Tha`Alibi

Tha`Alibi [Abu Mansur `Abd ul-Malik ibn Mahommed ibn Isma`il uth-Tha`alibi] (961-1038), Arabian philologist, was born in Nishapur, and is said to have been at one time a furrier. Although he wrote prose and verse of his own, he was most famous for his anthologies and collections of epigrams. Like many other Arabian writers, he does not always distinguish between his own and other people's work. Of the twenty-nine works known to have been written by him, the most famous is his Kitab Yatimat ud-Dahr, on the poets of his own and earlier times, arranged according to the countries of the poets, and containing valuable extracts (published at Damascus, 4 vols., 1887). Another of his works, the Kitdb Fiqh ul-Lugha, is lexicographical, the words being arranged in classes. It has been published at Paris (1861),(1861), Cairo (1867),(1867), and Beirut (1885, incomplete).

For his other works see C. Brockelmann's Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, vol. i. (Weimar, 1898), pp. 284-86. (G. W. T.)