At a glance
- Roles
- Scholar
- Counted among
- Sunni
- Era
- Abbasid Fragmentation
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
- Review
- Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it
Life in time
Place in the story
- ScholarTradition
Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.
Overview
Ali ibn Sulayman ibn al-Fadl al-Baghdadi, a grammarian of Baghdad. He is known as al-Akhfash al-Asghar to distinguish him from other grammarians who bore this title. 1
His life
The encyclopaedia says he was born in 235 AH (849 CE) and died in 315 AH (927 CE). 1
Both dates rest on tradition and need an additional source.
Related
He is compared with al-Akhfash al-Akbar and al-Akhfash al-Awsat.
Encyclopaedia of Islam account
The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) names Abu 'Ali b. Sulayman b. al-Mufaddal as the third of the three most famous Akhfashes. He was a pupil of al-Mubarrad and Tha'lab. He gained distinction by introducing the grammatical studies of Baghdad into Egypt, where Ahmad al-Nahhas was his pupil. A grammatical work he wrote was studied and annotated in Spain. He died in 315/927. 2
People and things also explored
God teaches Adam the names· Amharic· Arabic· Bengali· Bosnian· Hausa· Indonesian· Kurdish
Sources
- Mawsu'at A'lam al-Ulama' wa-l-Adaba' al-Arab wa-l-Muslimin — Dar al-Jil / ALECSO
- Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 1 p. 343
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Al-Akhfash al-Asghar, Ali ibn Sulayman”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/al-akhfash-al-asghar-ali/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-25.