This publication is a most comprehensive, richly-documented dictionary which presents, in local Arabic dialects and in mostly assimilated Judaeo-Yemeni dialects, the natural, geo-political, economic, and socio-cultural history of Muslim Yemen. It is also an account of the religious inter- and intra-socio-cultural and economic everyday life of the ancient Jewish communities who lived as dhimmīs under Muslim rule until their mass emigration to Israel in 1948, leaving behind 5,000 co-religionists.
The dictionary is based on about 300 printed and ms sources painstakingly consulted in various libraries all over the world, and many Yemeni language informants now residing in Israel. The text of every single item is adduced, mostly in context, with reference to ms., or book, page, line, or note, and to classical and foreign etymologies. Particular attention has been paid to the dictionaries of Lane and Dozy.
This is a milestone in Arabic lexicography, complementing Dozy's Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes, and opening up a complete new area sorely missing in the field of Arabic Studies.