ibn Manḍūr al-Asadī, their client, a Kufan grammarian and close associate of al-Kisāʾī.

He transmitted from Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ, Mandal ibn ʿAlī, Abū al-Aḥwaṣ, Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, and ʿAlī ibn Ḥamzah al-Kisāʾī.

Among those who narrated from him are Salamah ibn ʿĀṣim, Muḥammad ibn al-Jahm al-Simmarī, and others.

He was considered reliable.

Thaʿlab reported that he said:
“If not for al-Farrāʾ, Arabic would have ceased to exist and would have fallen away, for he rescued it when it was being contested and everyone was claiming it for himself.” (1)

Abū Budayl al-Waḍḍāḥī related that the caliph al-Maʾmūn ordered al-Farrāʾ to compile a book that would gather together the principles of grammar. He was placed in a private chamber, supplied with servants, slave-girls, and copyists, and he continued dictating there for years.

He added: When al-Farrāʾ finished dictating the book “Maʿānī al-Qurʾān” (The Meanings of the Qurʾān), the people assembled around him—among them eighty judges—and he dictated his commentary on the phrase “al-ḥamdu” in one hundred folios. (2)

Al-Maʾmūn had also entrusted his two sons to al-Farrāʾ for instruction in grammar. When al-Farrāʾ rose to leave, the boys hurried to bring him his footwear, each of them presenting him with one shoe.

When this reached al-Maʾmūn, he remarked: “A man never grows too great to show humility toward his ruler, his father, and his teacher.” (3)