Kees Versteegh as "fanatical." He died in Seville the Islamic calendar month of Jumada al-awwal during the Hijri year of 592, corresponding to 1196 in the Gregorian calendar, just as he was approaching eighty years of age. Views Ibn Mada rose to fame as one of the first to launch attack on Arabic grammar theory and called for its reformation. Although he was concerned with attacking all major schools of Arabic grammar, he was focused on the grammar of the linguists of Basra, as it was the most popular school around him. His attack on eastern Arabic grammar was violent yet reasoned and eloquent, defending his view that grammar as it was understood in that region was complicated, casuistic, obscure and artificial; Ibn Mada instead called for building simple and clear grammar based on true facts of the language. Among his ideas which were considered revolutionary both during his life and with renewed interest in his work during the 1950s was the abolition of governance and linguistic analogy. Ibn Mada felt that scholarly work on the Arabic language was intentionally convoluted and inaccessible to both non-native speakers and laymen Arabs, and that an overall simplification of language and grammar would enhance overall comprehension of Arabic. Ibn Mada held great respect for the language as the native speakers understood it, and while he emphasized a simplification of grammar he did not advocate a complete overhaul of the entire language. His Zahirite views in Muslim jurisprudence influenced his views in linguistics. He explicitly denied the ability of human beings to willfully choose what they say and how they say it, since speech – like all other things – is predetermined by God. Because Arabic grammarians during Ibn Mada's time often linked the spoken language to grammatical causes, they earned both his linguistic and theological ire. In his view, the Zahirite denial of legal causality in regard to Islamic law carried over into a denial of linguistic causality in regard to Arabic grammar. Ibn Mada's reaction toward Arabic grammar and grammarians wasn't without provocation. Both earlier Zahirite jurists such as Ibn Hazm and al-Ballūṭī and some Shafi'ites sparred with Hanafite jurists who sought to justify practices such as Istihsan, on the basis of grammatical and linguistic arguments. Thus suspicion and antagonism toward grammarians in the east, where the Hanafite rite predominated, had already been started before Ibn Mada began his whole-scale vehemence. Legacy