Sibawayh

Sibawayh — full name Abu Bishr Amr ibn Uthman ibn Qanbar — was a grammarian of Persian origin, conventionally dated to roughly 760-796 CE (c. 143-180 AH), though both dates are disputed in the sources. His Persian nickname "Sibawayh" is usually glossed as "scent of apples." He is remembered as the author of al-Kitab ("The Book"), an untitled multi-volume work that is the earliest surviving systematic grammar of Arabic and remained the discipline's reference point for centuries.

Tradition holds that he came to the city of Basra (in southern Iraq) and studied grammar there, above all under al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi, to whom the sources say he owed the most, and also under Yunus ibn Habib. After his death his student al-Akhfash al-Awsat is reported to have transmitted and edited al-Kitab.

A famous anecdote, the "Question of the Hornet" (al-Mas'ala al-Zunburiyya), describes Sibawayh losing a grammatical debate in Baghdad to the Kufan grammarian al-Kisa'i and dying soon after of grief in Persia. Modern scholars (e.g. Teddy Fassberg) argue this death story is a later literary construction — its cause is absent in the earliest notices and its shape echoes the legendary death of Homer — so it should be read as tradition, not established history. The reports place his death between roughly 177 and 180 AH near Shiraz, though some give 161 AH in Basra.