Ibn_Duraid

Ibn Duraid [Abū Bakr Mahommed ibn ul-Ḥasan ibn Duraid ul-Azdī] (837-934), Arabian poet and philologist, was born at Baṣra of south Arabian stock. At his native place he was trained under various teachers, but fled in 871 to Oman at the time Baṣra was attacked by the negroes, known as the Zanj, under Muhallabī. After living twelve years in Oman he went to Persia, and, under the protection of the governor, ‘Abdallāh ibn Mahommed ibn Mīkāl, and his son, Isma’īl, wrote his chief works. In 920 he went to Bagdad, where he received a pension from the caliph Moqtadir.

The Maqsūra, a poem in praise of Ibn Mīkāl and his son, has been edited by A. Haitsma (1773) E. Scheidius (1786) and N. Boyesen (1828). Various commentaries on the poem exist in MS. (cf. C. Brockelmann, Gesch. der ar. Lit., i. 211 ff., Weimar, 1898), The Jamhara fi-l-Lugha is a large dictionary written in Persian but not printed. Another work is the Kitāb ul-Ishtiqāq (“Book of Etymology”), edited by F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1854); it was written in opposition to the anti-Arabian party to show the etymological connexion of the Arabian tribal names.

(G. W. T.)

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