Ibn Zuhr was one of the greatest physicians and clinicians of the Muslim golden era and has rather been held by some historians of science as the greatest of them. Contrary to the general practice of the Muslim scholars of that era, he confined his work to only one field : medicine. This enabled him to produce works of everlasting fame.

As a physician, he made several discoveries and breakthroughs. He described correctly, for the first time, scabies, the itch mite and may thus be regarded as the first parasitologist. Likewise, he prescribed tracheotomy and direct feeding through the gullet and rectum in the cases where normal feeding was not possible. He also gave clinical descriptions of mediastinal tumors, intestinal phthisis, inflammation of the middle ear, pericarditis, etc.

Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr (Arabic: أبو مروان عبد الملك بن زهر‎) (also known as Ibn Zuhr, Avenzoar, Abumeron or Ibn-Zohr) (1091-1161) was an Arab Muslim physician, pharmacist, surgeon, parasitologist, Islamic scholar, and teacher.

Early life

He was born in Seville, and studied at the University of Cordoba. He belonged to the Banu Zuhr family, which produced five generations of physicians, including two female physicians who served the Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf Ya’qub al-Mansur. Ibn Zuhr was also the teacher of Averroes. He began his medical practice and training under his father, Abu’l-Ala Zuhr (d. 1131).

Flight from Seville

Around 1130, he fell out of favour of with the Almoravid ruler, Ali bin Yusuf bin Tashufin, and fled from Seville. He was however, apprehended and jailed in Marrakesh. Later in 1147 when the Almohad dynasty conquered Seville, he returned and devoted himself to medical practice and teaching. He died at Seville in 1161.

Achievements

He is considered the father of experimental surgery, for introducing the experimental method into surgery, introducing the methods of human dissection and autopsy, inventing the surgical procedure of tracheotomy, performing the first parenteral nutrition of humans with a silver needle, discovering the cause of scabies and inflammation, discovering the existence of parasites, and refuting the theory of four humours.

Al-Taisir

Ibn Zuhr’s most famous work is his Al-Taisir, in which he introduced the experimental method into surgery, for which he is considered the father of experimental surgery. He was the first to employ animal testing in order to experiment with surgical procedures before applying them to human patients.  He also performed the first dissections and postmortem autopsies on humans as well as animals.

He invented the surgical procedure of tracheotomy, as he was the first to give a correct description of the tracheotomy operation for suffocating patients. He perfected this surgical procedure through his experiments on a goat. He also performed postmortem autopsies on a sheep during his clinical trials on the treatment of ulcerating diseases of the lungs. He also wrote on the prophylaxis against urinary tract infections and described the importance of dietary management in maintaining the prophylaxis.

He established surgery as an independent field of medicine, by introducing a training course designed specifically for future surgeons, in order that they be qualified before being allowed to perform operations independently, and for defining the roles of a general practitioner and a surgeon in the treatment of a surgical condition.

The Method of Preparing Medicines and Diet

He performed the first parenteral nutrition of humans with a silver needle, and wrote a book on it entitled The Method of Preparing Medicines and Diet.

Anatomy, Physiology, Etiology and Parasitology

During his medical experiments on anatomy and physiology, Ibn Zuhr was the first physician known to have carried out human dissection and postmortem autopsy. He proved that the skin disease scabies was caused by a parasite, which contradicted the erroneous theory of four humours supported by Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna. The removal of the parasite from the patient’s body did not involve purging, bleeding or any other traditional treatments associated with the four humours. His works show that he was often highly critical of previous medical authorities, including Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine.

He was one of the first physicians to reject the erroneous theory of four humours, which dates back to Hippocrates and Galen. Avenzoar also confirmed the presence of blood in the body.

Ibn Zuhr was also the first to provide a real scientific etiology for the inflammatory diseases of the ear, and the first to clearly discuss the causes of stridor. He also proved that the skin disease scabies was caused by a parasite.

Anesthesiology

In anesthesiology, modern anesthesia was developed in Islamic Spain by the Muslim anesthesiologists Ibn Zuhr and Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi. They were the first to utilize oral as well as inhalant anesthetics, and they performed hundreds of surgeries under inhalant anesthesia with the use of narcotic-soaked sponges which were placed over the face.

Neurology and Neuropharmacology

Ibn Zuhr gave the first accurate descriptions on neurological disorders, including meningitis, intracranial thrombophlebitis, and mediastinal tumours, and made contributions to modern neuropharmacology.

Pharmacopoeia and drug therapy

Ibn Zuhr wrote an early pharmacopoeia, which later became the first Arabic book to be printed with a movable type in 1491.

Ibn Zuhr (and other Muslim physicians such as al-Kindi, Ibn Sahl, Abulcasis, al-Biruni, Avicenna, Averroes, Ibn al-Baitar, Ibn Al-Jazzar and Ibn al-Nafis) developed drug therapy and medicinal drugs for the treatment of specific symptoms and diseases. His use of practical experience and careful observation was extensive.

Al-Khwarizmi was born in the epicentre of an Islamic empire which then stretched from the Mediterranean to India. This was a very fortuitous time for Arabic learning. The rulers of the Abbasid dynasty who were leading this huge empire, founded an academy in Baghdad called the House of Wisdom where the learned men collected and translated all the scientific works that they could get hold of. House of Wisdom had a large library – first famous library established after the library of Alexandria was destroyed.

Al-Khwarizmi was one of the learned men who worked in the House of Wisdom. His interests lied in the fields of algebra, geometry, astronomy and geography. His now most famous work is that from which we got the name for algebra itself – Hisab al-jabr w’al-muqabala.

Abu Ja’far Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (c. 780, Khwarizm – c. 850) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer, who worked most of his life as a scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.

His Algebra was the first book on the systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. Consequently he is considered to be the father of algebra, a title he shares with Diophantus. Latin translations of his Arithmetic, on the Indian numerals, introduced the decimal positional number system to the Western world in the twelfth century. He revised and updated Ptolemy’s Geography as well as writing several works on astronomy and astrology.

His contributions not only made a great impact on mathematics, but on language as well. The word algebra is derived from al-jabr, one of the two operations used to solve quadratic equations, as described in his book. The words algorism and algorithm stem from Algoritmi, the Latinization of his name. His name is also the origin of the Spanish word guarismo and of the Portuguese word algarismo, both meaning digit.

Life

Few details about al-Khwarizmi’s life are known; it is not even certain where he was born. His name indicates he might have come from Khwarezm (Khiva), then part of Greater Khorasan, which at that time was part of the Persian Empire (the eastern part of the territory of Persia), now Xorazm Province of Uzbekistan. Abu Rayhan Biruni (a native Chorasmian) explicitly states: “The people of Khwarizm are a branch of the Persian tree”.

The historian Tabari gave his name as Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi al-Majousi al-Katarbali (Arabic: محمد بن موسى الخوارزميّ المجوسـيّ القطربّـليّ). The epithet al-Qutrubbulli indicates he might instead have come from Qutrubbull, a small town near Baghdad. However, Rashed points out that:

There is no need to be an expert on the period or a philologist to see that al-Tabari’s second citation should read “Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi and al-Majusi al-Qutrubbulli,” and that there are two people (al-Khwarizmi and al-Majusi al-Qutrubbulli) between whom the letter wa [Arabic ‘و' for the article ‘and'] has been omitted in an early copy. This would not be worth mentioning if a series of errors concerning the personality of al-Khwarizmi, occasionally even the origins of his knowledge, had not been made. Recently, G. J. Toomer with naive confidence constructed an entire fantasy on the error which cannot be denied the merit of amusing the reader.

Regarding al-Khwarizmi’s religion, Toomer writes:

Another epithet given to him by al-Ṭabari, “al-Majusi,” would seem to indicate that he was an adherent of the old Zoroastrian religion. This would still have been possible at that time for a man of Iranian origin, but the pious preface to al-Khwarizmi’s Algebra shows that he was an orthodox Muslim, so al-Ṭabari’s epithet could mean no more than that his forebears, and perhaps he in his youth, had been Zoroastrians.

