The Need for Critical Edition of Muqaddimat al-Adab

Despite the reputation and importance of Zamakhshari's Muqaddimat al-Adab, one of the oldest extant Arabic-Persian Dictionaries and a rich source of Persian equivalents of Arabic terms, it has not received considerable attention from scholars. The reason is probably the lack of a meticulous authentic edition of this book. Therefore, the two existing editions of this dictionary need to be emended to remove errors and defects. This paper aims to provide a critical edition of Muqaddimat al-Adab, and at the same time, focuses on a series of critical notes of the two editions of the book; notable among them are the following: Lack of a detailed introduction of the author and lexicographical method; insufficient description of the manuscripts; no editorial methodology for editing the manuscripts; no reference to the manuscript variants; incorrect recording of entries and their equivalents as a result of misreading the inscription; false etymological explanations; and irregularities within the Arabic and Persian indexes. Finally, with the new discovery of some authoritative and rare ancient manuscripts, a comprehensive critical edition of Muqaddimat al-Adab is essential.