and Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Wāqidī, the judge of Baghdad and renowned author of works on the Prophet’s biography and military expeditions (1);
Abū al-Naḍr Hāshim ibn al-Qāsim (2);
al-Haytham ibn ʿAdī, the prolific compiler (3);
and Yaḥyā ibn Ziyād ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Manẓūr (4)—Abū Zakariyyā al-Kūfī, later resident in Baghdad, the client of Banū Saʿd, famous as al-Farrāʾ, the leading authority among grammarians, linguists, and Qur’an reciters.
He was commonly called “the Commander of the Believers in grammar.”
Al-Farrāʾ transmitted a hadith through Khāzim ibn al-Ḥusayn (5) of Basra, from Mālik ibn Dīnār, from Anas ibn Mālik, who said:
“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ, together with Abū Bakr and ʿUthmān, recited: ‘Maaliki yawmi ad-dīn’—‘Master of the Day of Judgment’ [Al-Fātiḥah 4]—with an alif.” (6)
Al-Khaṭīb related this report and remarked that al-Farrāʾ was trustworthy and an eminent scholar.
He also recorded (7) that the caliph al-Maʾmūn ordered al-Farrāʾ to compose a work on grammar. Al-Farrāʾ dictated the book, people copied it from him, and al-Maʾmūn commanded that it be placed in the royal libraries.
Al-Farrāʾ served as tutor to the caliph’s two sons, the heirs apparent. On one occasion he rose to leave, and both boys rushed to see which of them would set his sandals before him. They quarrelled and then agreed that each would present one sandal. Their father thereupon granted them twenty thousand dinars and gave al-Farrāʾ ten thousand dirhams, saying to him, “None is more honoured than you, when the two heirs apparent place your sandals before you.” (8)
It is related that Bishr al-Marīsī—or, according to another report, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan—asked al-Farrāʾ about a man who made an error during the two prostrations of forgetfulness.
Al-Farrāʾ replied, “There is nothing further required of him.”
The questioner said, “Why?”
He answered, “Because our scholars say: what is already in the diminutive cannot itself be made diminutive.”
The questioner responded, “I never imagined that—