Nahu al-Basriyyin - The Grammar of Basrah

The Grammar of the Basrans between the metalingual function and the linguistic reality by Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim Dawood

The purpose of this study is to explain the grammar foundations of the Basra school, as opposed to the Kufi school, those two pioneering schools that dominated the science of Arabic grammar for many centuries, and whose debates were one of the tributaries and sources of the development of Arabic grammar, as well as the large number of works in it.

The author writes "...The breadth of schools of Arabic grammar and the diversity of their differences is nothing more than a reflection of the language’s flexibility and the breadth of its paths, and reveals the nature of the text that is not characterised by stagnation, and the different approaches of the Arab mind.”

The Basran method is focused on rule consistency and not surrendering to the aberrant and unusual, but the Kufan approach is based on taking into consideration all that comes from the Arabs. We are faced with two ways, the first of which is a logical approach and the second of which is a transmission approach, with a hundred years, separating the two.

There is little question that these two techniques represent the Arab’s zeal for his language, which cooled the debate among Baghdadis, who absorbed the two ideas and saw no alternative but to accept them. The Baghdadis did not stop at adoption, but instead added their idea and attitude, which is rational. It is a continuation of the development year, and it considers the reasons of mental growth; we will discuss all of these ways in depth in the introduction that we have written for this research, God willing.