Seerah Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi — Athir al-Din Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Ali ibn Hayyan al-Jayyani al-Andalusi (1256-1344 CE): The Andalusian-Egyptian Grammarian Whose al-Bahr al-Muhit (The Encompassing Ocean — an 8-Volume Quranic Commentary Organized Around Arabic Grammar and Sharply Critical of Earlier Grammarians, Especially Ibn Malik) Made Him the Greatest Arabist of the 14th Century, and Whose Grammar Works and Critiques of al-Zamakhshari Shaped the Later History of Arabic Linguistic Study

Seerah Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi (سِيرَةُ أَبِي حَيَّانَ الأَندَلُسِيّ; full name: Athir al-Din Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn 'Ali ibn Yusuf ibn Hayyan al-Jayyani al-Andalusi al-Misri; born 1256 CE in Jayyán [Jaén, Andalus]; died 1344 CE in Cairo; 'al-Andalusi' = from al-Andalus; 'al-Misri' = the Egyptian — he spent most of his career in Egypt; career: Abu Hayyan left al-Andalus as a young man; after traveling through North Africa and the Levant and studying with major scholars, he settled in Cairo, where he became the leading grammarian and taught at the major Cairene institutions; he lived to the extraordinary age of 88 [in lunar years] or about 85 in solar years; he taught generations of students; the great 14th-century historians Ibn Khaldun and al-Dhahabi both studied under him or knew him; major works: [1] al-Bahr al-Muhit [البَحرُ المُحِيط — The Encompassing Ocean; 8 volumes]: Abu Hayyan's major work and the most influential Quranic commentary from the perspective of Arabic grammar; approach: tafsir bi-l-'arabi = Arabic grammar-based exegesis; for each verse, Abu Hayyan: [a] gives the Arabic grammatical analysis of each word and phrase [part of speech, morphological form, syntactic function]; [b] notes grammatical difficulties and discusses variant readings; [c] evaluates earlier grammarians' analyses — and frequently corrects them, especially targeting al-Zamakhshari's famous *al-Kashshaf*; [d] gives the lexical range of key words; the distinctive feature: sharp criticism: Abu Hayyan was known for criticizing his predecessors with unusual directness; his critiques of al-Zamakhshari, Ibn Malik, and others are extensive; this polemical edge made his work controversial but also ensured it was read — scholars disagreed with Abu Hayyan but had to engage him; the significance: al-Bahr al-Muhit is the most comprehensive Arabic-grammar-based Quranic commentary in classical Islamic scholarship; it is the standard reference when scholars need to understand the grammatical analysis of a Quranic passage; [2] al-Nahr al-Madd min al-Bahr [النَّهرُ المَادُّ مِنَ البَحر — The River Flowing From the Ocean]: an abridgment of al-Bahr al-Muhit; [3] Tuhfat al-Arrib bi-ma fi al-Quran min al-Gharib [تُحفَةُ الأَرِيبِ بِمَا فِي القُرآنِ مِنَ الغَرِيب]: a lexicon of rare/obscure words in the Quran; [4] al-Tadhyil wa-al-Takmil fi Sharh Kitab al-Tashil [التَّذيِيلُ وَالتَّكمِيل فِي شَرحِ كِتَابِ التَّسهِيل]: a critique and completion of Ibn Malik's grammar; [5] Manhaj al-Salik fi al-Kalam 'ala Alfiyyat Ibn Malik [مَنهَجُ السَّالِكِ فِي الكَلَامِ عَلَى أَلفِيَّةِ ابنِ مَالِك]: critique of Ibn Malik's famous *Alfiyya* [thousand-verse poem summarizing Arabic grammar]; [6] works on Turkish and Ethiopian languages: remarkably, Abu Hayyan also wrote grammars of Turkish and Ethiopian — making him one of the few medieval Islamic scholars to study non-Arabic languages in a systematic way; Abu Hayyan's polemical relationship with al-Zamakhshari: al-Zamakhshari's *al-Kashshaf* [written c. 1134 CE] was the most famous Quran commentary from a Mu'tazili grammatical-linguistic perspective; Abu Hayyan considered al-Zamakhshari's grammatical analyses sometimes flawed and frequently criticized specific points; this critical engagement with the greatest linguistic commentary of the classical period demonstrated Abu Hayyan's confidence in his own grammatical authority; Abu Hayyan and Ismaili/Quranic studies: for scholars working in Quranic ta'wil, Abu Hayyan's al-Bahr al-Muhit provides the definitive grammatical analysis of Quranic Arabic; establishing the zahiri grammatical sense of a verse is the first step of ta'wil; Abu Hayyan's work is the most comprehensive tool for this preliminary step) is medieval Arabic linguistic study's most exacting practitioner.