Studying Sarf: A Complete Curriculum

The famous saying states: Morphology is the mother of all disciplines or in Arabic الصرف أم العلوم.

The importance of studying Sarf (Arabic Morphology) can't be emphasized enough for the student of Arabic. At every stage his learning, the student of Arabic needs to study some Sarf (Arabic Morphology) in order for him to learn Arabic properly. As we learn to read, write, speak and understand Arabic, knowledge of Sarf is a prerequisite for many of the sub-skills in language acquisition. Additionally, it is best to study some Sarf (Morphology) before you study Nahw (Syntax). Nahw or syntax will teach you the rules of sentence construction, but before you can construct sentences you need to be able to understand rules related to Arabic words which are the building blocks of sentences. Once this is understood, the obvious question is; how should a student of Arabic study Sarf?

We at The Arabic School recommend at a three level approach to the study of Sarf (Arabic Morphology):

Level 1: Coming to Terms with Sarf

At this level a student learns two things; the standard terminology used by Morphologists and the foundational principles of the discipline. 

Without understanding the standard terminology used by the scholars of this discipline a student cannot progress in his study of Sarf. Similarly, if a student doesn't study the foundational principles of Sarf properly, they will not be able to apply the rules of Sarf onto what he/she is reading nor will they be able to learn the more intermediate and advanced principles.

Thus, this stage is key and by far the most important stage of learning Sarf.

For this stage I recommend studying three texts:

1. Sarf Bahai by Bahauddin al-Amili (Originally composed in Persian but its translations are available in English, Urdu and Arabic).
2. Matn ul-Binaa' 
3. Meezan us-Sarf

Sarf Bahai will inform the student of the standard terminology and the foundational principles. Matn ul-Binaa contains a more focused treatment of the word families which a student of morphology must know and Meezan us-Sarf will consolidate the totality of what the student has learned and acquired at this stage.

The final recommendation for this stage is that while studying Meezan us-Sarf, a student should have in hand a good version of Abwab us-Sarf. Abwab us-Sarf is like a morphological dictionary which contains all the possible conjugations from within the word families. It is traditional to memorize such a dictionary, however its not a mandatory part of this level. Additionally, it will be of great benefit if by the end of this level a student reads at-Tatbeeq us-Sarfi by Abduhu ar-Rajihi on his own or with a teacher.

Level 2: Understanding Sarf Comprehensively

Now that a student has become familiarized with the standard terminology used by the morphologists and he/she is well aware of the foundational principles, they now need to engage in a more comprehensive study of Sarf. By level 1, they have studied the general rules of conjugating words, however there are exceptions to those rules studied under the title of Ta'leelat. 

For this stage I recommend three more texts:

1. Irshad us-Sarf
2. 'Ilm us-Seegha
3. Tasreef ul-'Izzi with Sharh of Taftazani 

Irshad us-Sarf covers the rules of conjugation in a very organized way, therefore a student should study it thoroughly. Whatever is omitted in Irshad will be covered in 'Ilm us-Seegha. Tasreef ul-'Izzi is mentioned here for the purpose of consolidation. It is worthy to note, that if a student engages in a comprehensive study of Tasreef ul-'Izzi he may skip Irshad us-Sarf but that is not recommended.

A final recommendation for this stage would be to use the workbook 'al-'Ilal wal Ibdal' by 'Abdul Aleem Ibrahim for practice. It would