Ibn Khaldun

Khaldun's extraordinarily eventful life is chronicled in his autobiography, Al-ta'rif bi Ibn Khaldun. He came from an illustrious family and enjoyed an excellent education in his youth. Both his parents died when the Black Death struck Tunis in 1349.

At the age of 20 he was given a post at the court of Tunis, and later became secretary to the sultan of Morocco in Fez. In the late 1350s he was imprisoned for two years for suspicion of participating in a rebellion. After being released and promoted by a new ruler, he again fell out of favor, and he decided to go to Granada. Ibn Khaldun had served the Muslim ruler of Granada in Fez, and Granada's prime minister, Ibn al-Khatib, was a renowned writer and a good friend to Ibn Khaldun.

A year later he was sent to Seville to conclude a peace treaty with King Pedro I of Castile, who treated him with great generosity. However, intrigue raised its ugly head and rumors were spread of his disloyalty, adversely affecting his friendship with Ibn al-Khatib. He returned to Africa, where he changed employers with unfortunate frequency and served in a variety of administrative posts.

In 1375, Ibn Khaldun sought refuge from the tumultous political sphere with the tribe of Awlad 'Arif. They lodged him and his family in a castle in Algeria, where he spent four years writing the Muqaddimah. This superior work is not merely a history of the Arabs and Berbers, it is also a discussion of historical method and the development of a philosophy of history.

Illness drew him back to Tunis, where he continued his writing until difficulties with the current ruler prompted him to leave once more. He moved to Egypt and eventually took a teaching post at the Quamhiyyah college in Cairo, where he later became chief judge of the Maliki rite, one of the four recognized rites of Sunnite Islam. He took his duties as judge very seriously -- perhaps too seriously for most of the tolerant Egyptians, and his term did not last long.

During his time in Egypt, Ibn Khaldun was able to make a pilgrimage to Mecca and visit Damascus and Palestine. Except for one incident in which he was forced to participate in a palace revolt, his life there was relatively peaceful -- until Timur invaded Syria.

The new sultan of Egypt, Faraj, went out to meet Timur and his victorious forces, and Ibn Khaldun was among the notables he took with him. When the Mamluk army returned to Egypt, they left Ibn Khaldun in besieged Damascus. The city fell into great peril, and the city leaders began negotiations with Timur, who asked to meet Ibn Khaldun. The illustrious scholar was lowered over the city wall by ropes in order to join the conqueror.

Ibn Khaldun spent nearly two months in the company of Timur, who treated him with respect. The scholar used his years of accumulated knowledge and wisdom to charm the ferocious conqueror, and when Timur asked for a description of North Africa, Ibn Khaldun gave him a complete written report. He witnessed the sack of Damascus and the burning of the great mosque, but he was able to secure safe passage from the decimated city for himself and other Egyptian civilians.

On his way home from Damascus, laden with gifts from Timur, Ibn Khaldun was robbed and stripped by a band of Bedouin. With the greatest of difficulty he made his way to the coast, where a ship belonging to the Sultan of Rum, carrying an ambassador to the sultan of Egypt, took him to Gaza. Thus he estabished contact with the rising Ottoman Empire.

The rest of Ibn Khaldun's journey and, indeed, the rest of his life were relatively uneventful. He died in 1406 and was buried in the cemetery outside one of Cairo's main gates. 

                                                                                                                                      

statue d'Ibn Khaldoun sur l'avenue Habib Bourguiba à Tunis (Tunisie)

Avicenna

Also popularly known as ‘Avicenna’, Ibn Sina was indeed a true polymath with his contributions ranging from medicine, psychology and pharmacology to geology, physics, astronomy, chemistry and philosophy. He was also a poet and an Islamic scholar and theologian. His most important contribution to medical science was his famous book al-Qanun, known as the “Canon” in the West. This book is an immense encyclopedia of medicine including over a million words and like most Arabic books is richly divided and subdivided. It comprises of the entire medical knowledge available from ancient and Muslim sources.

