Zahir al-Din Abu'l-Hasan Ali ibn Zayd-i Bayhaqi ( fa, ظهیرالدین ابوالحسن علی بن زید بیهقی;
c. 1097 – 1169) also known as Ibn Fondoq (ابن فندق) was an
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
polymath
A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
and historian of
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
descent. He is the author of ''
Tarikh-i Bayhaq
''Tarikh-i Bayhaq'' ( fa, تاریخ بیهق) is a book on the history of Bayhaq, written in the Persian language in the 12th century, by Abu'l-Hasan Bayhaqi.
Contents
The ''Tarikh-i Bayhaq'' contains invaluable information about the Eastern p ...
''.
Ancestry
Bayhaqi was a descendant of
Khuzaima ibn Thabit
Khuzayma ibn Thabit Dhu al-Shahadatayn al-Ansari ( ar, خزيمة بن ثابت ذو الشهادتين الأنصاري, Khuzayma ibn Thābit Dhū al-Shahādatayn al-Anṣārī; d. July 657) was one of the companions of the Islamic prophet, Muha ...
(died 657), a companion of
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
. Most of his forefathers were either judges or Imams.
Biography
Bayhaqi was born in
Sabzevar
Sabzevar ( fa, سبزوار ), previously known as Beyhagh (also spelled "Beihagh"; fa, بيهق), is a city and capital of Sabzevar County, in Razavi Khorasan Province, approximately west of the provincial capital Mashhad, in northeastern I ...
, in northeastern Iran, the main city of the Bayhaq district, where his father’s estates were located.
In 1114, Bahyaqi along with his father visited
Omar Khayyam
Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131), commonly known as Omar Khayyam ( fa, عمر خیّام), was a polymath, known for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, an ...
, the famous Persian mathematician and astronomer, in
Nishapur
Nishapur or officially Romanized as Neyshabur ( fa, ;Or also "نیشاپور" which is closer to its original and historic meaning though it is less commonly used by modern native Persian speakers. In Persian poetry, the name of this city is wr ...
and while there Bayhaqi began his education in literature and science. He moved to Marv to complete his studies in Islamic
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
by 1123. He returned to Nishapur in c.1127 where according to
Yaqut al-Hamawi
Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) ( ar, ياقوت الحموي الرومي) was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine Greek ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th-13th centuries). He is known fo ...
, his studies were "interrupted by marriage".
Bayhaqi became the
qadi
A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...
of Bayhaq through the efforts of his father-in-law, Shehab-al-Din Moḥammad b. Mas'ud, along with patronage from the Seljuq Sultan Sanjar. He may have made some enemies while in charge, he soon grew tired and resigned.
Bayhaqi then traveled to Ray and devoted himself to
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
and
astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial o ...
, and later studied in Nishapur to improve his understanding of astrology. While living in
Sarakhs
Sarakhs ( fa, سرخس, Saraxs, also Romanized as Serakhs) is a city in Sarakhs County, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran. Sarakhs was once a stopping point along the Silk Road, and in its 11th century heyday had many libraries. Much of the original ...
he squandered all of his money, and returned to Nishapur.
After an attempt to establish himself in Bayhaq failed "because of his relatives’ envy", Bayhaqi finally returned again to Nishapur and settled down to life in the seminary and the mosque.
In 1148, Demetrius I of
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
presented inquiries ("of unknown purport") in Syriac and Arabic to