[1] The town, which developed out of a military encampment, with buildings being constructed circa 638 AD,[2] became the intellectual hub for grammarians, linguists, poets, philologists, genealogists, traditionists, zoologists, meteorologists, and above all exegetes of Qur’ānic tafsir and Ḥadīth, from across the Islamic world.
These scholars of the Islamic Golden Age were pioneers of literary style and the sciences of Arabic grammar in the broadest sense.
Many language scholars carried great influence and political power as court companions, tutors, etc., to the caliphs, and many were retained on substantial pensions.
Ishāq al-Nadīm—the 10th century author of Kitab al-Fihrist[3]—provides a trove of biographical accounts of the leading figures of the two schools and would seem to be the earliest source.
Basra, Kufa, and subsequently Baghdad, represent the main schools of innovation and development of Arabic grammar and punctuation, linguistics, philology, Quranic exegesis and recital, Hadith, poetry and literature.