The tradition of premodern Arabic lexicography extended for about a millennium and embraced a wide variety of genres and numerous methods of arrangement. The Kitāb al-ʿayn of al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad (d. 175/791), which represents both the first extant thematic monograph and the first…
Jamāl al-Dīn Abū l-Faḍl Muḥammad b. Mukarram b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad Ibn Manẓūr al-Anṣārī al-Ruwayfiʿī al-Ifrīqī al-Miṣrī is most famous for having compiled the Lisān al-ʿArab (“The tongue of the Arabs”), a lexicon that comprises five earlier works and is considered one of the most aut…
Abū Naṣr Ismāʿīl b. Ḥammād al-Jawharī is the author of one of the most renowned Arabic lexica, al-Ṣiḥāḥ . His date of birth is unknown, and the sources differ as to the year of his death: the earliest date given is 393/1003 and the latest is about 400/1010. Al-Jawharī was born i…
Abū Bishr al-Yamān b. Abī l-Yamān al-Bandanījī (200–284/815–97) is best known for having authored al-Taqfiya fī l-lugha (“Rhyming words”), the first extant Arabic lexicon in which lexical items are arranged according to their last letters. He was of Persian origin and was born b…