In Ibn al-Nadim’s Kitab al-Fihrist we find a short biography on al-Khwarizmi, together with a list of the books he wrote. Al-Khwarizmi accomplished most of his work in the period between 813 and 833. After the Islamic conquest of Persia, Baghdad became the centre of scientific studies and trade, and many merchants and scientists from as far as China and India traveled to this city-as such apparently so did Al-Khwarizmi. He worked in Baghdad as a scholar at the House of Wisdom established by Caliph al-Maʾmun, where he studied the sciences and mathematics, which included the translation of Greek and Sanskrit scientific manuscripts.

Contributions

His major contributions to mathematics, astronomy, astrology, geography and cartography provided foundations for later and even more widespread innovation in algebra, trigonometry, and his other areas of interest. His systematic and logical approach to solving linear and quadratic equations gave shape to the discipline of algebra, a word that is derived from the name of his 830 book in the Arabic language on the subject, al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa’l-muqabala (Arabic الكتاب المختصر في حساب الجبر والمقابلة) or: “The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing”. The book was first translated into Latin in the twelfth century.

His book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 825, was principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle-East and then Europe. This book also translated into Latin in the twelfth century, as Algoritmi de numero Indorum. From the name of the author, rendered in Latin as algoritmi, originated the term algorithm.

Some of his contributions were based on earlier Persian and Babylonian Astronomy, Indian numbers, and Greek sources.

Al-Khwarizmi systematized and corrected Ptolemy’s data in geography as regards to Africa and the Middle east. Another major book was his Kitab surat al-ard (“The Image of the Earth”; translated as Geography), which presented the coordinates of localities in the known world based, ultimately, on those in the Geography of Ptolemy but with improved values for the length of the Mediterranean Sea and the location of cities in Asia and Africa.

He also assisted in the construction of a world map for the caliph al-Ma’mun and participated in a project to determine the circumference of the Earth, supervising the work of 70 geographers to create the map of the then “known world”.

When his work was copied and transferred to Europe through Latin translations, it had a profound impact on the advancement of basic mathematics in Europe. He also wrote on mechanical devices like the astrolabe and sundial.

Algebra

A page from al-Khwarizmi’s algebra

Al-Kitab al-mukhtaṣar fi ḥisab al-jabr wa-l-muqabala (Arabic: الكتاب المختصر في حساب الجبر والمقابلة “The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing”) is a mathematical book written approximately 830 CE. The term algebra is derived from the name of one of the basic operations with equations (al-jabr) described in this book. The book was translated in Latin as Liber algebrae et almucabala by Robert of Chester (Segovia, 1145) hence “algebra”, and also by Gerard of Cremona. A unique Arabic copy is kept at Oxford and was translated in 1831 by F. Rosen. A Latin translation is kept in Cambridge.

The al-jabr is considered the foundational text of modern algebra. It provided an exhaustive account of solving polynomial equations up to the second degree, and introduced the fundamental methods of “reduction” and “balancing”, referring to the transposition of subtracted terms to the other side of an equation, that is, the cancellation of like terms on opposite sides of the equation.

Al-Khwarizmi’s method of solving linear and quadratic equations worked by first reducing the equation to one of six standard forms (where b and c are positive integers)

• squares equal roots (ax² = bx)
• squares equal number (ax² = c)
• roots equal number (bx = c)
• squares and roots equal number (ax² + bx = c)
• squares and number equal roots (ax² + c = bx)
• roots and number equal squares (bx + c = ax²)

by dividing out the coefficient of the square and using the two operations al-ǧabr (Arabic: الجبر “restoring” or “completion”) and al-muqabala (“balancing”). Al-ǧabr is the process of removing negative units, roots and squares from the equation by adding the same quantity to each side. For example, x² = 40x − 4x² is reduced to 5x² = 40x. Al-muqabala is the process of bringing quantities of the same type to the same side of the equation. For example, x² + 14 = x + 5 is reduced to x² + 9 = x.

Several authors have also published texts under the name of Kitab al-ğabr wa-l-muqabala, including Abu Ḥanifa al-Dinawari, Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam, Abu Muḥammad al-ʿAdli, Abu Yusuf al-Miṣṣiṣi, ‘Abd al-Hamid ibn Turk, Sind ibn ʿAli, Sahl ibn Bišr, and Šarafaddin al-Ṭusi.

J. J. O’Conner and E. F. Robertson wrote in the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive:

“Perhaps one of the most significant advances made by Arabic mathematics began at this time with the work of al-Khwarizmi, namely the beginnings of algebra. It is important to understand just how significant this new idea was. It was a revolutionary move away from the Greek concept of mathematics which was essentially geometry. Algebra was a unifying theory which allowed rational numbers, irrational numbers, geometrical magnitudes, etc., to all be treated as “algebraic objects”. It gave mathematics a whole new development path so much broader in concept to that which had existed before, and provided a vehicle for future development of the subject. Another important aspect of the introduction of algebraic ideas was that it allowed mathematics to be applied to itself in a way which had not happened before.”

R. Rashed and Angela Armstrong write:

“Al-Khwarizmi’s text can be seen to be distinct not only from the Babylonian tablets, but also from Diophantus’ Arithmetica. It no longer concerns a series of problems to be resolved, but an exposition which starts with primitive terms in which the combinations must give all possible prototypes for equations, which henceforward explicitly constitute the true object of study. On the other hand, the idea of an equation for its own sake appears from the beginning and, one could say, in a generic manner, insofar as it does not simply emerge in the course of solving a problem, but is specifically called on to define an infinite class of problems.”

Page from a Latin translation, beginning with “Dixit algorizmi”

Arithmetic

Al-Khwarizmi’s second major work was on the subject of arithmetic, which survived in a Latin translation but was lost in the original Arabic. The translation was most likely done in the twelfth century by Adelard of Bath, who had also translated the astronomical tables in 1126.

The Latin manuscripts are untitled, but are commonly referred to by the first two words with which they start: Dixit algorizmi (“So said al-Khwarizmi”), or Algoritmi de numero Indorum (“al-Khwarizmi on the Hindu Art of Reckoning”), a name given to the work by Baldassarre Boncompagni in 1857. The original Arabic title was possibly Kitab al-Jamʿ wa-l-tafriq bi-ḥisab al-Hind(“The Book of Addition and Subtraction According to the Hindu Calculation”)

Al-Khwarizmi’s work on arithmetic was responsible for introducing the Arabic numerals, based on the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed in Indian mathematics, to the Western world. The term “algorithm” is derived from the algorism, the technique of performing arithmetic with Hindu-Arabic numerals developed by al-Khwarizmi. Both “algorithm” and “algorism” are derived from the Latinized forms of al-Khwarizmi’s name, Algoritmi and Algorismi, respectively.

Astronomy

Corpus Christi College MS 283

Al-Khwarizmi’s Zij al-Sindhind (Arabic: زيج “astronomical tables of Sind and Hind”) is a work consisting of approximately 37 chapters on calendrical and astronomical calculations and 116 tables with calendrical, astronomical and astrological data, as well as a table of sine values. This is the first of many Arabic Zijes based on the Indian astronomical methods known as the sindhind. The work contains tables for the movements of the sun, the moon and the five planets known at the time. This work marked the turning point in Islamic astronomy. Hitherto, Muslim astronomers had adopted a primarily research approach to the field, translating works of others and learning already discovered knowledge. Al-Khwarizmi’s work marked the beginning of non-traditional methods of study and calculations.

The original Arabic version (written c. 820) is lost, but a version by the Spanish astronomer Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti (c. 1000) has survived in a Latin translation, presumably by Adelard of Bath (January 26, 1126). The four surviving manuscripts of the Latin translation are kept at the Bibliothèque publique (Chartres), the Bibliothèque Mazarine (Paris), the Bibliotheca Nacional (Madrid) and the Bodleian Library (Oxford).

