Furthermore...

Furthermore, Ibn al-Nadim explaining the origin of the name 'nahw' for Arabic syntax says that Abu al-'Aswad had asked for `Ali's (A) permission to formulate rules of Arabic grammar similar (nahw) to what `Ali (A) had done in his discourses.

Those who had learnt Arabic grammar from Abu al-'Aswad al-Du'ali, according to Ibn al-Nadim, are: Yahya ibn Ya'mur, 'Anbasah ibn Ma'dan and Maymun ibn Aqran.[^11] Sayyid Hasan al-Sadr, in his Ta'sis al-Shi`ah, writing about the origins of `Ilm dirayat al-hadith, says that the first to compile a work on this subject was Abu `Abd Allah Hakim al-Nishaburi, a Shi'ite (d. 405/1014-15), and Ibn Salah, who came after him, was his follower.

However, al-Suyuti, in his Kitab al-wasa'il fi awa'il, states that Ibn Salah, Abu 'Amr `Uthman ibn `Abd al-Rahman (d. 643/1051-52), a Shafi'i from Damascus, was the first to work on `ilm dirayat a-hadith.[^12] Evidently, al-Suyuti has shown complete indifference to the work of Abu `Abd Allah Hakim al-Nishaburi, who lived about two hundred years before Ibn Salah.

In Ta'sis al-Shi`ah, it is stated that the first to compile a book on the study of Islamic sects was al-Hasan ibn Musa al-Nawbakhti, a prominent scholar of the third century, who lived before Abu Mansur `Abd al-Qadir ibn Zahir al-Baghdadi (d. 429/1037-38), Abu Bakr al-Baqillani (d. 403/1012-13), Ibn Hazm (d. 456/1062-63), and al-Shahristani (d.

548/1153-54).[^13] The author of al-Adab al-Farisi not only confirms this, he also explicitly states that al-Hasan ibn Musa al-Nawbakhti was a Shi'ite: Several men of the house of Nawbakht excelled in the Islamic sciences and became (great) scholars of the Imamiyyah Shi'ite sect and forerunners of its mutakallimin. To them goes the great credit of providing support for this sect on the basis of its kalam. Among them was Abu Muhammad al-Hasan ibn Musa al-Nawbakhti (d.