Sibawayhi's Principles: Arabic Grammar and Law in Early Islamic Thought.

• Author: Ali, Mohamed Mohamed Yunis

Sibawayhi's Principles: Arabic Grammar and Law in Early Islamic Thought. By MICHAEL G. CARTER. Research in Arabic and Islamic Studies, vol. 5. Atlanta: LOCKWOOD, 2016. Pp. xi + 273. $49.95 (paper).

Sibawayhi (d. 180/796) is arguably the real founder of Arabic grammar. He is considered to be the first to have laid the principal foundations of the theory of Arabic grammar and can be regarded as one of the most influential linguists of all time. Inspired by his two great teachers Yunus and Khalil, he has been credited with providing the basic analytical tools, technical terms, and theoretical framework for Arabic grammar. His book al-Kitab is believed to be the oldest authentic book on Arabic grammar and his perception of the grammatical structure of Arabic is still shaping its theory and determining approaches to traditional Arabic linguistic studies. Despite the relatively great number of studies hitherto conducted on the emergence of Arabic grammar, however, it is still difficult to find a reliable and precise historical account of its formative stage.

The volume under review, Michael Carter's 1968 PhD thesis "Sibawayhi's Principles of Grammatical Analysis," is a serious attempt to discuss the early history of Arabic grammar and the surrounding environment in which it evolved. In particular, it presents a thorough description and analysis of the historical and intellectual status of Sibawayhi and his role in the development of Arabic grammar independent of an alleged Greek influence. Throughout his work, Carter explicitly and implicitly invites researchers to do justice to Sibawayhi by correcting the misrepresentation of the Kitab to which a number of previous studies have contributed a great deal.

It is not surprising, therefore, that one of Carter's aims here is to prove that the science of Arabic grammar was developed on its own. Basing his arguments on the similarity between the technical terms of law and those of grammar and on mutual contacts between Muslim jurists and grammarians, he insists that Arabic grammar was evolved in a purely Arab environment. This claim has perpetually been a bone of contention between some researchers who adhere to this view, such as B. G. Weiss, G. Weil, W. Diem, G. Troupeau, J. Owens, and G. Bohas, and others who argue for Greek and other foreign influence, such as W. Fischer, D. H. Hasse, A. Merx, F. Rundgren, J. Danecki, V. Law, C. H. M. Versteegh, and R. Talmon (pp. 36-37, 61; see A. Marogy, Kitab Sibawayhi [Leiden: Brill, 2010], 2-3).

Carter, whose name is strongly associated with Sibawayhi, believes that Sibawayhi's work was critically misrepresented and undermined by fabricated stories about the origins of Arabic grammar. Many classical and modern works associate its initial development with Abu...