page_title: Safa Khulusi
section_title: Arabic grammar and its theoretical basics
hierarchical_section_title: Safa Khulusi / Arabic grammar and its theoretical basics
caption_attribution_description: English: Textbook
context_page_description: Safa Abdul-Aziz Khulusi was an Iraqi historian, novelist, poet, journalist and broadcaster. He is known for mediating between Arabic- and English-language cultures, and for his scholarship of modern Iraqi literature. He is also remembered for his theories on Arabic grammar, on Shakespeare, as well as his role in Islamic education and his work on the poetry of al-Mutanabbi.
context_section_description: Based on his experience researching classical Arabic manuscripts, and teaching modern Arabic language, Khulusi sets out to simplify the complexities of grammatical construction in modern Arabic. He dismisses the notion that in its most elaborate form Arabic defies sensible and logical explanation.
  Khulusi develops a new approach to teaching Arabic grammar by stratifying the importance or strength of different parts of the sentence. He details the basic points that underpin grammatical theory and the morphological structure of the language. He deals with the rules that govern the assignment of the vowel signs and their re-designation with changes of meaning or grammatical function or construction. He considers what he refers to as the "hordes" of Arabic words known as Mabniyyat (built up) that do not permit grammatical changes. He explains the special privileges that different Arabic numerals have in the language, and the rules that govern their use in sentence construction.
  Khulusi focuses his greatest attention on the structure of the verb system which he regards as "the backbone of the language" and cites this as the reason why Arabic has come to be considered as a "shorthand" language. He provides a simplified method for handling verb roots and applying various functions to these. He details and explains the various grammatical concepts associated with the verb system.
  He notes that Arabic is suited to showing relations with more conciseness than many other languages because of the greater flexibility of verbs and nouns. He gives the example that 'ideas': break, shatter, try to break, cause to break, allow to be broken, break one another, ask someone to break, pretend to break. These are just some of the many variations of the fundamental verb system which can be expressed by vowel changes and consonantal arguments, without the aid of additional verbs and pronouns.
  Khulusi goes on to describe other finer aspects of grammatical construction and the historical reasoning behind the established grammatical rules. He ventures that the complexities of the language can be simplified by knowledge of its history. He considers more traditional approaches to grammatical teaching and details their limitations.
  The Logical Basis of Arabic Grammar, A New Theory was well received in Arabic publications. Khulusi later summarized the theory and translated it into English. He adapted parts of the theory and incorporated it into later editions of his textbook The Art of Translation.
caption: Fann al-Tarjama (The Art of Translation) first edition 1956. This popular textbook underwent numerous revisions over several decades and reflected Khulusi's changing style of teaching.
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