Tahirid dynasty
Al-Farahidi's manuscript, originally held in a library of the Tahirid dynasty, was returned to Basra in 862, or 863CE, seventy years after his death, when a northeast Persian bookseller sold it for fifty dinars. Some few copies were made available for commercial sale, although the work remained rare through much of the Middle Ages and despite being in circulation in Al-Andalus in 914/915CE, it was not until its discovery by Lebanese-Iraqi monk Anastas Al-Karmali in 1914 that it was reintroduced into the West. In the modern era, the book has been printed by Maktabah Al Hilal, having been reviewed by Dr. Mahdi al Makhzūmi and Dr. Ibrāhim Al Samirā'ì in eight volumes. The dictionary (alphabetically arranged) is available in Arabic in a four volume edition published in 2003 by Dar al-Kitab al-'Alamiyya () and available online.