Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās Abū Bakr al-Khwārazmī, better simply known as Abu Bakr al-Khwarazmi was a 10th-century
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 ...
poet and secretary, who throughout his long career served in the court of the
Hamdanids
The Hamdanid dynasty ( ar, الحمدانيون, al-Ḥamdāniyyūn) was a Twelver Shia Arab dynasty of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria (890–1004). They descended from the ancient Banu Taghlib Christian tribe of Mesopotamia and Eastern A ...
,
Samanids People
Samanid
Samanid
Samanid
The Samanid Empire ( fa, سامانیان, Sāmāniyān) also known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid amirate, or simply as the Samanids) was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, of Iranian dehqan orig ...
,
Saffarids
The Saffarid dynasty ( fa, صفاریان, safaryan) was a Persianate dynasty of eastern Iranian origin that ruled over parts of Persia, Greater Khorasan, and eastern Makran from 861 to 1003. One of the first indigenous Persian dynasties to emer ...
and
Buyids
The Buyid dynasty ( fa, آل بویه, Āl-e Būya), also spelled Buwayhid ( ar, البويهية, Al-Buwayhiyyah), was a Shia Iranian dynasty of Daylamite origin, which mainly ruled over Iraq and central and southern Iran from 934 to 1062. Coup ...
. He is best known as the author of the early encyclopedia ''
Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm'' (“Key to the Sciences”) in the
Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...
.
Life
Al-Khwarazmi is a somewhat obscure figure. He was born in 935 in
Khwarazm
Khwarazm (; Old Persian: ''Hwârazmiya''; fa, خوارزم, ''Xwârazm'' or ''Xârazm'') or Chorasmia () is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the (former) Aral Sea, on the ea ...
, the birthplace of his father. His mother was a native of
Amol in
Tabaristan
Tabaristan or Tabarestan ( fa, طبرستان, Ṭabarestān, or mzn, تبرستون, Tabarestun, ultimately from Middle Persian: , ''Tapur(i)stān''), was the name applied to a mountainous region located on the Caspian coast of northern Iran. ...
. He periodically refers to himself as al-Khwarazmi or al-Tabari, while other sources refer to him as al-Tabarkhazmi or al-Tabarkhazi. Al-Khwarizmi may have been a nephew of
al-Tabari, the prominent Persian historian. For a time, al-Khwarizmi worked as a clerk in the
Samanid court at
Bukhara in
Transoxania
Transoxiana or Transoxania (Land beyond the Oxus) is the Latin name for a region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of ...
, where he acquired his nickname, “al-
Katib
A katib ( ar, كَاتِب, ''kātib'') is a writer, scribe, or secretary in the Arabic-speaking world, Persian World, and other Islamic areas as far as India. In North Africa, the local pronunciation of the term also causes it to be written keti ...
’’ which literally means “the secretary” or “the scribe”.
While at the Samanid court, he compiled his best-known work, Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm
'The Keys of the Sciences'' an early Islamic encyclopedia of the sciences, intended as a reference work for court officials. It was produced at the request of
Abū l-Ḥasan al-ʿUtbī a vizier in the court of Amir,
Nuh II
Nuh II ( fa, نوح, died 22 July 997)''Tabaqat-i Nasiri'' by Minhaj-i-Siraj, pg. 107, Lahore Sangmil Publications 2004 was amir of the Samanids (976–997). He was the son and successor of Mansur I.
Beginning and Middle of Reign
Having ascended ...
. and the work is dedicated to al-Utbi which establishes a date for its completion of around 977.
In Nishapur, Al-Khwarizmi wrote a number of
rihla
''Riḥla'' ( ar, رحلة) refers to both a journey and the written account of that journey, or travelogue. It constitutes a genre of Arabic literature. Associated with the medieval Islamic notion of "travel in search of knowledge" (الرحلة ...
(short, humorous accounts of a journey; partly written in verse and partly in literary prose), of which only fragments survive. Locally, he achieved great fame as a leading scholar and writer. However, his reputation was eclipsed following the arrival of an aspiring young scholar and writer,
Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadani in 383/992. Hamadani composed a new form of prose that gained enormous popularity firstly in Nishapur and later across the Arabic speaking world. This innovative genre that became known as
maqama
''Maqāmah'' (مقامة, pl. ''maqāmāt'', مقامات, literally "assemblies") are an (originally) Arabic prosimetric literary genre which alternates the Arabic rhymed prose known as '' Saj‘'' with intervals of poetry in which rhetorical ...
. Al-Khwārizmīand Hamadani fell into competition with each other, exchanged insults and they eventually fell out.
Work
Al-Khwārizmī authored a work on Arabic grammar, Kitāb kifāyat al-Mutaḥaffiẓ
Classified Vocabulary of Rare of Difficult Arabic words However, he is best known as the author of Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm (The Keys to the Sciences), an early Islamic Encyclopedia of the Sciences. A monumental work, Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm is part lexicography and part encyclopedia. Scholars regard it as the first attempt to document the Islamic sciences. The work includes sections on mathematics, alchemy, medicine and meteorology.
