Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi
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Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi
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| Muslim lexicographer Al-Farāhīdi |
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|---|---|
| Title | ʻAbqarī al-lughah |
| Born | 110 AH/718 CE [1] Oman |
| Died | 786 CE [1] Basra, Iraq |
| Main interests | Lexicography, Philology |
| Notable ideas | Harakat, Arabic prosody |
| Works | Kitab al-'Ayn |
| Influences | Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala' [1] |
| Influenced | Sibawayh,[1] Al-Asma'i, Raghib Isfahani |
Abu ‘Abd ar-Rahmān al-Khalīl ibn Ahmad al-Farāhīdī (Arabic: أبو عبد الرحمن الخليل بن أحمد الفراهيدي; 718 – 786 CE), more commonly known as Al-Farahidi, was one of the earliest Arab lexicographers and philologists. His best known contributions are Kitab al-'Ayn (Arabic: كتاب العين) regarded as the first dictionary of the Arabic language, the current standard for Harakat (vowel marks in Arabic script), and the invention al-'arud (the study of Arabic prosody). He was from southern Arabia (modern day Oman) and later moved to Basra, Iraq.
Sibawayh[1] and Al-Asma'i were among his students.
Kitab al-'Ayn
Kitab al-Ayn (Ayn is the deepest letter in Arabic, al-Ayn also means a water source in the desert), while started by Khalil ibn Ahmad was probably completed by one of his students, Al-Layth ibn Al-Muzaffar. It was titled "The source" because the goal of its author was to clarify those words which were composed the original or source Arabic vocabulary. The dictionary was not arranged alphabetically but rather by phonetics, following the pattern of pronunciation of the Arabic alphabet from the deepest letter of the throat ﻉ (ayn) to the last letter pronounced by the lips, that being م (mìm).
The book was printed by Maktabah Al Hilal, having been reviewed by Dr. Mahdi al Makhzūmi and Dr. Ibrāhim Al Samirā'ì in eight volumes; there is however some reservations whether or not the book in its modern form is the original as authored by Al Khalil or is a work based on his original work.
Furthermore, Khalil ibn Ahmad collected all the 15 scales of poetry, and compared them with the Qur'an. He didn't find a single similarity.
Book of Cryptographic Messages
Al-Khalil wrote a book on cryptography titled the "Book of Cryptographic Messages". The lost work contains many "firsts," including the use of permutations and combinations to list all possible Arabic words with and without vowels.[2]
References
- ^ a b c d e Sībawayh, ʻAmr ibn ʻUthmān (1988), Hārūn, ʻAbd al-Salām Muḥammad, ed., Al-Kitāb Kitāb Sībawayh Abī Bishr ʻAmr ibn ʻUthmān ibn Qanbar, Introduction (3rd ed.), Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, pp. 11–12
- ^ Broemeling, Lyle D. (1 November 2011). "An Account of Early Statistical Inference in Arab Cryptology". The American Statistician 65 (4): 255–257. doi:10.1198/tas.2011.10191.
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