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The Study of Arabic Grammar in Ethiopia:
1
The Case of two Contemporary Muslim Learned Men
ALESSANDRO GORI, Università degli Studi di Firenze2
The presence of Arabic in Ethiopia is ancient, and the language is deeply
rooted in the written culture of the country. It is a well-known fact that
Christian church books have been translated from Arabic into Gz for
centuries to enrich the bulk of Ethiopian literature. Arabic marginalia and
notes can be found in Gz manuscripts; and Arabic documents are kept in
ecclesiastical libraries, in monasteries and churches.
Quite naturally, it is primarily in Ethiopian Muslim communities that
the Arabic language spread, producing an impressive body of literature
which still waits to be discovered and fully appreciated in its cultural and
historical importance.
The highly revered position of Arabic across the Islamic world is well
known. The last divine revelation to the humankind kept in the Koran is in
that language. Every Muslim has to approach the sacred text in its original
idiom and even the most ignorant faithful must learn at least some Arabic to
be able to duly perform their five daily mandatory prayers. Its religious value
made Arabic not only the language of Islamic theology and jurisprudence,
but also of science and medicine. Arabic came to be the main expressive tool
of a universal civilization, and learned men everywhere in the Islamic world
use it and spread it through their written works. The use of this sacred lan-
guage strengthened the feeling of belonging to a common umma (commu-
nity) and the cohesion among Muslims coming from different continents.
The study and the analysis of Arabic grammar by the Islamic intelligentsia
was thus a pillar in the education of every learned man in the Muslim world.
Ethiopian Muslims have been no exception to this common situation.
Arabic grammar and syntax (naw), with its branches of arf (morphol-
ogy), ar (prosody), man (allegories), bayn (eloquence), bad (science
of metaphors) and bala (rhetoric), play a crucial role in the curricula of
1 th
A slightly abridged version of this paper was presented at the 16 International Con-
rd
ference of Ethiopian Studies in Trondheim (Norway) on July 3 2007.
2 Dipartimento di Linguistica – Università degli Studi di Firenze.
Aethiopica 11 (2008)
The Study of Arabic Grammar in Ethiopia
traditional Islamic high schools in every Muslim community of the coun-
3 4 5 6
try , including Wällo , Harar’s kabrgr , and the Gurage areas .
Famous textbooks of Arabic grammar are known and studied in all the
educational institutions of Ethiopia7.
Local Ethiopian scholars became experts in teaching Arabic grammar to
pupils. The mid-19th century ay
Kammalaw of Wällo was a highly es-
teemed master of Arabic grammar and syntax, and such famous learned
holy men as Bur sayyid al-b of Gata in Qallu (d. 1863) or
8
awhar b. aydar of onke (d. 1935) trained their students also in Arabic .
The most widely spread book of Arabic grammar in Ethiopia is the Mu-
qaddima al-
urrmiyya by the famous Moroccan scholar of Berber origin
Ab Abdallh Mu ammad b Dawd al-
anh b.
urrm (d. in Fas
9
1323) , which is widely used everywhere in the Islamic world. The Fat
rabb al-bariyya alà al-durra al-bahiyya nam al- urrmiyya by Ibrh m
10
al-Ba r (d. 1861), a renown gloss on the
urrmiyya , is also tradition-
ally diffused in Ethiopia11.
12
Other books that Ethiopian Muslims use to learn Classical Arabic in-
13
clude the Mulat al-irb by al-ar r (d. 1054) , the Alfiyya and the Lmi-
yyat al-afl or the Kitb al-mift f abniyat al-afl both by Ibn Mlik
14
(d.1273) , the Mar al-arw by A mad b. Al b. Masd (beginning of the
th 15
14 century) , the Mun al-labb an kutub al-arb by Abdallh b. Him
3
KEBREAB (1981: 79–83).
4
HUSSEIN AHMED (1988: 101–2); Hussein Ahmed (2001: 91–4).
5
ABDURAHMAN GARAD – WAGNER (1998: 83).
6
DREWES (1976 passim).
7
It would be very interesting to compare the handbooks circulating in Ethiopia with those
used in other Islamic countries, especially in Yemen, the Sudan, and Egypt. For some in-
formation on the Iranian Islamic syllabus and textbooks see Seyyed Hossein Nasr
(2006:161–76; especially about arf and naw 162–4); for Mauritania, see Fortier 2003.
8
HUSSEIN AHMED (1988: 101–2).
9
GAL II: 237–8; GAL S II: 332–5.
10
GAL II: 238; GAL S II: 335; the Fat rabb al-bariyya is actually a gloss on the Durra
al-bahiyya f nam al- urrmiyya by ihb al-D n Ya yá al-Imr (floruit 1581),
which is an excerpt from the A rrumiyya with commentary (GAL II: 238; GAL S II: 335).
11
It is very common to find in Addis Ababa copies of this book printed in Singapore by
the famous Sulaymn al-Mara printing press in 1346/1927–8. Also other books of
this Asian publishing house are usually available in the Ethiopian Islamic book market
(e.g., an edition of the Tanbh al-anm).
12
HUSSEIN AHMED (1988:100).
13
GAL I: 276–8; GAL S 486–9.
14
GAL I: 298–300; GAL S I: 521–527.
15
GAL II: 21; GAL S II: 14.
135 Aethiopica 11 (2008)
Alessandro Gori
16
(d. 1360) and the Mu b al-nid alà qar al-nadà by Af f al-D n Al b.
17
A mad al-Fkih al-Makk al-fi al-Na w (d. 1564) .
