Overview
Primary Use: Study guide and reference Format: 7 Chapters of tables, all in Arabic Pages: 271 Exercises: No Meant For: Advanced English students and native Arabic speakers
Details
This book is the second in a series of two books (see Audlohul Manaahij Volume I).
It should be noted that some places (such as amazon.com) inexplicably list the author's name as being Agus Khoironi even though the transliterated name on the cover of the book is A. Shohib Khaironi.
أوضح المناهج
or 'The Clearest of Methods' contains page after page of charts of examples of Arabic grammatical structures, all written entirely in Arabic. Like the first book in the set, there is a brief set of reading instructions written in English at the beginning of the book. Also like the first book, these instructions are only marginally helpful and seem to indicate that the primary audience was not intended to be the English speaking student of Arabic grammar.Unlike the title 'Practice Manual' seems to suggest, this book contains no exercises. Rather, it seems to elucidate the various grammatical flow charts presented in the first volume by presenting copious tables of grammatical examples.
This book contains a Reading List of forty-two books in the back that is not found in the first volume. At the top of the list is the Qur'an, and books such as the Tafsir of al-Tabari and the grammatical booklet الاجرومية are also included.
The book is divided into the following chapters:
الباب الأول: الأمثلة الاعرابية التى تتعلق بالأسماء المرفوعات
(Chapter One: ُExamples of Nouns in the Nominative)
الباب الثانى: الأمثلة الاعرابية التى تتعلق بالأسماء المنصوبات
(Chapter Two: Examples of Nouns in the Accusative)
الباب الثالث: الأمثلة الاعرابية التى تتعلق بالأسماء المجرورات
(Chapter Three: Examples of the Nous in the Genitive)
الباب الرابع: الأمثلة الاعرابية التى تتعلق بالتوابع
(Chapter Four: Examples of Nouns Relating to the Appositive)
الباب الخامس: الأمثلة الاعرابية التى تتعلق بالأسماء التى تعمل عمل فعلها
(Chapter Five: Examples of the Nouns that Work as Verbs)
الباب السادس: الأمثلة الاعرابية التى تتعلق بالأساليب
(Chapter Six: Examples of the Styles)
الباب السابع: الألفاظ الغربية و اعرابها
(Chapter Seven: Non-Arabic Words and their Case Endings)
How to Use It
In order to use this book to the fullest extent, one must already know the following:
- the Arabic script
- the Arabic numeral system
- Arabic grammatical terms
- a strong Arabic vocabulary
As mentioned in Volume I, this is not an easy book for the layperson to use, and the average English speaking student of Arabic might find the title 'The Clearest of Methods' somewhat ironic. The very intense reading list at the back of the book only adds to the mirth. (The Tafsir of al-Tabari for instance contains thirty volumes.)
The book reads as Arabic books do, from right to left. Each page has at the top a box in the upper right, which is the all-encompassing theme of the chapter. The boxes to the left of it correspond to the table.
Like the Arabic script itself, the tables are read from right to left. The boxes located to the right of the page indicate the topic or topics of the table. For instance, the grammatical topic might be المبتدأ الاسم الصريح or 'a subject that is a clear proper name.' This is followed to the left by an example of this grammatical topic, such as زيد عالم or 'Zaid is knowledgeable.' The table then breaks the sentence down into the individual words, and then explains the grammatical significance of each word.
Should one get confused, as in the first volume there is a one-page explanation in the beginning in English of how to read the book. The reader should be warned that the explanation is quite vague.
At the end of the book is an index, separated by chapters, with grammatical topics listed page by page. Some pages contain more than one grammatical topic, and each one on a page is listed. In order to utilize this index to the fullest extent however, one must be familiar with the Arabic grammatical terms the author employed to write the book.
Citation
Khaironi, A. Shohib. Audlohul Manaahij: A Complete Guide to Arabic Grammar. Volume II: Practice Manual. Jakarta: WCM Press, 2007.
