Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati

Abū Ḥayyān Athīr ad-Dīn al-Gharnāṭī (أَبُو حَيَّان أَثِير ٱلدِّين ٱلْغَرْنَاطِيّ, November 1256 – July 1344 CE / 654 - 745 AH), whose full name is Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf bin ‘Alī ibn Yūsuf ibn Hayyān (مُحَمَّد ٱبْن يُوسُف ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱبْن يُوسُف ٱبْن حَيَّان), also called Abū Ḥayyān al-Andalusī, was a celebrated commentator on the Quran and foremost Arabic grammarian of his era. His magnum opus Tafsir al-Bahr al-Muhit (Explanation of the Ocean) is the most important reference on Qur'anic expressions and the issues of grammar, vocabulary, etymology and the transcriber-copyists of the Qur'an. Quite exceptionally for a linguist of Arabic of his day was his strong interest in non-Arabic languages. He wrote several works of comparative linguistics for Arabic speakers, and gives extensive comparative grammatical analysis and explanation.

Birth
He was born in Spain in November 1256 to a family of Berber origins, from the Berber tribe of Nifza. Historians variously cite Gharnati's place of birth as both Jaén and Granada; his appellation "Gharnati" derives from this latter. At the time Jaén was a dependency of Granada, and the appellation conflict may only be apparent.

Education
At a young age, Abu Hayyan left Spain and traveled extensively for the sake of his studies. Within Spain, he traveled to Málaga, Almería before moving on through Ceuta, Tunis, Alexandria, Cairo, Damietta, Minya, Kush and ‘Aydhab in Africa. Eventually, he reached Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage and visited Medina before returning to Alexandria. It is said he memorized the corpus of Sibawayh's al-Kitab ('The Book') - several volumes of the foundational Arabic grammar that, for some, held revered authority on the Arabic language approaching that of the Hadith in Islamic law.

Abu Hayyan was said to be generally handsome, tall and long haired, which, along with his beard, turned grey in old age.

Teachers
Aby Hayyan studied under distinguished grammarians of his age in his homeland. As he travelled, he studied under the most prominent scholars of his time.


 * Ibn al-Nafis
 * Ibn Daqiq al-'Id
 * Al-Dimyati
 * Ibn Mawdud al-Mawsuli
 * Bahaā' al-Din Ibn al-Nahhas

Career
On reaching Mamluk Egypt, Abu Hayyan was appointed lecturer of the science of Qur'anic exegesis at the college named after the sultan of Egypt, Al-Mansur Qalawun, in Alexandria. Later, he spent a period teaching tafsir in the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo.

Abu Hayyan won favor at the court of an-Nasir Muhammad; the scholar Fatḥ al-Din Ibn Sayyid al-Nās and he, often judged the poetry contests held during al-Nasir's reign. When Abu Hayyan's daughter, Nudhar, died, he received permission to inter her body at his family's property instead of at a cemetery. Such permissions were not typical, and it seems the request was granted due to his high standing with the royal court. Abu Hayyan was deeply affected by his daughter's death and he composed an elegy in praise of her standing among intellectual circles.

Students
He taught grammar to a large number of students, but his most well-known pupils went on to become accomplished grammarians in their own right:


 * Taqi al-Din al-Subki
 * Jamal al-Din al-Isnawi
 * Ibn Aqil
 * Al-Safadi

Death
Abu Hayyan died on a Saturday in July in the year 1344 at his home in Cairo, just after the last evening prayer. He was buried the next day in the cemetery of Bab al-Nasr in Islamic Cairo. When news of his death reached Damascus, the population mourned his death.

Views
Abu Hayyan adhered to the Zahiri madhhab of Sunni Islam. When asked toward the end of his life about a claim he had switched to the Shafi'i madhhab, or some other school, he responded that, anyone who had known the Ẓāhirī school could never leave it.

He regarded the Sufism and metaphysics of ibn Arabi, Mansur Al-Hallaj, Ibn al-Farid, Ibn Sab'in and Abu al-Hasan al-Shushtari, as heretical. He was contemporary to Ibn Taymiyyah and Aby Hayyan critiqued his writings and charged him with anthropomorphism.

On the Arabic language, Abu Hayyan shared the views of his fellow Ẓāhirī Andalusian, Ibn Maḍāʾ. Absolute belief in the divine mover led them to reject the concept of linguistic causality. For them the 'cause' of all things, including language, is attributable solely to God. Thus on theological grounds, he was suspicious of the so-called "eastern grammarian" supporters of 'linguistic causality'.

