Abu Nasr Isma'il ibn Hammad al-Jawhari () also spelled al-Jauhari (died 1002 or 1008) was a medieval Turkic lexicographer and the author of a notable Arabic dictionary ''al-Ṣiḥāḥ fī al-lughah'' ().

Life

He was born in the city of Farab (

Otrar Otrar or Utrar ( kk, Отырар, ''Otyrar'', otəˈɾɑɾ otk, 𐰚𐰭𐱃𐰺𐰢𐰣, Keŋü Tarman), also called Farab, is a Central Asian ghost town that was a city located along the Silk Road in Kazakhstan. Otrar was an important town ...

) in

Transoxiana Transoxiana or Transoxania (Land beyond the Oxus) is the Latin name for a region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Tu ...

(in today's southern

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

). He began his studies of the Arabic language in Farab, then studied in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

, continuing among the Arabs of the

Hejaz The Hejaz (, also ; ar, ٱلْحِجَاز, al-Ḥijāz, lit=the Barrier, ) is a region in the west of Saudi Arabia. It includes the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif, and Baljurashi. It is also known as the "Western Provin ...

, then moving to northern Khurāsān, first to

Damghan Damghan ( fa, دامغان, translit=Dāmghān) is the capital of Damghan County, Semnan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 57,331, in 15,849 families. It is situated east of Tehran on the high-road to Mashad, at an elevatio ...

before settling finally at

Nishapur Nishapur or officially Romanized as Neyshabur ( fa, ;Or also "نیشاپور" which is closer to its original and historic meaning though it is less commonly used by modern native Persian speakers. In Persian poetry, the name of this city is wr ...

). It was here he met his death in a failed attempt at

flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...

from the roof of a mosque, possibly due to

delusions A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some o ...

of being a bird.

Works

*''Taj al-Lugha wa Sihah al-Arabiya'' () "The Crown of Language and the Correct Arabic" - His magnum opus dictionary of Arabic; often abbreviated as ''al-Sihah fi al-Lugha'', "The Correct Language", and ''al-Sihah'' (). It contains about 40,000 dictionary entries. Written in Nishapur, it was incomplete at his death and completed by a student. Al-Jawhari uses an alphabetical ordering system with the last letter of a word's root being the first ordering criterion. ''Al-Sihah'' is a principal Arabic dictionary of the medieval era and later compilers of Arabic dictionaries incorporated its material. Over the centuries several abridgements and elaborations in Arabic were produced and a large portion was copied into the huge 13th century dictionary compilation ''

Lisan al-Arab ''Lisān al-ʿArab'' (لسان العرب, "Tongue of Arabs") is a dictionary of Arabic completed by Ibn Manzur in 1290. History Ibn Manzur's objective in this project was to reïndex and reproduce the contents of previous works to facilita ...

''; published online at http://www.baheth.info.Boo
''Arabic Lexicography: Its History...''
by John A. Haywood, year 1965, chapter six: "The ''Ṣaḥāḥ'' of al-Jauharī". A fully searchable online edition available a
Baheth.info
*edition begun by E. Scheidius with a Latin translation, but one part only appeared at

Harderwijk Harderwijk (; Dutch Low Saxon: ) is a municipality and city of the Netherlands. It is served by the Harderwijk railway station. Its population centres are Harderwijk and Hierden. Harderwijk is on the western boundary of the Veluwe. The southea ...

(1776) *Complete edition,

Tabriz Tabriz ( fa, تبریز ; ) is a city in northwestern Iran, serving as the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. It is the List of largest cities of Iran, sixth-most-populous city in Iran. In the Quri Chay, Quru River valley in Iran's historic Aze ...

(1854) *Complete edition,

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

(1865) *many abridged and Persian language editions. In 1729

Ibrahim Muteferrika Ibrahim Müteferrika ( tr, İbrahim Müteferrika; 1674–1745 CE) was a Hungarian-born Ottoman diplomat, publisher, economist, historian, Islamic theologian, sociologist, and the first Muslim to run a printing press with movable Arabic ty ...

's Arabic-Turkish dictionary, based on Jawhari's, became the first book printed by

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...

of Ottoman era.The ''al-Sihah'' of al-Jawhari was rendered as an Arabic–Turkish dictionary by Vankulu (died 1592) and was published in Istanbul in 1729. This publication is of significance in the history of publishing under the Ottomans, as discussed in the article about its publisher

. Further information a
ref
.

References

Bibliography

* Boo
''Arabic Lexicography: Its History, and Its Place in the General History of Lexicography''
by John A. Haywood, year 1965. * * *

External links

Encyclopedia Islamica
{{Authority control 10th-century births 1000s deaths Arabists 10th-century Turkic people Lexicographers of Arabic Grammarians of Arabic Inventors killed by their own invention 10th-century Arabic writers