ABSTRACT

It was believed, according to Ibn Khaldun (nd., 515), that if neo-Muslims would not learn the language adequately, they would in time no longer understand the Qur'an and the badI1s. In other words he is indirectly reporting to us about how different the spoken Arabic was from the written language. The IIcorrectll usage of Arabic was a primary concern for theologians and philologists (Agius 1988, 192). Many were those who deplored the inferior quality of Arabic. The mixture of Arabs and nonArabs was not however, the only cause for the worsening in quality of the language. There was a widespread illiteracy and indifference to learning. Ibn Durayd (d. 321/938) bemoaned this apathy towards knowledge in his introduction of the jamhara: II ••• I saw the neglect of the people of this generation in literature, their reluctance to learn, their hostility to what they do not know and their loss of what they have been taught ... I found myself mixed with ignoramuses. [I felt] like a stupid man, stingy

with one's knowledge ...11 (1925-1926, I, 2-3). His comments on the people's indifference to literature and learning should not surprise us. Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889-90), writing on lIeloquencell, deplores also the attitude of people towards knowledge and their apathy towards it in his extensive CUylIn al-Akhbar (1925-1930, I, Introduction). Two comments coming at a time when the Islamic world in general witnessed cultural and literary achievements and a florescence in scientific progress. The number of Muslims who had access to a formal education in order to learn Arabic was qUite small and it is not surprising therefore, that right from the beginning of the Islamic period errors of speech had crept into the language of the neo-Muslims who threatened the pUrity of the language.