Early Life

This great scientist was born in around 980 A.D in the village of Afshana, near Bukhara which is also his mother’s hometown. His father, Abdullah anadvocate of the Ismaili sect, was from Balkh which is now a part of Afghanistan. Ibn Sina received his early eduction in his home town and by the age of ten he became a Quran Hafiz. He had exceptional intellectual skills which enabled him to overtake his teachers at the age of fourteen. During the next few years he devoted himself to Muslim Jurisprudence, Philosophy and Natural Science and studied Logic, Euclid, and the Almeagest.

Ibn Sina was an extremely religious man. When he was still young, Ibn Sina was highly baffled by the work of Aristotle on Metaphysics so much so that he used to leave all the work and pray to God to guide him. Finally after reading a manual by a famous philosopher al-Farabi, he found the solutions to his difficulties.

Contributions and Achievements

At the age of sixteen he dedicated all his efforts to learn medicine and by the time he was eighteen gained the status of a reputed physician. During this time he was also lucky in curing Nooh Ibn Mansoor, the King of Bukhhara, of an illness in which all the renowned physicians had given up hope. On this great effort, the King wished to reward him, but the youngphysician only acquired consent to use his exclusively stocked library of the Samanids.

On his father’s death, when Ibn Sina was twenty-two years old, he left Bukhara and moved to Jurjan near Caspian Sea where he lectured on logic and astronomy. Here he also met his famous contemporary Abu Raihan al-Biruni. Later he travelled to Rai and then to Hamadan, where he wrote his famous book Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb. Here he also cured Shams al-Daulah, the King of Hamadan, for severe colic.

From Hamadan, he moved to Isfahn, where he finished many of his epic writings. Nevertheless, he continued to travel and the too much mental exertion as well as political chaos spoilt his health. The last ten or twelve years of his life, he spent in the service of Abu Ja’far ‘Ala Addaula, whom he accompanied as physician and general literary and scientific consultant. He died during June 1037 A.D and was buried in Hamedan, Iran.

Besides his monumental writings, Ibn Sina also contributed to mathematics, physics, music and other fields. He explained the concept and application of the “casting out of nines”. He made several astronomicalobservations, and devised a means similar to the venire, to enhance the accuracy of instrumental readings. In physics, his contribution comprised the study of different forms of energy, heat, light and mechanical, and such concepts as force, vacuum and infinity.

Avicenna

Al-Battani

Al-Battani was an arabe astrologer, astronomer and mathematician. He was born in 855, in Turkey and died in 923, in Syira. He is also called as the "Ptolémée des arabes". His names affirms taht he is Muslim

He wrote a book called the Kitab az-Zij, which had a great inflluence on European astronomy.One of his bect known achievment in astronomy was the determination of the solar year as being 365 days, 5hours, 46 minutes and 24 seconds. He also discovered the movement of the Sun's opogee. He also calculated the values for the precession of the equinoxes (54.5" per year, or 1° in 66 years) and the inclinaison of the earth axis ( 23° 35')

Unknowing the discovery of an indian astronomer Aryabhata he introduced the use of sinus in calculation and partlyf the tangent which formed the modern trigonometry. He used ideas of Al-Marwazi on tangents ( or "shadows") to develop methods for calcuting tangents and cotangentzs, and he has prepared tables.

Al-Battani is sometimes known by a Latinized version of his name, being Albategnius, Albategni or Albatenius. His full name was Abu Abdallah Mohammad ibn Jabir ibn Sinan al-Raqqi al-Harrani al-Sabi al-Battani. Al-Battani’s father was Jabir ibn Sinan al-Harrani who had a high reputation as an instrument maker in Harran. The name makes the identification certain that al-Battani himself was skilled in making astronomical instruments and there is a good indication that he learnt these skills from his father.

Early Life and Career

Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Jabir Ibn Sinan al-Battani al-Harrani was born around 858 C.E. in Harran. Battani was first educated by his father Jabir Ibn San’an al-Battani, who also was a well-known scientist. He then moved to Raqqa, situated on the bank of the Euphrates, where he received advanced education and later on flourished as a scholar. At the beginning of the 9th century, he migrated to Samarra, where he worked till the end of his life. His family had been members of the Sabian sect, a religious sect of star worshippers from Harran. Being worshipers of the stars meant that the Sabians had a strong motivation for the study of astronomy. Al-Battani, unlike Thabit, another mathematician from his home town, was not a believer in the Sabian religion. His name “Abu Abdallah Mohammad” indicates that he was certainly a Muslim.

