Editing Sibawayh (section)

===The Question of the Hornet===
In a story from the debate held by the [[Abbasid Caliphate|Abbasid]] vizier [[Yahya ibn Khalid]] of Baghdad on standard Arabic usage, Sibawayh, representing the [[Grammarians of Basrah|Basra]] school of grammar, and [[al-Kisa'i]], one of the canonical [[Quran reading|Quran readers]] and the leading figure in the rival school of [[Kufa]],<ref>{{cite book|last1=Touati |first1=Houari |last2=Cochrane |first2=Lydia G. |title=Islam and Travel in the Middle Ages |year=2010 |publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-80877-2 |page=51}}</ref> had a dispute on the following point of grammar, which later became known as المسألة الزنبورية ''al-Mas’alah al-Zunbūrīyah'' ("The Question of the Hornet").

The discussion involved the final clause of the sentence:

: {{langx|ar|كُنْتُ أَظُنُّ أَنَّ ٱلْعَقْرَبَ أَشَدُّ لَسْعَةً مِنَ الزُّنْبُورِ، فَإِذَا هُوَ إِيَّاهَا.}}
: {{transliteration|ar|ALA-LC|kuntu ʾaẓunnu ʾanna l-ʿaqraba ʾašaddu lasʿatan min az-zunbūri, fa-ʾiḏā huwa ʾiyyā-hā.}}
: "I have always thought that the scorpion was more painful in stinging than the hornet, and sure enough it is."<ref>Kees Versteegh, ''The Arabic Language'', p. 64 in first ed., p. 72 in second ed.</ref>

Both Sibawayh and al-Kisa'i agreed that it involved an omitted verb, but disagreed on the specific construct to be used.

Sibawayh proposed finishing it with ''fa-'iḏā huwa hiya'' ({{lang|ar|فإذا هو هي}}), literally "and-thus he [is] she",<ref name="Carter 2004">{{cite book|first=Michael G. |last=Carter |title=Sibawayhi |page=13 |location=London |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=2004 |isbn=1850436711}}</ref> using "he" for the scorpion (a masculine noun in Arabic) and "she" for "stinging, bite" (a feminine noun), arguing that Arabic does not need or use any verb-form like ''is'' in the present [[Grammatical tense|tense]], and that object forms like ''('iyyā-)hā'' are never the main part of a predicate.

Al-Kisa'i argued instead for ''fa-'iḏā huwa 'iyyā-hā'' ({{lang|ar|فإذا هو إياها}}), literally "and-thus he [does] onto-her", supporting the object pronoun ''-hā'' ("her") with the particle '''iyyā-''. The grammatical constructions of the debate may be compared to a similar point in the grammar of modern English: "it is she" vs. "it is her", which is still a point of some disagreement today.

To Sibawayh's dismay, al-Kisa'i soon ushered in four [[Bedouin]]s who had "happened" to be waiting near the door.<ref>Kees Versteegh, ''The Arabic Language'', p. 64 in first ed. (1997) or 72 in second ed. (2014), citing Ibn al-'Anbārī's '''Insāf'', pp. 292-5 in Weil's edition of 1913.</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-link=Franz Rosenthal |first=Franz |last=Rosenthal |title=A History of Muslim Historiography |page=245 |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill Archive |year=1952}}</ref> Each testified that ''huwa 'iyyā-hā'' was the proper usage and so Sibawayh's was judged incorrect. After this, he left the court,<ref name="Carter 2004"/> and was said to have returned in indignation to Shiraz where he died soon, apparently either from upset or illness.<ref name=":0"/>

A student of Sibawayh's, al-Akhfash al-Asghar (Akhfash the Younger), is said to have challenged al-Kisa'i after his teacher's death asking him 100 questions on grammar, proving al-Kisa'i's answers wrong each time. When the student revealed who he was and what had happened, al-Kisa'i approached the Caliph [[Harun al-Rashid]] and requested punishment from him knowing he had had a share in "killing Sibawayh."<ref>al-Qāsim Ibn-ʻAlī al- Ḥarīrī, ''The Assemblies of Al Ḥarîri: 1: containing the first 26 assemblies'', vol. 1, p. 499. Trns. Thomas Chenery. Williams and Norgate, 1867.</ref>