Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali


Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, whose full name is Abū al-Aswad Ẓālim ibn ʿAmr ibn Sufyān ibn Jandal ibn Yamar ibn Hīls ibn Nufātha ibn Adi ibn al-Dīl ibn Bakr, surnamed al-Dīlī, or al-Duwalī, was the poet companion of Ali bin Abu Talib and grammarian.
When the great expansion of the Islamic Empire, with millions of newly-converted non-native speakers wishing to read and recite the Qurʾan, made the adoption of a formalised grammar system necessary, tradition honors al-Duʾali as the father of Arabic grammar. His science of grammar led in turn, to the establishment of the first great School of grammarians at Basrah, that would be rivalled only by the school at Kufah.
Al-Du'alī is said to have introduced the use of diacritics to writing, and to have written the earliest treatises on Arabic linguistics, and grammar. He had many students and followers.

Letter-pointing and vowel-pointing

Al-Duʾali is credited with inventing a system of placing large colored dots above certain letters to differentiate consonants, and indicate short vowels. Consonant differentiation is called I'jam. Vowel indication is called tashkil. Al-Du'ali's large-dot system addressed both of these, resolving readers' confusion and making clear how to read and write Arabic words.
Although effective, the large dots were difficult to use on small-size fonts and on any but a limited selection of scripts. They were also time-consuming to make on any size font or script. Thus, the Umayyad governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi asked two of al-Duʾali’s students to create and codify a new system that was simpler and more efficient. A new tashkil system was developed by Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi. It has been universally used for Arabic script since the early 11th century.

His Influence

Among the scholars who studied Abu al-Aswad were Yahya ibn Ya'mar, 'Anbasah ibn Ma'dan, 'Anbasah al-Fil ; Maymun ibn al-Aqran. Nasr ibn 'Asim was said to have studied with him.