Philological investigation of Ibn Qutayba's Adab al-Kâtib

When boundaries of Islamic state enlarged due to the conquest movement, institutions have proliferated and service area expanded. The increasing institutions of the state were called the council (dîvân), and the staffs of these councils were clerks (kâtib). According to Ibn Qutayba the clerks who were working in the councils were making mistakes about Arabic writing rules and usages. Therefor he wrote a book named Adab alKâtib to help these clerks to correct their usages and to be a guidebook to others which trying to improve their Arabic usage. Adab al-Kâtib consists of four parts and each section has ninety-seven chapters called bâb. In the chapters of this book some issues regarding linquistics are included. Due to limitations of the dissertation our investigation will include only datas about morphology, syntax, semantics, and orthography. Findings about the sub-disciplines of linguistics in the work are supported by the examples given by the writer and tried to be explained. Based on these explanations, we tried to investigate Ibn Qutayba's method of editing topics and to determine his opinions on morphology, syntax, semantics, and orthography. Keywords: Ibn Qutayba, Adab al-Kâtib, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Orthography