Issued by Alnoor University

Ibn al-Anbari’s Preferred Grammatical Opinions in Al-Insaf: A Syntactic Study of Selected Issues

Document Type : Original Article

Author

university al-noor/college of education/department of arabic language

Abstract
Disagreement has long persisted between the two grammatical schools of Basra and Kufa regarding various issues addressed in their books and debates. It has become common for later grammarians to adopt the views of their predecessors, sometimes treating them as unquestionable truths in their own positions. Among the works that have focused on these disagreements is Al-Insaf fi Masa'il al-Khilaf by Ibn al-Anbari (577 AH), in which he compiled most of these issues. The book includes 121 issues, and in some of them, he sided with the Basra school.
Today, I encountered a matter in this book-namely, Ibn al-Anbari's inclination toward one school's opinion that calls for reflection and reconsideration. This may lead us to adopt a view that differs from his. Therefore, I have chosen five issues in which he sided with the Basrans, and after studying them, I found that the Kufan opinion is more compelling. I have endeavored to clarify this.
The research plan is based on examining each of these five issues individually, following their order in Al-Insaf, as follows:
1. The disagreement over the origin of noun derivation.
2. The view of (nasib al-ism al-mashghul 'anhu).
3. The view on vocative usage of nouns prefixed with “al-".
4. Whether it is permissible to conjoin (with "wa") a genitive pronoun.
5. Preventing declension of words that are normally declinable in poetic necessity The door remains open for researchers to follow this path in service of our noble Arabic language. And from Allah Al-Mighty comes success

Keywords

Crossmark

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Volume 4, Issue 2
Spring 2026
Pages 105-109

  • Receive Date 11 September 2025
  • Revise Date 15 October 2025
  • Accept Date 25 October 2025
  • Publish Date 01 June 2026