This’ll, one day insha allah, be an introduction to the ajurrumiyyah. For now here are some links to its matn and some of its versified versions:
Matn: 1)online: http://www.alkadhum.org/hawza/doros/nho/ajromea/index.htm
2)download: http://www.almeshkat.com/books/open.php?cat=16&book=278
Nadhms: http://www.fatwa-online.com/downloads/dow005/0020517.zip
http://www.ahlalhdeeth.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=40822&d=1150975619
وأقسامه ثلاثة : اسم ، وفعل ، وحرف جاء لمعنى
It’s parts are three: an Ism, a Fi’il, and a Harf, that comes with a meaning.
After explaining that kalam is that which is uttered, made of two or more words, and is meaningful i.e not leaving the Listener(one recieving the kalam-the one being spoken to) waiting for more, the author carries on to tell us that the types of Speech are Three. This division is said to have been initiated by Imam Ali – To summarise it speaks of how Imam Abul aswad al-Du’ali, a close assosciate of Imam Ali entered upon the latter after an incident with his daughter, in which the daughter had tried to express her joy at the beauty of the sky but a grammatical mistake in her speech rendered the meaning. Imam al-Du’ali complained to Imam Ali about the deteriotation of the language and his fear of it being corrupted. Imam Ali agreed, fearing the loss of true understanding the meanings of the Quran and Sunnah due to ignorance of the beautiful language through which it was revealed and so he began to write a few rules on a piece of paper. He wrote: Kalam consists of three things – ism(noun), fi’il(verb), and a harf(particle), he subsequently ordered Imam al-Du’ali to carry on in the same manner (أنح هذا النحو) – it is said this is where the name ‘Nawh’ for arabic grammar is derived, from the speech of Imam Ali.Basically, if you were to examine the arabic language you would see that every single word is either an Ism, Fi’il or a Harf. Although the ism is often translated as Noun, the Fi’il as Verb, and the Harf as a particle – these translations are not 100% precise and certainly do change at times. It must also be remembered that beginning students intially learn ‘general’ rules which apply in most cases however there are exceptions to the rules and instances where the general is specified.Ism – a word that refers to something that is ‘named’(musamma-has a name) and is not connected to time. For example – Muhammad, kitab, kursi – these are words, that are names of either a person or a thing and are in no way connected to time.Fi’il – a word describing an action that has taken place in one of three tenses -
1) al-Madi(the pastالماضي) e.g – كتب, أكل, ذهب, ‘he went’, ‘he ate’, ‘he wrote’
2) al-Mudari(Present-futureالمضارع) e.g – يكتب, يأكل, يذهب ‘he is writing/will write’, ‘he is eating/will eat’, ‘he is going/will go’.
3) al-Amr(the imperative/commandالأمر) This is when you command or request someone to do something and in reality is an extension of the Mudari – because if you ask someone to write(أكتب) for example, they will do so only after you’ve told them(the future).
Harf – the first two parts of speech(ism and fi’il) both give a meaning by themselves. However the harf is like a joining word which when solitary, gives no meaning. For example – من, is a harf that gives the meaning of إبتداء(beginning/to start from), however it will only mean this when added to a fi’il or/and an ism. e.g ذهبت من البيت(I went from the house i.e I started going from the house – the journey started from the house.)
He also specifies that the harf is only a part of speech ‘when it comes with a meaning’ – what does this mean? A harf, although a joining letter in the arabic language, is also simply a letter from any one of the letters of the language. If I were to say tha(ث) this is a harf, useless when devoid of other letters to form a complete word, however the harf waw(و) gives a meaning and that is the equivalent of ‘and’ in english. Therefore even though waw is a simple letter from the arabic language it carries a significant meaning(and) in contrast to tha(ث), for example.
The author(Ibn Ajurrum) after clarifying that every word in the arabic language will either be an Ism, fi’il, or a harf, will proceed to mention the *Signs* of each of these types.
الكلام هو اللفظ المركب المفيد بالوضع
Speech: is a compounded meaningful utterance bil wada’
He says ‘speech is a compounded utterance bil wada’, intending thereby the definition specific to the nomenclature of the grammarians because *speech* has many definitions in accordance to the nomenclature of other topics, yet what interests us, is the definition used in the nomenclature of the grammarians.The science of grammar(nahw), as you know, came only to serve [purpose] for arabic speech, and of course the grammar we’re elucidating to here is the grammar of the *Arabic language*, each language has its own grammar, however we’re concentrating on arabic grammar, which does service to speech in explaining its states of inflection, different forms etc. Nawh also, generaly encompasses the science of morphology(sarf).Therefore speech, as termed by the grammarians is: a compunded meaningful utterance bil wad’i – so, certain conditions must be fulfilled for speech to be considered speech in the jargon of the grammarians:1)that it be an utterance
2)that it be compounded(joined, formed of two or more words)
3)that it be meaningful
4)”bil wada”1) An Utterance اللفظ
This means: a sound made up of letters from the arabic alphabet [those that start with Alif and end with Ya], for example: أحمد, يكتب, سعيد – All of these words, when uttered, are a sound made up of four letters from the alphabet. Therefore, indicating with your hand, for example is *not* termed ‘kalam’ because it doesn’t consist of a sound made up of letters from the alphabet, even though the Linguists would consider it(indication) ‘kalam’ because benefit is achieved through it.
2) Compounded المركب
This means: that is be made up of two or more words e.g: محمد مسافر, العلم نافع, لكل مجتهد نصيب – each of these expressions are called ‘kalam’, and each are made up of two words, or more.
Therefore a single word is not considered kalam according to the grammarians unless it is joined with another word – this joining can be *literal/explicit*(as shown in the above examples) or *implicit*, like if someone was to say to you: من أخوك(who is your brother?), and you replied: محمد, then this ‘Muhammad’ is considered kalam because you are implying that: محمد أخي (Muhammad is my brother), so in reality this implicit expression is actually made up of three words – محمد, أخ, and the يof nisbah, which when attatched renders the thing in mention *the property of the one who is talking* i.e if you say محمد أخي, it means ‘Muhammad is *my* brother.
3) Meaningful المفيد
This means: that after mention of such speech(a compounded meaningful utterance), the silence of the listener would become appropriate – he would not need further clarification as to what the speaker intends, and is not left waiting for more, because the speaker has conveyed a *meaningful* sentence, so much so that nothing more is needed. So if you said: إذا حضر الأستاذ(if the teacher comes), this would not be kalam because, even though it is an ‘utterance made up three words’ it is not *meaningful*, because the one being spoken to is still waiting to hear what comes after this – i.e what exactly will happen after the teacher comes, because you’ve left him waiting at: ‘If the teacher comes…’. However if you were to say: إذا حضر الأستاذ أنصت التلاميذ( if the teacher comes the students will quieten down) – it would be considered be kalam.
4) Bil Wad’i بالوضع
This means: that the words used in kalam be from those that have been placed there by the arabs themselves, and that they follow the rules of the arabic language – this is pretty obvious because grammar is all about grammatically analysing each sentence and the words within it, but this can’t be done to other languages because what they term kalam is totally different to what the arab grammarians term kalam.
