Abū Bakr, ‘Abd al-Qāhir ibn ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Jurjānī (10091078 or 1081 AD
00 – 471 or 474 A.H.;
nicknamed "Al-Naḥawī" (the grammarian), he was a renowned
Persian grammarian of the
Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
, literary theorist of the Muslim
Shafi'i
The Shafii ( ar, شَافِعِي, translit=Shāfiʿī, also spelled Shafei) school, also known as Madhhab al-Shāfiʿī, is one of the four major traditional schools of religious law (madhhab) in the Sunnī branch of Islam. It was founded by ...
, and a follower of
al-Ash'ari. He wrote several celebrated works on grammar and rhetoric, among these are ''
Mi,ut Ạmil'' and ''Al-Jumal'' - introductions to Arabic syntax - and a commentary titled ''Al-Mughnī'' in three volumes.
Al-Jurjānī is said to have never left his native town of
Gorgan
Gorgan ( fa, گرگان ; also romanized as ''Gorgān'', ''Gurgān'', and ''Gurgan''), formerly Esterabad ( ; also romanized as ''Astarābād'', ''Asterabad'', and ''Esterābād''), is the capital city of Golestan Province, Iran. It lies appro ...
,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, yet his reputation in the twin sciences of ''ilm al balaghah'' (eloquence and rhetorical art) and ''ilm al bayan'' (a branch of Arabic rhetoric dealing with
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
ical language), reached many Arabic scholars who travelled to see him. His two books on these subjects, ''Asrār al-Balāghah'' (''Secrets of Rhetoric''), and ''Dalāʾīl al-ʿIjāz fi-l-Qurʾān'' (''Arguments of the Miraculous Inimitability of the Quran'') show influences of al-Jurjānī's predecessors, the grammarian
Sibawayh
Sibawayh ( ar, سِيبَوَيْهِ ' or ; fa, سِیبُویه ' ; c. 760–796), whose full name is Abu Bishr Amr ibn Uthman ibn Qanbar al-Basri (, '), was a Persian leading grammarian of Basra and author of the earliest book on Arabic ...
, the critic
Abi Helal al-'Askari al Balaghi, and the linguist and literary theorist
Abu Ali al-Farisi, the author of ''al-Idah'' (''Elucidation'').
Ali al-Farisi's nephew, Abi al-Hussein Muhammad ibn al-Hassan ibn Abd al-Wareth al-Faressi al-Nawawi, was al-Jurjānī's teacher, under whom he studied the ''al-Idah'', and on which he wrote a thirty-volume work of commentary entitled ''al Maghna fi Sharh al-Idah'' .
Critical opinions
Publications
* ''Asrār al-Balāghah'' (''The Secrets of Elucidation'')
* ''Al-Awāmil al-Mi’ah'' (''The Hundred Elements'') - A short text on 100 modifiers, or particles, in Arabic and their different uses with examples.
* ''Dalā’il al-Iʿjaz'' (''Intimations of Inimitability'')
* ''Iʿjaz al-Qur’ān'' (''The inimitability of the
Qur'an
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , si ...
'')
* ''Al-Jumal'' (''Sentences'')
* ''Kitab ʿArūd'' (''Poetic Structure'')
* ''Al-Maghna fī Sharḥ al-Idah’'', thirty volumes
* ''Al-Miftāḥ'' (''The Key'')
* ''Muʿjam al-taʿrifāt'' (''Compendium of Definitions'')
* ''Al-Muqtasad'', a short version of ''Al Maghna''.
* ''Sharḥ al-Fātiḥa fī Mujallad'' (''Explaining
Al-Fatiha
Al-Fatiha (alternatively transliterated Al-Fātiḥa or Al-Fātiḥah; ar, ألْفَاتِحَة, ; ), is the first '' surah'' (chapter) of the Quran. It consists of 7 '' ayah'' (verses) which are a prayer for guidance and mercy. Al-Fatiha ...
in a Volume'')
* ''Al-Talkhiss bi Sharḥihi'' (''The Brief of Sentence Elucidation'')
* ''Al-'Umhad fī al-Taṣrīf'' (''The Basis of Morphology'')
* An anthology collection on the works of Abi-tammam, al-Buh'turi, and al-Mutannabī.
References
Bibliography
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External links
"Summary of Disagreements Between at-Taftazani and al-Jurrujani"is an Arabic work, dating from 1805, which compares Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani's work to the work of
Taftazani
Sa'ad al-Din Masud ibn Umar ibn Abd Allah al-Taftazani ( fa, سعدالدین مسعودبن عمربن عبداللّه هروی خراسانی تفتازانی) also known as Al-Taftazani and Taftazani (1322–1390) was a Muslim Persian pol ...
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jurjani, Abd al-Qahir al-
Year of birth unknown
1000s births
1078 deaths
Iranian Arabic-language writers
11th-century Persian-language writers
Iranian grammarians
Religious writers
11th-century Iranian people
People from Gorgan