ad ud-Du'ali (latter
half of the 7th century), but the certain beginnings of Arabic grammar
are found a hundred years later. The Arabs from early times have
always been proud of their language, but its systematic study seems to
have arisen from contact with Persian and from the respect for the
language of the Koran. In Irak the two towns of Basra and Kufa
produced two rival schools of philologists. Bagdad soon had one of its
own (cf. G. Flugel's _Die grammatischen Schulen der Araber_, Leipzig,
1862). Khalil ibn Ahmad (718-791), an Arab from Oman, of the school of
Basra, was the first to enunciate the laws of Arabic metre and the
first to write a dictionary. His pupil Sibawaihi (q.v.), a Persian,
wrote the grammar known simply as _The Book_, which is generally
regarded in the East as authoritative and almost above criticism.
Other members of the school of Basra were Abu 'Ubaida (q.v.), Asma'i
(q.v.), Mubarrad (q.v.) and Ibn Duraid (q.v.). The school of Kufa
claimed to pay more attention to the living language (spoken among the
Bedouins) than to written laws of grammar. Among its teachers were
Kisa'i, the tutor of Harun al-Rashid's sons, Ibn A'rabi, Ibn as-Sikkit
(d. 857) and Ibn ul-Anbari (885-939). In the fourth century of Islam
the two schools of Kufa and Basra declined in importance before the
increasing power of Bagdad, where Ibn Qutaiba, Ibn Jinni (941-1002)
and others carried on the work, but without the former rivalry of the
older schools. Persia from the beginning of the 10th century produced
some outstanding students of Arabic. Hamadhani (d. 932) wrote a book
of synonyms (ed. L. Cheikho, Beirut, 1885). Jauhari (q.v.) wrote his
great dictionary the _Sahah_. Tha'alibi (q.v.) and Jurjani (q.v.) were
almost contemporary, and a little later came Zamakhshari (q.v.), whose
philological works are almost as famous as his commentary on the
Koran. The most important dictionaries of Arabic are late in origin.
The immense work, _Lisan ul Arab_ (ed. 20 vols, Bulaq, 1883-1889), was
compiled by Ibn Manzur (1232-1311), the _Qamus_ by Fairuzabadi, the
_Taj ul'Arus_ (ed. 10 vols., Bulaq, 1890), founded on the _Qamus_, by
Murtada uz-Zabidi (1732-1790).

_Scientific Literature._--The literature of the various sciences is
dealt with elsewhere. It is enough here to mention that such existed,
and that it was not indigenous. It was in the early Abbasid period
that t