Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi

al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī
·1965-1970 Sculpture of al-Frahidi in Basra
TitleGenius of the Arabic language (Abqarī al-lughah)
Personal
Born718 CE[1]
Iraq
Died786 or 791 CE[1]
Basra
ReligionIslam
EraIslamic Golden Age
Main interest(s)Lexicography, philology
Notable idea(s)Harakat, Arabic prosody
Notable work(s)Kitab al-'Ayn
OccupationLexicographer
Muslim leader
Influenced by
Influenced

Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī (Arabic: أبو عبد الرحمن الخليل بن أحمد بن عمرو بن تمام الفراهيدي الأزدي اليحمدي; 718 – 786 CE), known as al-Farāhīdī,[n 1] or al-Khalīl, was an Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra in Iraq. He made the first dictionary of the Arabic language – and the oldest extant dictionary – Kitab al-'Ayn (Arabic: كتاب العين "The Source")[2][3] – introduced the now standard harakat (vowel marks in Arabic script) system, and was instrumental in the early development of ʿArūḍ (study of prosody),[4][5][6] musicology and poetic metre.[7][8] His linguistic theories influenced the development of Persian, Turkish, Kurdish and Urdu prosody.[9] The "Shining Star" of the Basran school of Arabic grammar, a polymath and scholar, he was a man of genuinely original thought.[10][11]

Al-Farahidi was the first scholar to subject the prosody of Classical Arabic poetry to a detailed phonological analysis. The primary data he listed and categorized in meticulous detail was extremely complex to master and utilize, and later theorists have developed simpler formulations with greater coherence and general utility. He was also a pioneer in the field of cryptography, and influenced the work of al-Kindi.

  1. ^ a b c d Sībawayh, ʻAmr ibn ʻUthmān (1988), Hārūn, ʻAbd al-Salām Muḥammad (ed.), al-Kitāb Kitāb Sībawayh Abī Bishr ʻAmr ibn ʻUthmān ibn Qanbar, vol. Introduction (3rd ed.), Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, pp. 11–12
  2. ^ al-Farahidi, Al-khalil. Al-Ayn Lexicon كتاب العين (in Arabic). Riyadh: مركز التراث للبرمجيات. p. 343/5. date of author 750 AD, searchable online
  3. ^ Introduction to Early Medieval Arabic: Studies on Al-Khalīl Ibn Ahmad, pg. 3. Ed. Karin C. Ryding. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1998. ISBN 9780878406630
  4. ^ al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad Archived 8 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine at the Encyclopædia Britannica Online. ©2013, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
  5. ^ Abit Yaşar Koçak, Handbook of Arabic Dictionaries, pg. 19. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 2002. ISBN 9783899300215
  6. ^ Hamid Dabashi, The World of Persian Literary Humanism, pg. 64. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012. ISBN 9780674067592
  7. ^ Kees Versteegh, Arabic Linguistic Tradition, pg. 23.
  8. ^ Muhammad Hasan Bakalla, "Ancient Arab and Muslim Phoneticians: An Appraisal of Their Contrubition to Phonetics." Taken from Current Issues in the Phonetic Sciences: Proceedings of the IPS-77 Congress, Miami Beach, Florida, 17–19 December 1977, Part 1, pg. 4. Eds. Harry Francis Hollien and Patricia Hollien. Volume 9 of Current Issues in Linguistic Theory Series. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 1979. ISBN 9789027209108
  9. ^ John A. Haywood, Arabic Lexicography: Its History, and Its Place in the General History of, pg. 21. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1960. OCLC 5693192
  10. ^ John A. Haywood, Arabic, pg. 20.
  11. ^ Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, vol. 2, pg. 435. Trns. Franz Rosenthal. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. ISBN 9780691017549


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