Gharib al-Quran lil-Sijistani
- Author died
- 330 AH
- Editions
- Dār Qutaybah
Gharib al-Quran (Arabic: غريب القرآن), also widely titled Nuzhat al-Qulub fi Tafsir Gharib al-Quran (نزهة القلوب في تفسير غريب القرآن), is a specialized dictionary of rare and difficult Quranic vocabulary (gharib) compiled by the grammarian and exegete Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Uzayr al-Sijistani (d. 330 AH / 941 CE) .
Composition and Purpose
According to a report transmitted by Abu al-Barakat al-Anbari, al-Sijistani composed the book over a period of fifteen years, during which he regularly read it to his teacher Abu Bakr ibn al-Anbari (d. 328 AH), who corrected passages for him as they progressed . Ibn Khalawayh likewise observed that al-Sijistani spent a prolonged portion of his life working on the book and presented it to Ibn al-Anbari for verification, adding that al-Sijistani died before fully completing his reading of the work to his teacher .
In his prologue, al-Sijistani defined the purpose behind compiling the work alphabetically: "This is the explanation of the uncommon vocabulary of the Quran compiled according to the letters of the alphabet, so that it may be easy to access and simple to memorize for whoever desires it" .
Structure and Method
Prior works on Quranic gharib—such as those by Abu Ubaydah and Ibn Qutaybah—traditionally arranged lexical items sequentially following the order of the surahs in the Quran . Al-Sijistani was among the earliest authors in this genre to organize the material alphabetically .
His organizational scheme follows specific characteristics:
- Words are entered according to their surface orthographic form as they appear in the Quran, rather than reduced to their triconsonantal roots .
- Each alphabetical letter section (bab) is subdivided into three chapters based on the short vowel of the initial letter: the open vowel (al-maftuh), followed by the close back vowel (al-madmum), and concluding with the close front vowel (al-maksur) .
- Within each vowel subsection, al-Sijistani does not order the words by subsequent letters; instead, entries are arranged sequentially according to their appearance across the surahs of the Quran .
The text opens with the chapter on the open hamzah (bab al-hamzah al-maftuhah), treating items such as amin and the disjointed letters at the beginnings of surahs, and ends with the chapter on the front-voweled ya (bab al-ya' al-maksurah), remarking that Arabic has no words beginning with a kasrated ya except yasar and yisar . His glosses are concise and purely lexical, generally omitting names of exegetes, differing authorities, and extensive poetic citations .
Reception and Influence
The work achieved widespread circulation and was praised for its utility and ease of reference . Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani noted that it was among the easiest books to consult, despite a few omissions .
Its popularity prompted several derivative works:
- Malik ibn al-Murahhal al-Malaqi (d. 699 AH) rendered the book into verse .
- Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Abd al-Jalil al-Tadmiri (d. 555 AH) authored a commentary explaining its poetic citations (Sharh Shawahidih) .
- Ibn al-Ha'im took al-Sijistani's text as the core baseline for his work al-Tibyan fi Tafsir Gharib al-Quran, incorporating its definitions and adding supplementations .
Editions
The book was printed in Egypt by Mustafa Anani in 1936 under the title Nuzhat al-Qulub , and was later published in Damascus in 1416 AH / 1995 CE in a critical edition edited by Muhammad Adib Abd al-Wahid Jamran .
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