[Kalin, I. and Ayduz, S. (eds), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam, Volume 1, Oxford University Press, 2014,p. 100; Jabbar Beg, M.A., The Origin of Islamic Science, https://archive.org/details/the_origins_of_islamic_sciencep. 50.]
Editions and Translations
Only limited selections of Mafātīḥ al-ʻulūm have been translated into English. Notable editions and translations include:
* Gerlog van Volten (ed), ''Kitāb Liber Mafātīḥ al-ʻulūm'', Leiden, Brill, 1895 (in Arabic, with an introduction in Latin)- many reprints.
* Al-Khashshāb, Y. and al-ʻArīnī, B., ضبط وتحقيق الالفاظ الإستلهية التنخية الواردة فى كتاب مفاتبح العلوم للخورزم / /ليحيى الخشاب، الباز العريني.
��abṭ wa-taḥqīq al-alfāẓ al-istilahiyah al-tankhiyah al-wāridah fī kitāb Mafātīḥ al-ʻulūm lil-KhuwarizmiControlling and realizing the developmental vocabulary contained in the book of Mufatih, Cairo, 1958 (Arabic)
* Khadivjam, H., Tarjumah-ʼi Mafātīḥ al-ʻulūm, Tehran, Markaz-i Intishārāt-i ʻIlmī va Farhangī, 1983 (in Persian and Arabic).
* Al-Ibyari, I., Mafātīḥ al-ʻulūm, Beirut, 1984
* Bosworth, C.E.,“Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Khwārizmīon the Technical Terms of the Secretary’s Art”, ''Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient'', vol. 12, pp 112–164 (reprinted in ''Medieval Arabic Culture'', no. 15, London, 1983. - annotated translation of the 4th chapter of Mafātīḥ al-ʻulūm (English)
*
* Hajudan, H., ''A Persian Translation of Mafātīḥ al-ʻulūm'', Tehran, 1928 (in Persian)
* Farmer, H.G.,”The Science of Music in the Mafatih Alulum” in: ''Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society, vol. 17, 1957/8, pp 1-9translation of Section 7, Part 2 (English)
* Unvala, J.M., "The Translation of an Extract from Mafatih aI-Ulum of al-Khwarazmi," ''The Journal of the K.R. Cama Institute'', vol. XI,1928 (English)
* Seidel, E., "Die Medizin im Mafātīḥ al-ʻulūm", ''SBPMSE'', vol. XLVII, 1915, pp 1–79 (in German, with extensive commentary)
* Weidemann, B., “Über die Geometrie und Arithematik nach den Mafātīḥ al-ʻulūm, ”SBPMSE'', vol, 40, 1908, pp 1-64 (German)
References
Sources
*
Further reading
* J. Vernet,
Al-Khuwārizmī, Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad Ibn Yūsuf, ''
Dictionary of Scientific Biography
The ''Dictionary of Scientific Biography'' is a scholarly reference work that was published from 1970 through 1980 by publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, with main editor the science historian Charles Gillispie, from Princeton University. It consi ...
''.
* Hossein Khadiv Jam, ''The Translation of Mafatih al-'Ulum'' ( fa, ترجمهٔ مفاتیح العلوم), Bonyad-e Farhang-e Iran, 1347 AP (1968), reprinted by Sherkat-e Entesharat-e Elmi-o Farhangi, 1383 AP (c. 2004 CE).
*
*
*
Gerlof van Vloten, the editor of ''Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm'' 1895 publication in
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wi ...
, mentions in a preface to ''Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm'' that nothing is known about al-Khwārizmī except his name and that he is also known as al-Balkhi, but
Hossein Khadiv Jam, the Persian translator of ''Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm'' mentions that after a lot of searches he has found that al-Khwārizmī "was born in
Balkh, lived in
Nishapur, worked as a clerk in the
Samanid court for a while, and has authored the book ''Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm'', one of the oldest Islamic encyclopedias, at the request of
Abu'l-Husain Utbi, a vizier of
Nuh II
Nuh II ( fa, نوح, died 22 July 997)''Tabaqat-i Nasiri'' by Minhaj-i-Siraj, pg. 107, Lahore Sangmil Publications 2004 was amir of the Samanids (976–997). He was the son and successor of Mansur I.
Beginning and Middle of Reign
Having ascended ...
, in the Arabic language."
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khwarizmi, Muhammad Ahmad Yusuf Katib
10th-century Iranian people
10th-century non-fiction writers
10th-century writers
Encyclopedists of the medieval Islamic world
Persian-language writers
Science writers
Year of death unknown
Year of birth unknown
10th-century Arabic writers
Travel writers of the medieval Islamic world
Hanafis