Abū ʿAlqama al-Naḥwī - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Weipert, Reinhard
Leiden
Brill
(596 words)
Abū ʿAlqama al-Naḥwī was an Arab protagonist of jokes based upon wordplay, probably not a historical person. Since his name is unknown and no reliable information about his life is available, Johann Fück (67) rightly considered him a "legendary figure" and Franz Rosenthal (10, n.5) described him as a "legendary 'grammarian' of early times." However, Fuat Sezgin ( GAS 9:153), who was uncritically followed by Kathrin Müller (323), did not take the sound judgement of Fück and Rosenthal into account, and, in an unproven hypothesis, identified him as