Abu 'Abd Allāh Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Abd Allāh ibn Mālik al-Tā'i al-Jayyāni () ( 600 AH – 672 AH / 1203-4 or 1204-5 – 21 February 1274) was an

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

grammarian born in Jaén. After leaving

al-Andalus Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...

for the Near East, and taught Arabic language and literature in

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and Hamāt, before eventually settled in

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

, where he began the most productive period of his life. He was a senior master at the Adiliyya

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. His reputation in Arabic literature was cemented by his ''al-Khulāsa al-alfiyya'' (known also as simply '' Alfiya''), a versification of Arabic grammar, for which at least 43 commentaries have been written.

References

Sources

Fleisch, H. "Ibn Mālik" in The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'', 2nd Edition. CD-ROM Edition, Version 1.0. (Leiden: Brill, 1999). Arab grammarians Medieval grammarians of Arabic 1200s births 1274 deaths People from Jaén, Spain 13th-century Arab people Arabic-language writers {{linguist-stub