Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi

Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Zahrāni al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī, known as Al-Farāhīdī, or Al-Khalīl, was an Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra based on Iraq. He is from the Zahran tribe. He made the first dictionary of the Arabic language – and the oldest extant dictionary – Kitab al-'Ayn - "The Source", introduced the now standard harakat system, and was instrumental in the early development of ʿArūḍ, musicology and poetic metre. His linguistic theories influenced the development of Persian, Turkish and Urdu prosody. The "Shining Star" of the Basran school of Arabic grammar, a polymath and scholar, he was a man of genuinely original thought.