Al-Khwarizmi made several important improvements to the theory and construction of sundials, which he inherited from his Indian and Hellenistic predecessors. He made tables for these instruments which considerably shortened the time needed to make specific calculations. His sundial was universal and could be observed from anywhere on the Earth. From then on, sundials were frequently placed on mosques to determine the time of prayer. The shadow square, an instrument used to determine the linear height of an object, in conjunction with the alidade for angular observations, was also invented by al-Khwarizmi in ninth-century Baghdad.

The first quadrants and mural instruments were invented by al-Khwarizmi in ninth century Baghdad. The sine quadrant, invented by al-Khwarizmi, was used for astronomical calculations. The first horary quadrant for specific latitudes, was also invented by al-Khwarizmi in Baghdad, then center of the development of quadrants. It was used to determine time (especially the times of prayer) by observations of the Sun or stars. The Quadrans Vetus was a universal horary quadrant, an ingenious mathematical device invented by al-Khwarizmi in the ninth century and later known as the Quadrans Vetus (Old Quadrant) in medieval Europe from the thirteenth century. It could be used for any latitude on Earth and at any time of the year to determine the time in hours from the altitude of the Sun. This was the second most widely used astronomical instrument during the Middle Ages after the astrolabe. One of its main purposes in the Islamic world was to determine the times of Salah.

Geography

Hubert Daunicht’s reconstruction of al-Khwarizmi’s planisphere.

Al-Khwarizmi’s third major work is his Kitab ṣurat al-Arḍ (Arabic: كتاب صورة الأرض “Book on the appearance of the Earth” or “The image of the Earth” translated as Geography), which was finished in 833. It is a revised and completed version of Ptolemy’s Geography, consisting of a list of 2402 coordinates of cities and other geographical features following a general introduction.

There is only one surviving copy of Kitab ṣurat al-Arḍ, which is kept at the Strasbourg University Library. A Latin translation is kept at the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid. The complete title translates as Book of the appearance of the Earth, with its cities, mountains, seas, all the islands and rivers, written by Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, according to the geographical treatise written by Ptolemy the Claudian.

The book opens with the list of latitudes and longitudes, in order of “weather zones”, that is to say in blocks of latitudes and, in each weather zone, by order of longitude. As Paul Gallez points out, this excellent system allows us to deduce many latitudes and longitudes where the only document in our possession is in such a bad condition as to make it practically illegible.

Neither the Arabic copy nor the Latin translation include the map of the world itself, however Hubert Daunicht was able to reconstruct the missing map from the list of coordinates. Daunicht read the latitudes and longitudes of the coastal points in the manuscript, or deduces them from the context where they were not legible. He transferred the points onto graph paper and connected them with straight lines, obtaining an approximation of the coastline as it was on the original map. He then does the same for the rivers and towns.

Al-Khwarizmi corrected Ptolemy’s gross overestimate for the length of the Mediterranean Sea^[30] (from the Canary Islands to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean); Ptolemy overestimated it at 63 degrees of longitude, while al-Khwarizmi almost correctly estimated it at nearly 50 degrees of longitude. He “also depicted the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as open bodies of water, not land-locked seas as Ptolemy had done.” Al-Khwarizmi thus set the Prime Meridian of the Old World at the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, 10-13 degrees to the east of Alexandria (the prime meridian previously set by Ptolemy) and 70 degrees to the west of Baghdad. Most medieval Muslim geographers continued to use al-Khwarizmi’s prime meridian.

Jewish calendar

Al-Khwarizmi wrote several other works including a treatise on the Hebrew calendar (Risala fi istikhraj taʾrikh al-yahud “Extraction of the Jewish Era”). It describes the 19-year intercalation cycle, the rules for determining on what day of the week the first day of the month Tishri shall fall; calculates the interval between the Jewish era (creation of Adam) and the Seleucid era; and gives rules for determining the mean longitude of the sun and the moon using the Jewish calendar. Similar material is found in the works of al-Biruni and Maimonides.

Other works

Several Arabic manuscripts in Berlin, Istanbul, Tashkent, Cairo and Paris contain further material that surely or with some probability comes from al-Khwarizmi. The Istanbul manuscript contains a paper on sundials, which is mentioned in the Fihirst. Other papers, such as one on the determination of the direction of Mecca, are on the spherical astronomy.

Two texts deserve special interest on the morning width (Maʿrifat saʿat al-mashriq fi kull balad) and the determination of the azimuth from a height (Maʿrifat al-samt min qibal al-irtifaʿ).

He also wrote two books on using and constructing astrolabes. Ibn al-Nadim in his Kitab al-Fihrist (an index of Arabic books) also mentions Kitab ar-Ruḵama(t) (the book on sundials) and Kitab al-Tarikh (the book of history) but the two have been lost.The shaping of our mathematics can be attributed to Al-Khwarizmi (c.780-c.850), the chief librarian of the observatory, research center and library called the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. His treatise, “Hisab al-jabr w’al-muqabala” (Calculation by Restoration and Reduction), which covers linear and quadratic equations, solved trade imbalances, inheritance questions and problems arising from land surveyance and allocation. In passing, he also introduced into common usage our present numerical system, which replaced the old, cumbersome Roman one.

Life

Ahmed ibn Yusuf was born in Baghdad (today in Iraq) and moved with his father to Damascus in 839. He later moved to Cairo, but the exact date is unknown: since he was also known as al-Misri, which means the Egyptian, this probably happened at an early age. Eventually, he also died in Cairo. He probably grew up in a strongly intellectual environment: his father worked on Mathematics, Astronomy and Medicine, produced astronomical tables and was a member of a group of scholars. He achieved an important role in Egypt, which was caused by Egypt’s relative independence from the Abbasid Caliph.

Work

For some of the work attributed to Ahmed, it is not exactly clear whether he wrote his, whether his father wrote it or whether they wrote it together. It is clear, however, that he worked on a book on ratio and proportion. This was translated to Latin by Gherard of Cremona and was a commentary of Euclid’s Elements. This book influenced early European mathematicians such as Fibonacci. Further, in On similar arcs, he commented on Ptolemy’s Centiloquium. He also wrote a book on the astrolabe, a predecessor of the octant and the sextant. He invented methods to solve tax problems in Liber Abaci. He was also quoted by mathematicians such as Thomas Bradwardine, Jordanus Nemorarius and Luca Pacioli.

en.wikipedia.org

Works

His most important work was Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul ‘Ilm al-Bahr wa ‘l-Qawa’id (Book of Useful Information on the Principles and Rules of Navigation), written in 1490. It is a navigation encyclopedia, describing the history and basic principles of navigation, lunar mansions, rhumb lines, the difference between coastal and open-sea sailing, the locations of ports from East Africa to Indonesia, star positions, accounts of the monsoon and other seasonal winds, typhoons and other topics for professional navigators. He drew from his own experience and that of his father, also a famous navigator, and the lore of generations of Indian Ocean sailors.

Bin Majid wrote several books on marine science and the movements of ships, which helped people of the Persian Gulf to reach the coasts of India, East Africa and other destinations. Among his many books on oceanography, the Fawa’dh fi-Usl Ilm al-Bahrwa-al-Qawaidah (The Book of the Benefits of the Principles of Seamanship) is considered as one of his best.

He grew very famous and was fondly called Shihan Al Dein (Sea’s Lion) for his fearlessness, strength and experience as a sailor who excelled in the art of navigation.

Legacy

Ahmed Bin Majid’s efforts in the mid 14th century helped the Portuguese navigator Vasco Da Gama in completing the first all water trade route between Europe and India by using an Arab map then unknown to European sailors.

