A little yesterday

Ilyass Amharar & Jean Druel, “‘A little yesterday’: The canonical text of Sībawayhi’s teaching confronted to two unedited manuscripts of the Kitāb”, in: Manuel Sartori & Francesco Binaghi (éd.), The Foundations of Arab Linguistics V, Brill, 2022, p. 37‒51.

The Kitāb Sībawayh of ʾAbū al-Ḥasan ʾAḥmad b. Naṣr

Jean Druel, “The Kitāb Sībawayh of ʾAbū al-Ḥasan ʾAḥmad b. Naṣr: A non-Sīrāfian recension of the Kitāb”, in Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik 71 (2020), pages 29‒56.

The Milan-Kazan codex of SĪBAWAYH’s (d. ca 180/796) Kitāb is a 5ᵗʰ/11ᵗʰ century North-African parchment today split between three collections: 1) Milan, Ambrosiana, X 56 sup. (115 folios), 2) Kazan, National Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan 10/5/822 (48 folios), and 3) London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd catalogue 2018/3, item number 11 (6 folios). When put together, these three manuscripts contain only one fourth of the whole text of the Kitāb. This codex sheds a new light on the gradual stabilisation of SĪBAWAYH’s text. Its recension is linked to a certain ʾABŪ AL-ḤASAN ʾAḤMAD B. NAṢR, mentioned on the first folio of the Milan fragments.
Focusing on one specific issue, namely the possibility to form the diminutive of the names of the days of the week, this paper compares SĪBAWAYH’s teaching according to the text as accepted by scholars to date (as in DERENBOURG 1881‒1889), along with the early commentaries and the recension of the Milan-Kazan codex according to its four successive hands.
At this point, it is impossible to say that this recension is pre-Mubarradian, that is to say one that escaped the “authoritarian stranglehold” on the text by AL-MUBARRAD (HUMBERT 1995:92). However, the Milan-Kazan codex surely contains a non-Sīrāfian recension of SĪBAWAYH’s Kitāb, that is a recension which, unlike the “received” text of the Kitāb, was not influenced by AL-SĪRĀFĪ’s commentary.

A sparkle in the debate about the word ʾāmīn

Jean Druel, “A sparkle in the debate about the word ʾāmīn used in supplication and its rules in Arabic, by ʾAbū Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḫaššāb (d. 567/1172), an annotated translation”, in Beata Sheyhatovitch & Almog Kasher (editors), From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New angles on the Arabic linguistic tradition, Leiden & Boston: Brill, pages 123‒140.

A Word of Explanation on the Language and Grammar of the Qurʾān

Dr. Abd al-Hakim Radi, Professor of Arabic Literature, Literary Criticism, and Rhetoric in the Department of Arts at Cairo University and member of the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo

Jean Druel, O.P., Director of IDEO and scholar in the history of Arabic grammar

icon-calendar Tuesday September 10ᵗʰ, 2019

At a lecture he gave last November, Jean Druel, O.P. outlined a history of the Arabic language in connection with other Semitic languages. He discussed the question of the status of the language of the Qurʾān and its link with the historical phases of Arabic, highlighting some specific features of each phase which now coexist in use.

At this seminar, Dr. Abd al-Hakim Radi wished to respond to Jean Druel’s lecture, focusing in particular on the status of the Qurʾānic language and its specific eloquence, which culminates in the question of the linguistic miracle of the Qurʾān. He also discussed the question of the normative grammar of the Arabic language and its authority to judge the Qurʾānic language. He explained that instances in the Qurʾān that may violate rules of the Arabic language could be authentically justified in the itself, without any contradiction, due to the flexibility of the Arabic language and the diversity of its ancient dialects, which are all authentically Arabic and eloquent. He also explained that Muslim scientists have extensively dealt with these issues in the past.

In the end, the difference between the two researchers is that Jean Druel, O.P. discusses these different states of the Arabic language from the point of view of their historic succession, while Dr. Abd al-Hakim Radi considers this linguistic diversity within a single language without history and without development.

Cercare di capirsi

Jean DruelCercare di capirsi: Avvio al dialogo interreligioso, Brescia: Queriniana, 2018, 88 pages.

«Lo scopo di questo libriccino è aiutare persone che vorrebbero imbastire un dialogo con altri credenti (o con non credenti), ma non sanno bene come e da dove cominciare. Vorrei cercare di aiutare tutte queste persone a entrare progressivamente in una maggiore complessità, verità e bellezza».

La nostra epoca ha creduto di ottenere la pace mettendo a tacere le religioni e i credenti. Ha pensato che lo studio storico-critico dei dogmi e delle pratiche religiose avrebbe neutralizzato il potenziale di violenza delle fedi. Invece è accaduto il contrario. Sicché abbiamo bisogno più che mai di dialogare, di confrontarci con le nostre credenze e con i nostri racconti. Di divenire adulti nella fede, liberi e felici di essere diversi.

Se rispettiamo alcune regole semplici, come quella di prendere sul serio l’interlocutore, di ascoltarlo fino in fondo senza innervosirci, di dire davvero ciò che pensiamo, di distinguere i diversi livelli di discorso, possiamo superare le nostre paure reciproche e vivere meglio insieme.

La scommessa dell’autore è che il libro riesca a far imboccare davvero questa via a chiunque lo legga.

Un libro agile e pratico, non privo di humour, nato dall’esperienza vissuta, sul confronto con i non credenti (e i credenti di fedi diverse dalla nostra).

Click here to buy the book online…