Burhan-i Qati

Muhammad Husayn bin Khalaf Tabrizi (who used the pen-name Burhan) was a scholar of obscure origins. He may have immigrated to India from Tabriz, but it is also possible that he inherited his nisba from ancestors of his who had migrated from Tabriz to India in the past. He settled in the Deccan region of the Indian subcontinent and served in the court of Abdullah Qutb Shah for some time. Muhammad Husayn completed his dictionary in 1651–1652. == Content ==

The Burhan-i Qati contains approximately 20,211 entries, with the number varying across editions. The dictionary consists of a nine-part introduction and a twenty-nine-chapter main text. The main text is arranged in alphabetical order, unlike many of the dictionary's predecessors. Muhammad Husayn cites four dictionaries as sources for the Burhan-i Qati, namely: the Farhang-i Jahangiri, the Majma al-Furs, the Surma-yi Sulaymani, and the Sihah al-adwiya, though the content of the dictionary indicates that the author used more sources than these. Around half of the entries in the Burhan-i Qati are accompanied by pronunciation guides for the defined word. The dictionary notably contains many non-Persian words from several Iranian languages such as Avestan, Khwarezmian, Sogdian, Sistani, Gilaki, and Tabari. Words from other languages like Hebrew, Syriac, Turkish, Greek, Latin, and vernacular Indian languages, especially Dakani, also appear. == Legacy ==

The Burhan-i Qati became very famous following its completion due to its wide range of words and compounds, the convenience of its alphabetical ordering, and its collation of the material in other dictionaries. It was frequently reproduced in India and Iran, and further spread by the advent of printing technology. The dictionary was used as a reference by writers and linguists more than any other Persian dictionary, and was consulted in the production of subsequent dictionaries Farhang-i anjuman aray-i Nasiri, Farhang-i Anand Raj, and Farhang-i Nafisi. The Burhan-i Qati was also used in the compilation of several Persian dictionaries in other languages. == References ==