Changing Traditions: Al-Mubarrad's Refutation of Sibawayh and the Subsequent Reception of the Kitab.

• Author: BAALBAKI, RAMZI
• Position: Review

Changing Traditions: Al-Mubarrad's Refutation of Sibawayh and the Subsequent Reception of the Kitab. By MONIQUE BERNARDS. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, vol. 23. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1997. Pp. 118 + 212 (Arabic). HFI 154, $96.25.

When A. [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]Udayma published al-Mubarrad's al-Muqtadab in four volumes (1963-69), he gave particular consideration to al-Mubarrad's refutation of Sibawayhi in several grammatical masa[CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]il and to Ibn Wallad's Kitab al-Inrisar aw Kitab al-Naqd [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]ala al-Mubarrad fi raddihi [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]ala Sibawayhi. Apart from discussing the nature of al-Mubarrad's differences with Sibawayhi and Ibn Wallad's subsequent defense of Sibawayhi (al-Muqtadab, 1: 89-95), [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]Udayma quoted the Kitab al-Intisar extensively in his footnotes, and listed sixty masa[CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]il in which Ibn Wallad rebutted al-Mubarrad's refutation of Sibawayhi (al-Muqtadab, 4: 220-23). But

this gave the student of Arabic grammar only limited and selective knowledge, both of al-Mubarrad's criticism of Sibawayhi and of Ibn Wallad's arguments. The publication and study of Kitab al-Intisar have been long overdue, and we are indebted to Monique Bernards for having undertaken this major effort and for presenting a fine study of the significance of al-Mubarrad's position within the gen eral framework of the history of Arabic grammar, and particularly in relation to the reception of Sibawayhi's Kitab as the major and most authoritative treatise in the Arab grammatical tradition.

By putting al-Mubarrad on center stage and by examining the role he played in the reception of the Kitab, the working hypothesis that Bernards presents appears to be only natural: that al-Mubarrad's retraction of most of his criticism of the Kitab "was to have been motivated by an attempt on his part to emphasize the group he himself identified with, the grammarians of Basra" (p. 89). Of course, al-Mubarrad was not the first critic of Sibawayhi, hut unlike his predecessors, namely al-Akhfash al-Awsat, al-Jarmi, and al-Mazini, he later retracted most of his critical remarks and transformed them into explanatory comments. There is a slight difference of opinion on the number of masa[CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]il al-Mubarrad retained in his criticism of Sibawayhi between [CHARACTERS...