Sharh Kitab Sibawayh lil-Sirafi
- Author died
- 368 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmīyah
Sharh Kitab Sibawayh is an extensive Arabic grammatical commentary authored by Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi (d. 368 AH / 979 CE) on Kitab Sibawayh, the foundational grammatical treatise by Sibawayh (d. ca. 180 AH / 796 CE). It is the earliest commentary on Sibawayh's work to survive down to modern times.
Scope and Method
The work was the largest of al-Sirafi's writings, reportedly extending to approximately 3,000 folios in his own handwriting on Salman paper. Al-Sirafi systematically explicates the text of Sibawayh, analyzing its syntactic arguments, Quranic examples, and poetic citations (shawahid).
A central feature of the commentary is its comprehensive treatment of grammatical causation (al-'illa al-nahwiyyah), serving as a primary source for the study of grammatical reasoning up to the mid-fourth century AH. In his explanations, al-Sirafi expanded extensively on the rationales proposed by earlier grammarians, incorporating established causes while formulating new dialectical arguments to justify rules that earlier authorities had left unexplained.
Reception and Impact
The commentary achieved widespread acclaim among al-Sirafi's contemporaries and later grammarians. Abu al-Barakat al-Anbari evaluated it as the finest commentary ever produced on Sibawayh's treatise, remarking that had al-Sirafi composed nothing else, it would have sufficed for his scholarly distinction. Haji Khalifa noted that its prominence among scholars aroused the rivalry of Abu 'Ali al-Farisi (d. 377 AH), whose own glosses on Kitab Sibawayh were eclipsed by al-Sirafi's comprehensive work. According to Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi, al-Farisi had purchased a copy of al-Sirafi's commentary in Ahwaz for two thousand dirhams while traveling to Baghdad.
An abridgment (mukhtasar) of the commentary was produced, of which an autograph manuscript is known.
Manuscripts and Publication
Manuscripts of the commentary are preserved in collections including the Hamidiyyah, Atif, and Aya Sofya libraries in Istanbul, as well as the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyyah) and the Taymuriyyah collection, where Ahmad Taymur compiled a comprehensive index annexed to his copy.
In early Western scholarship, excerpts from al-Sirafi's commentary were published by the German orientalist Jahn in his German translation of Sibawayh's work. These selections were subsequently incorporated into the margins of the Bulaq edition of Kitab Sibawayh in Cairo. Portions of the text were later edited by 'Abd al-Mun'im Fayiz (Damascus, 1983) and by Ramadan 'Abd al-Tawwab and colleagues (Cairo, 1986), alongside editions of the wider commentary by Ahmad Hasan Mahdali and 'Ali Sayyid 'Ali.
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