Two of his famous hand-written books are now prominent exhibits in the National Library in Paris.

en.wikipedia.org

Manuscript tradition

For a long time, only an incomplete version of the account was known, as transmitted in the geographical dictionary of Yaqut (under the headings Atil, Bashgird, Bulghar, Khazar, Khwarizm, Rus), published in 1823 by Fraehn. Only in 1923 was a manuscript discovered by the Turkish scholar of Bashkir origin Zeki Validi Togan in the library of the Iranian city of Mashhad. The manuscript MS 5229 dates from the 13th century (7th cent. Hijra) and consists of 420 pages (210 folia). Besides other geographical treatises, it contains a fuller version of Ibn Fadlan’s text (pp. 390-420). Additional passages not preserved in MS 5229 are quoted in the work of the 16th century Persian geographer Amin Razi called Haft Iqlim “Seven Climes”.

The Embassy

Ibn Fadlan was sent from Baghdad in 921 to serve as the secretary to an ambassador from the Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtadir to the iltabar (vassal-king under the Khazars) of the Volga Bulgaria, Almış.

The embassy’s objective was to have the king of the Bolğars pay homage to Caliph al-Muqtadir and, in return, to give the king money to pay for the construction of a fortress. Although they reached Bolğar, the mission failed because they were unable to collect the money intended for the king. Annoyed at not receiving the promised sum, the king refused to switch from the Maliki rite to the Hanafi rite of Baghdad.

The embassy left Baghdad on June 21, 921 (11 Safar 309). It reached the Bulghars after much hardship on May 12, 922 (12 Muharram 310) (This day is an official religious holiday in modern Tatarstan). The journey took Ibn Fadlan from Baghdad to Bukhara, to Khwarizm (south of the Aral Sea), to Jurjaniya (where his party spent the winter), north across the Ural River until they reached the towns of the Bulghars at the three lakes of the Volga north of the Samara bend.

After arriving in Bolğar, Ahmad ibn Fadlan made a trip to Wisu and recorded his observations of trade between the Volga Bolğars and local Finnic tribes.

The Rus

A substantial part of Ibn Fadlan’s account is dedicated to the description of a people he called the Rus روس or Rusiyyah. Most scholars identify them with the Rus’ or Varangians, which would make Ibn Fadlan’s account one of the earliest portrayals of Vikings.

The Rus appear as traders that set up shop on the river banks nearby the Bolğar camp. They are described as having the most perfect bodies, tall as palm-trees, with blond hair and ruddy skin. They are tattooed from “fingernails to neck” with dark blue “tree patterns” and other “figures” and that all men are armed with an axe and a long knife.

Ibn Fadlan describes the hygiene of the Rusiyyah as disgusting (while also noting with some astonishment that they comb their hair every day) and considers them vulgar and unsophisticated. In that, his impressions contradict those of the Persian traveler Ibn Rustah. He also describes in great detail the funeral of one of their chieftains (a ship burial involving human sacrifice). Some scholars believe that it took place in the modern Balymer complex.

Fiction

Elements of Ibn Fadlan’s account are used in the novel Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton (filmed as The 13th Warrior with Antonio Banderas as Ibn Fadlan), in which the Arab ambassador is taken even further north and is involved in adventures inspired by the Old English epic Beowulf. Indeed Crichton designed “Eaters of the Dead” as being a fictional version of the historic events which created the basis of the epic “Beowulf”.

en.wikipedia.org

Biography

Abu al-Qasim was born in the city of El Zahra, six miles northwest of Cordoba, Spain. He was descended from the Ansar Arab tribe who settled earlier in Spain. Few details remain regarding his life, aside from his published work, due to the destruction of El-Zahra during later Spanish-Moorish conflicts. His name first appears in the writings of Abu Muhammad bin Hazm (993 – 1064), who listed him among the greatest physicians of Moorish Spain. But we have the first detailed biography of El-Zahrawi from al-Humaydi’s Jadhwat al-Muqtabis (On Andalusian Savants), completed six decades after El-Zahrawi’s death.

In El-Zahra, he lived most of his life. It is also where he studied, taught and practised medicine and surgery until shortly before his death in about 1013, two years after the sacking of El-Zahra.

Works

Abu al-Qasim was a court physician to the Andalusian caliph Al-Hakam II. He devoted his entire life and genius to the advancement of medicine as a whole and surgery in particular. His best work was the Kitab al-Tasrif. It is a medical encyclopaedia spanning 30 volumes which included sections on surgery, medicine, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, pharmacology, nutrition etc.

In the 14th century, French surgeon Guy de Chauliac quoted al-Tasrif over 200 times. Pietro Argallata (d. 1453) described Abu al-Qasim as “without doubt the chief of all surgeons”. In an earlier work, he is credited to be the first to describe ectopic pregnancy in 963, in those days a fatal affliction. Abu Al-Qasim’s influence continued for at least five centuries, extending into the Renaissance, evidenced by al-Tasrif’s frequent reference by French surgeon Jaques Delechamps (1513-1588).

Page from a 1531 Latin translation by Peter Argellata of El Zahrawi’s treatise on surgical and medical instruments.

Kitab al-Tasrif

Abu al-Qasim’s thirty-chapter medical treatise, Kitab al-Tasrif, published in 1000, covered a broad range of medical topics, including dentistry and childbirth, which contained data that had accumulated during a career that spanned almost 50 years of training, teaching and practice. In it he also wrote of the importance of a positive doctor-patient relationship and wrote affectionately of his students, whom he referred to as “my children”. He also emphasised the importance of treating patients irrespective of their social status. He encouraged the close observation of individual cases in order to make the most accurate diagnosis and the best possible treatment.

Al-Tasrif was later translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 12th century, and illustrated. For perhaps five centuries during the European Middle Ages, it was the primary source for European medical knowledge, and served as a reference for doctors and surgeons.

Not always properly credited, Abu Al-Qasim’s al-Tasrif described both what would later became known as “Kocher’s method” for treating a dislocated shoulder and “Walcher position” in obstetrics. Al-Tasrif described how to ligature blood vessels before Ambroise Pare, and was the first recorded book to document several dental devices and explain the hereditary nature of haemophilia.

Advances in surgery

Al-Qasim was a surgeon and specialized in curing disease by cauterization. He also invented several devices used during surgery, for the purpose of:

• inspection of the interior of the urethra
• applying and removing foreign bodies from the throat
• inspection of the ear

Al-Qasim also described the use of forceps in vaginal deliveries.

Surgical instruments

In his Al-Tasrif (The Method of Medicine), he introduced his famous collection of over 200 surgical instruments. Many of these instruments were never used before by any previous surgeons. Hamidan, for example, listed at least twenty six innovative surgical instruments that Abulcasis introduced.

Catgut

Abu al-Qasim’s use of catgut for internal stitching is still practised in modern surgery. The catgut appears to be the only natural substance capable of dissolving and is acceptable by the body.

Forceps

In the Al-Tasrif (1000), Abu al-Qasim invented the forceps for extracting a dead fetus, as illustrated in the the Al-Tasrif.^[3]

Ligature

In the Al-Tasrif (1000), Abu al-Qasim introduced the use of ligature for the arteries in lieu of cauterization.

Surgical needle

The surgical needle was invented and described by Abu al-Qasim in his Al-Tasrif (1000).

Other instruments

Other surgical instruments invented by Abu al-Qasim and first described in his Al-Tasrif (1000) include the scalpel, curette, retractor, surgical spoon, sound, surgical hook, surgical rod, and specula.

en.wikipedia.org

Life

Born in Guadix near Granada, he was educated by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace). He served as a secretary for the ruler of Granada, and later as vizier and physician for Abu Yaqub Yusuf, the Almohad ruler of Al-Andalus, to whom he recommended Averroës as his own successor when he retired in 1182. He died in Morocco.

Ibn Tufail was the author of Ḥayy bin Yaqẓan, حي بن يقظان (“Alive son of Awake”): a philosophical romance and allegorical tale of a man who lives alone on an island and who, without contact with other human beings, discovers ultimate truth through a systematic process of reasoned inquiry. Hayy ultimately comes into contact with civilization and religion when he meets Absal. He determines that the trappings of religion, namely imagery and dependence on material goods, are necessary for the multitude in order that they might have decent lives. However, imagery and material goods are distractions from the truth and ought to be abandoned by those whose reason recognizes that they are distractions.

