Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī (Arabic: أبو عبدالرحمن الخليل بن أحمد الفراهيدي‎; 718 – 786 CE), known as Al-Farāhīdī,[n 1] or Al-Khalīl, was an Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra based on Iraq. He made the first dictionary of the Arabic language – and the oldest extant dictionary – Kitab al-'Ayn (Arabic: كتاب العين‎) - "The Source",[2] introduced the now standard harakat (vowel marks in Arabic script) system, and was instrumental in the early development of ʿArūḍ (study of prosody),[3][4][5] musicology and poetic metre.[6][7] His linguistic theories influenced the development of Persian, Turkish and Urdu prosody.[8] The "Shining Star" of the Basran school of Arabic grammar, a polymath and scholar, he was a man of genuinely original thought.[9][10]