Most studies on the history of Arabic grammar tend to focus on the advanced treatises, from Sībawayhi's Kitāb to the extensive commentaries by Ibn Yaʿīš and al-Astarābāḏī. There has always been a modicum of interest in the most elementary treatises, such as the ʾAlfiyya and the ʾĀjurrūmiyya, but there is one category in between that has commonly escaped researchers' attention: that of pedagogical treatises like al-Zajjājī’s Jumal and Ibn Jinnī’s Lumaʿ. In a recent article, one of the authors of the book under review here has emphasized the need to study this category of texts (Almog Kasher, “Early pedagogical grammars of Arabic”, in Georgine Ayoub and Kees Versteegh (eds), The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics, III, 146–66. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2018). Ramzi Baalbaki (“Grammar for beginners and Ibn Hišām's approaches to ʾiʿrāb”, in The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics, IV, ed. by Manuela E.B. Giolfo and Kees Versteegh, 61–88. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2019) has pointed out that grammars for beginners appeared as early as the second/eighth century. The treatise edited in the volume under review here, Ibn al-ʾAnbārī’s (d. 577/1181) Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya belongs to a later period of this genre.
The book consists of an extensive introduction (34 pp.) followed by the edition of the text (71 pp.). The introduction profits from the fact that, in addition to the Mīzān, Ibn al-ʾAnbārī wrote another short treatise, the ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya, which deals partly with the same issues as the Mīzān, but at a different level. This has enabled the editors to engage in an interesting comparison between the two treatises. They do not address directly the question of the place these two treatises occupy in the curriculum of Arabic grammar teaching, but they do provide us with a valuable tool for the study of pedagogical grammars. Their detailed comparison concerns primarily the contents of the Mīzān and the ʾAsrār, but they refer systematically to other treatises in the same genre, in particular al-Zajjājī’s Jumal, Ibn Jinnī’s Lumaʿ and a short treatise by Ibn al-ʾAnbārī’s teacher al-Jawālīqī (d. 539/1144), al-Muḥtaṣar. It might have been useful to include here Ibn al-Sarrāj's Mūjaz.
In his ʾĪḍāḥ the fourth century grammarian al-Zajjājī set up a scheme of three different levels in linguistic argumentation. At the lowest level there are rules to learn the language, at the next level explanations of the rules, and at the highest level, justifications of the rules. Al-Zajjājī himself illustrates the difference with his beginners’ grammar al-Jumal, which represents the first level of linguistic argumentation. The difference between Mīzān and ʾAsrār is a clear illustration of this division.
Kasher and Sadan's detailed comparison of Ibn al-ʾAnbārī’s two treatises shows the difference in their approach to the teaching of grammar. One good example is that of the topic (mubtadaʾ) and the predicate (ḫabar). In the ʾAsrār these are dealt with in one chapter, containing theoretical explanations in terms of grammatical governance (ʿamal) that concern both constituents. In the Mīzān, on the other hand, Ibn al-ʾAnbārī needs two chapters, one for each constituent, because at the beginners’ level it is didactically easier to keep them apart (p. 29).
In principle, matters of ʿamal do not pertain to the first level. In al-Zajjājī’s scheme, for instance, the first level rule, which is the only rule the beginning student needs to know, states that ʾinna causes the accusative of the topic, and the nominative in the predicate. Any explanations of this rule belong to higher levels. Kasher and Sadan state (p. 23) that “in al-Zajjājī’s model statements of ʿamal are subsumed under the first type”. This is true insofar as al-Zajjājī asserts that the beginning student has to learn what the ʿāmil is in a given construction; yet, he relegates any discussion of ʿamal to a higher level.
Ibn al-ʾAnbārī adheres to the same division of explanations, which means that he sometimes simplifies statements in order not to confuse the beginning student. He does so explicitly when he quotes Sībawayhi on an irregular construction of mā, adding (p. 44): “This is not the place to go into this” (hāḏā laysa mawḍiʿ ḏikrihā). On other occasions the omission is implicit, for instance when he states (p. 42) that passive verbs (i.e. verbs whose agent is not mentioned) are always transitive (mutaʿaddī). This statement does not take into account impersonal passives like sīra, qīma. It might be argued that these verbs do have the internal masdar as object (i.e. sīra sayrun), but apparently Ibn al-ʾAnbārī preferred to ignore the entire issue at this level.
In a few cases ʿamal and ʿāmil are mentioned in the Mīzān, for instance when the nominative of the topic is explained by the absence of governing words (p. 40 ʿarraytahu min al-ʿawāmil al-lafẓiyya). But Kasher and Sadan correctly observe (p. 23) that “Mīzān lacks material that is of no pedagogical use”. Thus, the default case ending of the topic is mentioned, but the much more intricate issue of the case ending of the predicate is reserved for the ʾAsrār. Kasher and Sadan are right when they state that the ʾAsrār also deals with the highest level of linguistic explanations, the ʿilal jadaliyya wa-naẓariyya, although one should add that Ibn al-ʾAnbārī’s explanations remain within the realm of linguistics and do not use extra-linguistic arguments, as in al-Zajjājī.
In itself, the Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya may not be overly interesting, but its place within the curriculum and the comparison with more advanced treatises is highly relevant and provides a welcome insight into the theoretical underpinnings of Arabic language teaching. The editors are to be commended for their careful edition of the treatise and, in particular, for their thoughtful analysis of its contents. Much as I tried to spot any errors, I was unable to find any, but that is just as might be expected from two scholars with such philological acumen.
