Ibn Hisham’s Linguistic Comments On The Quran Recitations Which Seem Problematic In Terms Of Arabic Grammar

Ibn Hisham Abu Muhammad 'Abd Allah Jamaluddin bin Ahmad, one of the recognized linguists in the Arabic language circles, was born and spent most of his life in Cairo, an important science and cultural center of his era. He attended the course cirles of well-known scholars of that era such as Ibn Sarraj, Abu Hayyan and Ibn Jamaa and benefited from them. His fame exceeded his homeland, Egypt and Ibn Khaldun said about him : “When we were in Maghreb we would hear about someone who was said to be better at Syntax (Nahw) than Sibawayh ”. Having more than thirty works, Ibn Hisham’s Sharhu Qatru an-Nadaa wa ballu as-sadaa, Awdhah al-Masalik ila alfiyyat ibn Malik, Mughni al-Labib, and Shuzuuratu az-Zahab have been and still are followed as textbooks especially in science circles. Ibn Hisham, who handled the Syntax (Nahw) issues in a systematic manner in his works, explains in places the expressions that are contrary to the established rules in Quranic recitations explicitly by making use of the accumulations of his predecessors as well. In this study, it is examined how Ibn Hisham explained the following issues; the point which has been brought forward in some circles from time to time in order to cast doubt on the Qur'an's being a revelation that the preposition of interjection in the verses Al-Anaam, 6/27 and en-Naml, 27/25 should not include both letter and verb; the case in Hasan al-Basri's recitation of the verse Muddaththir, 74/6 that the use of present tense verb in the form of jazm (dropping of the last sound) which comes as response to the previous command verb although it does not have the necessary conditions; the pronounciation of the dual form with alif by some recitators including the seven readers of recitation in the verse Taha 20/63 although it has come in the form of nasb’; not omitting the last letter of the present tense verb whose last letter followed by an illat sound (alif, waw, ja) which has come in the position of Jazm in the verse Yousef, 12/9 in the recitation by Kunbul; finally the declension of the number ‘twelve’ in the feminine form as masculine and plural in the verse A'raf, 7/160.

Keywords

Ibn Hisham, Quranic recitation, the established language rules, nahw, dual word / dual