What they said about Arabic From the author's own Arabic
In his chapter on the religious errors that knowledge of Arabic guards against:
“Most of those among the people of the religious law who strayed from its right course and turned from the best path to it were led astray, and their judgement made light of, by their weakness in this noble and generous language in which all people were addressed.”
Ibn Jinni
d. 392 AH / 1002 CE
Abu al-Fath 'Uthman ibn Jinni, master grammarian and morphologist
The Arabic original
وَذَلِكَ أَنَّ أَكْثَرَ مَنْ ضَلَّ مِنْ أَهْلِ الشَّرِيعَةِ عَنِ القَصْدِ فِيها وَحادَ عَنِ الطَّرِيقَةِ المُثْلَى إِلَيْها، فَإِنَّما اسْتَهْواهُ "وَاسْتَخَفَّ حِلْمَهُ" ضَعْفُهُ فِي هَذِهِ اللُّغَةِ الكَرِيمَةِ الشَّرِيفَةِ، الَّتِي خُوطِبَ الكافَّةُ بِها
Source
Ibn Jinni, al-Khasa'is, ed. al-Najjar, 4th ed., vol. 3, p. 248, chapter 'On the religious beliefs that knowledge of Arabic secures'
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
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