4.3 D ESCRIPTION OF THE C ORPUS
4.3.2 Why these texts?
Unlike early Arab linguists whose corpus, gathered for linguistic investigation in their period, mainly comprised first and foremost the Qur’an and the old tribal poetry in addition to the nomads’ proverbs and sayings (Versteegh, 1997: 42), I used other genres and subgenres to have a real representative corpus.
Below is a description of the subgenres included in the corpus:
1. The first text on which early Arab linguists relied is the Holy Qur’an. This is the primary evidence which Arab linguists relied on to prove the correctness of any linguistic issue. To Muslims, the Qur’an has the highest position in religion and in language.
The Qur’an consists of 114 chapters (surahs) covering the social, cultural, political, and religious life of Arabs of the early seventh century with references to some previous peoples. The Qur’an’s structure is neither poetry nor prose. It is not poetry because it does not observe the metre and rhyme of poetry, and it is not prose because it is not composed in the same manner in which prose was customarily composed.
The early Arabs privileged language; they held public fairs for poetry in Mecca, especially at ‘Ukaz, where they used to present valuable prizes for the best poet. Within this specifically Arab context, the Prophet Muhammad was sent as a Messenger and his major evidence is the Qur’an.
The Qur’an is inimitable; it is unique in style and unexcelled in beauty. God challenged the Arabs to produce even a verse (a line) like the Qur’an but they could not. This point is repeatedly emphasised in the Holy Book itself. Thus the Qur’an says:
If the whole of mankind and the jinn were to gather together to produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce the like thereof, even if they backed each other up. (17:88)
2. Next to the Qur’an, poetry has been regarded as a main and authentic source of pure language. The selection criteria for Cobuild excluded poetry from the Cobuild collection because, to them, poetry is unrepresentative of mainstream linguistic behaviour (Renouf, 1984). To me, poetry cannot be ignored when looking into Arabic linguistics, especially Classical Arabic. Poetry was highly valued in Arabic cultures of the Middle Ages. The importance of poetry as a source of data for linguistic investigation can be shown in
Sibawayh’s reliance on it as the primary type of textual evidence. In his Kitab he referred to poetry as evidence 1050 times, to Qur’an 447 times, six times to Hadith, and 350 to prose. Ibn Abbas in his commentary on the Qur’an relied on poetry to explain the meaning of unclear lexical items in the text of the Qur’an. He said, ‘When you want to learn the meaning of any weird word in the Qur’an, look for it in poetry.’ Also, we have to bear in mind that the older the poetry, the more authority it possessed.
3. Hadith (Prophetic Tradition): It is a main source of authentic data. Hadith by definition can be subsumed under spoken material as it includes all the recorded sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. It was transmitted orally as was the Holy Qur’an.
To me, the use of Hadith for grammatical investigation in classical Arabic is of great
importance since the Prophet Muhammad is considered one of the most eloquent speakers of his community because of his early upbringing among Bedouins who were renowned for
their eloquence. Hadith literature also retains a lot of ancient usage. Some scholars compiled and classified these hadiths in systematic collections; the most authentic of them are Al- Bukhari and Muslim. These two collections, which I included in my corpus, are usually referred to by scholars as Al-S{ah{ih{aan, i.e. the two authentic collections.
4. Proverbs and Bedouin sayings: As already mentioned the third authentic source of data which early Arab grammarians depended on is the Bedouin proverbs. The language of the Bedouin has changed less than other varieties because they live away from urban
communities where different people of different dialects and languages live together. The first person to collect the Arabic proverbs was Al-Mufad}d}al ibn Salim (d. 784 AD). Based on what Al- Mufad}d}al did, Abu Hilal Al-Askary (d. 1004) and Al-Maydani (d. 1124) compiled their collections of proverbs in a more comprehensive way. Al-Mydani’s
Majmac Al-Amthaal (the Collection of Proverbs) contains explanatory notes on poetry.
5. Theology: This type of texts flourished very early as the Muslims encouraged by caliphs and motivated by their interest in studying their religion, introduced some sciences related to the Holy Qur’an and Hadith such as the Qur’an exegesis, jurisprudence (Fiqh), dogmatics, etc. The Qur’an Exegesis deals with the meaning of the verses, the reasons behind their revelation i.e. the historical references, and comments on the syntactic and semantic structure. One of the most famous works on Tafseer is Al-Tabari’s (d. 922), which is considered ‘the richest repository in this branch of study containing from verse to verse everything he could gather from earlier literature’ (Goldziher: 1966: 46). Jurisprudence was also introduced to explain the Islamic rulings that concern all Muslims in worshipping, daily transactions, political system and relations with other people. These rulings were derived from the Qur’an and Hadith.
