The life of Jamal al-din ibn al-Hajib and the role of his work al-kafiya in Arabic grammar

Abstract

This article examines the life, scholarly development, teachers, and students of the eminent Arabic grammarian Jamal al-Din Abu Amr Uthman ibn Umar ibn al-Hajib al-Kurdi al-Maliki (d. 646/1249), as well as his contributions to Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), legal theory (usul al-fiqh), Qur’anic recitation (qira’at), and Arabic linguistics. The central focus of the study is his renowned grammatical treatise al-Kafiya and the rich tradition of commentaries that developed around it over the centuries. Based on classical bibliographical source s– including Haji Khalifa’s Kashf al-Zunun, al-Babani’s Hadiyyat al-‘Arifin, Umar Rida Kahhala’s Mu‘jam al-Mu’allifin, and others—the study identifies more than 116 commentaries and glosses, 9 poetic (verse) adaptations, and 4 major abridgements of al-Kafiya, while also providing information on their authors and manuscript repositories. The findings demonstrate that al-Kafiya became one of the principal textbooks of Arabic grammar in the educational traditions of Syria, Egypt, India, Rum (Ottoman Turkey), and Transoxiana. Furthermore, Abd al-Rahman Jami’s commentary al-Fawa’id al-Diya’iyya is shown to represent one of the most influential and enduring links in this scholarly tradition.