- Ibn Muʿṭī, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī al-Zawāwī—an erudite scholar, master of grammar, Zayn al-Dīn, Abū al-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī ibn ʿAbd al-Nūr al-Zawāwī, a Maghribī grammarian, jurist, and Ḥanafī.
He was born in 564 AH.
He heard hadith from al-Qāsim ibn ʿAsākir and composed al-Alfiyyah and al-Fusul.
Fluent in both verse and prose, he trained leading scholars in Egypt and Damascus. On one occasion he appeared before Sultan al-Kāmil with a gathering of scholars. The Sultan posed the question: “In the sentence Zaydun dhahaba bihi (‘Zayd—he was taken away’), may ‘Zayd’ be put in the accusative?” They replied, “No.”
Ibn Muʿṭī remarked, “It is permissible if the word in the nominative is treated as the verbal noun implied by dhahaba bihi—namely adh-dhahāb (going). In that case its syntactic position would call for the accusative, making it analogous to the construction Zaydun marartu bihi (‘Zayd—I passed by him’).”
Al-Kāmil was delighted and set aside a stipend for him. Ibn Muʿṭī had studied under Abū Mūsā al-Juzūlī.
He died in Dhū al-Qaʿdah (1) 628 AH in Egypt.
(*) He is the author of the celebrated grammatical Alfiyya entitled al-Durra al-Alfiyya fi Ilm al-Arabiyya. See: Irshad al-Arib, 7/292; Takmila al-Mundhiri, 3, no. 2357; Abu Shama, Dhayl al-Rawdatayn, p. 160; Wafayat al-Ayan, 6/197; Abu al-Fida, Mukhtasar, 3/159; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, fols. 73–74 (Aya Sofya MS 3012); al-Ibar, 5/112; Duwal al-Islam, 2/101; Mirat al-Jinan, 4/66; al-Fayumi, Nathr al-Juman, 2, fol. 43; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 13/129 and again under the year 629: 13/134, quoting Ibn al-Sa‘i; al-Qurashi, al-Jawahir al-Mudiya, 2/214; al-Falaka wa-l-Maflukun, p. 93; Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Tabaqat al-Nuhat, fol. 269; al-Nujum al-Zahira, 6/277; Ibn Duqmaq, Nuzhat al-Anam, fol. 4; Bughyat al-Wu‘at, 2/344; Husn al-Muhadara, 1/255; Taj al-Tarajim, p. 83; al-Tamimi, al-Tabaqat al-Saniyya, 3, fols. 1152–1154; Shadharat al-Dhahab, 5/129; Tabaqat al-Zaylali, fol. 360. Our colleague Dr. Mahmud al-Tanahi (Egypt) has produced a detailed study of his grammatical opinions in the introduction to his critical edition of al-Fusul; consult it for further benefit, God willing.
(1) Al-Takmila notes that he died on the last day of Dhu al-Qa‘da.