Ibn Manzur
Encyclopedia
Ibn Manzur (June–July 1233 - December 1311/January 1312) was an Arabic lexicographer and author of a large dictionary called Lisan al-Arab. His full name was: Muhammad ibn Mukarram ibn Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Manzur al-Ansari al-Ifriqi al-Misri al-Khazradschi Jamaladin Abu al-Fadl (Arabic محمد بن مكرم بن علي بن أحمد بن منظور الأنصاري الإفريقي المصري الخزرجي جمال الدين أبو الفضل)
in 668. Ibn Hajar
reports that he was Qadi
there and spent his life as clerk in the Diwan
al-Insha', an office that was responsible among other things for correspondence, archiving and copying. Fück assumes to be able to identify him with Muḥammad b. Mukarram, who was one of the secretaries of this institution (the so called Kuttāb al-Inshāʾ) under Qalawun
. Following Brockelmann, Ibn Manzur studied philology
. He dedicated most of his life to excerpts from works of historical philology. He is said to have left 500 volumes of this work. He died around the turn of the years 1311/1312 in Cairo
.
, the Nihāya of al-Dhahabi
and Jauhari's Ṣiḥāḥ as well as the glosses of the latter (Kitāb at-Tanbīh wa-l-Īḍāḥ) by Ibn Barrī. It follows the Ṣiḥāḥ in the arrangement of the roots: The headwords are not arranged by the alphabetical order of the radicals as usually done today in the study of Semitic languages
, but according to the last radical - which makes finding rhyming endings significantly easier. Furthermore, the Lisan al-Arab notes its direct sources, but not or seldom their sources, making it hard to trace the linguistic history of certain words. Ibn Murtada corrected this in his Taj al-Arus, that itself goes back to the Lisan. The Lisan, according to Ignatius d'Ohsson, was already printed in the 18th century in Istanbul
, thus fairly early for the Islamic world.
Biography
Ibn Manzur was born in 1233. He was a moderate Shi'i and traced his descendance back to Ruwayfiʿ b. Ṯābit al-Anṣārī, who became the Arabic governor of TripoliTripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...
in 668. Ibn Hajar
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani
Al-Haafidh Shihabuddin Abu'l-Fadl Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Muhammad, better known as Ibn Hajar due to the fame of his forefathers, al-Asqalani due to his family origin , was a medieval Shafiite Sunni scholar of Islam who represents the entire realm of the Sunni world in the field of Hadith...
reports that he was Qadi
Qadi
Qadi is a judge ruling in accordance with Islamic religious law appointed by the ruler of a Muslim country. Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular domains, qadis traditionally have jurisdiction over all legal matters involving Muslims...
there and spent his life as clerk in the Diwan
Divan
A divan was a high governmental body in a number of Islamic states, or its chief official .-Etymology:...
al-Insha', an office that was responsible among other things for correspondence, archiving and copying. Fück assumes to be able to identify him with Muḥammad b. Mukarram, who was one of the secretaries of this institution (the so called Kuttāb al-Inshāʾ) under Qalawun
Qalawun
Saif ad-Dīn Qalawun aṣ-Ṣāliḥī was the seventh Mamluk sultan of Egypt...
. Following Brockelmann, Ibn Manzur studied philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
. He dedicated most of his life to excerpts from works of historical philology. He is said to have left 500 volumes of this work. He died around the turn of the years 1311/1312 in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
.
Lisan al-Arab
The Lisan al-Arab (لسان العرب, "The Arab Tongue") was completed by Ibn Manzur in 1290. Occupying 20 printed book volumes (in the most frequently cited edition) it is among the best-known and most comprehensive dictionaries of the Arabic language. Ibn Manzur compiled it from other sources, to a large degree. The most important sources for it were the Tahdhīb al-Lugha of Azharī, the Muḥkam of Ibn SidahIbn Sidah
Ibn Sidah was a blind Andalusian scholar of Classical Arabic, author of the Muhkam, a dictionary of 28 volumes. He was born in Murcia....
