Abu Mansur al-Azhari
Arabic lexicographer and grammarian, author of Tahdhib al-Lughat.
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Abu Mansur al-Azhari was a lexicographer, philologist, and grammarian of Arabic active in the 10th century. He is best known for his work Tahdhib al-Lughat, a concise guide of languages. A prominent philologist of his time, he was noted for his talents and transmission of philological knowledge.
Biography
Al-Azhari was born in Herat in Khorasan, then under Samanid control. His name al-Azhari derives from an ancestor named Azhar, about whom nothing is known. In his youth he traveled to Baghdad, then under Abbasid rule, where he studied and met the grammarian Ibn al-Sari al-Zajjaj. According to Ibn Khallikan, he also met the grammarian Ibn Duraid.
As a lexicographer, he was among the first to recognize the probable Syriac origin of words such as zakāt and ṣalāt. After leaving Baghdad for Mecca, he was captured in 924 AD by Qarmatians led by Abu Tahir al-Jannabi while returning with a pilgrim caravan. He spent two years in captivity among the Bedouin Qarmatians, during which he recorded their way of life and learned their idioms and expressions, later incorporating them into his Tahdhib al-Lughat. He died in Herat in 980 AD.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Abu Mansur al-Azhari (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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