Friday Notes From The Quran (2/9/2022) : Obeying And Not Obeying The Rules Of Grammar

 This is another Friday discussion about the Quran that may be too technical for non-Muslim readers, so non-Muslims can skip this post.

Note : I would like to state that I read the Quran as a hobby. I read and try to understand it in Arabic as well as the translations. It is just an interest that I have developed. I also read some about Islam and religion. The two are not the same.

Today some history and then a short 8 minute YouTube video about the Quran. 

The earliest known book that was written in the Arabic language and which is still extant is indeed the Quran. It is over 1,400 years old.

There is no existence or mention of any other complete Arabic language book that is extant that precedes the Quran. Extant means existing. 

So there are no other books of Arabic poetry, Arabic history or Arabic grammar known to us that precede the Quran. 

This means all the known books of Arabic poetry, Arabic history and Arabic grammar came AFTER the Quran.

The earliest known book of Arabic grammar was believed to have been written by a guy called Sibawayh or Sibuyeh. This is not an Arabic name. Sibuyeh was a Persian who lived in the 8th century AD in Khorasan under the Abbasid Caliphate.  Here is some research :

"Sibuyeh (Persian) or Sibawayh (Arabic), 760–796 AD, whose full name was Abu Bishr Amr ibn Uthman ibn Qanbar al-Basri was a Persian, leading grammarian and author of the earliest book on Arabic grammar and linguistics. Despite being a non-native speaker of Arabic, he has been called the greatest of all Arabic linguists. Sibawayh was from Shiraz, in today’s Fars Province in Iran.

His famous unnamed work, referred to as Al-Kitāb, or "The Book", is a five-volume seminal discussion of the Arabic language.  Al-Kitab was the first formal and analytical Arabic grammar written by a non-native speaker of Arabic, i.e., as a foreign language. Al-Kitāb al-Sībawayh ('Book of Sibawayh'), became the foundational grammar of the Arabic language.   The Al-Kitab was a comprehensive encyclopedic Arabic grammar, in which he set down the principal rules of grammar and grammatical categories. 

• Sibawayh's status as a non-native speaker of the Arabic language became a central feature in the many anecdotes about his debates which influenced his formulation of the fundamental principles of Arabic grammar.  
• Much of the impetus for this work came from the desire of non-Arab scholars for “correct interpretation” of the Quran and the development of tafseer (Quranic exegesis).

Ibn Qutaybah, the earliest extant source, in his biographical entry under Sibawayh wrote:  ‘He arrived in Baghdad, fell out with the local grammarians, was humiliated, and went back to some town in Persia, and died there while still a young man’.

Sibawayh's book came from the flourishing literary, philological and tafseer (Quranic exegetical) tradition of the Abbasid Caliphate. He served the Barmakid vizier Yahya ibn Khalid in the days of Harun al-Rashid when he was 32 years old and died in Persia when he was about forty (??) 

OSTB : So the earliest known book of Arabic grammar was written in the 8th century AD, more than 150 years after the Quranic revelation (according to the accepted narratives). It was written by Sibuyeh, a Persian and non-native Arabic speaker.  

But even Sibuyeh's grammar book "Al Kitab" was not extant. No one had a copy. It was another writer, another Persian by the name of Ibn Qutaybah al Marwazi who appeared in the next century (828AD - 889AD)  also in the Abbasid Caliphate who wrote the story of Sibuyeh. 

It is an interesting footnote that Sibuyeh went to Baghdad :  'fell out with the local grammarians, was humiliated, and went back to some town in Persia, and died there while still a young man'

He died around the age of 40 - some references say he died of depression over the humiliation and criticism of his book of Arabic grammar. We really do not know. 

But Sibuyeh had a very powerful patron Yahya ibn Khalid al Bramaki, another Persian and the grand Vizier (prime minister) under the rule of the powerful Abbasid Caliph Harun Al Rashid.

Some points to note :  

1. Even books of grammar can be criticised, to the extent that the author suffered humiliation and depression. 

2. Yet with a powerful patron such books still became 'acceptable'.

3. The rules of grammar of all languages exist even without grammar books being written down. Or even without the native speakers having a written script in their language. The Orang Asli and the Malay people do not have a written script but the Orang Asli and Malay languages all have rules of grammar. You do not say 'Saya api kereta naik'. It is 'Saya naik keretapi'. 

Now lets watch the short YouTube video about the use of past tense and present tense in the Quran. It is easily understood.

 

 

OSTB : My own view is the Quran is never wrong in its usage of the past tense and the present tense. So I do not agree with what the speaker in the video is saying. My view is it is the grammarians who have to sort out their differences (like what happened to Sibuyeh above).

Going back to the video the Arabic word kaa-na is past tense. It means "was".

For example here is another verse Surah 16:120 with the word kaa-na (was) that is correctly translated using the past tense :

Inna : surely

Ibraheema : Ibrahim / Abraham

kaa-na  : was

ummatan qaanitan : (of a) people obedient / devoted

lil-laahi : towards Allah

haneefan : upright, straight

wa lam yakoo ; and he was not 

min-al mushrikeen : from the polytheists

 

Conclusion : The Quran does not waver in what it says. However the grammarians may have plenty of differences among themselves.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.