[9] The "Shining Star" of the Basran school of Arabic grammar, a polymath and scholar, he was a man of genuinely original thought.

Born in 718 in Oman, southern Arabia, to Azdi parents of modest means, al-Farahidi became a leading grammarian of Basra in Iraq.

[5][7][10][12] In Basra, he studied Islamic traditions and philology under Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala'[5][13] with Aiyūb al-Sakhtiyāni, ‘Āṣm al-Aḥwal, al-‘Awwām b. Ḥawshab, etc.

His teacher Ayyub persuaded him to renounce the Abāḍi doctrine and convert to Sunni orthodoxy; Among his pupils were Sibawayh, al-Naḍr b. Shumail, and al-Layth b. al-Muẓaffar b.

[7] He refused lavish gifts from rulers, or to indulge in the slander and gossip his fellow Arab and Persian rival scholars were wont,[9] and he performed annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

On the particular day, while he was deeply absorbed in contemplation of a system of accounting to save his maidservant from being cheated by the green grocer, he wandered into a mosque and there he absent-mindedly bumped into a pillar and was fatally injured.

[20] In regard to the field of grammar, al-Farahidi held the realist views common among early Arab linguists yet rare among both later and modern times.

[27] Al-Farahidi was also well versed in astronomy, mathematics, Islamic law, music theory and Muslim prophetic tradition.

[3][8][10][28] His prowess in the Arabic language was said to be drawn, first and foremost, from his vast knowledge of Muslim prophetic tradition as well as exegesis of the Qur'an.

[35] The word ayn may also mean a water source in the desert, perhaps reflecting its author's goal to derive the etymological origins of Arabic vocabulary and lexicography.

[43] Later Arab cryptographers explicitly resorted to al-Farahidi's phonological analysis for calculating letter frequency in their own works.

Al-Farahidi's style for writing the Arabic alphabet was much less ambiguous than the previous system where dots had to perform various functions, and while he only intended its use for poetry it was eventually used for the Qur'an as well.

[47][48] Reportedly, he performed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca while a young man and prayed to God that he be inspired with knowledge no one else had.