Al-Mubarrad

Abu al-Abbas Muhammad ibn Yazid, known as al-Mubarrad ("the cooled" or "the chilled"), was one of the foremost Arabic grammarians and literary scholars of the ninth century CE. He was born in Basra, in southern Iraq, around 826 CE (early third century AH), and became a leading figure of the Basran school of grammar (nahw), which was the great rival of the school of Kufa.

According to the biographical tradition, he studied the foundational grammar of Sibawayh, the Kitab ("The Book"), first under al-Jarmi and then completed it under al-Mazini, whose linguistic approach he developed and carried forward. Around 860 he was summoned to the court of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil at Samarra; after the caliph was killed the following year he settled in Baghdad, where he taught for the rest of his life.

His best-known work is al-Kamil ("The Complete"), a wide-ranging anthology of poetry, proverbs, history, and prophetic reports (hadith) examined for their language and grammar; his principal technical work on grammar is al-Muqtadab. Later sources report a long-running rivalry with the Kufan grammarian Tha'lab — a contrast often dramatized in the tradition more than it can be documented in detail.

He is said to have died in Baghdad in 285 or 286 AH (898 or 899 CE). The nickname al-Mubarrad is itself the subject of a traditional anecdote about a play on words between his teacher and the Kufan scholars; its exact origin is uncertain.