and when he reached its end, he said, “As for me (1), I have not understood a single letter of it; as for you, may Allah reward you with goodness (2).”

Al-Māzinī said, “I recited the Quran to Yaʿqūb, and when I completed it he tossed me his ring and said, ‘Take it—there is no one like you (3).’ ”

It was also said that al-Māzinī was a man of piety and scrupulousness. We have been informed that a Jew who had mastered grammar came to read the Book of Sībawayh with al-Māzinī and offered him one hundred dinars, but he refused, saying, “This book contains a little over three hundred Qurʾānic verses; I will not allow a dhimmī access to them (4).”

Judge Bakkār ibn Qutaybah said, “I have never seen a grammarian who resembled the jurists except Ḥabbān ibn Hilāl (5) and al-Māzinī (6).”

Al-Mubarrad said, “When al-Māzinī debated the theologians (ahl al-kalām), he did not make use of grammar; and when he debated the grammarians, he did not make use of kalām (7).”

Al-Māzinī related: “I said to Ibn al-Sikkīt, ‘What is the morphological pattern of naktalu?’

He replied, ‘nafʿalu.’

I said, ‘Take your time.’

He thought for a while and said, ‘naftaʿilu.’

I said, ‘That makes five…’