Abū Alī Muḥammad ibn al-Mustanīr (أبو علي محمد بن المستنير), known as Quṭrub the Grammarian of al-Baṣrah, was a poet, a scientist, a scholar of Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir) and the leading philologist and linguist of his time. He wrote on a wide field of subjects and authored the first Kitāb al-Muthallath[1] ('Ternary'), of which several later and extended versions were produced. He died in 821/22 (206 AH).[2]
Life
Quṭrub[n 1] the Grammarian, Abū ‘Alī Muḥammad ibn al-Mustanīr, known also as Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, or al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad;[3] he studied under Sibawayh[n 2][4] and the Baṣran philologists, rivals of the Kūfah school. Quṭrub, and later his son al-Ḥasan, taught the sons of Abū Dulaf al-Qāsim ibn Īsā.
Quṭrub was a native of Baṣrah and a mawlā (apprentice) of Salīm ibn Ziād. The polymath Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb (d.859/860) [5] quoted Quṭrub along with Ibn al-A‘rābī, Abū ‘Ubaydah, Abū al-Yaqẓān, et al, who were among the scholars of genealogy, historical tradition, language, poetry and the tribes.[5] The ḥāfiẓ of Baghdād Hārūn Ibn ‘Alī al-Munajjim, of the famous Munajjim family, included verses by Quṭrub in his Kitāb al-Bārī. [3]
Kitāb al-‘Ilal fī al-Nahwī (كتاب العلل في النحو) 'The Weak Letters in Grammar';
Kitāb al-Adhdād (كتاب الاضداد) 'Antonyms';
Kitāb Khulq al-Faras (كتاب خلق الفرس) 'Nature of the Horse';
Kitāb Khulq al-Insān (كتاب خلق الانسان) 'Nature of Man';
Kitāb Al-Nihayah Fi Gharīb al-Ḥadīthwa'l-Athaar. (كتاب النهاية في غريب الحديث والآثار) 'Rare Expressions in the Ḥadīth';[n 5][13]
Kitāb al-Radd ‘alā ‘l-Mulhidīn fī Mutashābu ‘l-Qur’ān (كتاب الردّ على الملحدين في متشابه القرآن) 'Refutation of the Heretics, about the metaphorical (anthropomorphic) interpretations in the Qur’ān';[14]
Kitāb al-Hamz (كتاب الهمز) 'The Letter Hamza';
Kitāb al-Fa‘ala wa-Af‘ala (كتاب فعل وافعل) 'Verbs in First and Fourth Class';
Kitāb I’rāb al-Qur’ān (كتاب اعراب القرآن) 'Inflection (Declension) of the Qur’ān'. [n 6]
Kitāb fī al-Anwā’ (كتاب في الانواء) 'Al-Anwā’' [15]
Nadīm (al-), Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq Abū Ya’qūb al-Warrāq (1970). Dodge, Bayard (ed.). The Fihrist of al-Nadim; a tenth-century survey of Muslim culture. New York & London: Columbia University Press.
^Quṭrub: field-mouse; owl; water insect; elf or goblin.
^Sībawayh nicknamed him ‘Quṭrub’ as he came earliest to class.
^Al-Muthalath or the Ternary a philological treatise from which Ibn al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī[8] Tibrīzi (Tauris) wrote extended versions. Also attributed to Abū al-Abbās Thalab. [9]
^Three consonants, three dots, or some other meaning connected with linguistics.
^On unusual colloquialisms in the Ḥadīth; ‘’See’’ notes Bayard Dodge (ed.); Fihrist, I, 190, n88.
^Quṭrub, Muḥammad ibn al-Mustanīr (2012), Kitāb al-Muthallath, Middle Eastern Manuscripts Online 2: The Ottoman Legacy of Levinus Warner (in Arabic and Turkish), Leiden University Library: Brill
