This translation of Fuat Sezgin’s Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (GAS) makes available to an English-reading audience one of the great achievements of twentieth-century Arabic studies. First appearing in 1967 and completed in 2000, the thirteen-volume series stands as one of the largest modern bio-bibliographies of Arabic scholarship and a foundational reference work on science and technology in the Islamic world. Across its volumes, Sezgin catalogued thousands of authors and their works, identifying the locations of surviving manuscripts and editions.
The present volume under review, the eighth installment of Joep Lameer’s English translation (The Arabic Writing Tradition: An Historical Survey), turns to the origins and development of Arabic lexicography. The volume begins with an all too brief introduction where Sezgin provides the necessary historiographical and historical background for his project. He gives a nod to medieval Arabic-Latin dictionaries before turning to the work of early Orientalists. Sezgin catalogues major contributions to the field of lexicography from the time of figures like Jacobus Golius and Edward William Lane to modern offerings. Among these, Sezgin helpfully includes studies in Arabic and European languages. The introduction shines where it provides an outline of the development of Arabic lexicography. Throughout, Sezgin remains committed to the historicity and sophistication of early Islamic scholarship. For example, in Sezgin’s discussion of early Quranic interpretation and its role in the nascent lexicographical movement he affirms the reliability of Ibn ʿAbbās and his followers denying the criticism of their reliability by revisionist scholars. He stresses that the collection of ʿamthāl (proverbs) and related literary forms also fostered the growth of secular lexicography, gradually moving beyond Quranic commentary. In Sezgin’s narrative, lexicography developed partially from the nawādir, lists of rare words and expressions, into increasingly organized genres. Some early works were arranged alphabetically or by the point of articulation of the root consonants. Later compilations adopted topical arrangements that reflected a broader encyclopedic impulse. Sezgin underscores that these developments arose primarily out of internal social and intellectual conditions, rather than as borrowings from foreign models, thus challenging diffusionist explanations of Islamic scholarship. He closes by drawing attention to our principal sources for this early lexicographical activity, particularly Ibn al-Nadīm’s Fihrist, an invaluable source about otherwise lost works and the scholarly networks that produced them.
Entries are divided at first temporally and then by region. The introduction is followed by a chapter on early lexicographers and fuṣaḥāʾ. Next, there are chapters on lexicographers from Iraq, Persia, Arabia and Egypt, and finally North Africa and Spain. The last chapter covers anonymous works and is followed by several addenda and indexes of libraries, manuscript collections, and modern editions. With this structure in place, Sezgin is able to both situate lexicography within the larger intellectual history of the early Islamic centuries and to map the spread of the discipline across the Islamic world. To illustrate the kind of scholarly portraits that emerge from these chapters, it is useful to look more closely at Sezgin’s entries on key authors that represent different moments in the tradition.
Sezgin’s entry on al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī (d. 170/786), the author of the famous Kitābal-ʿAyn, provides the reader with known information about al-Farāhīdī’s life and death while also discussing some of the features of and historiographical issues related to Kitāb al-ʿAyn. The most important of these features was al-Farāhīdī’s creation of a novel phonetic-permutative arrangement based on points of articulation in the mouth and throat, beginning with the letter ʿayn at the very back of the throat and moving forward. His arrangement was highly influential among later authorities and even beyond the field of lexicography where it impacted works of adab such as Ibn Durayd’s Jamharat al-lugha and Ibn Fāris’ al-Mujmal. Sezgin also discusses the text’s transmission and questions over its authorship. The debate over whether al-Khalīl himself completed the dictionary, or whether it was compiled by his student al-Layth b. al-Muẓaffar, remains central. Sezgin carefully traces how errors and misunderstandings crept into the tradition, noting that different versions circulated as early as the late eighth century, some even claiming to derive from al-Khalīl’s autograph. Much of this material is well known to specialists; the real value lies in its bibliographical utility. Sezgin provides lists of extant manuscripts, early editions, and a rich body of modern scholarship. The entry also contains useful examples of supplementary, critical, and polemical works associated with Kitāb al-ʿAyn.
If al-Farāhīdī exemplifies methodological invention, Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām (d. 224/838) represents the maturing of lexicography and early efforts at collecting and curating an ever-expanding body of material. In addition to his numerous works on fiqh, language, and the Qurʾān, Abū ʿUbayd produced two influential dictionaries, al-Gharīb al-Muṣannaf and Kitāb al-Amthāl. The former is a lexicon of rare and complex words organized by subject, while the latter collects the sayings and proverbs of the Arabs. Both books were widely influential, and as is typical, Sezgin’s treatment of their sources and impact is utterly thorough. He shows how Abū ʿUbayd’s tendency to define words interpretatively rather than by direct correspondence makes following the exact transmission of his sources difficult. At the same time, he directs the reader to assessments of Abū ʿUbayd and his oeuvre by later authors, helping to place his work in the larger lexicographical tradition. Sezgin also draws attention to modern debates concerning the use of written or oral sources in Abū ʿUbayd’s work. Taken together, both entries illustrate Sezgin’s characteristic strengths: a mixture of cautious historiography, exhaustive manuscript listings, and close attention to the afterlives of texts across centuries.
The closing indexes and addenda supplement earlier entries with additional manuscript notices and references. The listing of global Arabic manuscript collections and catalogues is still useful but has not been updated. Readers will still find the Oriental Institute of Sarajevo listed under Yugoslavia instead of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the same time, it is also important to note that many of the historiographical debates which Sezgin spoke to have been revisited and in some cases superseded by later research. More recent research tends to frame questions related to the reliability of early transmitters and the originality of Islamic science in different terms. For example, later scholars like Dimitri Gutas and George Saliba have painted more complex pictures of scientific appropriation and innovation within cross-cultural frameworks.
That said, the present volume and entire The Arabic Writing Tradition series are an enormous achievement that will be of value to many. Joep Lameer’s translation deserves special mention. His rendering is clear and precise, with special care given to each entry. Students will find the series useful for orienting themselves to the breadth of Arabic manuscript studies and specifically to the Arabic lexicographical tradition in this book. They will learn how to follow a work across various manuscript collections and printed editions while familiarizing themselves with classic works of secondary literature. Specialists will find Sezgin’s work beneficial for questions related to transmission history and textual circulation. Additionally, anyone concerned with comparative manuscript studies will find The Arabic Writing Tradition to be an invaluable resource. In making Sezgin’s work accessible to a wider audience, this volume secures its place as a lasting resource for both teaching and research.