Ibn Tufail drew the name of the tale and most of its characters from an earlier work by Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Ibn Tufail’s book was neither a commentary on nor a mere retelling of Ibn Sina’s work, however, but a new and innovative work in its own right. It reflects one of the main concerns of Muslim philosophers (later also of Christian thinkers), that of reconciling philosophy with revelation. At the same time, the narrative anticipates in some ways both Robinson Crusoe and Rousseau’s Émile. It tells of a child who is nurtured by a gazelle and grows up in total isolation from humans. In seven phases of seven years each, solely by the exercise of his faculties, Hayy goes through all the graduations of knowledge.

The story of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is similar to the later story of Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book in that a baby is abandoned in a deserted tropical island where he is take care of and fed by a mother wolf.

A Latin translation of the work, entitled Philosophus autodidactus, first appeared in 1671, prepared by Edward Pococke the Younger. The first English translation (by Simon Ockley) was published in 1708.

The astronomer Nur Ed-Din Al Betrugi was a disciple of Ibn Tufail.

He wrote some 450 books on a wide range of subjects, many of which concentrated on philosophy and medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text at many Islamic and European universities up until the 18th century. Ibn Sina developed a medical system that combined his own personal experience with that of Islamic medicine, the medical system of Galen, Aristotelian metaphysics, and ancient Persian, Arabian and Indian medicine. Ibn Sina is regarded as the father of modern medicine, particularly for his introduction of systematic experimentation and quantification into the study of physiology, and for his discovery of the contagious nature of diseases. He is also considered the father of the fundamental concept of momentum in physics.

George Sarton, the father of the history of science, wrote in the Introduction to the History of Science:

“One of the most famous exponents of Muslim universalism and an eminent figure in Islamic learning was Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna (981-1037). For a thousand years he has retained his original renown as one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history. His most important medical works are the Qanun (Canon) and a treatise on Cardiac drugs. The ‘Qanun fi-l-Tibb’ is an immense encyclopedia of medicine. It contains some of the most illuminating thoughts pertaining to distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy; contagious nature of phthisis; distribution of diseases by water and soil; careful description of skin troubles; of sexual diseases and perversions; of nervous ailments.

Biography

Early life

Ibn Sina’s life is known to us from authoritative sources. A biography, which is widely considered by foremost Arabicists to have been composed by a disciple and later redacted, covers his first thirty years, and the rest are documented by his disciple al-Juzjani, who was also his secretary and his friend.

He was born in Persia around 980 (370 AH) in Afshana, his mother’s home, a small city now part of Uzbekistan. His father, a respected Ismaili scholar, was from Balkh of the Persian province of Khorasan, now part of Afghanistan, and was at the time of his son’s birth the governor of a village in one of the Samanid Nuh ibn Mansur’s estates. He had his son very carefully educated at Bukhara. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam his father and his brother were influenced by Isma’ili propaganda; he was certainly acquainted with its tenets, but refused to adopt them. Ibn Sina’s independent thought was served by an extraordinary intelligence and memory, which allowed him to overtake his teachers at the age of fourteen.

Ibn Sina was put under the charge of a tutor, and his precocity soon made him the marvel of his neighbours; he displayed exceptional intellectual behaviour and was a child prodigy who had memorized the Quran by the age of 7 and a great deal of Persian poetry as well. From a greengrocer he learned arithmetic, and he began to learn more from a wandering scholar who gained a livelihood by curing the sick and teaching the young.

However he was greatly troubled by metaphysical problems and in particular the works of Aristotle. So, for the next year and a half, he also studied philosophy, in which he encountered greater obstacles. In such moments of baffled inquiry, he would leave his books, perform the requisite ablutions, then go to the mosque, and continue in prayer till light broke on his difficulties. Deep into the night he would continue his studies, and even in his dreams problems would pursue him and work out their solution. Forty times, it is said, he read through the Metaphysics of Aristotle, till the words were imprinted on his memory; but their meaning was hopelessly obscure, until one day they found illumination, from the little commentary by Farabi, which he bought at a bookstall for the small sum of three dirhams. So great was his joy at the discovery, thus made by help of a work from which he had expected only mystery, that he hastened to return thanks to God, and bestowed alms upon the poor.

He turned to medicine at 16, and not only learned medical theory, but also by gratuitous attendance on the sick had, according to his own account, discovered new methods of treatment. The teenager achieved full status as a physician at age 18 and found that “Medicine is no hard and thorny science, like mathematics and metaphysics, so I soon made great progress; I became an excellent doctor and began to treat patients, using approved remedies.” The youthful physician’s fame spread quickly, and he treated many patients without asking for payment.

Adulthood

His first appointment was that of physician to the emir, who owed him his recovery from a dangerous illness (997). Ibn Sina’s chief reward for this service was access to the royal library of the Samanids, well-known patrons of scholarship and scholars. When the library was destroyed by fire not long after, the enemies of Ibn Sina accused him of burning it, in order for ever to conceal the sources of his knowledge. Meanwhile, he assisted his father in his financial labours, but still found time to write some of his earliest works.

When Ibn Sina was 22 years old, he lost his father. The Samanid dynasty came to its end in December 1004. Ibn Sina seems to have declined the offers of Mahmud of Ghazni, and proceeded westwards to Urgench in the modern Uzbekistan, where the vizier, regarded as a friend of scholars, gave him a small monthly stipend. The pay was small, however, so Ibn Sina wandered from place to place through the districts of Nishapur and Merv to the borders of Khorasan, seeking an opening for his talents. Shams al-Ma’ali Kavuus, the generous ruler of Dailam and central Persia, himself a poet and a scholar, with whom Ibn Sina had expected to find an asylum, was about that date (1052) starved to death by his troops who had revolted. Ibn Sina himself was at this season stricken down by a severe illness. Finally, at Gorgan, near the Caspian Sea, Ibn Sina met with a friend, who bought a dwelling near his own house in which Ibn Sina lectured on logic and astronomy. Several of Ibn Sina’s treatises were written for this patron; and the commencement of his Canon of Medicine also dates from his stay in Hyrcania.

Ibn Sina subsequently settled at Rai, in the vicinity of modern Tehran, (present day capital of Iran), the home town of Rhazes; where Majd Addaula, a son of the last Buwayhid emir, was nominal ruler under the regency of his mother (Seyyedeh Khatun). About thirty of Ibn Sina’s shorter works are said to have been composed in Rai. Constant feuds which raged between the regent and her second son, Amir Shamsud-Dawala, however, compelled the scholar to quit the place. After a brief sojourn at Qazvin he passed southwards to Hamadãn, where another Deylamite emir had established himself. At first, Ibn Sina entered into the service of a high-born lady; but the emir, hearing of his arrival, called him in as medical attendant, and sent him back with presents to his dwelling. Ibn Sina was even raised to the office of vizier. The emir consented that he should be banished from the country. Ibn Sina, however, remained hidden for forty days in a sheikh’s house, till a fresh attack of illness induced the emir to restore him to his post. Even during this perturbed time, Ibn Sina persevered with his studies and teaching. Every evening, extracts from his great works, the Canon and the Sanatio, were dictated and explained to his pupils. On the death of the emir, Ibn Sina ceased to be vizier and hid himself in the house of an apothecary, where, with intense assiduity, he continued the composition of his works.

Meanwhile, he had written to Abu Ya’far, the prefect of the dynamic city of Isfahan, offering his services. The new emir of Hamadan, hearing of this correspondence and discovering where Ibn Sina was hidden, incarcerated him in a fortress. War meanwhile continued between the rulers of Isfahan and Hamadãn; in 1024 the former captured Hamadan and its towns, expelling the Tajik mercenaries. When the storm had passed, Ibn Sina returned with the emir to Hamadan, and carried on his literary labours. Later, however, accompanied by his brother, a favourite pupil, and two slaves, Ibn Sina escaped out of the city in the dress of a Sufi ascetic. After a perilous journey, they reached Isfahan, receiving an honourable welcome from the prince.

