The Anonymous Poetic Examples and Quoting Them by Ibn Hisham in His Book “Mughni Al-Labeeb”

The poetry has been given a much attention by the old linguists and grammarians as they considered it the second pillar of quotation after the Holy Koran. On this basis, they build the rules of grammar and its constant principles in language. The word “Example” subsequently has become limited to poetry. We therefore rarely find books of language and grammars devoid of poetic examples to such extent that they become indispensable. The old and late linguists’ method is that they quote a lot the poetry whose teller is anonymous if it comes from a trustworthy authority. They, therefore, consider the verses mentioned in Seebawayh’s book as the most proper examples adopted by predecessors and successors. Although many of these verses are anonymous, their authenticity and acceptance are unchallenged in the principles of grammar. The Grammarian Ibn Hisham followed the traces of his predecessors in quoting form the anonymous verses especially in his book “Mughni Al-Labeeb in Book Al-Aareeb” (The Enricher of The Knowledgeable from The Arab Books) in which he quoted many verses without mentioning their source. This simple paper is a study and analysis for some of the anonymous poetic examples. I present the grammatical points for which these examples are mentioned and the grammarians’ views for them. I found some of these anonymous examples attributed to some poets, but mostly their tellers are still unknown as mentioned by the enquirers of grammar books in which these examples are mentioned.