FARHAT, Jabril.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Al-ajwiba al-jalīya fi 'l-usūl al-nahwīya. First edition of this rare grammar book, printed in the original Arabic movable type of the press of the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Malta. We have traced only one securely-traced copy worldwide; many such early Maltese imprints have not survived at all.Established in the 1820s, the CMS press published mostly religious works for Protestant Christian missions in the Middle East as well as numerous Arabic grammars and language textbooks for use in Maltese, Egyptian, and Levantine missionary schools. Some of these textbooks, like the present, were written by the Maronite Archbishop Jabril (Jarminias) Farhat (1670-1732). Al-ajwiba al-jalīya is a concise summary, for young Arabic-speaking students or advanced non-Arab students, of the main rules of classical Arabic grammar, and syntax in particular. It is based on al-Ajurrumiyya, a very influential work by the Moroccan grammarian Ibn Ādjurrūm (d. 1323), known in Europe as Muqaddima. It begins with the alphabet, the Sun and Moon letters, the short vowels, and the ʾiʿrāb, and continues with alternating questions and answers on fundamental grammar concepts, including the broken plural, negation particles, pronouns, the nominal and verbal sentence, conjunctions, emphasis, and the various uses of the mansūb.

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