ʿAbd-Allāh ibn Abī Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī (

Arabic 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 ...

, عَبْدُ اللّهِ بْنُ أَبِي إِسْحَاقَ الْحَضْرَمِيُّ), (died AD 735 / AH 117)

Kees Versteegh Cornelis Henricus Maria "Kees" Versteegh (; born 1947) is a Dutch academic linguist. He served as a professor of Islamic studies and the Arabic language at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands until April 2011. Versteegh graduated from R ...

, ''Arabic Grammar and Qur'anic Exegesis in Early Islam'', pg. 17.

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...

Brill Publishers Brill Academic Publishers (known as E. J. Brill, Koninklijke Brill, Brill ()) is a Dutch international academic publisher founded in 1683 in Leiden, Netherlands. With offices in Leiden, Boston, Paderborn and Singapore, Brill today publishes 2 ...

, 1993. was an

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

from

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...

and is considered the first 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 ...

.Monique Bernards, "Pioneers of Arabic Linguistic Studies." Taken from ''In the Shadow of Arabic: The Centrality of Language to Arabic Culture'', pg. 213. Ed. Bilal Orfali. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2011. He compiled a prescriptive grammar by referring to the usage of the

Bedouins The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and Ar ...

, whose language was seen as especially pure (see also iʿrāb, aʿrāb). He is also considered the first person to use linguistic

analogy Analogy (from Greek ''analogia'', "proportion", from ''ana-'' "upon, according to" lso "against", "anew"+ ''logos'' "ratio" lso "word, speech, reckoning" is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject ...

in Arabic. Two students of Ibn Abi Ishaq's were Harun ibn Musa and Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala'. His student al-Thaqafi seems to have had more prescriptive views while al-'Ala's were more descriptive. Their differences have been suggested to lie at the core of the late division of

Arabic grammar Arabic grammar or Arabic language sciences ( ar, النحو العربي ' or ar, عُلُوم اللغَة العَرَبِيَّة ') is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities wi ...

into the schools of

Kufa Kufa ( ar, الْكُوفَة ), also spelled Kufah, is a city in Iraq, about south of Baghdad, and northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000. Currently, Kufa and Najaf a ...

and

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...

. Ibn Abi Ishaq was said to be more proficient with the rules of grammar than the analysis of common speech.Gregor Schoeler, ''The Oral and the Written in Early Islam'', pg. 187. Trns. Uwe Vagelpohl, ed. James E Montgomery. Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures. London: Routledge, 2006. Abi Ishaq's work was considered influential upon later grammarians, as he was quoted as an authority by Sibawayhi in his seminal work on

seven times.

References

735 deaths 8th-century Arabs 8th-century writers Arab grammarians Medieval grammarians of Arabic Year of birth unknown {{Linguist-stub

See also

References