Death

Historians all agree that Al-Battani passed away in 317 H. /929 A.D., near the city of Moussul in Iraq. He was regarded as one of the most famous Arab astronomers. He dedicated all his life until his death to the observation of planets and stars.

Al-Battani

Abu yusuf yaqub ibn ishaq al-kindi

Practically unknown in the Western world, al-Kindi has an honoured place in the Islamic world as the ‘philosopher of the Arabs’. Today he might be viewed as a bridge between Greek philosophers and Islamic philosophy. Part of the brilliant ninth-century ‘Abbasid court at Baghdad, composed of literati of all types, he served as tutor for the caliph’s son. He gained insights into the thought of Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle, through the translation movement; although he did not make translations himself, he corrected them and used them advantageously in his own thought.

Al-Kindi is notable for his work on philosophical terminology and for developing a vocabulary for philosophical thought in Arabic, although his ideas were superseded by Ibn Sina in the eleventh century. The debate about the allowability of philosophy in terms of orthodox Islam also began with al-Kindi, a battle that is usually considered to have been won for religion by al-Ghazali. Like other innovators, his ideas may no longer appear revolutionary, but in his own day, to push for the supremacy of reason and for the importance of a ‘foreign science’ – philosophy – as opposed to an ‘Arab science’ – grammar, Qur’anic studies – was quite astonishing. When the Khalif al-Mutawwakil came to power and sought to restore traditionalism, al-Kindi suffered a reversal of fortunes.

Metaphysics

Al-Kindi’s best known treatise is the metaphysical study, Fi al-Falsafa al-Ula (On First Philosophy). Aristotelian influence can be seen in certain elements, such as the four causes. However he is Aristotelian only up to a point. The point of divergence is reached over the question of the origin of the world. Aristotle teaches the eternity of the world; Al-Kindi propounds creation ex nihilo. The later philosophers, such as al-Farabi, are usually considered to understand Aristotle more accurately; they had the advantage of better translations and a greater number of works. In Fi al-Falsafa al-Ula, al-Kindi described the first philosophy, which is also the most noble and highest philosophy, as the knowledge of the first truth, including the cause of every truth (the first cause). The first cause is prior in time because it is the cause of time. By the study of philosophy, people will learn the knowledge of things in reality, and through this the knowledge of the divinity of God and his unity. They will also learn human virtue. Throughout many of his treatises, al-Kindi emphasizes the importance of the intellect (‘aql) and contrasts it with matter.

He also discusses the One Truth, which is another name for God, and states that it does not have any attributes, predicates or characteristics. This view is consonant with the Mu‘tazili declaration of the unity of God as being strictly without attributes, and consequently al-Kindi has sometimes been deemed to be a Mu‘tazili by scholars.

Other aspects of his position include emphasis on the absolute unity of God, his power – particularly as creator – and creation ex nihilo. The Eternal, that is God, is not due to another; he has no cause and has neither genus nor species. There is no ‘before’ for the Eternal. The Eternal is unchanging, immutable and imperishable. In human terms, death is the soul’s taking leave of the body, which it employed during life. For al-Kindi, the intellect continues. Perhaps the soul is primarily the locus of the intellect. He reiterated in his ethical treatise the idea that humans must choose the world of the intellect over the material world (see §3).

Al-Kindi differs from the Hellenistic philosophical tradition primarily in espousing the belief that the world was created ex nihilo. In Aristotelian metaphysics the Prime Mover set the world in motion, but in the Hellenistic tradition, time and motion are intrinsically linked. Matter set in motion is eternally existing, since it exists before motion (and therefore before time). In this system, time is defined as the extension of the series of movements. Thus time begins with movement. In al-Kindi’s system, matter, time and movement are all finite, with a beginning and a cessation at some future point. Other subjects that concern al-Kindi can be seen from his titles, including Fi wahdaniya Allah wa tunahiy jirm al-‘alam (On the Unity of God and the Limitation of the Body of the World), and Fi kammiya kutub Aristutalis wa ma yahtaj ilahi fi tahsil al-falsafa (The Quantity of the Books of Aristotle and What is Required for the Acquisition of Philosophy).

