Ibn Malik’s Approach to Grammatical Evidence A Reading of the Arguments of Supporters and Opponents

his study examines, on one hand, the evidence advanced by those who accuse Ibn Mālik of fabricating grammatical citations (shawāhid), and, on the other, the evidence and rejoinders offered by those who hold him innocent of such fabrication. The researcher adopts an inductive method by tracing the arguments of both the affirmers and the deniers, analyzing them, and then evaluating them in an effort to reach a preponderant judgment on the question. The findings indicate the strength and cogency of the two principal proofs: solitary transmission (tafarrud) and omission of attribution (ighfāl al-nisba), as well as the inability of the deniers to overturn them. They also highlight the plausibility of several corroborating indicia that tip the balance in favor of the charge, namely stylistic uniformity (tasāwuq), the verses’ self-contained meanings, the banality and thinness of many meanings, recurrent syntactic molds and stale diction, the prominence of religious themes, and the tendency of most shawāhid to cluster around narrow, specific themes and purposes. In contrast, other proposed indicia prove weak or untenable, such as the prevalence of post-classical coinages (muwallad), the paucity of certain features known in authentic classical poetry, the scarcity of rare vocabulary (gharīb), the claim that features co-occur which ordinarily do so only by contrivance, and mere lexical repetition. The study also identifies clear methodological shortcomings in some proponents’ handling of the evidence that depart from sound scholarly practice, particularly the categorical tone used in issuing probabilistic judgments and certain conclusions, especially on the statistical side. This, in turn, strengthened the skeptics’ position in questioning the reliability of those results. Conversely, emotion and a lack of objectivity colored parts of the skeptics’ case. The desire to exonerate Ibn Mālik from fabrication often governed their replies, leading them to reject wholesale the probative force of the evidence and indicia, despite the cogency of some of it