al-Jurrumiyah wa-Mi'at 'amil: Grammatica Arabica dicta Gjarumia, [et] Libellus centum regentium, cum versione Latina [et] commentariis Thomae Erpenii (The Arabic Grammar of ibn Agurrum, and the Booklet of 100 Particles, with a Latin Translation and Commentary by Thomas Erpenius)

Leiden: Typographia Erpeniana, 1617. Second complete edition. limp vellum. near fine. Two parts, small quarto. A-X4 (lacks S3 = 83 leaves). [8], 132, 135-157, [2, indices and errata], [1, blank] pp. Paginated from right to left. Title within woodcut border; separate title for second part; woodcut lettrines. Text alternating in Arabic and Latin (with commentary). Contemporary limp vellum with exposed thongs. Covers lightly soiled, faint dampstains at outer margin final leaves, else a fine, crisp, amply-margined (but imperfect) copy.

Compendium of two important early works on Arabic grammar, including the second complete edition of the Ajurrumiya, a popular grammatical work by Muhammad ibn Dawud al-Sanhaji, known as ibn Ajurrum (ca. 1273-1323), first published in 1592 at the Typographia Medicea in Rome. The present volume is augmented with the editio princeps of the Mi'at 'amil of ʻAbd al-Qahir ibn ʻAbd al-Rahman Jurjani (-ca. 1079).

This important production of the Erpenius press allowed the editor “to display in full his recently acquired type, complete with vocalisation signs.” The first professor of Arabic in the Dutch Republic, Thomas Erpenius (1584-1624) established his own printing shop with Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Turkish type. He was one of the most important and influential Arabic specialists of the seventeenth century, and was also the first to render intelligible the native Arabic grammarians. In the present work he “welded Arabic terminology onto the Latin language, and thus made available to the Western World an important source for understanding the philological conceptions underlying Arabic literature" (Smitskamp). Making here its first appearance in print, the ‘Mi’at ‘amil of Jurjani deals with 100 Arabic modifiers and particles, providing examples of their various uses.

Provenance: manuscript entry of A. G. Ellis, dated “1.07” at title; bookplate of P. A. Kasteel at pastedown. References: Schnurrer, Bibl. arabica, 53. Smitskamp (Phil. Orient.) 78, and with illus. p. 65. Vrolijk & van Leeuwen, Arabic Studies in the Netherlands, p. 32.