Al-fara'id al-Wafiyya bi-Dhikr Maalam tahwihi al-Alfiyya of Al-Mansuri: a critical edition with a comparative study between it and the Alfiyya of Ibn Malik

Abstract

The main part of this thesis consists of an edition of a previously unstudied grammatical alfiyya, al-Fara'id al-Wafiyya bi-Dhikr mä lam Tahwihi al-Alfiyya of the eighteenth-century scholar al-Mansüri, who was probably of Egyptian origin but rose to become the Shaykh of the Dar al-Qurra' in Istanbul. The edition is supplied with full critical annotations based on the two surviving manuscripts, one in Sühäj and the other in Istanbul, and is provided with extensive notes on grammarians, poets, tribes etc. mentioned by al-Mansüri and with full indices after the edition.

The edition is prefaced by a critical introduction which discusses the development of grammatical studies among the Arabs, and. particularly the reasons for the appearance of the grammatical alfiyya and its development. Since al-Mansüri's work is an attempt to provide a more compete coverage of Arabic grammar than Ibn Mälik, a comparative study of the two works is undertaken, with an attempt to assess the achievements and shortcomings of al-Mansüri in the task which he has set himself. This is prefaced by a brief account of the life and scholarly career of Ibn Mälik, together with an account of the few facts which are known about al-Mansüri.