ABSTRACT
The study of the primary sources of the second and third centuries A.H. cannot fully substantiate what these later sources accept, though the evidence is strong for the existence of differences between the Basrans and Kufans on the issue of qiyas and sama, and this is the issue which is most stressed by the later sources as being the most essential. If it is at ail legitimate to talk of a Basran and a Kufan school, one must not ignore the fact that there is a great deal of common ground between two in method, terminology, sources, and subject-matter. Far from trying to prove or deny the existence of the schools, the aim of this paper is to demonstrate, in the study of Arabie grammar in the second and third centuries, the relation between the sources of the period and the later secondary sources. The question of the schools then becomes the framework rather than the aim of the study.
