Fakhr al-Dīn Riḍwān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Rustam al-Khurāsānī al-Sāʿātī (died c. 1230), called Ibn al-Sāʿātī (son of the clockmaker), was a

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

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 ...

physician, government official and writer. Riḍwān's father, Muḥammad, was a native of

Khorasan KhorasanDabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 (; , ) is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West and Central Asia that encompasses western and no ...

who moved to

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

, where Riḍwān was born. Riḍwān's brother, Bahāʿ al-Dīn ibn al-Sāʿātī, became a famous poet. Muḥammad was a ''

muwaqqit In the history of Islam, a ''muwaqqit'' (, more rarely ''mīqātī''; ) was an astronomer tasked with the timekeeping and the regulation of prayer times in an Islamic institution like a mosque or a madrasa. Unlike the muezzin (reciter of the ...

'' trained in

clockmaking A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly t ...

and astronomy who was commissioned by the Emir Nūr al-Dīn (1156–1174) to construct the water clock at the Jayrūn Gate by the entrance of the

Umayyad Mosque The Umayyad Mosque (; ), also known as the Great Mosque of Damascus, located in the old city of Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Its religious importance stems from the eschatological reports ...

in Damascus. Riḍwān also learned clockmaking and wrote a book in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

on his father's clock and the repairs and improvements he made to them, ''Risāla fī ʿamal al-sāʿāt wā-ʾstiʿmālihā''. This work he finished in 1203, after his father's death. Although overlong and redundant, it provides details of manufacture not typically found in such treatises. It also provides evidence for the exchange of

horological Chronometry or horology () is the science studying the measurement of time and timekeeping. Chronometry enables the establishment of standard measurements of time, which have applications in a broad range of social and scientific areas. ''Hor ...

ideas between the

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

world and

Sasanian Iran The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign ...

. It has been abridged and translated into German. Called Ibn al-Sāʿātī on account of his father, Riḍwān studied medicine, literature, logic and philosophy on top of clockmaking. He wrote commentaries on the '' Canon of Medicine'' and the ''Book of Colic'' of

Ibn Sīnā Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian rulers. He is oft ...

. He became a practising physician, and served as the

vizier A vizier (; ; ) is a high-ranking political advisor or Minister (government), minister in the Near East. The Abbasids, Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a help ...

of al-Malik al-Fāʾiz, son of the Sultan al-ʿĀdil I, and afterwards of his brother, al-Malik al-Muʿaẓẓam, emir of Damascus (1218–1227), whom he also served as a physician. According to Yāqūt al-Rūmī, Ibn al-Sāʿātī loved music and poetry. He could play the

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

and he collected works of

Arabic poetry Arabic poetry ( ''ash-shi‘r al-‘arabīyy'') is one of the earliest forms of Arabic literature. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry contains the bulk of the oldest poetic material in Arabic, but Old Arabic inscriptions reveal the art of poetry existe ...

into a book, the ''Kitāb al-Muhtārāt''. He died at Damascus around 1230. Yāqūt, however, places his death in 1221.

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * * * {{refend People from Damascus 12th-century births 13th-century deaths 13th-century Arabic-language writers Medieval Syrian physicians