When Abu Hayyan arrived in Egypt the Mamluk Sultan was ruler. Although Abu Hayyan held the Turkic languages of Mamluk Egypt superior to the Kipchak and Turkmen languages with which he was familiar, he also wrote grammars of Amharic, Middle Mongol, the Berber languages and the Turkic. Other Arabic-language linguists of his day had little regard for foreign languages. Abu Hayyan often illuminated Arabic grammatical concepts with quotes from various language.

Legacy
Abu Hayyan, the so-called 'king of grammar', was celebrated as the unrivalled linguistic scholar and religious expert of hadith, historiography and Sharia. He is referred to alternately as Abu Hayyan "al-Gharnati" ('the Granadian') and Abu Hayyan "al-Nahwi" ('the grammarian').

Abu Hayyan's studies of grammar were governed by overarching principles he laid out such as "one must base rules of Arabic on frequency of occurrence" and "analogous formations that contradict genuine data found in good speech are not permitted." His approach to grammar has been described by Brill's Encyclopaedia of Islam as remarkably modern, and Abu Hayyan's respect for facts and unusual objectivity have also been noted.

Works
Only 15 of the 65 works attributed to Abu Hayyan Athir al-Din Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Gharnati survive.
 * Tafsīr al-Baḥr al-Muḥīt (اتفسير البحر المحيط); 'The Explanation Ocean' (Bayrūt, Dār al-Fikr, 1992); archive.org (12 vols., in Arabic); commentary on the linguistic meanings of Quran, composed in collaboration with al-Mansur, late in Gharnati's life. Some of the extraordinary rich non-canonical qira'at, or variant Qur'anic readings, appear first in this, his most famous work of commentary.
 * Kitāb Manhaj al-sālik fī al-kalām 'alá Alfīyyat Ibn Mālik (منهج السالك في الكلام على ألفية ابن مالك) - 'Commentary to the Alfiyya of Ibn Mālik'; several grammarians composed commentaries on ibn Malik's Alfiya, a seminal work in the field of Arabic grammar. archive.org (in Arabic; ed., Glazer, Sidney, 1947)
 * Kitab al-'idrak li-lisan al-'atrak (كتاب الإدراك للسان الأتراك) -'Aspects of the Turkish language' archive (in Arabic)
 * al-Mubdiʻ fī al-taṣrīf (كتاب المبدع في التصريف) (in Arabic; Ṣafāt, al-Kuwayt, Maktabat Dār al-ʻUrūbah, 1982); on Arabic language word formation.
 * Une Grammaire turque du huitième siècle de l'Hégire; "La Pénétration dans la langue des Turcs" d'Aboû Ḥayyân al-Gharnaṭî. (ed., Bouvat, Lucien; 1907).
 * Dīwān Abī Ḥayyān al-Andalusī (ديوان أبي حيان الأندلسي) archive.org
 * Tuhfat al'Arib bima fi al-Quran min al-Gharib (تحفة الأريب بما في القرآن من الغريب) archive.org (in Arabic)
 * Tadhkirat al-nuḥāh (تذكرة النحاة) 'Concerning Grammarians'; (Bayrūt, Muʼassasat al-Risālah, 1986)
 * Irtishaf ad-ḍarab min lisan al-'Arab (ارتشاف الضرب من لسان العرب) 'Sipping from the Arab Tongue'; archive.org (in Arabic); a comprehensive grammatical treatise.
 * Al-Tadhyil wa't-Takmil fi sharh kitab at-Tashil (التذييل والتكميل في شرح كتاب التسهيل) archive.org (in Arabic, 15 vols.); commentary on ibn mālik’s Tashīl.
 * Sharḥ al-Lamḥah al-Badrīyah fī ʻilm al-lughah al-ʻArabīyah (شرح اللمحة البدرية في علم اللغة العربية) 'The Badriyah explanation in Arabic linguistics' (ed., Dr. Hadi Nahr, University Press, Baghdad, 1997) archive.org (in Arabic)
 * Al-Nukat al-ḥisān fī sharḥ ghāyat al-iḥsān (النكت الحسان في شرح غاية الإحسان) 'Beautiful Anecdotes on Explanation of the Utmost Good' (Beirut, Muʼassasat al-Risālah, 1985) archive.org (in Arabic)
 * Taqrīb al-muqarrib (تقريب المقرب); a summary of ibn ʿUṣfūr's Muqarrib
 * Al-Tadrīb fī tamṯīl al-taqrīb (التدريب في تمثيل التقريب); a commentary on his Taqrīb al-muqarrib.