Acknowledgments .......................................................................... vii
Transcription and Transliteration System ....................................... ix
Symbols and Abbreviations ............................................................. xi
Figures, Graphs and Tables ............................................................ xiii
Figures ................................................................................... xiii
Graphs .................................................................................... xv
Tables .................................................................................... xvi
Chapter 1. The Mirror and the Wisdom: Ibn al-Sarrāj and the Pre-
Modern Arabic Language Ideologies ......................................... 1
1.1. Physiognomy of the Age: Frameworks of Culture and
Identity ............................................................................. 8
1.2. The City of Peace and the Heralds of Destruction ............ 20
1.3. Setting the Stage: Ibn al-Sarrāj and the Peripatetic School
of Baghdad ...................................................................... 27
1.4. Ibn al-Sarrāj and His Times: The Portrait of a Grammarian
and the Portrait of an Empire .......................................... 40
1.5. The Writings of Ibn al-Sarrāj: a Description of Sources .... 62
MS Rabat #326........................................................................ 64
MS Qarawiyyin #1774 ............................................................. 66
MS Tehran #3990 ................................................................... 66
MS London #2808 .................................................................. 68
MS Istanbul #1077 .................................................................. 70
Collection 100/q ...................................................................... 71
MS #21028–2 ........................................................................... 74
MS Ankara 547/3 ..................................................................... 75
Chapter 2. The Interpretation of Silence: Greek Elements in the
Foundations of Arabic Grammar ........................................... 87
2.1. Language Corruption and its Sources ............................ 108
2.2. Mending the corruption: the notion of maʿnā and the
Foundations of Arabic Grammar ................................... 115
2.3. Ibn Sarrāj, the Banisher of Madness ............................... 127
Chapter 3. The Language of God and the Speech of Men: Ibn Al-
Sarrāj and the Wisdom (Re)acquired ..................................... 157
Chapter 4. The Legacy We Leave Behind: The Banisher of Madness
and the Founder of Foundations ............................................. 171
4.1. The Precious Rosary ........................................................ 174
4.2. The Outcome: The Legacy We Leave Behind ................. 195
Appendix 1. The Quoted Excerpts from the Grammar Treatises of
Ibn al-Sarrāj............................................................................ 201
Appendix 2. His Was the Greatest Poetry among the Grammarians:
The Surviving Verses of Ibn al-Sarrāj ..................................... 207
Bibliography ................................................................................. 209
Primary Sources .................................................................... 209
Secondary Literature ............................................................. 220
Index .............................................................................................. 241