The Arabic–English Lexicon is a 19th-century Arabic dictionary compiled by the British Orientalist Edward William Lane. Writing in 1998, a critic says, "Every serious classical Arabic scholar, for the last hundred years and more, has been indebted to Lane's work [the Lexicon]."[1]
In 1842, Lane, who had already won fame as an Arabist for his Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians and his version of the One Thousand and One Nights, received a sponsorship from Lord Prudhoe, later Duke of Northumberland, to compile an Arabic–English dictionary.[2]
Lane set to work at once, making his third voyage to Cairo to collect materials in the same year. Since the Muslim scholars there were reluctant to lend manuscripts to Lane, the acquisition of materials was commissioned to Ibrahim Al-Dasuqi (1811–1883), a graduate of Azhar and a teacher in Boulaq.[3] In order to collect and collate the materials, Lane stayed in Cairo for seven years, working arduously with little rest and recreation. The acquisition of materials, which took 13 years,[4] was left in the hands of Al-Dasuqi when Lane returned to England in 1849.
Back to England, Lane continued to work on the dictionary with zeal, complaining that he was so used to the cursive calligraphy of his Arabic manuscripts that the Western print strained his eyes.[5] He had arrived at the letter Qāf, the 21st letter of the Arabic alphabet, when he died in 1876.[6]
The lexicon is based on many medieval Arabic dictionaries, chiefly the Taj al-ʿArus ("Crown of the Bride") by al-Zabidi produced in the 19th century. In total, 112 sources are cited in the work. Lane also read widely in order to provide examples for the entries.[7]
The lexicon was designed to consist of two books: one for the common, classical words, another for the rare ones. Part I of the First Book came out in 1863; Part II in 1865; Part III in 1867; Part IV and V in 1872. A total of 2,219 pages were proofread by Lane himself. Lane's great-nephew Stanley Lane-Poole published Part VI to Part VIII including a supplement from 1877–1893, using Lane's incomplete notes left behind him. These parts are sketchy and full of lacunae. In total, the First Book comprises 3,064 pages. Nothing has come out of the planned Second Book. Thus the work has never been completed.[8]
Lane's work focuses on classical vocabulary, thus later scholars found it necessary to compile supplements to the work for post-classical usage, such as the Supplément aux dictionaires arabes (1881; 2nd ed., 1927) by the Dutch Arabist Reinhart Dozy; also, the Wörterbuch der klassischen arabischen Sprache, being published from 1970 onwards by the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, starts from Kāf, thus supplementing Lane's work in effect.[9]
The first draft of the lexicon, as well as the whole Taj al-ʿArus copied by Al-Dasuqi for Lane in 24 volumes, are now preserved in the British Library.[10]