Later life

Avicenna’s tomb in Hamedan, Iran

The remaining ten or twelve years of Ibn Sina’s life were spent in the service of Abu Ja’far ‘Ala Addaula, whom he accompanied as physician and general literary and scientific adviser, even in his numerous campaigns.

During these years he began to study literary matters and philology, instigated, it is asserted, by criticisms on his style. He contrasts with the nobler and more intellectual character of Averroes. A severe colic, which seized him on the march of the army against Hamadãn, was checked by remedies so violent that Ibn Sina could scarcely stand. On a similar occasion the disease returned; with difficulty he reached Hamadãn, where, finding the disease gaining ground, he refused to keep up the regimen imposed, and resigned himself to his fate.

His friends advised him to slow down and take life moderately. He refused, however, stating that: “I prefer a short life with width to a narrow one with length”. On his deathbed remorse seized him; he bestowed his goods on the poor, restored unjust gains, freed his slaves, and every third day till his death listened to the reading of the Qur’an. He died in June 1037, in his fifty-eighth year, and was buried in Hamedan, Iran.

Works

Scarcely any member of the Muslim circle of the sciences, including theology, philology, mathematics, astronomy, physics, and music, was left untouched by the treatises of Ibn Sina. This vast quantity of works – be they full-blown treatises or opuscula – vary so much in style and content (if one were to compare between the ‘ahd made with his disciple Bahmanyar to uphold philosophical integrity with the Provenance and Direction, for example) that Yahya (formerly Jean) Michot has accused him of “neurological bipolarity”.

Ibn Sina wrote at least one treatise on alchemy, but several others have been falsely attributed to him. His book on animals was translated by Michael Scot. His Logic, Metaphysics, Physics, and De Caelo, are treatises giving a synoptic view of Aristotelian doctrine, though the Metaphysics demonstrates a significant departure from the brand of Neoplatonism known as Aristotelianism in Ibn Sina’s world; Arabic philosophers have hinted at the idea that Ibn Sina was attempting to “re-Aristotelianise” Muslim philosophy in its entirety, unlike his predecessors, who accepted the conflation of Platonic, Aristotelian, Neo- and Middle-Platonic works transmitted into the Muslim world.

The Logic and Metaphysics have been printed more than once, the latter, e.g., at Venice in 1493, 1495, and 1546. Some of his shorter essays on medicine, logic, etc., take a poetical form (the poem on logic was published by Schmoelders in 1836). Two encyclopaedic treatises, dealing with philosophy, are often mentioned. The larger, Al-Shifa’ (Sanatio), exists nearly complete in manuscript in the Bodleian Library and elsewhere; part of it on the De Anima appeared at Pavia (1490) as the Liber Sextus Naturalium, and the long account of Ibn Sina’s philosophy given by Muhammad al-Shahrastani seems to be mainly an analysis, and in many places a reproduction, of the Al-Shifa’. A shorter form of the work is known as the An-najat (Liberatio). The Latin editions of part of these works have been modified by the corrections which the monastic editors confess that they applied. There is also a حكمت مشرقيه (hikmat-al-mashriqqiyya, in Latin Philosophia Orientalis), mentioned by Roger Bacon, the majority of which is lost in antiquity, which according to Averroes was pantheistic in tone.

Sciences

Medicine

A Latin copy of the Canon of Medicine, dated 1484, located at the P.I. Nixon Medical Historical Library of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

About 100 treatises were ascribed to Ibn Sina. Some of them are tracts of a few pages, others are works extending through several volumes. The best-known amongst them, and that to which Ibn Sina owed his European reputation, is his 14-volume The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text in Europe and the Islamic world up until the 18th century. The book is known for its introduction of systematic experimentation and quantification into the study of physiology, and for the discovery of contagious diseases. It classifies and describes diseases, and outlines their assumed causes. Hygiene, simple and complex medicines, and functions of parts of the body are also covered. In this, Ibn Sina is credited as being the first to correctly document the anatomy of the human eye, along with descriptions of eye afflictions such as cataracts. It asserts that tuberculosis was contagious, which was later disputed by Europeans, but turned out to be true. It also describes the symptoms and complications of diabetes. Both forms of facial paralysis were described in-depth. In addition, the workings of the heart as a valve are described.

A copy of the Canon of Medicine, dated 1593

An Arabic edition of the Canon appeared at Rome in 1593, and a Hebrew version at Naples in 1491. Of the Latin version there were about thirty editions, founded on the original translation by Gerard de Sablonetta. In the 15th century a commentary on the text of the Canon was composed. Other medical works translated into Latin are the Medicamenta Cordialia, Canticum de Medicina, and the Tractatus de Syrupo Acetoso.

It was mainly accident which determined that from the 12th to the 18th century, Ibn Sina should be the guide of medical study in European universities, and eclipse the names of Rhazes, Ali ibn al-Abbas and Averroes. His work is not essentially different from that of his predecessor Rhazes, because he presented the doctrine of Galen, and through Galen the doctrine of Hippocrates, modified by the system of Aristotle, as well as the Indian doctrines of Sushruta and Charaka.^[12] But the Canon of Ibn Sina is distinguished from the Al-Hawi (Continens) or Summary of Rhazes by its greater method, due perhaps to the logical studies of the former.

The work has been variously appreciated in subsequent ages, some regarding it as a treasury of wisdom, and others, like Averroes, holding it useful only as waste paper. In modern times it has been seen of mainly historic interest as most of its tenets have been disproved or expanded upon by scientific medicine. The vice of the book is excessive classification of bodily faculties, and over-subtlety in the discrimination of diseases. It includes five books; of which the first and second discuss physiology, pathology and hygiene, the third and fourth deal with the methods of treating disease, and the fifth describes the composition and preparation of remedies. This last part contains some personal observations.

He is, like all his countrymen, ample in the enumeration of symptoms, and is said to be inferior to Ali in practical medicine and surgery. He introduced into medical theory the four causes of the Peripatetic system. Of natural history and botany he pretended to no special knowledge. Up to the year 1650, or thereabouts, the Canon was still used as a textbook in the universities of Leuven and Montpellier.

In the museum at Bukhara, there are displays showing many of his writings, surgical instruments from the period and paintings of patients undergoing treatment. Ibn Sina was interested in the effect of the mind on the body, and wrote a great deal on psychology, likely influencing Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Bajjah. He also introduced medical herbs.

Alchemy

In alchemy, Ibn Sina discredited the theory of transmutation of substances believed by some alchemists:

“Those of the chemical craft know well that no change can be effected in the different species of substances, though they can produce the appearance of such change.”

Aromatherapy

Ibn Sina used steam distillation to produce the first essential oils. As a result, he is regarded as a pioneer of aromatherapy.

Astronomy

In 1070, Abu Ubayd al-Juzjani, a pupil of Ibn Sina, claimed that his teacher Ibn Sina had solved the equant problem in Ptolemy’s planetary model.

Chemistry

In chemistry, steam distillation was invented by Ibn Sina in the early 11th century, which he used to produce essential oils.

Earth sciences

Ibn Sina wrote on the earth sciences in The Book of Healing. In geology, he hypothesized two causes of mountains:

“Either they are the effects of upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as might occur during a violent earthquake, or they are the effect of water, which, cutting itself a new route, has denuded the valleys, the strata being of different kinds, some soft, some hard… It would require a long period of time for all such changes to be accomplished, during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat diminished in size.”

Physics

In physics, Ibn Sina was the first to employ an air thermometer in his scientific experiments.

