al-Mustakhlaṣ: An Early Persian Lexicon of the Quran

This article introduces, analyzes, and evaluates the work al-Mustakhlaṣ by Abū al-Faḍl (or Abū al-‛Iffa) Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn Kabīr Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Naṣr al-Bukhārī (d. 693/1294). This text constitutes one of the most important Persian lexicons of Qurʾānic vocabulary from the medieval Islamic period. Organized according to the sequence of the Qurʾānic sūras, it explains the difficult words of each sūra in clear and straightforward Persian. In addition to translation, the author addresses philological, grammatical, and morphological points, and at times provides information on the names of the sūras, the number of their verses, and lexical derivatives. The article first surveys the history of Qurʾānic lexicography in Persian from the 5th/11th to the 8th/14th centuries, outlining four common methods for arranging lexical entries. It then reconstructs the scholarly and social biography of the author based on reliable historical and biographical sources. The core section is devoted to the linguistic and lexical features of the work, including the recording of early Persian word-forms, phonetic shifts, and rare or obsolete usages. Examples are given of Persian equivalents for Arabic terms, as well as explanations of the disjoined letters (ḥurūf muqaṭṭa‛a). A detailed catalogue of extant manuscripts of al-Mustakhlaṣ is presented, described with regard to date, location, script, and marginalia. These include early 8th/14th-century copies (such as Aya Sofya 710/1310 and Ganjbakhsh 722/1322) as well as later 11th/17th-century exemplars. The article also introduces later abridgments of the work—such as Khulāṣat al-Mustakhlaṣ—together with its major modern editions. Moreover, its relation to and differences from contemporary works, particularly Khulāṣat Jawāhir al-Qurʾān by Abū Bakr Maltānī, are discussed, with special attention to the order of sūras and number of entries. The study concludes that al-Mustakhlāṣ, in addition to its religious and Qurʾānic significance, is an invaluable resource for historical linguistics and for the study of Qurʾānic Persian in the medieval period. By employing the standard Persian of its age while preserving archaic and at times obsolete forms, the work holds exceptional importance for scholars of Persian language and literature, Qurʾānic studies, and codicology.