Ibn Sidah


Abū’l-Ḥasan ʻAlī ibn Ismāʻīl, known as Ibn Sīdah, or Ibn Sīdah'l-Mursī,, was a linguist, philologist and lexicographer of Classical Arabic from Andalusia. He compiled the encyclopedia al-Kitāb al-Mukhaṣṣaṣ and the Arabic language dictionary Al-Muḥkam wa-al-muḥīt al-aʻẓam in his book Kitāb aṣ-Ṣilah gives Ismāʻīl as the name of his father, in agreement with name given in the Mukhassas. However Al-Fath ibn Khaqan in mathmah al-anfus has the name Aḥmad. Yaqut al-Hamawi in The Lexicon of Literature, says Ibn Sīdah was his nickname. Remarkably both he and his father were blind. His father was a sculptor although it seems the disciplines he devoted his life to, philology and lexicography, had been in his family.
Mohammed bin Ahmed bin Othman Al-Dhahabi's biographic encyclopedia Siyar A'lam al-Nubala is the main biographic source. He lived in the taifa principality of "Dénia and the Eastern Islands" under the rule of Emir Mujahid al-Amiri al-Muwaffaq and he travelled to Mecca and Medina. He studied in Cordova under the renowned grammarian Abu al-Sa'ad ibn al-Hasan al-Rubai al-Baghdadi exiled in Andalusia, and with Abu Omar al-Talmanki. He died in Dénia.

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