Ibn al-Nahwi

Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Ansari, known as Ibn al-Nahwi, an Andalusian poet among the jurists of letters. ¹

Ibn Khaldun cites him as an example of how a linguistic faculty is revealed by the material a person has memorised. He recited to Abu al-Abbas ibn Shu'ayb the opening of a poem, and Ibn Shu'ayb said on the spot that it was the verse of a jurist, because the phrase "ma al-farq" (what is the difference) is a term of the jurists rather than a usage of the Arabs. ¹