Criteria for Assessing Influence in Studies of Grammatical Influence: Issues of Grammatical Interpretation in al-Wahidi and Abu Ali al-Farisi in al-Basit

Abstract

This study investigates Abu Ali al-Farisi’s influence on the grammatical choices of Abu al-Hasan al-Wahidi in his Quranic commentary al-Basit, while proposing a more rigorous method for assessing scholarly influence. Rather than treating agreement alone as evidence of influence, the study distinguishes direct borrowing from convergence arising from adherence to a shared grammatical tradition. It focuses on four areas of grammatical interpretation: semantic incorporation (tadmin), construction according to meaning (haml ala al-ma'na), ellipsis, and augmentation. To assess the extent of influence, the study develops a five-level scale and six indicators for distinguishing borrowing from independent convergence. These criteria are applied to thirty-nine cases identified in al-Basit and compared with al-Farisi’s discussions in his original works. The findings reveal that al-Farisi’s influence extended beyond individual grammatical judgments to principles of analysis, reasoning, and argumentation. Particularly significant is al-Wahidi’s incorporation of al-Farisi’s formulations without explicit attribution, which led some later scholars to attribute al-Farisi’s views to al-Wahidi. Nevertheless, al-Wahidi demonstrates considerable scholarly independence through explicit disagreement, selective adoption, additions to al-Farisi’s analyses, and divergence from some of his underlying principles.