Are you sending a dinar for our need ... or ʿAbd Rabb, the brother of ʿAwn b. Mikhrāq? (1)
So he annexed 'sending' to 'the dinar', even though he had not yet sent it, and he put 'ʿAbd Rabb' in the accusative case as a conjunction to the position of 'dinar', because it is in the position of the accusative even if it is in the genitive case, and as the other poet said: (2)
The protectors of the nakedness of the tribe, no ... defilement comes to them from behind them (3)
with 'the nakedness' in both the accusative and the genitive. The genitive is due to annexation, and the accusative is due to the omission of the nūn for being burdensome, while it is intended. This is the statement of the grammarians of Basra. (4)
As for the grammarians of Kufa, they said: It is permissible in {meeting} to use annexation, while it has the meaning of 'they will meet', and to omit the nūn from it because it is in the form of nouns, so it has the share of nouns in annexation to nouns. The same applies to the ruling of every noun that has a counterpart to it. They said: And if the nūn is affirmed in any of that and annexation is left out, you only do that to it because it has the meaning of 'he does' which has not yet occurred and has not yet become obligatory. They said: So the annexation in it is for the wording, and leaving the annexation is for the meaning.
Notes
- (1) Sībawayh 1: 87, al-Khizāna 3: 476, and al-ʿAynī 3: 563. The author of al-Khizāna said: "The verse is among the verses in Sībawayh whose author is unknown. Ibn Khalaf said: It was said that it belongs to Jābir ibn Raʾlān al-Sanbasī—and Sanbas is the forefather of a clan from Ṭayyiʾ. Those other than the commentators on Sībawayh attributed it to Jarīr, to Taʾabbaṭa Sharran, and to its being fabricated; and God knows best the truth of the matter!" Dīnār and ʿAbd Rabb are two men. The textual evidence in it is the accusative case of "ʿAbd Rabb" based on the grammatical position of "Dīnār", because the meaning is: "Are you sending Dīnār or ʿAbd Rabb?"
- (2) He is ʿAmr ibn Imriʾ al-Qays, from Banū al-Ḥārith ibn al-Khazraj, and he is ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥa (may God be pleased with him); an ancient pre-Islamic figure.
- (3) Jamharat Ashʿār al-ʿArab: 127, Sībawayh 1: 95, al-Lisān (w-k-f), and al-Khizāna 2: 188, 337, 483 / 3: 400, 473. It is from a poem he addressed to Mālik ibn al-ʿAjlān al-Najjārī regarding a reported incident. Al-ʿawra (vulnerability) is the place from which an attack by the enemy is feared. Al-naṭaf means flaw and suspicion; it is said: "They are people of suspicion and flaw (naṭaf)." This is the narration of Sībawayh and al-Ṭabarī. As for the narration of others, it is: "from behind us is wakaf", where al-wakaf means defect and deficiency.
- (4) Sībawayh said (1: 95): "He did not omit the nūn due to iḍāfa (annexation), nor so that the noun would substitute for the nūn, but rather they omitted it just as they omitted it from alladhayni and alladhīna, when the speech became lengthy and the first noun concluded at the second noun."
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