hayyan composed his massive commentary al-Tadhyil wa-l-Takmil in response to the Tashil and Ibn Malik's commentary . Other scholars composed dedicated commentaries or glosses on the Tashil, including Ibn Umm Qasim al-Muradi, Ibn Aqil in al-Musa'id 'ala Tashil al-Fawa'id, and Badr al-Din al-Damamini in Ta'liq al-Fara'id .
Publication
The work was edited by 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sayyid and Muhammad Badawi al-Makhtun and published in four volumes by Dar Hajar in Cairo (1410 AH / 1990 CE), with the fourth volume containing the completion by Ibn Malik's son Badr al-Din .
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