Al-Jarmi

Al-Jarmī, full name Abū ‘Umar Ṣāliḥ ibn Isḥāq al-Bajīli al-Jarmī () (d.840 AD/ 225 AH), was an influential grammarian of the Basra school during the Islamic Golden Age, who took part in learned discussions at Baghdād.

He was a jurisconsult, philologist and native of Basra who studied in Baghdād under al-Akhfash al-Awsat. He studied philology under Abū Ubayda, Abū Zaid al-Ansāri, al-Aṣmā’ī et al., and became a teacher of akhbar (traditions). Abū ‘l-Abbās al-Mubarrad quotes al-Jarmī having told him that he had studied the “Diwan of the Hudhaylites” under al-Aṣmā’ī, whose expertise in that work had surpassed his own, and al-Aṣmā’ī saying to him “O Abū Omar [al-Jarmī] if a member of the Banu Hudhayl happen to be neither poet nor archer, nor runner, then he’s nothing!” Referring to a passage from The Qur'ān, he said, “Follow not what you know, say not you have heard when you have not, or seen when you did not see, or know when you do not know; for the hearing, the sight and the heart are subjects on which you will answer to God!”. Al-Mubarrad regarded al-Jarmī the expert on Sībawayh's Kitāb, as he had memorised much of it and taught the great majority of those who studied it. He also wrote original philological works and was a highly esteemed historian of tradition and muhaddith (hadīth scholar). The hafiz Abū Noaim also mentions al-Jarmī. Shaykh Abū Sa‘īd said that al-Jarmī and al-Māzinī were the leading grammarians of their generation, and were followed by the generation of al-Mubarrad.