In mechanics, Ibn Sina developed an elaborate theory of motion, in which he made a distinction between the inclination and force of a projectile, and concluded that motion was a result of an inclination (mayl) transferred to the projectile by the thrower, and that projectile motion in a vacuum would not cease. He viewed inclination as a permanent force whose effect is dissipated by external forces such as air resistance. His theory of motion was thus consistent with the concept of inertia in Newton’s first law of motion. Ibn Sina also referred to mayl to as being proportional to weight times velocity, a precursor to the concept of momentum in Newton’s second law of motion. Ibn Sina’s theory of mayl was further developed by Jean Buridan in his theory of impetus.

In optics, Ibn Sina provided a sophisticated explanation for the rainbow phenomenon. Carl Benjamin Boyer described Ibn Sina’s theory on the rainbow as follows:

“Independent observation had demonstrated to him that the bow is not formed in the dark cloud but rather in the very thin mist lying between the cloud and the sun or observer. The cloud, he thought, serves simply as the background of this thin substance, much as a quicksilver lining is placed upon the rear surface of the glass in a mirror. Ibn Sina would change the place not only of the bow, but also of the color formation, holding the iridescence to be merely a subjective sensation in the eye.”

en.wikipedia.org

His most important astronomical treatise was the Kitab nihayat al-sul fi tashih al-usul (The Final Quest Concerning the Rectification of Principles), in which he drastically reformed the Ptolemaic models of the Sun, Moon, and planets, while eliminating the eccentrics and equant by introducing extra epicycles.

Although his system was firmly geocentric, he had eliminated the Ptolemaic equant and eccentrics, and the mathematical details of his system were identical to those in Nicholaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus. It is thus believed that Ibn al-Shatir’s model was adapted by Copernicus into a heliocentric model. Though this remains uncertain, it is known that Byzantine Greek manuscripts containing the Tusi-couple which Ibn al-Shatir employed had reached Italy in the 15th century.

Ibn al-Shatir’s model for the appearances of Mercury, showing the multiplication of epicycles in a Ptolemaic enterprise

Y. M. Faruqi writes:

“Ibn al-Shatir’s theory of lunar motion was very similar to that attributed to Copernicus some 150 years later”.

“Whereas Ibn al-Shatir’s concept of planetary motion was conceived in order to play an important role in an earth-centred planetary model, Copernicus used the same concept of motion to present his sun-centred planetary model. Thus the development of alternative models took place that permitted an empirical testing of the models.”

en.wikipedia.org

He was a scientist and physicist, an anthropologist, an astronomer and astrologer, an encyclopedist and historian, a geographer, a geodesist and geologist, a mathematician, a pharmacist and physician, a philosopher and Ash’ari theologian, a scholar and teacher, and a traveller, who contributed greatly to all of these fields. He was also the first Muslim scholar to study India and the Brahminical tradition, and has been described as the father of Indology, the father of geodesy, and “the first anthropologist”. Along with Geber and Ibn al-Haytham, al-Biruni was also one of the earliest leading exponents of the experimental method, and the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena.

George Sarton, the father of the history of science, described al-Biruni as:

“One of the very greatest scientists of Islam, and, all considered, one of the greatest of all times.”

A. I. Sabra desribed al-Biruni as:

“One of the great scientific minds in all history.”

The Al-Biruni crater, on the Moon, is named after al-Biruni.

Biography

He was born in Khwarazm (formerly north-eastern part of the Persian Samanid dynasty) presently in Khiva, Uzbekistan. He studied mathematics and astronomy under Abu Nasr Mansur.

He was a colleague of the fellow Persian Muslim philosopher and physician Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna), the historian, philosopher and ethicist Ibn Miskawayh, in a university and science center established by prince Abu al-Abbas Ma’mun Khawarazmshah. He also travelled to South Asia with Mahmud of Ghazni (whose son and successor Masud was, however, his major patron), and accompanied him on his campaigns in India (in 1030), learning Indian languages, and studying the religion and philosophy of its people. There, he also wrote his Ta’rikh al-Hind (“Chronicles of India”). Biruni wrote his books in Arabic and his native language Persian, though he knew no less than four other languages: Greek, Sanskrit, Syriac, and possibly Berber.

He was buried in Ghazni in Afganistan.

Works

An illustration from Beruni’s Persian book. It shows different phases of the moon.

Biruni’s works number 146 in total. These include 35 books on astronomy, 4 on astrolabes, 23 on astrology, 5 on chronology, 2 on time measurement, 9 on geography, 10 on geodesy and mapping theory, 15 on mathematics (8 on arithmetic, 5 on geometry, 2 on trigonometry), 2 on mechanics, 2 on medicine and pharmacology, 1 on meteorology, 2 on mineralogy and gems, 4 on history, 2 on India, 3 on religion and philosophy, 16 literary works, 2 books on magic, and 9 unclassified books. Among these works, only 22 have survived, and only 13 of these works have been published. His extant works include:

• Critical study of what India says, whether accepted by reason or refused (Arabic تحقيق ما للهند من مقولة معقولة في العقل أم مرذولة) – a compendium of India’s religion and philosophy
• The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries (Arabic الآثار الباقية عن القرون الخالية) – a comparative study of calendars of different cultures and civilizations, interlaced with mathematical, astronomical, and historical information.
• The Mas’udi Canon (Persian قانون مسعودي) – an extensive encyclopedia on astronomy, geography, and engineering, named after Mas’ud, son of Mahmud of Ghazni, to whom he dedicated
• Understanding Astrology (Arabic التفهيم لصناعة التنجيم) – a question and answer style book about mathematics and astronomy, in Arabic and Persian
• Pharmacy – about drugs and medicines
• Gems (Arabic الجماهر في معرفة الجواهر) about geology, minerals, and gems, dedicated to Mawdud son of Mas’ud
• Astrolabe
• A historical summary book
• History of Mahmud of Ghazni and his father
• History of Khawarazm

Anthropology

Biruni has been described as “the first anthropologist”. He wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of peoples, religions and cultures in the Middle East, Mediterranean and South Asia. Biruni’s anthropology of religion was only possible for a scholar deeply immersed in the lore of other nations. Biruni has also been praised by several scholars for his Islamic anthropology.

Astronomy

A statue of Biruni adorns the southwest entrance of Laleh Park in Tehran, Iran.

Instruments

In astronomy, al-Biruni invented and wrote the earliest treatises on the planisphere and the orthographical astrolabe, as well as the armillary sphere, and was able to mathematically determine the direction of the Qibla from any place in the world.^[15][16]

He also invented an early hodometer, and the first mechanical lunisolar calendar computer which employed a gear train and eight gear-wheels. These were early examples of fixed-wired knowledge processing machines.

Theories

Al-Biruni was the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena. He discovered the Milky Way galaxy to be a collection of numerous nebulous stars. In Khorasan, he observed and described the solar eclipse on April 8, 1019, and the lunar eclipse on September 17, 1019, in detail, and gave the exact latitudes of the stars during the lunar eclipse.

In 1030, Biruni discussed the Indian heliocentric theories of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Varahamihira in his Indica. Biruni noted that the question of heliocentricity was a philosophical rather than a mathematical problem.

In 1031, al-Biruni completed his extensive astronomical encyclopaedia Kitab al-Qanun al-Mas’udi (Latinized as Canon Mas’udicus), in which he recorded his astronomical findings and formulated astronomical tables. The book introduces the mathematical technique of analysing the acceleration of the planets, and first states that the motions of the solar apogee and the precession are not identical. Al-Biruni also discovered that the distance between the Earth and the Sun is larger than Ptolemy’s estimate, on the basis that Ptolemy disregarded the annual solar eclipses.

Abu Said Sinjari, a contemporary of al-Biruni, suggested the possible heliocentric movement of the Earth around the Sun, which al-Biruni did not reject. Al-Biruni agreed with the Earth’s rotation about its own axis, and while he was initially neutral regarding the heliocentric and geocentric models, he considered heliocentrism to be a philosophical problem. He remarked that if the Earth rotates on its axis and moves around the Sun, it would remain consistent with his astronomical parameters:

“Rotation of the earth would in no way invalidate astronomical calculations, for all the astronomical data are as explicable in terms of the one theory as of the other. The problem is thus difficult of solution.”

