Shaʿyā ibn Farīghūn ( ar, شعيا بن فريغون) was a
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
writer active in the
Emirate of Čaghāniyān in the 10th century. He wrote a short but comprehensive encyclopaedia in Arabic entitled ''Jawāmiʿ al-ʿulūm'' ("Connections of the Sciences"), which he dedicated to the
Muḥtājid emir
Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Muẓaffar, who died in 955. He may also have written the ''
Ḥodud al-ʿālam'' ("Limits of the World"), a geographical text in
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
.
Life
Ibn Farīghūn is not mentioned in any of the numerous extant Arabic bio-bibliographical dictionaries.
Shaʿyā is the Arabic form of Isaiah. The
patronymic
A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor.
Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...
Ibn Farīghūn suggests a connection to the
Farīghūnids who ruled
Gūzgān to the south of Čaghāniyān as vassals of the
Sāmānids. This
northeastern Iranian dynasty probably took its name from the earlier
Afrīghids. There is, however, some uncertainty surrounding the reading of the name of the author of the ''Jawāmiʿ''.
Fuat Sezgin
Fuat Sezgin (24 October 1924 – 30 June 2018) was a Turkish orientalist who specialized in the history of Arabic-Islamic science. He was ''professor emeritus'' of the History of Natural Science at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankf ...
read it as Mutaghabbī (or Mubtaghā) ibn Furayʿūn. Others spell it Ibn Firīghūn. Some scholars have suggested more unusual identifications. On the basis of the name Shaʿyā,
Moritz Steinschneider
Moritz Steinschneider (30 March 1816, Prostějov, Moravia, Austrian Empire – 24 January 1907, Berlin) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist. He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider ( 1782; ...
concluded that Ibn Farīghūn was Jewish.
Heinrich Suter
__NOTOC__
Heinrich Suter (4 January 1848 in Hedingen – 17 March 1922 in Dornach) was a historian of science specializing in Islamic mathematics and Islamic astronomy, astronomy.
Education and career
After graduation from the ''Industrie Sc ...
identified him with the
Andalusian scholar
Saʿīd ibn Fatḥūn.
Ibn Farīghūn was a student of
Abū Zayd al-Balkhī, who died in 934. Intellectually, he belongs to the "eastern" school of the followers of
al-Kindī
Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī (; ar, أبو يوسف يعقوب بن إسحاق الصبّاح الكندي; la, Alkindus; c. 801–873 AD) was an Arab Muslim philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physician ...
alongside
Aḥmad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Sarakhsī and
Abū al-Ḥasan al-ʿĀmirī. The defining characteristic of this school of thought was its combination of Arab and Islamic interests,
Hellenistic science
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in History of the Mediterranean region, Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as sig ...
and Persian notions of statecraft. If he was the author of the ''Ḥodud'', he was patronized successively by two dynasties (Muḥtājid and Farīghūnids), wrote in two languages and flourished from 934 until 983.
Works
''Jawāmiʿ''
The ''Jawāmiʿ'' was probably designed as a handbook for the use of a ''
kātib'' (state secretary). It is structured and diagrammed as a ''tashjīr'': a system of trees and branches. The main topics are written in large letters, while lines connect these headings to their subtopics, which are written vertically and in smaller letters. Roughly, the order of topics in the ''Jawāmiʿ'' is: (1) Arabic grammar, (2) the skills and knowledge required of a ''kātib'', (3) ethics, (4) statecraft and warfare, (5) ''
kalām
''ʿIlm al-Kalām'' ( ar, عِلْم الكَلام, literally "science of discourse"), usually foreshortened to ''Kalām'' and sometimes called "Islamic scholastic theology" or "speculative theology", is the philosophical study of Islamic doc ...
'', (6) the sources of knowledge and its transmission, i.e., philosophy, mathematics and science, and (7) the
occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
, what Ibn Farīghūn defines as "those fields of knowledge that are subject to controversy on whether they are really that, or rather fraud, trickery, and means to make a profit."
C. E. Bosworth sees Ibn Farīghūn's first division as between the ''
maḳāla'' (discourse) on Arabic sciences and that on "Greek" (i.e., non-Arabic) sciences. This division is identical to that found in the later ''Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm'' of
Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Khwārazmī. If the dating of Ibn Farīghūn's work to the mid-10th century is correct, then his is probably the earliest encyclopedia to adopt this "Arabic–Greek" format. Hans Biesterfeldt, however, does not see Ibn Farīghūn applying the Arabic–Greek distinction systematically in the way of the ''Mafātīḥ''.
The ''Jawāmiʿ'' does not cite any sources, nor do any later works cite it. It survives in at least three manuscripts. The earliest, dating to 1003, is kept in the
Escorial
El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial ( es, Monasterio y Sitio de El Escorial en Madrid), or Monasterio del Escorial (), is a historical residence of the King of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, up ...
. Another, dated 1006, is found in the
Topkapı Palace
The Topkapı Palace ( tr, Topkapı Sarayı; ota, طوپقپو سرايى, ṭopḳapu sarāyı, lit=cannon gate palace), or the Seraglio
A seraglio, serail, seray or saray (from fa, سرای, sarāy, palace, via Turkish and Italian) i ...
in
Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
. There is also an undated manuscript in Istanbul. There are photostats of the Istanbul manuscripts in the
Egyptian National Library and Archives
The Egyptian National Library and Archives ( ar, دار الكتب والوثائق القومية; "Dar el-Kotob") is located in Nile Corniche, Cairo and is the largest library in Egypt, followed by Al-Azhar University and the Bibliotheca Alex ...
in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
. There is as yet no
critical edition
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...
.
''Ḥodud'' (?)
The ''Ḥodud'' is known from a single manuscript, in which it is anonymous. Its author, a native of Gūzgān who had not travelled widely, wrote the work in 982–983 and dedicated it to the Farighunid emir
Abu ʾl-Ḥārith Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad. Like the ''Jawāmiʿ'', it is a concisely written work.
Editions
*Ibn Farīġūn; ed.
Fuat Sezgin
Fuat Sezgin (24 October 1924 – 30 June 2018) was a Turkish orientalist who specialized in the history of Arabic-Islamic science. He was ''professor emeritus'' of the History of Natural Science at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankf ...
. (1985). ''Jawāmīʿ al-ʿulūm by Ibn Farīġūn''. Publications of the Institute for the History of Arabic–Islamic Science, Series C: Facsimile Editions, Vol 14. Reproduced from MS 2768, Ahmet III Collection, Topkapı Sarayı Library, Istanbul. Frankfurt am Main: Institute for the History of Arabic–Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University.
*Mutaġabbī ibn Farīġūn. (2007). ''Kitāb Jawāmīʿ al-ʿulūm. Taqdīm wa-taḥqīq Qays Kāẓim al-Janābī''. Cairo: Maktabat al-thaqāfa wa-l-dīniyya.
Notes
Bibliography
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10th-century Arabic writers
Encyclopedists of the medieval Islamic world
Farighunids