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Firuzabadi (Persian: فیروزآبادی) also spelled as al-Fayrūzabādī (Arabic: الفيروزآبادي (1329–1414) was a lexicographer and was the compiler of al-Qamous (القاموس), a comprehensive and, for nearly five centuries, one of the most widely used Arabic dictionaries.[1]

Name

He was Abū al-Ṭāhir Majīd al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ya'qūb ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Shīrāzī al-Fīrūzābādī (أبو طاهر مجيد الدين محمد بن يعقوب بن محمد بن إبراهيم الشيرازي الفيروزآبادي), known simply as Muḥammad ibn Ya'qūb al-Fīrūzābādī (محمد بن يعقوب الفيروزآبادي).[2] His nisbas "al-Shīrāzī" and "al-Fīrūzābādī" refer to the cities of Shiraz (located near Kazerun, his place of birth) and Firuzabad (his father's hometown) in Fars, Persia, respectively.[3]

Life

Firuzabadi, of Persian[4][5][6] origin, was born in Kazerun, Fars, Persia, and educated in Shiraz, Wasit, Baghdad and Damascus. He spent ten years in Jerusalem[7] before travelling in Western Asia and Egypt,[1] and settling in 1368, in Mecca for almost three decades. From Mecca he visited Delhi in the 1380s. He left Mecca in the mid-1390s and returned to Baghdad, then Shiraz (where he was received by Timur) and finally travelled on to Ta'izz[1] in Yemen. In 1395, he was appointed chief qadi (judge) of Yemen[1] by Al-Ashraf Umar II, who had summoned him from India a few years before to teach in his capital. Al-Ashraf's marriage to a daughter of Firūzābādī added to Firuzabadi's prestige and power in the royal court.[8] In his latter years, Firūzābādī converted his house at Mecca, and appointed three teachers, to a school of Maliki law.[1]

Sufism and relations with Ibn Arabi

Firuzabadi composed several poems lauding Ibn Arabi for his writings, including the وما علي إن قلت معتقدي دع الجهول يظن العدل عدوانا. Ibn Arabi's works inspired Firūzābādī's intense interest in Sufism.

Selected works

• Al-Qāmus al-Muḥīṭ (القاموس المحيط) ("The Surrounding Ocean"); his principal literary legacy is this voluminous dictionary, which amalgamates and supplements two great dictionaries; Al-Muhkam by Ibn Sida (d. 1066) and Al-ʿUbab (العباب الزاخر واللباب الفاخر) by al-Saghānī (d. 1252).[2][9] Al-Saghānī's dictionary had itself supplemented the seminal medieval Arabic dictionary of Al-Jawharī (d. ca. 1008), titled al-Sihah. Firūzābādī also produced a concise simplified edition using a terse notation system and omitting grammatical examples of usage and some rarer definitions.[9] The larger-print-two-volume concise dictionary proved much more popular than the vast Lisan al-Arab dictionary of Ibn Manzur (d. 1312) with its numerous quotations and usage examples.
• Al-Bulghah fī tārīkh a'immat al-lughah (البلغة في تراجم أئمة النحو واللغة) (Damascus 1972, in Arabic).[10]

References

Further reading

• Vivian Strotmann, Majd al-Dīn al-Fīrūzābādī (1329–1415): A Polymath on the Eve of the Early Modern Period, Islamic History and Civilization, Volume 121 (Brill, 2015).
• Arabic Lexicography: Its History, and Its Place in the General History of Lexicography, by John Haywood, year 1965
• Baheth.info has a searchable copy of Firuzabadi's al-Qāmūs al-Muḥīṭ dictionary

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