Mujam Usar Buraydah

Mujam Usar Buraydah (The Dictionary of the Families of Buraydah) is an encyclopedic genealogical and biographical work by the Saudi scholar and traveler Muhammad bin Nasir al-Abbudi (d. 1443 AH / 2022 CE), documenting the lineages, local history, and prominent figures of the families of Buraydah in the al-Qassim region Mujam Usar Buraydah+1.

Background and Composition

The idea for the dictionary arose while al-Abbudi was authoring his six-volume geographical work, Mujam Bilad al-Qasim Mujam Usar Buraydah. He had initially intended to include accounts of major families under their respective localities, but realized that incorporating full genealogies and biographies would make the geographical dictionary excessively long and delay its completion; he therefore separated the genealogical material into an independent project Mujam Usar Buraydah. He chose to begin with Buraydah because it was his birthplace, the ancestral home of his forefathers for more than fifteen generations, and the area with whose families and social history he was most familiar Mujam Usar Buraydah.

The completion of the work was delayed for decades due to the author's extensive official travel and duties after he was appointed by royal order to the Muslim World League in 1403 AH / 1983 CE, which left his preliminary manuscripts scattered until he was able to assemble them for print Mujam Usar Buraydah+1.

Scope and Methodology

The work covers the old town of Buraydah and its surrounding districts, including the eastern and western Khubub, al-Sabbakh to the south, and al-Shiqqah to the north Mujam Usar Buraydah. Al-Abbudi defined the families of Buraydah as those who historically belonged to the town—including those who migrated elsewhere, such as Riyadh—and families that took up permanent residence there up to roughly the middle of the fourteenth century AH Mujam Usar Buraydah. He excluded temporary residents who came for governmental or commercial assignments, as well as large nomadic tribes settled on the city's outskirts, explaining that vast tribes comprising tens of thousands of individuals could not be classified methodologically as individual families Mujam Usar Buraydah+1.

Because no prior published reference works existed on the genealogies of Buraydah's families, al-Abbudi compiled his material from two primary categories of sources Mujam Usar Buraydah:

• Oral history recorded from local elders and memorizers, which he cross-referenced and examined critically Mujam Usar Buraydah.
• Archival documents, such as handwritten legal wills (wasaya), endowment registers (awqaf), and sales records (mubayaat) Mujam Usar Buraydah+1.

Beyond male lineage and prominent dignitaries, the text incorporates biographical notices for scholars, judges, and notables, as well as dedicated treatments of prominent women, their wills, and their property transactions Mujam Usar Buraydah.

Structure and Publication

The entries are arranged alphabetically by family names, from the letter alif to the letter ya' Mujam Usar Buraydah+1. Al-Abbudi opened the dictionary with the ruling dynasty of Al Abu Ulayyan, both by virtue of alphabetical priority and because they had governed Buraydah and much of al-Qassim for over two centuries Mujam Usar Buraydah.

The work was published in 23 volumes by Dar al-Thulathiyyah in Riyadh in its first edition in 1431 AH / 2010 CE, featuring an introductory preface by the publisher Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Mashwah Mujam Usar Buraydah+2.