What is a Kalima, What is a Definition: The Relationship between Logic and Grammar in the Later Arabic Linguistic Tradition.
by Dr. Muhammad Volkan Stodolsky
The American Society of Islamic Philosophy and Theology Online Journal. 2023.
The purpose of the discipline of naḥw (Arabic syntax) has been defined as making one familiar with the endings of the kalima, meaning the case endings of nouns and moods of verbs.1 Hence, defining what a kalima is constitutes one of the most fundamental subjects of naḥw. This study will discuss and compare three explicit definitions of kalima by al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144), Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249), and Ibn Hishām al-Anṣārī (d. 761/1360), in light of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jāmī’s (d. 898/1492) analysis and evaluation of the definitions of alZamakhsharī and Ibn al-Ḥājib in his commentary on the latter’s al-Kāfiya.
