Talk:Abu al-Aswad ad-Du'ali

Disputed

According to The Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1999), Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali was a poet whose poems were "poor in language and style and artistically and historically insignificant". The allegation that he invented the rules of Arabic grammar was "invented most probably by some philologist of the Basra school". He was known to be a partisan of Ali, but that seems to be his only claim to notability. Teleomatic (talk) 03:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

In the Arab world he is usually remembered as the first to have added vowel dots (see Harakat) to the Arabic script on behest of Al-Hajjaj.

Editing and expanding the article

The above sounds like a sectarian squabble—and I have no interest in taking sides. A banner on the article requested help in editing and expanding the article. I'm doing that, using published encyclopedic articles which, together, will present document both sides of the issue—and focus on the material about al-Du'ali and his writings. This process will take many edits. I did the first one today. Help from others is welcome and invited. Desertroad (talk) 14:02, 13 November 2013 (UTC)