Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Azharī (Arabic: أبومنصور محمد بن أحمد الأزهري; 282–370 AH/895–980 AD) or simply known as Abu Mansur al-Azhari (أبومنصور الأزهري), was a lexicographer, philologist and grammarian of Arabic.
[3] His most important work is Tahdhib al-Lughat (تهذيب اللغات; The Concise Guide of Languages).
Al-Azhari was born in the city of Herat in Khorasan, at the time controlled by the Samanid dynasty.
Studying in Baghdad, he met the famous contemporary grammarian of the Abbasid court Ibn al-Sari al-Zajjaj (d.
In 924 AD, as al-Azhari was returning from Mecca to Baghdad accompanied by a caravan of pilgrims on their way back from Hajj, they were attacked by the Qarmatians led by Abu Tahir al-Jannabi.