Yunus ibn Habib ( ar, أبو عبد الرحمن يونس بن حبيب الضبي; died after 183 AH/798 CE) was a reputable 8th-century
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, ...
linguist. An early literary critic and expert on poetry, Ibn Habib's criticisms of poetry were known, along with those of contemporaries such as
Al-Asma'i, as a litmus test for measuring later writers' eloquence.
Ibn Habib's exact tribal last name, date of birth and age at death have been an issue of contention. Medieval historian
Ibn Khallikan mentions three possible tribes that he belonged to, two possible dates of birth and two possible ages at the time of his death.
[ Ibn Khallikan, ''Deaths of Eminent Men and History of the Sons of the Epoch'', vol. 4, pg. 586. Trns. ]William McGuckin de Slane
William McGuckin (also Mac Guckin and MacGuckin), known as Baron de Slane (Belfast, Ireland, 12 August 1801 - Paris, France, 4 August 1878) was an Irish orientalist. He became a French national on 31 December 1838. and held the post of the Princ ...
. London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1871. He never married nor did he ever take a mistress, having devoted all of his life to either studying or teaching.
His notable teachers include:
Hammad ibn Salamah
Abu Salma Hammad ibn Salamah ibn Dinar al-Basri ( ar, حماد بن سلمة بن دينار البصري; died 167 AH/783 CE), the son of Salamah ibn Dinar, was a prominent narrator of hadith and one of the earliest grammarians of the Arabic lan ...
from whom he took knowledge in
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 ...
,
Al-Akhfash al-Akbar and
Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala'.
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 ...
,[M.G. Carter, Sibawayh, pg. 21. Part of the Makers of Islamic Civilization series. ]London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
: I.B. Tauris, 2004. Al-Kisa'i
Al-Kisā’ī () Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Ḥamzah ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Uthman (), called Bahman ibn Fīrūz (), surnamed Abū ‘Abd Allāh (), and Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Hamzah of al-Kūfah ( d. ca. 804 or 812) was preceptor to th ...
, Yaḥyá ibn Ziyād al-Farrāʼ and Abu ʿUbaidah.[
Sibawayhi, considered the father of Arabic grammar despite being Persian, quoted Ibn Habib 217 times in his famous ''Kitab'',]["Aspects of the Genetive: Taxonomy in al-Jumal fi al-nahw." Taken from ''Early Medieval Arabic: Studies on Al-Khalīl Ibn Ahmad'', pg. 102. Ed. Karin C. Ryding. Washington, D.C.: ]Georgetown University Press
Georgetown University Press is a university press affiliated with Georgetown University that publishes about forty new books a year. The press's major subject areas include bioethics, international affairs, languages and linguistics, political s ...
, 1998. Ibn Habib is one of two figures (the other being Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi
Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī ( ar, أبو عبدالرحمن الخليل بن أحمد الفراهيدي; 718 – 786 CE), known as Al-Farāhīdī, or Al-Khalīl, ...
) regarded as Sibawayhi's formative teachers.[
]
Works
List of known works by Yunus ibn Habib:
References
{{Authority control
Iranian grammarians
Iranian writers
8th-century Persian-language writers
Medieval grammarians of Arabic
Grammarians of Basra