222 – Ibn al-Naḥḥās, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl

The erudite authority and pre-eminent master of Arabic, Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Miṣrī, the grammarian and prolific author.

He travelled to Baghdad and studied under al-Zajjāj. In his day the Egyptians regarded him as the equal of Ibn al-Anbārī and Ibn Nafṭawayh.

He transmitted ḥadith from Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Aʿyan, Bakr ibn Sahl al-Dimyāṭī, al-Ḥasan ibn Ghulaib, the ḥadith master Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī, Jaʿfar al-Firyābī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Samāʿah, ʿUmar ibn Abī Ghailān, and their contemporaries.

Ibn al-Najjār was mistaken when he claimed that Ibn al-Naḥḥās had heard from al-Mubarrad; the two never met.

Among those who narrated from him was Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Udfuwī, who preserved his compilations. Abū Saʿīd ibn Yūnus described him as thoroughly versed in grammar.

His works include: Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān (Parsing the Qur’an); Ishtiqāq al-Asmāʾ al-Ḥusnā (Derivation of the Most Beautiful Names); Tafsīr Abiyāt Sībawayh (Commentary on Sībawayh’s Verses); Kitāb al-Maʿānī (The Book of Meanings); al-Kāfī fī al-Naḥw (The Sufficient Manual of Grammar); and al-Nāsikh wa-al-Mansūkh (The Abrogator and the Abrogated).

He also narrated extensively from ʿAlī ibn Sulaymān al-Ṣaghīr and was counted among the most intelligent scholars of his time.