Takmilat Mujam al-Muallifin
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Takmilat Mu'jam al-Mu'allifin (Supplement to the Biographical Dictionary of Authors) is a modern Arabic biographical dictionary compiled by Muhammad Khayr Ramadan Yusuf . It serves as a continuation of Umar Rida Kahhala's biographical dictionary Mu'jam al-Mu'allifin, covering Arab and Muslim authors who died between 1397 and 1415 AH (1977–1995 CE) .
Background and Scope
The author initially planned to merge his supplements to Kahhala's Mu'jam al-Mu'allifin and Khayr al-Din al-Zirikli's al-A'lam into a single comprehensive dictionary, but subsequently chose to release them as two separate works: Tatimmat al-A'lam and Takmilat Mu'jam al-Mu'allifin .
The work includes biographical entries for Muslim and Arab writers who published at least one work and whose deaths occurred between 1397 and 1415 AH (1977–1995 CE), with the Hijri year serving as the determining standard . Yusuf also appended an additional supplementary section (mustadrak) containing entries for authors who died from 1369 AH onward .
The scope of Takmilat Mu'jam al-Mu'allifin differs from Tatimmat al-A'lam in its functional focus:
- It includes authors of published books whose broader public standing did not warrant inclusion as general notables (a'lam) in Tatimmat al-A'lam .
- It omits notables who left no authored works .
- For biographies common to both works, Yusuf edited and abridged the entries in this text to focus primarily on the subject's scholarly activities, writings about them, and the bibliography of their authored works, while retaining biographical source references .
Methodology and Structure
Yusuf departed from Kahhala's method in several aspects. While Kahhala limited the bibliography of prolific authors to five titles, Yusuf sought to list all identifiable works for each author, accompanied by standard bibliographic information whenever available .
The dictionary is organized alphabetically by the author's primary name . In determining alphabetical order, prefixes and relational particles are disregarded, including the definite article al-, as well as prefixes such as Abu, Ibn, Wuld, Al, and regional variants like Bu and Bel- used in Yemen and the Maghreb (placing, for example, Bu'ayyashi under the letter 'ayn, al-Busa'idi under sin, and Belhasan under ha') .
In the bibliographic listings, estimated publication dates for undated works are indicated with a specific symbol; for example, the notation (- 140 AH) signifies that the publication year is estimated to fall between 1400 and 1409 AH . The book concludes with an index of lineage and cross-references (fahras bi-ihalat al-ansab) to assist readers in locating entries .
Publication
The author completed the introduction to the work on 4 Muharram 1416 AH . The dictionary was published by Dar Ibn Hazm in Beirut in a single volume of 794 pages in 1418 AH (1997 CE) .
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