Mujam al-Shawahid al-Shiriyya - ضمن "Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dār ‘Ālam al-Fawā’id lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘
Mu'jam al-Shawahid al-Shi'riyya (Dictionary of Poetic Citations) is a reference index compiled by the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman ibn Yahya al-Mu'allimi (1313–1386 AH / 1895–1966 CE), designed to systematically catalog and cross-reference poetic witness verses (shawahid) across major classical works of Arabic grammar, lexicography, and literary commentary .
Background and Composition
Al-Mu'allimi produced the dictionary for his personal research while working in Hyderabad, India, between 1345 and 1371 AH (1926–1952 CE) as an editor for the Da'irat al-Ma'arif al-Uthmaniyya . The work was likely compiled in stages between 1357 and 1364 AH (1938–1945 CE) to assist his editorial annotations on complex poetic texts such as Amali al-Yazidi and Ibn Qutayba's al-Ma'ani al-Kabir .
Al-Mu'allimi initially selected six classical works to index:
- Khizanat al-Adab by Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdadi
- al-Maqasid al-Nahwiyya by Badr al-Din al-Ayni
- Sharh Shawahid al-Mughni by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti
- Amali Ibn al-Shajari by Ibn al-Shajari
- al-Ashbah wa-l-Naza'ir by al-Suyuti
- Kitab Sibawayh
He subsequently expanded his scope to include al-Durar al-Lawami by Ahmad ibn al-Amin al-Shinqiti, Ibn Hisham al-Ansari's Mughni al-Labib (via Hashiyat al-Amir), Yaqut al-Hamawi's Mu'jam al-Buldan, and Ibn Manzur's Lisan al-Arab . However, he did not extract citations from al-Ashbah wa-l-Naza'ir, halted his indexing of Mu'jam al-Buldan at the entry Busyan, and discontinued work on Lisan al-Arab at the lexical root f-y-ʾ after learning of a comprehensive index of the Lisan published by Abd al-Qayyum in Lahore in 1938 .
Structure and Method
The compilation proceeded in two main phases . In the first phase, al-Mu'allimi recorded the verses from each source separately in working notebooks . In the second phase, he consolidated the material into a master register using a ten-column tabular layout per page .
The material is arranged alphabetically by the rhyming letter (harf al-rawi) from alif to ya . Under each rhyme letter, entries are classified by vocalization in fixed sequence—quiescent (sakin), open (fatha), broken (kasra), and closed (damma)—followed by suffixes attached to the letter ha' . Within each rhyme category, citations are ordered by poetic metre (bahr) from al-tawil to al-mutaqarib, specifying variations such as shortened (majzu'), hemistich (mashtur), or truncated (manhuk) forms . Each entry provides the rhyme ending, a portion of the verse for identification, the metre, the attributed poet, and exact volume and page references to the indexed sources .
Manuscript and Publication
The primary autograph manuscript consists of an untitled Indian notebook of 168 pages (160 pages containing the main lexicon) preserved under shelfmark 4915 in the Library of the Holy Mosque in Mecca (Maktabat al-Haram al-Makki), alongside two preparatory notebooks (shelfmarks 4916 and 4918) .
The work remained uncataloged and unpublished until it was edited by Muhammad Uzayr Shams and reviewed by Muhammad Ajmal al-Islahi . It was published in 420 pages as Volume 21 of the collected works project Athar al-Shaykh Abd al-Rahman ibn Yahya al-Mu'allimi al-Yamani .
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