Mortimer Sloper Howell, reader of Raḍī al-dīn al-Astarābāḏī, and two Indian lithographs

What is it about?

This article presents two Indian lithographs of Raḍī al-dīn al-Astarābāḏī’s (d. circa 688/1289) Šarḥ al-Kāfiya and Šarḥ al-Šāfiya, made in Delhi, in 1282/1866 and 1283/1866. They belonged to Mortimer Sloper Howell (1841–1925), a British magistrate in India and the author of a seven-volume Arabic grammar published in Allahabad between 1880 and 1911. Howell’s grammar follows the plan of Zamaḫšarī’s (d. 538/1144) Mufaṣṣal in four parts: noun, verb, particle, common processes. The Šarḥ al-Šāfiya is covered with annotations, attributable with certainty to Howell, but the Šarḥ al-Kāfiya is blank. This seems to have something to do with the development that Howell has had, in line with Šarḥ al-Šāfiya, in the fourth part of the Mufaṣṣal, which deals essentially with phonology. It was this development that drew attention of linguists like Jean Cantineau (1899–1956) and Henri Fleisch (1904–1985) to Howell’s grammar and, through it, Raḍī al-dīn al-Astarābāḏī’s Šarḥ al-Šāfiya. A survey in Howell’s grammar shows that the other part of Šarḥ al-Šāfiya, which deals with morphology, and the Šarḥ al-Kāfiya, which deals with syntax, are also very important sources, and that Howell can still mediate between Raḍī al-dīn al-Astarābāḏī and the Arabic scholars.

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