This is a linguistic study conducted on a manuscript which was among the first attempts of etymology in Arabic culture. The manuscript was written in the fourth century of Hijra (the Tenth century AD) by an Isma’ili scholar as a guide for the sect advocates in the town of Ray which is nowadays part of the south-east area of the Iranian capital Tehran. The author of the book is Abu Hatim Al-Razi (d 322 AH-933 AD).
When I embarked on my study a part of the manuscript had been published. That published part represented only 150 pages of the original text. I based my study on a full copy of the text that was kept in the library of Cairo university and consisted of 500 pages.
The text deals with what we can describe roughly as the Islamic semantic field terminology in Arabic. This includes names of religious sects in Islam, words related to Salah (prayer), Sawm (fast), Hajj, and Fiqh etc.
Explaining the origin of those words, Abu Hatim is always starting with their meanings in Jahiliyya, pre-Islamic period and then dealing with the new emerging meanings after Islam. His linguistic approach explicitly reveals his Ismaili inclination. Despite this the book is still pioneering in his etymological approach which has not unfortunately been pursued by scholars in the following generation.