There are numerous Ethiopian Arabic manuscripts transmitting famous
Arabic grammatical texts. To mention a few examples, in the collection of
Arabic manuscripts at the IES in Addis Ababa we find the famous ar al-
maslik li-alfiyyat Ibn Mlik by Ab Mu ammad Abdallh b. Abd al-
18
Ra mn b. Aq l (d. 1367) and the ar al-tufa al-wardiyya al-manma
19
f ilm al-arabiyya by Zayn al-D n Umar b. al-Ward (d. 1349) ; in the
Biblioteca Civica of Pavia a copy of the Mu
taar luma f al-naw by Ibn
20
al-inn (d. 1002) is kept . Also in the library of Hararian amr Mu ammad
b. Al b. Abd al-Šakr (1272–92/1856–75), manuscripts of Arabic gram-
mar were represented21.
More recently, books on Arabic grammar originally published in Egypt
were brought to Ethiopia and reprinted in Addis Ababa by local Islamic
publishing houses. This fact illustrates the exceptional interest of Ethiopian
Muslims in the study of this language.
In 1419/1998–99 the Na printing press in Addis Ababa published an
impressive collection of Arabic grammatical texts under the title Ma mat
al-arf, containing five different works on Arabic morphology and syntax
22
(see appendix 5 for details) .
Subsequently, the same editor issued four well-known Arabic works ex-
pounding on subjects contained in the
urrmiyya and in some of its
commentaries. They are highly elaborate iya (gloss) and ar (commen-
tary) texts (see appendix 5 for the complete list of these books).
In 2002 Na also printed a contemporary commentary to the
urrmi-
yya, conceived as a sort of schoolbook for beginners, the Tufa al-saniyya
bi- ar al-muqaddima al- urrmiyya by Mu ammad Mu y al-D n Abd
23
al-am d .
16
GAL II: 23–25; GAL S II: 16–20.
17
GAL II:23, 381; GAL S II: 16–7, 512. The work is a commentary on the other hand-
book by Ibn Him the Qar al- al-nad wa-ball al-ad .
18
Manuscript Harar n. 23: JOMIER (1967: 288); GAL I: 299; GAL S I: 523.
19
Manuscript Harar 23: see JOMIER (1967: 288); GAL II: 140–1; GAL S II: 174–5.
20
Ms. 12, ff. 9–12: see TRAINI (1973: 858).
21
DREWES (1983: 75, 77).
22
The Na edition reproduces that of the Mabaat Muafà al-Bb al-alab
printed in Cairo 1340/1921–2.
23
The book was completed by the author in Raman 1353/1934–5. The pedagogical
aim of the text is evident from the series of simple questions at the end of each chapter,
meant to facilitate the reader’s revision of the studied subjects.
Aethiopica 11 (2008) 136
The Study of Arabic Grammar in Ethiopia
Commentaries to textbooks of Arabic grammar were also authored by
Ethiopian Muslim learned men. Some of them remain unpublished, while
others have been printed in Ethiopia or abroad: e.g., faqh Zubayr of Ya u
wrote a commentary to the
urrmiyya; šay
Ibrh m Abd al-Razzq of
Ya u commented the Alfiyya of Ibn Mlik, and Mu ammad Amn of
Dawway wrote a commentary to the
urrmiyya titled al-Maqid al-
24
wafiyya f šar al- urrmiyya .
Ethiopian Muslim scholars have uninterruptedly attended to the study of
Arabic grammar. Last year (1427h), in Adaamaa/Nazret, Maktabat Badr
printing press published the Namr al-f bi- ar awhid al-kf f ilmay
al-ar wa-al-qawf, a booklet by Mu ammad b. m al-D n b. Abd
al-
amad al-Bran , a young living Ethiopian learned man25. It is a com-
mentary on the awhid (loci probantes; probative verses) on which the
rules of the famous handbook on prosody and rhyme al-Kf f ilmay
26
al-ar wa-al-qawf are based.
The two contemporary learned men who I chose as a case study for this
paper – ay
Abd al-Bi b. Mu ammad b. asan al-Mins and ay
Mu-
ammad Am n b. Abdallh al-Iyb al-Harar al-Mu ammad – are the
most convincing proof of this continuous traditional interest. An analysis of
their biographies and works will hopefully contribute to shed light on some
aspects of the traditional Islamic learning in contemporary Ethiopia. It will
also give us a more precise idea of the corpus of doctrine Muslim teachers
focus their attention in the field of Arabic grammar and other related sub-
jects on. I believe it can also help enhance our prosopographical knowledge
of Muslim learned men which is still very limited and vague.
The main source for the biography of ay
Abd al-Bi b. Mu ammad
b. asan al-Mins 27 is the biographical note (tar ama) by Mu ammad b.
Al b.
dam b. Msà al-Ityb (sic!) al-Wallaw contained in his commen-
tary on the ay
’s principal work on Arabic grammar, Madan al-abb
mimman yuwl mun al-labb, recently published in Addis Ababa28.
24
Published in Cairo according to HUSSEIN (1988: 101 and 105 note 50).
25
Mu ammad b. m al-D n was born in 1390/1970. He is imm and
ab in mi
al-fat in Addis Ababa and teacher of Arabic at the Institute of Arabic Language of
the Awelia (al-Awwaliyya) College in Addis Ababa.
26
Al-Kf f ilmay al-ar wa-al-qawf is a much renowned work by A mad b. Ab-
bd al-Qin (d. 1454): GAL II: 27; GAL S II: 22.
27
I have already briefly presented this scholar in GORI (2005: 89–92) using a very short
Amharic article which appeared in the Islamic Ethiopian magazine Bilal (1, 10, 1985
E.C., 21–22).
28
The commentary is titled Fat al-qarb al-mu b f ar kitb madan al-abb. It is a
two-volume set published in 2003 in Addis Ababa by Maktabat Musab b. Umayr in
137 Aethiopica 11 (2008)
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