Another branch of theology was the Foundations of Creed, dogmatics. This science of
studying the basics of belief was introduced as a result of defending the Islamic belief against heretics and other sects. This gave rise to the rational approach of presenting Islam to non- Muslims. One of the most important works in this field is Al-Ashcari’s (d. 935) Al-Ibaanah fi
‘Us}uul al-Diyaanah (The Explanation of the Roots of Creed). Al-Ashcari was the first to
formulate the orthodox thinking of creed. His book Al-Ibaanah has influenced most writings on theology even today.
6. Biography: The first coherent biography of the Prophet was written by Ibn Ishaq (d. 768) whose Siirat Rasuul Allaah (The life of the Apostle of Allah) was revised and reworked by Ibn Hisham (d. 833) to make the oldest and most classical work in this field. Ibn Ishaq was first entrusted by the Caliph Al-Mansur with the task of writing a book for his son Al-Mahdi on history since the first man on earth until their time. Ibn Ishaq’s work was more
comprehensive than Ibn Hisham’s, as the latter was only on the biography of the Prophet. History then became an independent genre with works like Al-Akhbaar Al-T}iwaal (Long Narratives) by Abu Hanifa al-Dinawri (d. 895), Taariikh al-rusul wal-umam wa al-muluuk (the History of prophets, nations and kings) by Al-Tabari (d. 922) which reflected various historical and cultural aspects of Islamic life.
7. Philosophy: Arabs started to try the speculative methods in order to defend or spread Islam. Philosophy was just another aspect of religious studies. Al-Farabi, for example, held the belief that philosophy and Islam are in harmony. One of his most important contribution is
Aara’ Ahl Al-Madiinah Al-Faad}}ilah (The Utopia). It is a significant contribution to
sociology and political science. The shift undertaken by Al-Kindi (d. 872) from writing on philosophy as a religious tool to writing on pure philosophy is considered the beginning of the separation of philosophy from dogmatics. Therefore he was the first independent writer on philosophy. Then came Ibn Sina, who is known in the West as Avicenna, to inform this genre with many works, including a book in logic. He combined Greek philosophy and Muslim theology.
8. Linguistics: Early Arab linguists influenced linguistic investigation universally. For
example, Al-Khalil’s lexicon, Al-cayn, was considered the first systematic and comprehensive
work of its kind. Al-Khalil (d. 786) was the first to give lexical order in the collection of his dictionary.
In addition to lexicography, philology was also mastered by the early Arab linguists. Al- Thacalibi’s Fiqh Al-Lughah (The Code of Language) (d. 1037) was really a marvellous
compendium of philology.
It is noteworthy to mention that there are arguments for not including lexicons and
linguistics works in a corpus because in the first place they may contain citations from other works which have their own grammars and stylistics. Secondly, to include such works in a corpus could be misleading in the sense that they may use other languages to prove a universal phenomenon or to investigate these languages themselves (Paul Bennett, personal communication). This is not the case with the works I included in CAC since the works of linguistics and lexicons I included are written entirely in Arabic without quoting any single foreign word. In addition, citations from other works are only restricted to certain texts: Qur’an, pre-Islamic poetry and nomad proverbs (cf. 3.2.2).
9. Science: The early Arab scientists paved the way for the modern scientific observation in mathematics, medicine, physics and so on. In medicine Ibn Sina’s book: Al-Qaanuun fi Al- T}ibb (Canon of Medicine) was considered the first comprehensive encyclopaedia in
medicine. When the Al-Qaanuun fi Al-T}ibb (Canon of Medicine) was translated into Latin,
it became the textbook for medical education in Europe in the 12th century.
Another field of science in which the West was indebted to the Arabs was mathematics. Arabs are the inventors of the symbol 0 (zero) and this laid the foundation of positional arithmetic. The first to write an arithmetic was Al-Khawarizmi (d. 849).
Physics was also studied by Arab scholars. Al-Biruni’s (d. 1048) contributions in physics were pervasive during the first part of the last millennium. He was a pioneer in the study of metals and precious stones. His book Kitaab al-Jamaahir discusses the properties of various precious stones. In geography Al-Maqdisi (d. 977) studied most of the Islamic world and wrote his marvellous book: Ah}san al-taqaasiim fi macrifat al-aqaliim (The best Division in
10. Fiction: As mentioned earlier that there is a considerable lack in Arabic fictional works, however, some early Arabic works can be subsumed under the narrative prose such as Al-
Bukhalaa’ (The Misers) by Al-Jahiz and Arabian Nights. The Thousand and One nights
(Arabian Nights) (850) was originally written in Persian. It was translated and reworked completely to leave no Persian traces so as not to contradict the Islamic thought during the Abbasid period. Al-Jahiz (d.868) had contributions in a variety of genres among which are philology and artistic prose. His book, The Misers is a collection of anecdotes that criticises the social conditions of his time in a comic way.