Muhammad ibn al-Sayyid Hasan
- Died
- 866 AH
- Born in
- -
Muhammad ibn al-Sayyid Hasan (d. 866 AH / 1462 CE) was an Ottoman lexicographer from Edirne, best known for his Arabic dictionaries Jami' al-lughah and al-Ramuz 'ala al-Sihah.
Identity and Background
In biographical and bibliographical records, his name is given as al-Sayyid Muhammad ibn al-Sayyid Hasan, al-Sayyid Muhammad ibn Hasan, or al-Sayyid Muhammad ibn Husayn. His lineage beyond his father is transmitted with variations; his grandfather is alternately named 'Ali, Hasan ibn 'Ali, or Hasan al-Sharif ibn Husam al-Din. He was known by the geographic nisbas al-Adirnawi (from Edirne) and al-Rumi, as well as the honorific al-Sharif.
Details regarding his early education and direct teachers are unrecorded in biographical literature. He lived during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (the Conqueror). In 854 AH (1450 CE)—three years prior to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople—he completed his dictionary Jami' al-lughah ("The Compendium of Language") in Edirne, dedicating it in the preface to Sultan Mehmed.
Scholarly Contribution
His principal lexicographical project centered on revising and supplementing al-Jawhari's classical dictionary al-Sihah. In Jami' al-lughah, he excised material he considered peripheral to core lexical definitions—such as poetic citations, proverbs, and genealogical notices—while incorporating omitted vocabulary and rare expressions drawn from specialized lexicons such as al-Mutarrizi's al-Mughrib, al-Zamakhshari's al-Fa'iq, and Ibn al-Athir's al-Nihayah, alongside extended commentary on the lexical meanings of hadiths. He later composed al-Ramuz 'ala al-Sihah (also titled al-Ramuz fi al-lughah) as a restructured redaction based upon this earlier compendium.
Death
He set out to perform the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and died during the journey in the Anatolian town of Bolu. The widely cited year of his death is 866 AH (1462 CE), though an alternate report places it earlier, in Rabi' al-Akhar [860 AH] (ca. 1456 CE).
Answer updated
List of Works
al-Ramuz ala al-Sihah (also known as al-Ramuz fi al-lughah) is an Arabic lexicon compiled as a revised, abridged, and supplemented redaction of al-Jawhari's classical dictionary al-Sihah.