Mujam ma Ista'jam min Asma al-Bilad wa al-Mawadi
- Author died
- 487 AH
- Editions
- ʿĀlam al-Kutub
Mu'jam ma Ista'jam min Asma' al-Bilad wa al-Mawadi' (A Dictionary of Obscure Names of Countries and Localities) is a classical Arabic linguistic and geographical dictionary compiled by the Andalusian scholar Abu Ubayd al-Bakri (d. 487 AH / 1094 CE) . The work focuses primarily on documenting, identifying, and precisely vocalizing the geographical names of the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding territories mentioned in early Arabic poetry, Hadith, prophetic biography (al-Sira), and historical chronicles .
Purpose and Scope
Al-Bakri composed the book to address the widespread mispronunciation and scribal corruption (tahrif) affecting place names, noting that such geographical toponyms had become obscure (ista'jam) to readers . In his preface, he explained that unlike regular Arabic words whose forms can often be deduced through grammatical analogy and morphology, proper names can only be known through transmitted record, making them particularly vulnerable to orthographic confusion between identically written homographs (al-mu'talif wa-l-mukhtalif) .
The dictionary gathers the names of settlements, cities, villages, mountains, watering places, wells, and historical landmarks cited in classical traditions, the Days of the Arabs (Ayyam al-Arab), and pre-Islamic and early Islamic poetry .
Structure and Method
The work opens with an extensive geographical and historical introduction detailing the territories, divisions, and borders of Arabia—including regions such as Mecca, Medina, al-Yamama, and Bahrain—alongside the migrations, genealogies, and major engagements of Arab tribes .
Following the introductory treatise, the main body of the work is organized as an alphabetical dictionary . Al-Bakri arranged the entries according to the Western Arabic (Maghribi) alphabetical order, methodically spelling out the diacritics and letters of each entry to prevent confusion . Unlike encyclopedic geographical works such as Yaqut al-Hamawi's Mu'jam al-Buldan, al-Bakri adopted a concise approach that prioritizes philological precision, grammatical forms, and poetic attestations (shawahid) over astronomical coordinates, measurements of latitude and longitude, or detailed economic and physical descriptions .
Al-Bakri relied extensively on earlier linguistic authorities, drawing numerous transmissions from al-Asma'i—both directly and through scholars such as Abu Hatim al-Sijistani, al-Akhfash, Muhammad ibn Habib, Ibn Qutayba, Ibn Durayd, and Ibn al-Anbari .
Reception and Transmission
Mu'jam ma Ista'jam was widely received and utilized by Western Islamic and Andalusian traditionists and commentators, including al-Qadi Iyad in Mashariq al-Anwar and Abu al-Qasim al-Suhayli in al-Rawd al-Unuf . Major lexicographers drew on it as a primary reference for verifying Arabic place names, notably al-Fayruzabadi in al-Qamus al-Muhit, Murtada al-Zabidi in Taj al-Arus, and Muhammad al-Tayyib al-Fasi in his commentary on the Qamus .
In the central and eastern Islamic lands, manuscript copies of the work were initially rare; Yaqut al-Hamawi noted in Mu'jam al-Buldan that he had searched for the book but was unable to locate a copy . In the late seventeenth century, the Damascene scholar Ibrahim al-Junayni completed a manuscript transcript of the dictionary in Damascus in 1100 AH after acquiring the missing first part through Hasan ibn al-Ujaymi in Mecca from a copy originating in Egypt .
Modern Editions
The dictionary was first edited in Europe by the German orientalist Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, published in three volumes between 1876 and 1877 . It was later edited in Cairo by Mustafa al-Saqqa in four volumes, who reordered the entries according to the Eastern Arabic (Mashriqi) alphabet to facilitate usage for contemporary readers . Additional manuscripts of the text were subsequently documented in Istanbul, including copies preserved in the Nuruosmaniye and Raghib Pasha libraries .
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