sia, where he died A.D.
1123.

A great deal in Arabic literature has been written about grammar, and,
until its principles were finally laid down and established, it was
always a source of continual controversy between different professors
and different schools. Abul Aswad ad-Duwali has been called the father
of Arabic grammar. It is said that the Khalif Ali laid down for him
this principle: the parts of speech are three, the noun, the verb, and
the particle, and told him to form a complete treatise upon it. This
was accordingly done; and other works on the subject were also
produced, but none of them are apparently now extant. Muhammad bin
Ishak has stated that he saw one of them, entitled 'Discourse on the
Governing and the Governed Parts of Speech;' and the author of the
'Fihrist' also alludes to this work. Abul-Aswad died at Busra in A.D.
688, aged eighty-five, but some years later his two successors in this
branch of literature (viz., Al-Khalil and Sibawaih) far surpassed him
in every way.

Al-Khalil bin Ahmad, born A.D. 718, was one of the great masters in
the science of grammar, and the discoverer of the rules of prosody,
which art owes to him its creation. He laid the foundation of the
language by his book 'Al-Ain' (so called from the letter with which it
begins), and by the aid he afforded thereby to Sibawaih, whose master
he was, in the composition of his celebrated grammatical work known by
the name of 'The Book.' In the work called 'Al-Ain,' Khalil first
arranged the stock of Arabic words, dealing with the organ of speech
and the production of sounds, and then dividing the words into
classes, the roots of which consisted of one, two, three, four, or
five letters. It is still a matter of dispute whether the book
'Al-Ain' was wholly composed by Khalil himself, or completed in course
of time by his pupils. A copy of this celebrated lexicon and work on
philology is in the Escurial Library. Khalil also wrote a treatise on
prosody, and other works on grammar, and a book on musical intonation.
He died A.D. 786, at Busra. 'Poverty,' he said, 'consists not in the
want of money, but of soul; and riches are in the mind, not in the
purse.'

Sibawaih, the pupil of Khalil, has been called the father of Arabic
lexicography, and the lawgiver of Arabic grammar. Ibn Khallikan says
that he was a learned grammarian, and surpassed in this science every
person of former and later times. As for his 'Kitab,' or 'Book,'
compose