Ibn al‐Bannāʾ al‐Marrākushī (), full name: Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Azdi al-Marrakushi () (29 December 1256 – 31 July 1321), was an Arab Muslim polymath who was active as a
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
,
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...
,
Islamic scholar,
Sufi
Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism.
Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
and
astrologer
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...
.
Biography
Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Uthman was born in the ''Qa'at Ibn Nahid'' Quarter of Marrakesh on 29 or 30 December 1256. His ''
nisba'' al-Marrakushi is in relation to his birth and death in his hometown
Marrakesh
Marrakesh or Marrakech (; , ) is the fourth-largest city in Morocco. It is one of the four imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakesh–Safi Regions of Morocco, region. The city lies west of the foothills of the Atlas Mounta ...
and al azdi means he was from the big arab tribe Azd. His father was a mason thus the ''
kunya'' Ibn al-Banna' (lit. the son of the mason).
Ibn al-Banna' studied a variety of subjects under at least 17 masters: Quran under the ''
Qari's'' Muhammad ibn al-bashir and shaykh al-Ahdab. ''
ʻilm al-ḥadīth'' under ''qadi al-Jama'a'' (chief judge) of Fez َAbu al-Hajjaj Yusuf ibn Ahmad ibn Hakam al-Tujibi, Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Jazuli and Abu abd allah ibn. ''
Fiqh
''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.[Fiqh](_blank)
Encyclopædia Britannica ''Fiqh'' is of ...
and
Usul al-Fiqh'' under Abu Imran Musa ibn Abi Ali az-Zanati al-Marrakushi and Abu al-Hasan Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Maghili who taugh him al-Juwayni's ''
Kitab al-Irsahd''. He also studied Arabic grammar under Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Abd as-Salam as-Sanhaji and Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Yahya as-sharif al-marrakushi who also taugh him
Euclid’s ''Elements''. ''
ʿArūḍ'' and ''
ʿilm al-farāʾiḍ'' under Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Idris ibn Malik al-Quda'i al-Qallusi. Arithmetic under Muhammad ibn Ali, known as Ibn Ḥajala. Ibn al-Banna' also studied astronomy under Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn Makhluf as-Sijilmassi. He also studied medecine under al-Mirrīkh.
He is known to have attached himself to the founder of the Hazmiriyya ''zawiya'' and sufi saint of
Aghmat, Abu Zayd Abd al-Rahman al-Hazmiri, who guided his arithmetic skills toward divinational predictions.
Ibn al-Banna' taught classes in Marrakesh and some of his students were: Abd al-Aziz ibn Ali al-Hawari al-Misrati (d.1344), Abd al-Rahman ibn Sulayman al-Laja'i (d. 1369) and Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Ibrahim al-Abli (d. 1356).
He died at Marrakesh on 31 July 1321.
Works
Ibn al-Banna' wrote over 100 works encompassing such varied topics as Astronomy, Astrology, the division of inheritances, Linguistics, Logic, Mathematics, Meteorology, Rhetoric, ''
Tafsir
Tafsir ( ; ) refers to an exegesis, or commentary, of the Quran. An author of a ''tafsir'' is a ' (; plural: ). A Quranic ''tafsir'' attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, interpretation, context or commentary for clear understanding ...
'', ''Usūl al-Dīn'' and ''
Usul al-Fiqh''. One of his works, called ''Talkhīṣ ʿamal al-ḥisāb'' () (Summary of arithmetical operations), includes topics such as fractions and sums of squares and cubes. Another, called ''Tanbīh al-Albāb'',
[A Djebbar: Mathematics in medieval Maghreb; AMUCHMA-Newsletter 15; Universidade Pedagógico (UP), Maputo (Mozambique), 15.9.1995.] covers topics related to:
* calculations regarding the drop in irrigation canal levels,
* arithmetical explanation of the
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
laws of inheritance
* determination of the hour of the
Asr prayer,
* explanation of frauds linked to instruments of measurement,
* enumeration of delayed prayers which have to be said in a precise order, and
* calculation of legal tax in the case of a delayed payment
He also wrote an introduction to
Euclid's Elements
The ''Elements'' ( ) is a mathematics, mathematical treatise written 300 BC by the Ancient Greek mathematics, Ancient Greek mathematician Euclid.
''Elements'' is the oldest extant large-scale deductive treatment of mathematics. Drawing on the w ...
.
He also wrote ''Rafʿ al-Ḥijāb 'an Wujuh A'mal al-Hisab'' (Lifting the Veil from Faces of the Workings of Calculations) which covered topics such as computing
square roots of a number and the theory of
simple continued fractions.
See also
*
Ibn Ghazi al-Miknasi
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibn Banna
1256 births
1321 deaths
13th-century astronomers
13th-century mathematicians
13th-century Moroccan people
13th-century Moroccan writers
14th-century astronomers
14th-century mathematicians
14th-century Moroccan writers
Medieval Moroccan astronomers
Medieval Moroccan mathematicians
Algebraists
Medieval geometers
People from Marrakesh
Mathematicians who worked on Islamic inheritance
Scientists who worked on qibla determination