They all benefited from his writings and explanations.

They all benefited from his writings and explanations. The most surprising thing is that an Iranian youth had scaled these heights of expertise in Arabic grammar and he became a teacher to the Arabs and taught them the intricacies of their own tongue. All the Arabic scholars accept the prominence of Sibuya. It is not that being an Iranian himself the writer of this book is heaping undeserving praises on this young man.

But when we contemplate, the closest companion of the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.s.) was Salman Farsi, the leader of the greatest school of Sunni jurisprudence was Abu Hanifah, also an Iranian, the compiler of the most important book of Ahle Sunnat Sahih Bukhari was Muhammad Ibn Ismail Bukhari, an Iranian. The greatest philosophers of the Islamic world Abu Farabi and Ibn Sina were Persians.

The father of gnosticism, Imam Ghazzali was an Iranian and so on… It is an admitted fact that Iran has greatly contributed to the expansion of the study of Arabic. The book of Sibuya gained such prominence that it was also published from Berlin , Germany , India and Cairo , Egypt . It is said that Sibuya was once engaged in a debate with Hamzah Kasai the tutor of Amin the son of Harun Rashid and that Sibuya was defeated in this debate.

Sibuya could not bear the defeat hence he developed tuberculosis fever and died due to it. Some however say the Sibuya surrendered willingly, considering that Hamzah was the tutor of Harun’s child. In any case he developed the aforesaid illness and passed away when he was only thirty-two years of age. After his debate with Hamzah, Sibuya came to Shiraz from Baghdad , and passed away after some days. He is buried in Shiraz .

According to the writer of Athaarul Ajam his tomb is in the Sang Siyah locality. We should however remember that the debate of Sibuya with Hamzah did not conclude with Sibuya’s defeat. The facts were in support of Sibuya but the unscrupulous opponents distorted the arguments and ruled in favor of Hamzah.

This episode is recorded in detail in History of Ibn Khallikan under the heading of “Qaziya-e-Zamboor” and according to this author Sibuya expired at the age of thirty.[1] As far as his importance is concerned, his book Al-Kitab is sufficient because we know that Abu Hayyan Gharnati, the famous Arab grammarian of Spain relied on the books of Sibuya and he had memorized them all. [1] Fihrist, Ibn Nadim, Persian translation,pg. 89, Wafayatul Ayan of Ibn Khallikan, Vol. 3, pg.