By The Arabic School
Naḥw is the science of the Arabic sentence. It studies a word after it joins other words: its position, its relation to the words around it, and above all the ending it takes. For this reason Naḥw is also called ʿIlm al-Iʿrāb, the science of iʿrāb.
The central question of Naḥw
Arabic marks the role of a word by changing its ending. The doer of an action takes one ending, the thing acted on takes another, and a word after a preposition takes a third. Naḥw asks why each word ends as it does, and what governs that ending.
Abū al-Aswad al-Duʾalī (d. 69 AH) is traditionally named as its founder. It became a full science in the hands of Sībawayh and the grammarians of Basra and Kufa.
Why Ṣarf comes first
Ibn Jinnī placed Naḥw after Ṣarf, because a word must be known alone before it is known in company. In practice the two are studied side by side, but a student who cannot recognise a word's pattern will struggle to parse it.
Rules and practice are different skills
A student can recite al-Ājurrūmiyyah from memory and still fail to parse a line of the Qurʾān. Iʿrāb is a practical skill, closer to a sport than to a list of facts. The rules are needed, but the skill comes from parsing every day. For this reason every stage of our Naḥw pathway pairs a text with regular parsing practice.
The order of study, level by level
- A1 Starter. ash-Shabrāwiyyah and al-Muwaṭṭaʾ fil-Iʿrāb (Iʿrāb 101). Practice: the grammatical analysis of Zād uṭ-Ṭālibīn and selected passages of Qiṣaṣ an-Nabiyyīn.
- A2 Beginner. al-Ājurrūmiyyah with the commentary of Zaynī Daḥlān, Mulḥat al-Iʿrāb of al-Ḥarīrī, or Naḥw Mīr and Sharḥ Miʾat ʿĀmil. Practice: the iʿrāb of Qiṣār al-Mufaṣṣal, the short sūrahs.
- B1 Intermediate. al-Mutammimah, Naẓm az-Zawāwī and Hidāyat an-Naḥw. Practice: the iʿrāb of al-Arbaʿūn an-Nawawiyyah.
- B2 Upper intermediate. Qaṭr un-Nadā of Ibn Hishām, with al-Minhāj fī al-Qawāʿid for revision. Practice: full paragraphs of unvowelled prose.
- C1 Advanced. Shudhūr adh-Dhahab and Qawāʿid al-Iʿrāb of Ibn Hishām, then al-Kāfiyah and the Alfiyyah of Ibn Mālik. Practice: the iʿrāb of the Forty Ḥadīth Qudsī.
Uṣūl al-Naḥw comes last
Uṣūl al-Naḥw studies the evidence behind the rules of grammar, such as samāʿ (what was heard from the Arabs) and qiyās (analogy). It follows Naḥw because the general is learnt from the particulars. Ibn Jinnī's al-Khaṣāʾiṣ and al-Anbārī's Lumaʿ al-Adillah are its classic works. Take it at C1, once the main texts are behind you.
Memorise the core
Memorise the definitions of Naḥw and short versified texts such as ash-Shabrāwiyyah. Verse is easier to keep, and a versified matn gives you the whole science in a few lines.
Study with The Arabic School
Our Naḥw courses follow this path from ash-Shabrāwiyyah to Ibn Hishām. Every course is recorded, with teacher support, a discussion group and a certificate.
For the full map of the sciences, the two classical routes and the texts for every level, download the free guide, Learning Arabic: Skills and Systems. You can also see all our courses and prices or book a one-to-one class.