What they said about Arabic Via a reliable witness
When his pupil Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi asked him whether any eloquence surpasses that of the Arabs, he said this could be known only by one who spoke every language with mastery and weighed them one by one; then he said:
“But we have heard many languages from their own people – I mean from their best and most eloquent – and, as far as it appeared and seemed to us, we found no language like Arabic: its ways are wider, its articulation finer, its steps loftier; its letters are more complete, its nouns greater, its meanings deeper, its allusions more comprehensive; and it has this grammar, whose share in it is the share of logic in the mind.”
Abu Sulayman al-Mantiqi al-Sijistani
d. c. 375 AH / 985 CE
Muhammad ibn Tahir ibn Bahram, the leading philosopher of Baghdad in his day and teacher of Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi; his family came from Sijistan.
The Arabic original
وَلَكِنْ قَدْ سَمِعْنَا لُغَاتٍ كَثِيرَةً مِنْ أَهْلِهَا، أَعْنِي مِنْ أَفَاضِلِهِمْ وَبُلَغَائِهِمْ، فَعَلَى مَا ظَهَرَ لَنَا وَخُيِّلَ إِلَيْنَا لَمْ نَجِدْ لُغَةً كَالعَرَبِيَّةِ؛ وَذَلِكَ لِأَنَّهَا أَوْسَعُ مَنَاهِجَ، وَأَلْطَفُ مَخَارِجَ، وَأَعْلَى مَدَارِجَ، وَحُرُوفُهَا أَتَمُّ، وَأَسْمَاؤُهَا أَعْظَمُ، وَمَعَانِيهَا أَوْغَلُ، وَمَعَارِيضُهَا أَشْمَلُ، وَلَهَا هَذَا النَّحْوُ الَّذِي حِصَّتُهُ مِنْهَا حِصَّةُ المَنْطِقِ مِنَ العَقْلِ.
Source
Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi, al-Muqabasat, ed. Hasan al-Sandubi, Kuwait: Dar Suʿad al-Sabah, 2nd ed., 1992, muqabasa 88, p. 294
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
Reported by al-Tawhidi in al-Muqabasat, no. 88. The caveat precedes it on p. 293. The Baghdad edition by Muhammad Tawfiq Husayn (p. 328) reads “that it is” for “because it is” and “more general” for “greater”.
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