Tha‘lab, whose kunya was Abū al-‘Abbās Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā was a renowned authority on grammar, a muhaddith, a reciter of poetry, and first scholar of the school of al-Kūfah, and later at Baghdād. He was a keen rival of Al-Mubarrad, the head of the school of al-Baṣrah. Tha‘lab supplied much biographic detail about his contemporary philologists found in the biographical dictionaries produced by later biographers.
Life
Abū al-Abbās Tha’lab was born in Baghdād and Ibn al-Karāb in his Ta’rīkh gives his date of birth as October 815 , others give 816 or 819 . Tha’lab recalled seeing, as a child of four years, the caliph al-Ma’mūn arriving back to the city from Khurāsān in 819/20. The Caliph processed from the Iron Gate towards the Palace of al-Ruṣāfah, and the crowds were lined up as far as al-Muṣalla. Tha'lab remembered clearly the occasion when the caliph raised him up from his father’s arms and said, ‘This is al-Ma’mūn.’ Tha'lab was adopted by the military-leader-come-poet Ma’n ibn Zā’idah, of the Banū Shaybān, and became a leading grammarian, philologist traditionist of the Kūfah school. Tha‘lab recalled his interest in Arabic studies, poetry, and language had begun in 831 at age sixteen and that he had memorised to the letter all of al-Farrā’s works, including Al-Hudūd, by the age of twenty-five. His primary focus was on grammar, poetry, rhetoric, and ‘Al-Nawadir’. He associated with, and counselled, Ibn al-A‘rābī for about ten years. Tha'lab describes an occasion being at the home of Aḥmad ibn Sa’īd with a group of scholars, amongst whom were al-Sukkarī and Abū al-‘Āliyah. Critiquing the meaning of a poem by al-Shammākh, Ibn al-A'rābī and Aḥmad ibn Sa‘īd showed surprise at Tha'lab’s confidence. In another anecdote, related by Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Mūsā ibn Mujāhid al-Mukri, Tha’lab once expressed concern for his soul as a disciple of Abū Zayd Sa’id ibn Aws al-Anṣārī and Abū Amr ibn al-‘Alā, over the exegetes, traditionists and fuqaha. However Ibn Mujahid then told him of his dream wherein the Prophet had sent a message to Tha'lab that his was the superior science. Abū Abd Allāh al-Rūdbāri interpreted this to mean that the study of oral language is above all the other sciences – tafsir, Ḥadīth, fiqh – as it perfects and connects these to discourse. Tha‘lab, was invited but declined to take a commission by the vizier al-Qāsim to write a commentary on the book Compendium of Speech by Maḥbarah al-Nadīm, which the caliph Al-Mu‘taḍid had ordered. He offered instead to work on the Kitāb al-‘Ayn of al-Khalīl, and the commission went to Al-Zajjaj. On 30th March or 6th April 904, being quite deaf, he was knocked down by a horse while walking in the street and died the next day. He was buried in the vicinity of his house near the Damascus Gate in Baghdād.
Tha’lab’s Teachers
Ibn al-A‘rābī
Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār
Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm, Abū al-Ḥasan, a calligrapher grammarian, not an author.
Works
Among his books there were:
Kitāb al-Muṣūn fī al-Nahw wa-Ja’alah Hudūdān What is ‘Precious’ in Grammar, which he wrote in the form of definitions ;
Kitāb Ikhtilāf al-al-Naḥwīyīn Points on which grammarians disagree;
Kitāb Maʻānī al-Qurʼān The Meaning of the Qur’ān;
Kitāb al-Muwaffaqa Mukhtaṣir fī al-Nahw The Favoured, an abridgment of grammar;
Kitāb mā yulaḥan fīhī al-‘Āmma Faulty Expressions in popular use;
Kitāb al-Qirā’āt Differences between the Seven Readings of the Qur’ān;
Kitāb Maʻānī al-Ši‘r Rare ideas in ancient Arabic poetry;
Kitāb al-Taṣgīr Diminutive Nouns;
Kitāb mā Yanṣarif wa mā lā Yanṣaruf What Is Declined and What Is Not Declined; Parts of Speech which form or do not form other functions;
Kitāb mā Yujzā wa mā lā Yujzā What Is Grammatical and What Is Not Grammatical; Nouns of first declension;
Kitāb al-Šawādd Exceptions;
Kitāb al-Amthāl Similes; Collection of Proverbs;
Kitāb al-Aiman wa al-Dawahā Oaths and Calamities;
Kitāb al-Waqf wa al-Ibtidā’ Start and End of Phrases;
Kitāb al-Istikhraj al-Alfāz min al-Akhbār The Derivation of Expressions from Legends ;
Kitāb al-Hijā’ Spelling;
Kitāb al-Awsat Ra'aītah Grammar of medium extent;
Kitāb Ghuraīb al-Qur’ān Laṭīf The Excellent Book of the Strange in the Qur’ān;
Kitāb al-Masā’il Questions discussed;
Kitāb ḥadd al-Nahw Definitions of Grammar;
Kitāb Tafsīr Kalām Ibnat al-Khusa Exposition of the Statement of Ibnat al-Khus ;
Kitāb al-Faṣīḥ Eloquent Style, on philology;
Kitāb al-Tafsīr al-Qur’ān Parsing the Qur’ān;
Kitāb al-Qirā’āt li-Tha'lab Al-Qirā’ah of Tha'lab ;
Legacy
Tha'lab is cited as a source for biographies of the following
Tha‘lab’s Disciples (pupils)
Abū al-‘Abbās Tha‘lab dictated his discourses on grammar, language, historical traditions, the tafsir, and poetry to his pupils who transmitted his works. Among these were:
Ibn Miqsam ; a grammarian and Qur’ānic reader who wrote The Sessions of Tha‘lab.
Al-Akhfash al-Asghar
Ibn Durustūyah wrote The Middle Ground between Tha‘lab and al-Akhfash al-Mujāshi’ī, about the meaning of the Qur’ān, and Refutation of Tha‘lab, concerning Tha‘lab's book “Disagreement of Grammarians”.
Abū Bakr ibn al-Anbārī learned grammar from Abū al-'Abbās Tha‘lab
Hārūn Ibn al-Ḥā’ik, a Jew from al-Ḥīrah was an outstanding student of grammatical studies at al-Kūfah and was a pupil of Tha‘lab.
Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh al-Shamī a member of the school of al- Kūfah who wrote Collected Questions.
Abū ‘Umar al-Zāhid al-Mutarriz, or al-Zāhid ‘The Ascetic’, who was nicknamed ‘’Ghulām Tha'lab’’, wrote a commentary on Tha‘lab's Kitāb al-Faṣīḥ.
Al-Ḥāmiḍ was a scholar of al-Baṣrah, a scribe, and close friend of Tha‘lab.
