Abu Mansur al-Azhari

Abu Mansur Muhammad b. Ahmad b. al-Azhar, Arab lexicographer, was born at Herat in 282 AH (895) and died there in 370 AH (980). He was a pupil of the lexicographer Muhammad b. Diya' al-Mundhiri (d. 329 AH), himself a disciple of Tha'lab and al-Mubarrad, and came to Iraq while still fairly young. At Baghdad he studied grammar under Niftawayh. In 312 AH (924), returning from Mecca to Kufa with the pilgrim caravan, he was attacked by the Qarmatians at al-Habir, and was partly massacred and partly taken prisoner. He spent two years as a prisoner of Bedouins of Bahrain who had been converted to Qarmatianism, and used the time to study their pure language. ¹

His work is known from a list of fourteen titles given by Yaqut and Ibn Khallikan; with the exception of his commentaries on the Mu'allaqat and the Diwan of Abu Tammam, they are lexicographical studies. His chief work is the Tahdhib al-lugha, ten volumes in Ibn Khallikan's time, a compilation made from the materials he received from al-Mundhiri. It continues the tradition begun by Khalil in the Kitab al-'Ayn: the roots are not arranged alphabetically but according to a phonetic classification beginning with the labials. Ibn Manzur used it copiously in his Lisan al-'Arab. The work has not been edited. ¹