A Critical Review of the Book Al-Fuṣūṣ fi 'Ilm al-Naḥw wa Taṭbīq Qawā'idihi 'ala al-Nuṣūṣ

The book Al-Fuṣūṣ fi 'Ilm al-Naḥw wa Taṭbīq Qawā'idihi 'ala al-Nuṣūṣ is a grammar textbook currently being written in two parts for the seminaries dedicated to female students. The first part has already been published and is set to be taught at Level 2 as the introductory grammar textbook for beginners in the academic year 2024-2025. The book aims to achieve three main objectives: familiarizing students with the language of the classical Shia heritage and its comprehension, reducing the rigidity of Arabic grammar rules, and enhancing the understanding of these rules through practical examples. However, the book’s structure and content have hindered the achievement of these goals. One of the structural issues of this book is that each lesson begins with an extended narrative text containing difficult vocabulary and unfamiliar grammatical rules for Persian-speaking beginners. These novice learners, who have not yet mastered reading and comprehending texts, are required to read, translate, and grasp the content of these stories before learning the corresponding grammatical rules. Additionally, they must complete exercises related to the text's content. This approach prioritizes reading, understanding, and mastering the content of the narrative text over teaching the grammar rules, which should logically precede text comprehension. From a content perspective, the book omits several introductory topics and essential, widely-used grammatical rules. For instance, it does not cover the basic concepts of nouns, verbs, and particles. Among the rules, it only discusses I'rāb (inflection) but neglects Binā (fixed forms) and concepts like definiteness and indefiniteness (ma'rifah and nakirah). Furthermore, the book fails to address the masdar mu'awwal (verbal noun) due to the absence of coverage on relative pronouns (mawsul). Additionally, it lacks discussions on grammatical exceptions such as majzūmāt (verbs that take the jussive case), conditional tools, conditional sentences, and their responses.