We are delighted to present you another gem of Persia (you won’t  find a SINGLE equivalent to these great Sunni personalities who enriched the Islamic Ummah for around 900 years of Sunni-Persian history. The decline began with the Safavids and the emergence of Rafidite Shiism  that is ruling Iran up to this day i.e. for less than 500 years and it did not produce anything but heresy and ignorants of the basics of Islam, starting from the language to everything else), a servant of the Ahl Al-Sunnah and the Arabic language (quite amazing how the biggest linguists of the Arabic language were mostly Persians, like the Master of the Masters of the Arabic language, Sibawayh>>>):

  عبد الله بن جعفر بن دَرَسْتَوَيْه الفارسي

 (258-347 هـ)

Abdallah bin Jafar bin Darastawayh (more correctly: دُرُسْتويه‌ Dorostavei) bin Al-Marzban Al-Farsi the Grammarian (proper classical persian name) – 258-347H

Ibn Darastawayh, Abu Mohammad, the Imam, the Allamah, the Shaykh of ‘Nahu’ (Arabic grammar) i.e. the Nahawi, he Lughawi (master of all sciences of the Arabic language), the Adeeb, born 285 after Hijri (i.e. in the pre-Safavid, Sunni Persia) in Fasa (فَسا), Persia (back than a city as big as Shiraz today) and was hence known as the Persian (Al-Farsi) and the Fasawi (from Faas). His name (Darastawayh/Dorostavei) is made of two words,

‘dorost’ (which means correct in Persian) and ‘awayh’/’aveyh’ (there are difference of opinions regarded the real meaning of this old-persian word, most say it means ‘scent’, and Allah knows best). His father himself was from the major Muhadditheen of his time and Ibn Darastawayh used to travel with his father for the sake of knowledge when he was around twelve years old.

Among those who narrated from him: Imam Al-Daaraqotni, Ibn Shaheen, Ibn Mandah, Ibn Ruzqawiyyah etc. Ibn Darastawayh compiled a number of books, among them:

– ‘Al-Irshad’ (about Arabic grammar)

– ‘Al-Hijaa”

– ‘Sharh Al-Faseeh’

– ‘Ghareeb Al-Hadeeth’

– ‘Adab Al-Kateb’

-‘Al-Mathkoor wa Al-Mu’annath’

– ‘Al-Maqsood wa Al-Mamdood’

– ‘Al-Ma’aani fi Al-Qira’aat’

He was one of the top grammarians of the Arabic language in Basra (back then one of the main centres of Nahu/grammar) where many top grammarians graduated from.

قال الخطيب : في هذا نظر ؛ فإن جعفر بن درستويه من كبار المحدثين

Al-Khateeb (Al-Baghdadi) said in regards to him: ‘[…] Jafar Ibn Darastaway was from amongst the major Muhadditheen’.

As Ibn Khaldun suggests, it is a remarkable fact that with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars in the intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs (mainly Persians):

“Thus the founders of (Arabic) grammar were Sibawaih [Al-Shirazi] and after him, Al-Farsi and Az-Zajjaj. All of them were of Persian descent…they invented rules of (Arabic) grammar… great jurists were Persians*… only the Persians [‘Ajams] engaged in the task of preserving knowledge and writing systematic scholarly works. Thus …

the truth of the statement of the prophet becomes apparent, ‘If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it“… [Sahih Muslim] […]/

Source: Muqaddimah, Translated by Franz Rosenthal (III, pp. 311-15, 271-4 [Arabic]; R.N. Frye (p.91). 

There is loads about him in Arabic, here a Persian article:

ابومحمد عبدالله‌ بن‌ جعفر بن‌ درستويه‌ بن‌ مرزبان‌ فارسى‌ فَسَوي‌