Except for a Few …: The Exception in Qur’ān 11.116

One of the things which set Sībawayhi apart from his predecessors is the importance he attaches to the various sources on which he, and other grammarians, based their grammatical rules. These are: the kalām al-ʿarab (Bedouin speech), pre-Islamic poetry, and the text of the Qurʾān. The article demonstrates the way Sībawayhi’s ideas on the valuation of sources were taken up by his fellow grammarians, a problem which plays a central role in the author’s research on the reception of the Kitāb Sībawayhi among the early Arab grammarians. For this, the example of the various opinions on the exceptive particle illā will be used as it occurs in Qurʾān 11.116.