Sharh Qawaid al-Irab
- Author died
- 950 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Fikr al-Mu‘āṣir
Sharh Qawaid al-Irab (Sharḥ Qawāʿid al-Iʿrāb, "Commentary on the Rules of Parsing") is an Arabic grammatical commentary written by the Ottoman scholar Shaykh Zada (Muhammad ibn Mustafa al-Qujawi, d. 950 AH / 1543 CE; also recorded as d. 951 AH) on the treatise al-Irab an Qawaid al-Irab by Ibn Hisham al-Ansari (d. 761 AH / 1360 CE) .
Subject Matter and Method
The base work by Ibn Hisham, commonly known as Qawaʿid al-Iʿrāb, is a concise grammatical handbook treating sentence analysis (al-jumal), semi-sentences (ashbāh al-jumal, comprising prepositions and adverbs), and the grammatical functions of recurring particles and tools . Shaykh Zada's commentary expands upon these foundational rules by drawing on a broad range of grammatical literature, compiling classical linguistic opinions and textual citations, informed by his familiarity with Quranic sciences .
In his opening analysis of Ibn Hisham's text, Shaykh Zada addresses why the author initiated the treatise with the basmalah alone without a formal ḥamdalah, suggesting that Ibn Hisham either deemed the basmalah sufficient to fulfill the requirement of commencing with praise or omitted it out of humility, regarding his brief primer as modest in comparison to the extensive works of earlier predecessors .
Manuscripts and Publication
Manuscripts of the commentary are preserved in various libraries, including the Feyzullah collection in Istanbul and the al-Zahiriyya collection at the al-Assad National Library in Damascus . The text was critically edited by Isma'il Isma'il Marwah and published in Damascus by Dar al-Fikr al-Mu'asir in 1416 AH / 1995 CE in a single volume .
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