Abu Ali al-Qali
- Died
- 356 AH
- Born in
- -
Abu Ali al-Qali (280/288–356 AH / 893/901–967 CE) was an Arabic philologist, lexicographer, and grammarian who settled in Cordoba and played a leading role in introducing Eastern literary and linguistic scholarship into al-Andalus .
Lineage and Early Life
His full name was Isma'il ibn al-Qasim ibn 'Aydhun (also recorded as 'Abdun) ibn Harun ibn 'Isa ibn Muhammad ibn Salman (or Sulayman) . His ancestor was a client (mawla) of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (or Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan) . He was born in Manazgird in the region of Diyar Bakr in 280 AH (893 CE), though another report dates his birth to 288 AH (901 CE) .
Regarding his nisba, al-Qali related that when he traveled toward Baghdad, he accompanied a party from Qaliqala, a frontier outpost whose inhabitants were accorded honor for their garrison service; upon arriving in Baghdad, he associated himself with Qaliqala to obtain goodwill among scholars, after which the name remained attached to him . In the Muslim West, he was commonly designated as al-Baghdadi on account of his prolonged residence in Baghdad .
Education in Iraq
Al-Qali traveled to Iraq around 303 AH, stopping in Mosul to hear hadith from Abu Ya'la al-Mawsili, before entering Baghdad in 303 AH (or 305 AH) . He remained in Baghdad for twenty-five years, immersing himself in Arabic literature, grammar, and lexicography .
Among his principal teachers in language and belles-lettres were Ibn Durayd, Ibn al-Anbari, Niftawayh, Ibn Durustawayh, al-Zajjaj, Ibn al-Sarraj, and al-Akhfash al-Asghar . Under Ibn Durustawayh, he studied Sibawayh's Kitab in its entirety, examining its intricacies and recording its commentary . He also heard hadith from al-Baghawi and Ibn Abi Dawud, and studied the Quranic reading of Abu Amr under Ibn Mujahid .
Migration to al-Andalus and Teaching
In 328 AH (940 CE), al-Qali departed Baghdad for the Maghrib and arrived in Cordoba in late Sha'ban 330 AH (942 CE) during the reign of Caliph Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir . The Umayyad court received him with high honors; both al-Nasir and his son and successor, al-Hakam al-Mustansir, extended generous patronage to him, which he repaid by dedicating major works to them .
Settling permanently in Cordoba, al-Qali disseminated eastern literary collections, poetic corpora, and linguistic texts through public teaching and oral dictation . His foremost Andalusian students included Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi, Ahmad ibn Aban ibn Sayyid, Abd Allah ibn al-Rabi' al-Tamimi, and the poet al-Ramadi .
Scholarly Standing
In grammatical theory, al-Qali followed the Basran school and defended its positions, though he also maintained critical independence in resolving linguistic questions rather than rigidly adhering to factional disputes between the Basran and Kufan traditions . His contemporaries recognized him as the leading authority of his generation in lexicography, pre-Islamic poetry, and grammatical reasoning .
From memory, he dictated his celebrated literary and philological anthology al-Amali (also known as al-Nawadir), which he dedicated to al-Hakam al-Mustansir . He also compiled al-Maqsur wal-Mamdud, a comprehensive treatise on shortened and lengthened noun forms, and initiated the expansive dictionary al-Bari' fi al-Lugha, which remained unfinished at his death .
Death
Al-Qali died in Cordoba in Rabi' al-Thani 356 AH (967 CE)—with one report by his son Ja'far recording the date as Saturday, 7 Jumada al-Ula 356 AH—during the caliphate of al-Hakam al-Mustansir . Ibn Khallikan reports that he died at the age of sixty-eight . Two lines of verse expressing the loneliness of dying away from one's homeland were reportedly inscribed on his gravestone :
صلوا لحد قبري بالطريق وودعوا ... فليس لمن وارى التراب حبيب
ولا تدفنوني بالعراء فربما ... بكى أن رأى قبر الغريب غريب
(Place my grave alongside the path and bid farewell, for one hidden beneath the soil has no companion; and do not bury me in the open wilderness, for perhaps another stranger, seeing a stranger’s grave, will weep.)
Answer updated
List of Works
Al-Bari fi al-Lugha (The Preeminent in Lexicography) is a major Arabic dictionary compiled in Cordoba, designed as an expanded and refined realization of early phonetic lexicography.
Amali al-Qali (The Dictations of al-Qali) is an anthology of classical Arabic literature, philology, and poetry compiled through oral dictation. It serves as a primary sourcebook of classical Arabic adab (belles-lettres) and lexicography.
Kitab al-Ittiba‘ (The Book of Reduplication) is a philological treatise dedicated to the study of al-ittiba‘—a stylistic and lexical feature in Arabic where a word is followed by a rhyming or metrically parallel partner for reinforcement, nuance, or phonetic harmony.
Al-Maqsur wal-Mamdud (also recorded as al-Maqsur wal-Mamdud wal-Mahmuz) is an Arabic philological treatise focusing on shortened (maqsur), lengthened (mamdud), and hamzated nouns.