In his philosophical writings, al-Kindi does not so much direct arguments to the concerns of religion as avoid them altogether, instead describing a parallel universe of philosophy. He consistently tries to show that the pursuit of philosophy is compatible with orthodox Islam. The mutakallimun had previously speculated on questions about matter, atoms and substance, which he also considers. Another reason for the claim that he was a Mu‘tazili was his persecution by the Khalif al-Mutawwakil, who instigated a reactionary policy against the Mu‘tazili and a return to traditionalism (see Ash‘ariyya and Mu‘tazila). Al-Kindi was caught in the general net of the Khalif’s anti-intellectualism; the Kindian emphasis is always on rationalism, an attitude which the orthodox establishment of a revealed religion is bound to find inimical.

Abu yusuf yaqub ibn ishaq al-kindi

AL-FARGHANI

Al-Farghani, born in Farghana, Transoxiana(present-day Fergana, Uzbekistan), also known as Alfraganus in the West and died in Egypt. He was Muslim astronomer and one of the famous astronomers in 9th century who involved in the measurement of the diameter of the Earth together with a team of scientists under the patronage of  Al-Mamun and his successors in Baghdad, His most important work, written between 833 and 857, he wrote "Elements of Astronomy" ( Kitab fi al-Harakat al-Samawiya wa Jawami Ilm al-Nujum i.e. the book on celestial motion and thorough science of the stars), written about 833, a thorough, readable, nonmathematical summary of Ptolemaic astronomy. This was the book, which circulated in several Latin editions, was widely studied in Europe from the 12th to the 17th century and exerted great influence upon European astronomy before Regiomontanus. He accepted Ptolemy's theory and value of the precession, but thought that it affected not only the stars but also the planets. He determined the diameter of the earth to be 6,500 miles, and found the greatest distances and also the diameters of the planets.


Later he moved to Cairo, where he composed a treatise on the astrolabe around 856. Al-Farghani's activities extended to engineering. According to Ibn Tughri Bridge, he supervised the construction of the Great Nilometer at al-Fustat (old Cairo). It was completed in 861, the year in which the Caliph al-Mutawakkil, who ordered the construction, died. But engineering was not al-Farghani's forte, as transpires from the following story narrated by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a


The Jawami, or 'The Elements' as we shall call it, was Al- Farghani's best-known and most influential work. Abd al-Aziz al-Qabisi (d. 967) wrote a commentary on it, which is preserved in the Istanbul manuscript, Aya Sofya 4832, fols. 97v-114v. Two Latin translations followed in the 12th century. Jacob Anatoli produced a Hebrew translation of the book that served as a basis for a third Latin version, appearing in 1590, whereas in the seventeenth century the Dutch orientalist Jacob Golius published a new Latin text version together with the Arabic original text in 1669, on the basis of a manuscript he had acquired in the Near East, with a new Latin translation and extensive notes. The influence of 'The Elements' on mediaeval Europe is clearly vindicated by the presence of innumerable Latin manuscripts in European libraries.

References to it by medieval writers are many, and there is no doubt that it was greatly responsible for spreading knowledge of Ptolemaic astronomy, at least until this role was taken over by Sacrobosco's Sphere. But even then, 'The Elements' of Al-Farghani continued to be used, and Sacrobosco's Sphere was evidently indebted to it. It was from 'The Elements' (in Gherard's translation) that Dante derived the astronomical knowledge displayed in the 'Vita nuova' and in the 'Convivio'.

The Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim, written in 987, ascribes only two works to Al-Farghani: (1) "The Book of Chapters, a summary of the Almagest" (Kitab al-Fusul, Ikhtiyar al-Majisti) and (2) "Book on the Construction of Sun-dials" (Kitab 'Amal al-Ruk hamat).

