The prominent Islamic scientist and lexicographer, Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq, popularly known as “Ibn Sikkit

Compiled by: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On 5th of the Islamic month of Rajab in 244 AH, the prominent Islamic scientist and lexicographer, Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq, popularly known as “Ibn Sikkit” was brutally martyred by the Abbasid caliph, Mutawakkil, who ordered the pulling out of his tongue through the backside of the neck for speaking the truth.
Born in Khuzestan, southwestern Iran, he studied in Baghdad under prominent scholars, and his fame led Mutawakkil to invite him to Samarra where he was appointed as tutor to two of the caliph’s sons. Mutawakkil (notorious for his sacrilegious destruction of the shrine of the Martyr of Karbala, and his placing of the Prophet's 10th Infallible Successor, Imam Hadi (AS), under house arrest in Samarra after forcing him to leave Medina), once asked Ibn Sikkit whether his sons were superior to the Prophet’s two grandsons, Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS).
The scholar boldly replied that even Qanbar, the black slave of Imam Ali (AS), was better than the caliph's sons. The enraged caliph ordered his execution. Part of the elegy Ibn Sikkit had composed on the sacrilege of the holy shrines of Karbala, reads: "By Allah, if the Omayyads had killed the (grand)son of the Prophet unjustly, His cousins (the Abbasids) did the same;
Here (in Karbala) is his tomb destroyed!
They felt sorry that they did not participate in killing him, So they chased him in the grave."
In addition to his poems, Ibn Sikkit has left behind at least twenty books, including “Islah al-Manteq” on lexicography.