[1][10] Later, he left the Iberian Peninsula for Ceuta in North Africa in order to study historiography and prophetic tradition with Muslim academic Qadi Ayyad.
The brilliant polymath Ibn Mada' was a proponent of the Ash'ari doctrine that opposed philosophy in general and Aristotle in particular, contending that reason should only be used to counter classical influences that were infiltrating into Islamic intellectual life.
[2] Because Arabic grammarians during Ibn Mada's time often linked the spoken language to grammatical causes, they earned both his linguistic and theological ire.
[citation needed] Ibn Mada's mastery of the Arabic language and its subfields was so great that, at the time, he was said to have been isolated from the general body of scholarship in terms of sheer knowledge.
[9] His refutation was written toward the end of his life and demonstrated his clarity of thought and independent judgment, causing his student Ibn Dihya al-Kalby to brand him as the leader of all grammarians.
[10] His critical views of Arabic grammar as it was taught in the eastern Muslim world found an audience with other linguistic and religious scholars of the western half, Abu Hayyan Al Gharnati being one example.
[8] Gharnati also criticized so-called "eastern grammarians" and, after his treatise on the non-existence of grammatic causality, cited Ibn Mada as his inspiration.
[citation needed] Thus, while Ibn Mada opened the discussion regarding the competence of grammarians, suspicion surrounding them and the religious implications of their work continued even after his death.