al-Ibil
- Author died
- 216 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Bashāʾir
al-Ibil (The Camel) is an Arabic philological treatise by the Basran grammarian and lexicographer al-Asma'i (d. 216 AH / 831 CE) dedicated to the vocabulary, physical attributes, lifecycle, and care of camels .
Subject and Content
The work belongs to the early thematic monograph genre in Arabic lexicography, gathering the technical and dialectal terms used by desert Arabs for camels across their various states . The text covers:
- Breeding and Reproduction: Terms related to mating (dirab), the optimal timing for mounting a she-camel, annual impregnations (kishaf), and unguided mating encounters (irad and yaara) .
- Development and Ages: Classifications of camel offspring from birth through weaning and subsequent yearly stages of maturity .
- Colors and Hues: Fine distinctions among coat colors and shades, such as pure red (ahmar), bay or reddish-brown (kumayt), blackened red (armak), iron-rust hue (aj'a), dark ash grey (awraq), black (adham and jawn), pale yellow (asfar), pure white (adam), and dusky greenish hues (akhdar and ahwa) .
- Ailments and Pathologies: Specific camel diseases and symptoms, including digestive upsets from soil or certain desert shrubs (al-maghla, ramath, and habaj), severe bloating (habat), lung adhesion from extreme thirst (janab and tana), trembling and gait disorders (rajaz and khafaj), skin eruptions (qara'), and maddening thirst or delirium (huyam) .
- Milking, Watering, and Herd Numbers: Behavioral traits during milking, watering intervals and orders of drinking (rifh, ghibb, rib', khims, irbagh, nahal, and alal), and terms designating collective groupings and counts of camels, such as dhawd (three to ten), firk or sirma, hajma (around one hundred), hunayda (one hundred), and arj (two hundred or more) .
Method and Transmission
al-Asma'i establishes lexical definitions by citing classical Arabic poetry as textual evidence (shawahid), invoking verses by poets such as Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma, Ruba ibn al-Ajjaj, al-Rai al-Numayri, Dhu al-Rumma, Aws ibn Hajar, and Humayd ibn Thawr .
The treatise has been preserved through several chains of transmission, notably that of Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn al-Abbas al-Yazidi on the authority of al-Asma'i's nephew Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah, which reached later scholars including Mawhub ibn Ahmad al-Jawaliqi (d. 540 AH / 1144 CE) .
Reception and Editions
al-Ibil served as a standard reference for subsequent lexicographical works and comprehensive manuals of rare vocabulary (al-gharib) . It was directly utilized and quoted by Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam in al-Gharib al-musannaf, al-Jawhari in al-Sihah, and Ibn Sayyidah in al-Mukhassas .
In modern times, the Orientalist August Haffner edited and published texts of the treatise, including its printing in the collection al-Kanz al-lughawi fi al-lisan al-arabi (Catholic Press, Beirut, 1903) and in Leipzig (1905) .
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