Will Durant wrote the following on al-Biruni’s contributions to astronomy:

“He wrote treatises on the astrolabe, the planisphere, the armillary sphere; and formulated astronomical tables for Sultan Masud. He took it for granted that the earth is round, noted “the attraction of all things towards the center of the earth,” and remarked that astronomic data can be explained as well by supposing that the earth turns daily on its axis and annually around the sun, as by the reverse hypothesis.”

Chemistry

Along with al-Kindi and Avicenna, al-Biruni was one of the first chemists to reject the theory of the transmuation of metals supported by some alchemists.

Earth sciences

Biruni made a number of contributions to the Earth sciences. In particular, he is regarded as the father of geodesy,^[7][26] and has made significant contributions to cartography, geography, and geology.

Cartography

By the age of 22, he had written several short works, including a study of map projections, Cartography, which included a method for projecting a hemisphere on a plane.

Geodesy and Geography

At the age of 17, Biruni calculated the latitude of Kath, Khwarazm, using the maximum altitude of the Sun. Biruni also solved a complex geodesic equation in order to accurately compute the Earth’s circumference, which were close to modern values of the Earth’s circumference. His estimate of 6,339.9 km for the Earth radius was only 16.8 km less than the modern value of 6,356.7 km.

John J. O’Connor and Edmund F. Robertson write in the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive:

“Important contributions to geodesy and geography were also made by al-Biruni. He introduced techniques to measure the earth and distances on it using triangulation. He found the radius of the earth to be 6339.6 km, a value not obtained in the West until the 16th century. His Masudic canon contains a table giving the coordinates of six hundred places, almost all of which he had direct knowledge.”

Geology

Among his writings on geology, Biruni wrote the following on the geology of India:

“But if you see the soil of India with your own eyes and meditate on its nature, if you consider the rounded stones found in earth however deeply you dig, stones that are huge near the mountains and where the rivers have a violent current: stones that are of smaller size at a greater distance from the mountains and where the streams flow more slowly: stones that appear pulverised in the shape of sand where the streams begin to stagnate near their mouths and near the sea – if you consider all this you can scarcely help thinking that India was once a sea, which by degrees has been filled up by the alluvium of the streams.”

History

Chronology

By the age of 27, in the year 1000, he had written a book called Chronology which referred to other works he had completed (now lost) that included one book about the astrolabe, one about the decimal system, four about astrology, and two about history.

He discussed more on his idea of history in another work, The Chronology of the Ancient Nations.

Indology

Until the 10th century, history most often meant political and military history, but this was not so with Persian historian Biruni (973-1048). In his Kitab fi Tahqiq ma l’il-Hind (Researches on India), he did not record political and military history in any detail, but wrote more on India’s cultural, scientific, social and religious history. Biruni is now regarded as the father of Indology.

Mathematics

He made significant contributions to mathematics, especially in the fields of theoretical and practical arithmetic, summation of series, combinatorial analysis, the rule of three, irrational numbers, ratio theory, algebraic definitions, method of solving algebraic equations, geometry, and the development of Archimedes’ theorems.

Medicine

Al-Biruni’s Kitab-al-Saidana was an extensive medical encyclopedia which synthesized Islamic medicine with Indian medicine. His medical investigations included one of the earliest descriptions on Siamese twins.

Physics

Celestial mechanics

In the celestial mechanics field of physics, al-Biruni described the Earth’s gravitation as:

“The attraction of all things towards the centre of the earth.”

He also discovered that gravity exists within the heavenly bodies and celestial spheres, and he criticized Aristotle’s views of them not having any levity or gravity and of circular motion being an innate property of the heavenly bodies.

Dynamics and kinematics

In the dynamics and kinematics fields of mechanics, al-Biruni was the first to realize that acceleration is connected with non-uniform motion, which is part of Newton’s second law of motion.

Natural philosophy

Al-Biruni and Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna), who are regarded as two of the greatest polymaths in Persian history, were both colleagues and knew each other since the turn of the millenium. Al-Biruni later engaged in a written debate with Avicenna, with al-Biruni criticizing Aristotelian natural philosophy and the Peripatetic school, while Avicenna and his student Ahmad ibn ‘Ali al-Ma’sumi respond to al-Biruni’s criticisms in writing. Al-Biruni began by asking Avicenna eighteen questions, ten of which were criticisms of Aristotle’s On the Heavens, with his first question criticizing Aristotle’s reasons for denying the existence of levity or gravity in the celestial spheres and the Aristotelian notion of circular motion being an innate property of the heavenly bodies.

Al-Biruni’s second question criticizes Aristotle’s over-reliance on more ancient views concerning the heavens, while the third criticizes the Aristotelian view that space has only six directions. The fourth question deals with the continuity and discontinuity of physical bodies, while the fifth criticizes the Peripatetic school’s denial of the possibility of there existing another world completely different from the world known to them. In his sixth question, al-Biruni rejects Aristotle’s view on the celestial spheres having circular orbits rather than elliptic orbits. In his seventh question, he rejects Aristotle’s notion that the motion of the heavens begins from the right side and from the east, while his eighth question concerns Aristotle’s view on the fire element being spherical. The ninth question concerns the movement of heat, and the tenth question concerns the transformation of elements. The eleventh question concerns the burning of bodies by radiation reflecting off a flask filled with water, and the twelveth concerns the natural tendency of the classical elements in their upward and downward movements. The thirteenth question deals with vision, while the fourteenth concerns habitation on different parts of Earth. His fifteenth question asks how two opposite squares in a square divided into four can be tangential, while the sixteenth question concerns vacuum. His seventeenth question asks “if things expand upon heating and contract upon cooling, why does a flask filled with water break when water freezes in it?” His eighteenth and final question concerns the observable phenomenon of ice floating on water.

After Avicenna responded to the questions, al-Biruni was unsatisfied with some of the answers and wrote back commenting on them, after which Avicenna’s student Ahmad ibn ‘Ali al-Ma’sumi wrote back on behalf of Avicenna.

Optics

In optics, al-Biruni was one of the first, along with Ibn al-Haytham, to discover that the speed of light was finite. Al-Biruni was also the first to discover that the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound.

Statics

In statics, al-Biruni measured the specific gravities of eighteen gemstones, and discovered that there is a correlation between the specific gravity of an object and the volume of water it displaces. He also introduced the method of checking tests during experiments, measured the weights of various liquids, and recorded the differences in weight between fresh water and salt water, and between hot water and cold water.

During his experiments, he invented the conical measure, in order to find the ratio between the weight of a substance in air and the weight of water displaced, and to accurately measure the specific weights of the gemstones and their corresponding metals, which are very close to modern measurements.

Theology

Islamic theology

Al-Biruni was a supporter of the Ash’ari school of Islamic theology. He assigned to the Qur’an a separate and autonomous realm of its own and held that:

“[the Qur'an] does not interfere in the business of science nor does it infringe on the realm of science.”

Comparative religion

He wrote works on both Islamic theology and Indian theology, and wrote on the topic comparative religion, comparing both religions. His comparisons included the following comparison between the Qur’an and the Indian religious scriptures in the “On the Configuration of the Heavens and the Earth According to [Indian] astrologers” chapter of the Indica:

“[The views of Indian astrologers] have developed in a way which is different from those of our [Muslim] fellows; this is because unlike the scriptures revealed before it, the Qur’an does not articulate on this subject [of astronomy], or any other [field of] necessary [knowledge] any assertion that would require erratic interpretations in order to harmonize it with that which is known by necessity.”

“[In contrast, the religious and transmitted books of the Indians do indeed speak] of the configuration of the universe in a way which contradicts the truth which is known to their own astrologers.”

en.wikipedia.org