Prepositions in the Tradition of Commentary on Al-Alfiyya: Specific to Üşmuni and Suyuti

Ibn Malik, a prominent figure in Arabic grammar after Sibawayh, authored several significant works. Among these, his Alfiyya, influenced by Ibn al-Hajib's al-Kafiya and al-Shafiya, consists of a thousand couplets. This work has profoundly impacted subsequent grammar books, giving rise to a tradition of numerous commentaries, glosses, and annotations being written on it. Within this tradition, certain commentaries have gained prominence and have continued to be taught in madrasas from the past to the present. Our study aims to understand and evaluate the Alfiyya commentary tradition, specifically through the commentaries of Suyuti and Ushmuni, who lived in the 10th century Hijri and were well-versed in previous commentaries and grammatical literature. To grasp this tradition, the study focuses on the topic of prepositions, which are crucial for determining sentence meaning and grammatical structure, and are vital for the accurate interpretation of religious texts. The study compares and analyzes the use of prepositions, concept explanations, and differing approaches in the commentaries of Ushmuni and Suyuti. The study has two main objectives: first, to evaluate and understand the Alfiyya commentary tradition through the commentaries of Ushmuni and Suyuti; second, to examine and present the topic of prepositions, significant in linguistic terms, within this specific tradition. The study consists of an introduction and three chapters. The introduction summarizes the main principles and methodology. The first chapter examines the lives, scholarly contributions, and commentaries of the grammarians in question. The second chapter explores the perception of prepositions in the commentaries of Ushmuni and Suyuti, with references to other notable commentaries. The final chapter compares the methods followed by Ushmuni and Suyuti in their commentaries, the sources they utilized, and the grammatical schools that influenced them. The study concludes with a summary section.