Arabic linguistic tradition

This chapter describes Arabic linguistic tradition. The Arabic linguistic tradition spans centuries of intellectual activity and covers a wide range of topics, all pertaining to the Arabic language in its capacity as, primarily, the medium of religious expression as well as a vast body of poetry. Participants in this tradition came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds; for example, al-Khalil (d.791); Sibawayh (d.804) and Ibn Jinm (d.l002), the three most important scholars in the core disciplines of this tradition, were Arab, Persian, and Byzantine by origin, respectively. But they all engaged in their work from a position that recognizes the centrality of Arabic and Islam in the life of the community of which they were a part. The beginnings of Arabic grammatical thinking are universally attributed in the sources to the emergence of the phenomenon called lahn (solecism) in early Muslim society. Analogy is the soul of Arabic grammar. According to one famous definition in the literature “grammar is nothing but analogy that is to be followed.”