al-Jarathim
- Author died
- 276 AH
- Editions
- Ministry of Culture
Kitab al-Jarathim (The Book of Roots/Origins) is a thematic Arabic dictionary of lexicography historically attributed to Ibn Qutaybah (213–276 AH / 828–889 CE), though modern scholarly analysis has shown this attribution to be erroneous .
Authorship and Attribution
The work carries the full title Kitāb al-Jarāthīm al-mustawʿib li-asmāʾ uṣūl al-ʿālam wa-al-bahāʾim wa-al-waḥsh wa-al-ṭayr wa-al-sibāʿ wa-al-hawāmm wa-kull nasamah tuʿraf wa-mutaṣarrifātihim wa-afʿālihim wa-asmāʾ anwāʿ al-arḍ wa-al-shajar wa-al-nabāt wa-ghayr dhālik wa-al-ʿarūḍ wa-al-qawāfī . On the title page of the primary surviving manuscript, the author's name appears as Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Muslim, with the remainder of the name effaced and illegible . This led catalogers and scholars to ascribe the text to Ibn Qutaybah (Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Muslim ibn Qutaybah) .
Classical biographical sources and bibliographies of Ibn Qutaybah do not record Kitab al-Jarathim among his authentic writings . Internal textual evidence also refutes the attribution: the sole chain of transmission (isnad) preserved in the text indicates that the actual compiler was a student of al-Hasan ibn 'Ali al-Tusi (d. 308 AH / 920 CE or 312 AH / 924 CE), who died decades after Ibn Qutaybah .
Structure, Content, and Sources
The book is arranged topically as an encyclopedic lexicon covering human, animal, botanical, and linguistic vocabulary :
- The initial sections, of which only select chapters bear explicit headings, focus on the creation and anatomy of human beings (khalq al-insan) as well as human qualities and attributes (al-sifat) .
- Subsequent sections detail classifications and terms for domestic livestock, wild animals, predators, birds, insects, and vermin .
- The botanical chapters include dedicated headings such as Bab al-shajar wa-al-nabat (Trees and Plants) and Kitab al-nahl wa-al-karm (Bees and Vineyards) .
- The final portions encompass terms for terrains and soils, followed by treatments of Arabic prosody (al-'arud) and rhyme (al-qawafi) .
The material in the work is drawn largely from Abu 'Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam's al-Gharib al-musannaf . The compiler frequently cites Abu 'Ubayd alongside early philologists such as al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi, al-Asma'i, and Abu Zayd al-Ansari, without explicitly naming their specific treatises . The chapter on vineyards (Kitab al-karm) is presented as the transmitted discourse of Abu Hatim al-Sijistani .
Manuscripts and Publication
A major surviving copy is preserved at the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus (MS 1596), comprising 439 pages dating to the 6th century AH .
Prior to complete modern printings, various sections were published independently, occasionally attributed to other authors or treated as anonymous fragments . Notably, the chapter titled Bab al-alsinah wa-al-kalam wa-al-aswat wa-al-sukut (Chapter on Tongues, Speech, Sounds, and Silence) was edited by Louis Cheikho as an excerpt attributed to 'Abd Allah ibn Muslim, appended to his 1885 Beirut edition of Abu Mansur al-Tha'alibi's Fiqh al-lughah .
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