The “Unusual” in Al-Jana ad-Dani fi Huruf al-Ma’ani: A Grammatical Study

Abstract

This study investigates the grammatical ruling known as al-gharib ‘the unusual’ as employed by al-Muradi in his work Al-Jana ad-Dani fi Huruf al-Ma’ani. Situated within the field of grammatical heritage studies, the research aims to examine cases labeled as gharib in order to uncover their underlying judgments, functions, and interpretive purposes, particularly given that such rulings are often cited in classical grammatical works without justification. The study analyzes eight grammatical issues in which al-Muradi explicitly applied this ruling, addressing shifts in word class, semantic functions of particles, syntactic parsing, and disputed usages of key grammatical elements. Through close reading and analysis, the research clarifies the dimensions of “unusualness” in these cases, reveals their analytical value, and explains their intended grammatical implications. The findings indicate that al-Muradi occasionally restates his views on certain issues to clarify methodological aims, while in many instances he applies the label al-gharib without explicating its rationale. The study concludes that examining such rulings contributes to a deeper understanding of grammatical reasoning in classical Arabic scholarship and highlights the need to reassess inherited grammatical judgments through systematic analysis.