al-Takāmul al-Maʻrifī bayna al-ʻUlūm fī Kitāb al-Māʼ li-Ibn al-Dhahabī al-Ṣuḥārī - Yaṭṭū, ʻĀʼishah; Yaṭṭū, Fatīḥah; al-Muʼtamar al-Duwalī al-Sābiʻ bi-Mālīziyā: al-Turāth al-Ṭibbī al-ʻUmānī (2020) (Kuwālā Lumbūr) (Kuwālā Lumbūr : Markaz Dhākirat ʻUmān, 2020)
Interdisciplinary integration is a healthy feature of the classical Arabic scholarly heritage, and of its lexicographical tradition above all, in all that tradition's varieties. Kitāb al-Māʾ by Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh al-Azdī al-Ṣuḥārī does not depart from that path. It is agreed to be the first medical-lexical dictionary ever compiled, and it therefore anticipated a great many scientific questions, as its modern editor has confirmed. The work brings together the sciences of medicine and of language, yet within its corners lie way-stations of history, the science upon which all other sciences are founded. How did al-Ṣuḥārī write the history of medicine? How does his dictionary contribute to general history? And how was the integration achieved between medicine and language on one side, and between medicine and history on the other? Language, which in this work is never separated from medicine, is treated on a foundation drawn from al-Khalīl al-Farāhīdī's Kitāb al-ʿAyn, which gives his lexicography its particular character. The study works from the dictionary itself, selecting and analysing a set of passages, reading the introductions of author and editor critically, and drawing on the few existing studies of the work.
Permanent citation identifier: MHF-2020-006.
Text in Arabic; title also romanized (ALA-LC); abstract and keywords in English.
Keywords: Kitāb al-Māʾ; Ibn al-Dhahabī al-Ṣuḥārī; Medical lexicography; Interdisciplinarity; Arabic dictionaries; History of medicine