European-language dictionaries of quranic Arabic first appeared in the mid-nineteenth century, with names of significant scholars attached to some early efforts – F. H. Dieterici in 1881 and C. A. Nallino in 1893, for example. The otherwise unknown John Penrice produced the most lasting and often reprinted work, A Dictionary and Glossary of the Koran (London, 1873). Based primarily on the commentary of al-Bayḍāwī (d. c. 1291), that book is terse but certainly not unhelpful. The work of Badawi and Abdel Haleem, then, is a significant contribution to the field, although its release has been somewhat upstaged by the appearance of Arne A. Ambros and Stephan Procházka, A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic (Wiesbaden, 2004) and The Nouns of Koranic Arabic Arranged by Topics: A Companion Volume to the “Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic” (Wiesbaden, 2006).

Badawi and Abdel Haleem have provided a dictionary that highlights contextual meaning within the Quran, conveyed by the quotation (in Arabic script and with English translation) of illustrative passages from the source text. The definitions of the words are derived from classical commentaries on the Quran and standard classical dictionaries, without, however, an indication of the source of any specific meaning. Entries are structured by root, with the general Arabic meaning of the stem provided (i.e. not limited to quranic meaning), followed by a list of the derivatives of the root and the frequency with which each derivative is used in the Quran. The body of the entry then provides an explanation of the grammatical category of each derivative and its meaning, followed by one illustration (more when idioms are involved) from the Quran of each sense of the word. The order in which the derivatives are presented follows that of ʿAbd al-Bāqī's standard concordance (Cairo, 1945). The translations of the quranic passages are derived from Abdel Haleem's recent version (Oxford, 2004), modified as needed by the demands of the dictionary.

This is a massive work that has been well produced and will prove to be of value to translators and students, especially those who come to the text of the Quran with a knowledge of modern Arabic and who may be misled or confused by some of the older meanings of words in the Quran. The work is easy to consult, especially because concision appears not to have been a motivation (except when it comes to grammatical terminology where abbreviations are employed). For example, every root entry states (written out in full), “Of this root, x forms occur y times in the Qur'an”, followed by the list of words and the number of times each is used. Each word is then repeated as the headword in its respective entry. This is not only an inefficient use of space but it leaves the feeling of this being a rather pedantic work. It makes little sense for a dictionary to be so repetitiously redundant.

Being based upon classical sources, the dictionary does not succumb to modern apologetics. The entry under the root ḍ-r-b, for example, cites the oft-disputed Q 4:34, dealing with discipline of wives, as an illustration of the meaning “to hit/strike” for ḍaraba. Another ten senses of the root are provided: to beat; to make a clanging sound, to stamp; to travel about, to hit the road; to cut through; to set forth (a parable); to compare, contrast; to secure, tighten; to seal; to raise, to erect; to brand, to stamp. This entry provides an interesting instance with which to compare the work of Ambros. For the root, Ambros lists four main senses – to strike or beat; to make (a way); to coin (a parable); to describe or characterize allegorically – with attention paid to the way the meanings are formed with prepositions, and with an extensive analysis of how the verb is used with the word mathal, “parable”. The difference between the two dictionaries is thereby seen: Badawi and Abdel Haleem's emphasis falls on semantics, while Ambros combines that with grammatical analysis.

Noticeable in Badawi and Abdel Haleem's work is the absence of contemporary scholarly reflection. The word al-ṣamad, for example, has been considered extensively in the literature but here it is simply glossed as the divine attribute “Eternal, Dependable”. Ambros provides the traditional gloss but adds “more prob. ‘compact, massive’, hence ‘undivided’” with reference to his own article on the topic. Badawi and Abdel Haleem make note of words that are considered to be foreign loans (it's hard for a lexicographer not to, given the problem of integrating some of the words into a root-based structure) but they quote (p. xxi) approvingly C. H. M. Versteegh's statement, “It is much more difficult to understand how the assumption of foreign origins for obscure Qur'anic words can contribute to their understanding” (although Versteegh was referring to classical Arab treatments of the subject and not to the contemporary lexicographer's task). Proper names always prove problematic in this respect. In this work, most names are placed alphabetically and not analysed by root, although ʿĪsā, for example, is found under the root ʿ-y-s, “camels of good stock”. While that entry acknowledges that most philologists do understand Jesus’ name as a borrowing from “Hebrew or Syriac”, the authors also affirm that some wish to see it as derived from the meaning of the root. The criterion used to establish which words should be entertained as foreign is not clear: no mention is made of a foreign influence on the meaning of the words furqān or dīn, for example. Ambros, it should be noted, solves the lexicographical problem of proper names by placing them in a separate section of the dictionary (as he also does with pronouns and particles, items which are given extensive treatment in their alphabetic position in Badawi and Abdel Haleem).

Some odd transliteration decisions were made in composing this work. Initial hamza is marked in all instances. Feminine singular nouns are provided with tanwīn rather than simply employing a/at/ah to show the gender (the “rationale” given for this is that it has been done to “circumvent the convention for representing the tā’ marbūṭa as ‘ah’ or dropping it altogether” (p. xxi)); masculine singular nouns are not provided with tanwīn. So, under the root kh-l-f we read khalf, “succeeding generation”, but khalīfatun, “representative”. Even odder, it is declared that the signs for ʿayn and hamza are given “full alphabetical letter status”, resulting in proper names which start with those letters not capitalizing the second letter of the name – that is, we read ʿīsā rather than the normal ʿĪsā. This is pointless: the signs for ʿayn and hamza cannot be treated as English letters of the alphabet precisely because they are not subject to normal English orthographic capitalization rules. There seems to be absolutely no reason to try to change the convention which has existed across scholarly transliteration systems for some 200 years (and used in dealing with all Semitic languages). What can it possibly accomplish to do away with this accepted practice?

Given its focus on semantics, Badawi and Abdel Haleem's work will find its main utility among those who are interested in basic translation activity, likely in the context of individual study. Understood this way, the work may be viewed as an edited concordance with the duplicate illustrations of senses removed. For further development in the analysis of the text of the Quran this dictionary will have limited functionality. That said, the book will, of course, be useful to have at hand, although free online resources are already providing similar material. For example, the “Project Root List” at www.studyquran.co.uk/PRLonline.htm displays the beginnings of what can be done – its concordance function is full (although it does not link to the Arabic of specific passages) and it provides references to Lane's dictionary in graphic/PDF format page by page.