What they said about Arabic Via a reliable witness
“Into the tongue of the Arabs the sciences were carried from every region of the world, and they were adorned by it, grew sweet in hearts, and the beauties of the language flowed through their arteries and veins ... To be satirised in Arabic is dearer to me than to be praised in Persian.”
al-Biruni
d. 440 AH / 1048 CE
Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni, Khwarazmian astronomer, mathematician and pharmacologist
The Arabic original
إِلَى لِسانِ العَرَبِ نُقِلَتِ العُلُومُ مِنْ أَقْطارِ العالَمِ فَازْدانَتْ وَحَلَتْ فِي الأَفْئِدَةِ وَسَرَتْ مَحاسِنُ اللُّغَةِ مِنْها فِي الشَّرايِينِ وَالأَوْرِدَةِ ... وَالهَجْوُ بِالعَرَبِيَّةِ أَحَبُّ إِلَيَّ مِنَ المَدْحِ بِالفارِسِيَّةِ
Source
al-Biruni, Kitab al-Saydana, ed. Hakim Muhammad Said and Rana Ihsan Ilahi, Karachi, 1973, p. 13; quoted in Shawqi Dayf, Tarikh al-Adab al-'Arabi, Dar al-Ma'arif, vol. 5, p. 564
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
Shawqi Dayf quotes slightly different wording; the text given here agrees with Massignon's French translation of the passage in «al-Ṣaydana».
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