Ibn Duraid


Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Duraid al-Azdī al-Baṣrī ad-Dawsī, or Ibn Duraid , a leading grammarian of Baṣrah, was described as "the most accomplished scholar, ablest philologer and first poet of the age", was from Baṣrah in the Abbasid era. Ibn Duraid is best known today as the lexicographer of the influential dictionary, the Jamhara fi 'l-lugha. The fame of this comprehensive dictionary of the Arabic language is second only to its predecessor, the Kitab al-'Ayn.
In his biographical dictionary Ibn Khallikān gives his full name as:
Al-Nadim writing two centuries earlier gives a slightly curtailed genealogy with some variation:
He himself identified with the Qahtanite,, the larger confederacy of which Azd is a sub-group. The modern-day descendants of his tribe are the Zahran tribe residing primarily in the Al Bahah Region of Saudi Arabia.

Life

Ibn Duraid was born in Baṣrah, on "Sālih Street", in the reign of the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu'tasim; Among his teachers were Abū Hātim as-Sijistāni, ar-Riāshi ), Abd ar-Rahmān Ibn Abd Allah, surnamed nephew of al-Asmāi, Abū Othmān Saīd Ibn Hārūn al-Ushnāndāni, author of Kitāb al-Maāni, al-Tawwazī, and al-Ziyādi. He quoted from the book Musālamāt al-Ashrāf written by his paternal uncle al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad.
When Basra was attacked by the Zanj and Ar-Riāshī murdered in 871 he fled to Oman, then ruled by Muhallabi. He is said to have practiced as a physician although no works on medical science by him are known to survive.
After twelve years Khallikan says he returned to Basrah for a time and then moved to Persia In Al-Nadim's account he moved to Jazīrat Ibn ‘Umārah before he moved to Persia where he was under the protection of the governor Abd-Allah Mikali and his sons, and where he wrote his chief works. Abd-Allah appointed him director of the government office for Fars Province and it is said while there each time his salary was paid he donated almost it all to the poor. In 920 he moved to Baghdad, and received a monthly pension of fifty dinars from the caliph Al-Muqtadir in support of his literary activities which continued to his death. In Baghdad he became an acquaintance of Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari.

Illness and Death

Ibn Khallikan reports many tales of Ibn Duraid's fondness of wine and alcohol so when towards the age of ninety Ibn Duraid suffered partial paralysis following a stroke, he managed to cure himself by drinking theriac, he resumed his old habits and continued to teach. However the palsy returned the next year much more severe so he could only move his hands. He would cry out in pain when anyone entered his room. His student Abū Alī Isma’il al-Kāli al-Baghdādi remarked: The Almighty has punished him for saying in his Maksūraī:
He remained paralysed and in pain for two more years, although his mind remained sharp and he answered, as quick as thought, questions from students on points of philology. To one such, Abū Hātim, he responded:
His last words were in reply to Abū Alī:
Ibn Duraid died in August of 933, on a Wednesday, He was buried on the east bank of the Tigris River in the Abbasiya cemetery, and his tomb was next to the old arms bazaar near the As-Shārī ‘l Aazam. The celebrated muʿtazilite philosopher cleric Hāshim Abd as-Salām al-Jubbāi died the same day. Some of Baghdad cried "Philology and theology have died on this day!"

Works

He is said to have written over fifty books of language and literature. As a poet his versatility and range was proverbial and his output too prodigious to count. His collection of forty stories were much cited and quoted by later authors, though only fragments survive. Perhaps drawing on his Omani ancestry, his poetry contains some distinctly Omani themes.

[Kitāb al-Maqṣūrah]