= 13/212–213; al-Bidaya, 12/188; Lisan al-Mizan, 4/209; Hasan al-Muhadara, 1/532–533; Bughyat al-Wu‘at, 2/153–154; Shadarat al-Dhahab, 4/45–46. (1) Both the sad and the qaf are vocalised with fatḥa; this is how the great grammarian Ibn al-Barr, the biographee’s teacher, vocalised it, as reported by Ibn Dihya in al-Mutrib, p. 59. He adds: “This is how the Arabs Arabised it.” In the Byzantine language it is called sikeh (with kasra on the sin, fatḥa on the kaf, sukūn on the ha) and kīliyeh (kasra on the kaf and lam, shadda on the ya, sukūn on the ha), both meaning “fig and olive.” Sicily was conquered in 212 AH. (2) In this book he refined the verbs recorded by Ibn al-Qutiyya, Ibn Tarif and others. Ibn Khallikan (3/323) says: “He performed the task with utmost excellence; it is better than the Af‘al of Ibn al-Qutiyya, although the latter preceded him. Of the book Abniyat al-Asma he said: ‘He gathered material exhaustively, which shows the breadth of his reading.’” (3) The work is entitled al-Durra al-Khatira fi’l-Mukhtar min Shu‘araʾ al-Jazira; it is devoted exclusively to the poets of the island of Sicily. Only scattered quotations from it survive in later sources. (4) This refers to Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ali ibn al-Hasan al-Tamimi, one of the foremost scholars of language and grammar in Sicily; see Bughyat al-Wu‘at, 1/178, and Inbaʾ al-Ruat. (5) Salah al-Safadi relates that the Egyptian critics accused him of laxity in transmission. When he arrived in Egypt they asked him about al-Sihah; he replied that the book had not reached them. Observing their keen interest, he then fabricated an isnad for it, and people copied it from him without verification. He also produced valuable marginalia on al-Sihah, which Abu Muhammad Ibn Barrī of Egypt relied upon in his own glosses. Ibn Manzur later dispersed most of these notes throughout Lisan al-Arab. (6) Among his verse is the following, composed for a servant named Hamza: “ O you who have hurled fire into my heart And made my eyes gush forth with tears …”