, the Nihāya of al-Dhahabi
Al-Dhahabi
Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn `Uthman ibn Qaymaz ibn `Abd Allah, Shams al-Din Abu `Abd Allah al-Turkmani al-Diyarbakri al-Fariqi al-Dimashqi al-Dhahabi al-Shafi`i , known as Al-Dhahabi , a Shafi'i Muhaddith and historian of Islam.-Biography:...
and Jauhari's Ṣiḥāḥ as well as the glosses of the latter (Kitāb at-Tanbīh wa-l-Īḍāḥ) by Ibn Barrī. It follows the Ṣiḥāḥ in the arrangement of the roots: The headwords are not arranged by the alphabetical order of the radicals as usually done today in the study of Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
, but according to the last radical - which makes finding rhyming endings significantly easier. Furthermore, the Lisan al-Arab notes its direct sources, but not or seldom their sources, making it hard to trace the linguistic history of certain words. Ibn Murtada corrected this in his Taj al-Arus, that itself goes back to the Lisan. The Lisan, according to Ignatius d'Ohsson, was already printed in the 18th century in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, thus fairly early for the Islamic world.
Published editions of the Lisan al-Arab
- Fully searchable online edition at Baheth.info
- al-Maṭbaʿa al-Kubra al-Amirīya, Bulaq 1883 - 1890 (20 volumes) (downloadable at Archive.org; text not searchable).
- Dar Sadir, BeirutBeirutBeirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
1955 - 1956 (15 volumes).
Other works
- Aḫbār Abī Nuwās, a bio-bibliography of the arabic-persian poet Abu NuwasAbu NuwasAbu-Nuwas al-Hasan ben Hani Al-Hakami ,a known as Abū-Nuwās , was one of the greatest of classical Arabic poets, who also composed in Persian on occasion. Born in the city of Ahvaz in Persia, of an Arab father and a Persian mother, he became a master of all the contemporary genres of Arabic poetry...
; printed (with commentary by Muhammad Abd ar-Rasul) 1924 in Cairo as well as published by Shukri M. Ahmad 1952 in BaghdadBaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
. - Muḫtaṣar taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq l-Ibn ʿAsākir, summary of the history of DamascusDamascusDamascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
by Ibn 'Asakir. - Muḫtaṣar taʾrīḫ madīnat Baġdād li-s-Samʿānī, summary of the history of Baghdad by al-Samʿānī (d. January 1167).
- Muḫtaṣar Ǧāmiʿ al-Mufradāt, summary of the treatise about remedies and edibles by al-BaiṭārAl-BaitarIbn al-Bayṭār al-Mālaqī, Ḍiyāʾ Al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdllāh Ibn Aḥmad was an Andalusian scientist, botanist, pharmacist and physician who worked during the Islamic Golden Age and Arab Agricultural Revolution...
. - Muḫtār al-aġānī fi-l-aḫbār wa-t-tahānī, a selection of songs; printed 1927 in Cairo.
- Niṯār al-azhār fī l-layl wa-l-nahār, a short treatise on astronomyIslamic astronomyIslamic astronomy or Arabic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age , and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and...
about day and night as well as the stars and zodiacZodiacIn astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude which are centred upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year...
s; printed 1880 in Istanbul. - Taḏkirāt al-Labīb wa-nuzhat al-adīb (if following Fück identical with Muḥammad b. Mukarram), served al-QalqaschandiAhmad al-QalqashandiShihab al-Din abu 'l-Abbas Ahmad ben Ali ben Ahmad Abd Allah al-Qalqashandi was a medieval Egyptian writer and mathematician born in a village in the Nile Delta. He is the author of Subh al-a 'sha, a fourteen volume encyclopedia in Arabic, which included a section on cryptology...
as a source.
Sources
- Carl BrockelmannCarl BrockelmannCarl Brockelmann , German Semiticist, was the foremost orientalist of his generation. He was a professor at the universities in Breslau, Berlin and, from 1903, Königsberg...
: Geschichte der arabischen Literatur. Volume II, Brill, Leiden ²1943, p. 21f as well as Supplement Volume II, Brill, Leiden 1938, p. 14f. - Johann W. Fück: Art. Ibn Manẓūr, in: ²Encyclopaedia of IslamEncyclopaedia of IslamThe Encyclopaedia of Islam is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies. It embraces articles on distinguished Muslims of every age and land, on tribes and dynasties, on the crafts and sciences, on political and religious institutions, on the geography, ethnography, flora and...
III (1971), p. 864. - Jörg Krämer: Studien zur altarabischen Lexikographie: Nach Istanbuler und Berliner Handschriften, in: Oriens 6 (1953), p. 230f.
- Fuat SezginFuat SezginFuat Sezgin is an orientalist who specializes in the history of Arabic-Islamic science. He is professor emeritus of the History of Natural Science at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany and the founder and honorary director of the Institute of the History of the Arab Islamic...
: Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums. Volumes I - IX, Brill, Leiden 1964 - 1987.