Syed Ahmad Dehlvi (also written as Sayyid Aḥmad Dihlawī; 8 January 1846 – 11 May 1918) was an

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

Muslim scholar, linguist, lexicographer, philologist, educationist and an author of

Urdu language Urdu (;"Urdu"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ur, , link=no, ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, In ...

. He compiled the '' Asifiya dictionary''.

Biography

Syed Ahmad Dehlvi was born on 8 January 1846 in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

Mughal India The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

. He was the son of Hafiz Abd al-Rahman Mongheri, a descendant of

Abdul Qadir Jilani ʿAbdul Qādir Gīlānī, ( ar, عبدالقادر الجيلاني, ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī; fa, ) known by admirers as Muḥyī l-Dīn Abū Muḥammad b. Abū Sāliḥ ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī al-Baḡdādī al-Ḥasanī al-Ḥusayn ...

. Dehlvi assisted S W Fallon in dictionary projects between 1873 and 1879. He taught at Shahi Madrasa, located in the Arab Sarai, in

. He was later appointed as a teacher of Urdu and Persian in the Municipal Board High School, in

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

. He was a fellow and examiner at

University of the Punjab The University of the Punjab (Urdu, pnb, ), also referred to as Punjab University, is a public, research, coeducational higher education institution located in Lahore, Pakistan. Punjab University is the oldest public university in Pakistan. ...

and served as the vice-manager of Government Book Depot in

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

. In 1914, Dehlvi was honored with the title of

Khan Sahib Khan Sahib is a compound of Khan (title), khan (leader) and sahib (master) - was a formal title of respect and honour, which was conferred mainly on Muslim, but also to Parsi, Irani (India), Irani, and Jewish subjects of the British Indian Empi ...

by the

Government of British India A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, Executive (government), e ...

. He died on 11 May 1918.

Literary works

Dehlvi's works include: * ''

Farhang e Asifiya Farhang-e-Asifiya () is an Urdu-to-Urdu dictionary compiled by Syed Ahmad Dehlvi. It has more than 60,000 entries in four volumes. It was first published in May, 1908 by Lahore Matba Rifah-i 'Am. History It was compiled from 1868 to 1898. T ...

'' * ''Hādi-un-Nisa'' * ''Lughāt-un-Nisā'' * ''ʻIlmullisān : yaʻnī, insān kī ibtidāʼī, darmiyānī aur ak̲h̲īr zabān'' * ''Rusūm-i Dihlī'' * ''Qiṣṣah-yi Mihr Afroz'' * ''Munāẓirah-yi taqdīr-o-tadbīr, maʻrūf bih kunzulfavāʼid.'' * ''Muhakama-e-Markaz-e-Urdu'' * ''Muraqqa-e-Zuban-o-Bayan-e-Dehli''

Legacy

Zahrah Jafri wrote ''Sayyid Aḥmad Dihlavī: ḥayāt aur kārnāme'' ().

References

Bibliography

* {{Authority control 1846 births 1918 deaths People from Delhi Urdu-language writers Linguists Indian linguists by century