IBN DURAYD

in full Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Al-hasan Al-azdi Ibn Durayd born 837/838, Basra, Iraq died Aug. 13, 933, Baghdad Arab philologist who wrote a large Arabic dictionary, Jamharat al-lughah (Collection of Language). Ibn Durayd traced his descent to an Arab tribe of Oman, and in 871, to avoid the Zanj (black African) slave rebellion, during which Basra was sacked, he moved to Oman. He stayed there more than a decade. After returning to Basra and later living in Fars (southwestern Iran), Ibn Durayd settled in Baghdad in 920. He was given a pension there by the 'Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir. The anthologist Abu al-Faraj al-Isbahani was his student at this time. Ibn Durayd's dictionary was written in Fars and was inspired in part by the earlier dictionary Kitab al-'ayn of the grammarian al-Khalil. Words are listed alphabetically in Jamharat al-lughah, but all permutations of the root letters are given together. Among Ibn Durayd's other works are Kitab al-ishtiqaq (Book of Derivation), on the etymology of Arab names, and al-Malahin (Ambiguities of Speech), a book of ambivalent words for the use of persons forced to swear. Ibn Durayd was also a gifted poet.