Farfār, an enigmatic tree of the Kitāb an-nabāt of Abū Hanīfa ad-Dīnawārī (9th century) : review of woody species of Abyssinia receiving technical uses for a proposal of elucidation
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https://doi.org/10.25267/AAM.2024.v31.106Info
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- Jamal BELLAKHDAR (MA) indépendant
Abstract
Farfār is one of the plants mentioned in the arabic botanical treatises whose identification is problematic because the description given by the arabic polygraph of the 9th century Abū Hanīfa ad-Dīnawārī – the first to speak about it, the authors who came after him had only taken it again – was not considered sufficient by the researchers who tried so far to identify it. Moreover, the word has disappeared nowadays from the arabic naturalistic lexicon and its etymology is not clicked.
In this article, we try to put a name on this enigmatic tree that is given to us as native to Abyssinia, implementing a laborious method based on a preliminary study of woody species used in this region of the world for technical purposes by local populations. We begin by analyzing in detail the data in the old sources related of this plant. Then we compare this fragmented information to what we learned on the woody species of Horn of Africa in the hope that the ethnobotanical data we have collected on the uses made by traditional local societies of the wood produced by their native trees will help us to glimpse a way to identify the farfār. Finally we complete our prospecting work with a research in the languages and dialects of this subcontinent in order to find an etymological explanation to the arabic vernacular of this tree.
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