Ibn Faris

Abū al-Ḥusayn Aḥmad ibn Fāris ibn Zakariyyā ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb al-Rāzī (, died Ray, Iran 395/1004) was a linguist and scholar. As well as the epithet "al-Rāzī" ('meaning 'from Ray') was also known variously by the epithets al-Shāfiʿī, al-Mālikī, al-lughawī ('the linguist'), al-Qazwīnī ('from Qazvin') and (possibily inaccurately) al-Zahrāwī ('from al-Zahrāʾ'). He was primarily associated with Ray. 
Initially, he was an adherent of the Shafi'i "madhhab", but later switched to the Maliki.
Life.
Although some sources ascribe precise dates and places of birth to ibn Faris, including 329 AH/941 CE in Kursuf, in the district of al-Zahrāʾ, modern scholars conclude that this cannot be known. His father was Fāris ibn Zakariyyāʾ, who was perhaps a "faqīh" and who certainly gave ibn Fāris some of his education, passing on to him ibn al-Sikkīt's "Kitāb" "al-Manṭiq".
Ibn Fāris studied in Qazvin, where his teachers included ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qaṭṭān (d. 345/956). He also studied in Zanjān, making the acquaintance of Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn al-Khaṭīb, Baghdad, and, while undertaking hajj, in Mecca.
Based in Hamadan and attached to ibn al-ʿAmīd, ibn Fāris became well known for his scholarship, teaching al-Ṣāḥib ibn ʿAbbād (to whom he gave the "Kitāb al-Ḥajar") and Badīʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī, though he came to have a bad relationship with each. Nevertheless, he was chosen to be to be tutor to Majd al-Dawla Abū Ṭālib, son of Fakhr al-Dawla ʿAlī ibn Rukn al-Dawla ibn Buwayh in Ray, and dedicated to his employer his book "al-Ṣāḥibī".
Said to have been kind and humble and an emotive poet, Ibn Fāris is generally accepted to have died in 395/1004, in Ray. 
Ibn Fāris specialised in lexicography, but also studied poetry, grammar, Koranic exegesis ("tafsīr") and jurisprudence ("fiḳh"). In the assessment of H. Fleisch, 'Ibn Fāris had an unbiased mind. It is remarkable that in the 4th/10th century, an age dominated grammatically by Sībawayhi and the Baṣrans, he should have returned to the freedom of thought of the Kūfans and should once again have introduced grammatical discussion in his "K[itāb] Kifāyat al-mutaʿallimīn fi’k̲h̲tilāf al-naḥwiyyīn"'.
Works.
The following works have been attributed to ibn Fāris: