From Al-ayn to the Dictionary of Transitive and Intransitive Verbs in the Holy Quran

Words are of paramount importance in our daily life because they are used to transfer meanings and internal feelings and also make communication possible. Choice of words is a factor that may highly impress the addresses. At first, words existed only in oral form; however, later on they were gradually collected and recorded in the form of books. Pre-Safavid Arabs were mostly illiterate and unfamiliar with dictionaries. It seemed that the basic reason for collecting words was the ambiguity in meaning or pronunciation of some words especially considering the fact that Muslims were cautious not to misunderstand or mispronounce the words of the holy Quran. As such, they went to nomads and recorded the words they heard from them. This recording was topic-based. Then Khalil Ibn Ahmad wrote a dictionary which was alphabetically ordered. Numerous general and specialized dictionaries appeared from then on. Special attention was also paid to the words in the holy Quran. Ambiguous words were explained by the holy prophet or his disciples. Later on, some books appeared by the title of Gharib Al-Koran (a dictionary of ambiguous or difficult words). This article studies the development of Arabic dictionaries form that of Khalil Ibn Ahmad’s to the specialized Dictionary of Transitive and Intransitive Verbs in the Holy Quran.