AL-FARGHANI

Muhammad Al-Idris

Al-Idrisi (Abu Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Abdallah Ibn Idris al-Qurtubi al-Hasani) was born in 1099 at Centa, Morocco. He was a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad. He studied at Cordoba, Spain, and after many travels spent his life in the service of the Norman King, Roger II of Sicily. Perhaps because of his service to a Christian king he was generally ignored by Muslim historians and biographers.

     Prior to Roger II's death in 1154 al-Idrisi constructed a celestial globe and a circular world map of pure silver. The map shown on  this stamp portrays the world map. South is at the top of the map, and, with the map turned upside down, the Mediterranean Sea, Europe, Asia, and Africa are easily identified. The Arabian peninsula is in the center of the map.

Earli life

Al-Idrisi traced his descent through long line of Princes, Caliphs and Sufi leaders, to The Prophet Muhammad. His immediate forebears, the Hammudids (1016–1058), were an offshoot of the Idrisids (789-985).

Al-Idrisi was born in Ceuta, where his great-grandfather had fled after the fall of Málaga in Al-Andalus (1057). He spent much of his early life travelling through North Africa, and Spain and seems to have acquired a detail information on both regions. He visited Anatolia when he was barely 16. He is known to have studied in Córdoba, and later taught in Constantine, Algeria.

Apparently his travels took him to many parts of Europe including Portugal, the Pyrenees, the French Atlantic coast, Hungary, and Jórvík also known asYork, in England.

MORE ABOUT AL-IDRIS

Al-Idrisi is best known in the West as the geographer who made a silver globe for King Roger II of Sicily. On a 400 kilogram ball of silver, he meticulously recorded the seven continents with trade routes, lakes and rivers, major cities, plains and mountains. He included such information as distance, length and height as appropriate. The globe was accompanied by his book, Al-Kitab al-Rujari (Roger's Book). He also made a second representation of the known world on a disc.

Like Muslim geographers before him, Al-Idrisi traveled many distant places, including Europe, to gather geographical data. The Muslim geographers had already made accurate measurements of the earth's surface, and several maps of the whole world were available. Al-Idrisi combined this available knowledge with his own findings to create comprehensive information for all parts of the known world. As his fame spread, he gained the attention of European sea navigators and military planners and eventually that of Roger II, the Norman King of Sicily, who invited him to produce an up-to-date world map. Al-Idrisi was better known than other Muslim geographers because ships and navigators from the North Sea, Atlantic, and Mediterranean frequented Sicily which was under Muslim rule before King Roger. Muslim works were freely available for transmission to Europe through Latin West. Al-Idrisi's book 'Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaq,'(The Delight of Him Who Desires to Journey Through The Climates) is a geographical encyclopedia containing detailed maps and information on European countries, Africa, and Asia. He later compiled a more comprehensive encyclopedia, entitled 'Rawd-Unnas wa-Nuzhat al-Nafs' (Pleasure of Men and Delight of Souls). Al-Idrisi's knowledge of the Niger above Timbuktu, the Sudan, and of the head waters of the Nile was remarkable for its accuracy.Several of his books were translated into Latin and his books on geography were popular for several centuries. One translation, published in 1619 in Rome, was an abridged edition and the translator did not credit Al-Idrisi. Although Europe took several centuries to make use of his globe and world map, Christopher Columbus used a map originally taken from Al-Idrisi's work.

Al-Idrisi also made major contributions in the science of medicinal plants and wrote several books, the most popular entitled 'Kitab al-Jami-li-Sifat Ashtat al-Nabatat.' He reviewed and synthesized all literature on the subject and associated drugs available to him from Muslim scientists with those from his own research and travels. He contributed this material to the subject of botany with emphasis on medicinal plants, describing the names of the drugs in several languages including Berber, Syriac, Persian, Hindi, Greek, and Latin. Al-Idrisi also called on knowledge gained through travels to write on zoology and fauna.

STATUE OF AL IDRISI IN CEUTA, MOROCCO

Muhammad Al-Idris