Born : 1029, Almería,
Al-Andalus
Died : 1070, Toledo,
Al-Andalus
Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī (صاعِدُالأندلسي); he was Abū al-Qāsim Ṣāʿid ibn Abū al-Walīd Aḥmad ibn
Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṣāʿid ibn
ʿUthmān al-Taghlibi al-Qūrtūbi (صاعِدُ بنُ أحمدَ بن عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن صاعدٍ
التَّغْلِبيُّ) (1029 – July 6, 1070 AD; 420 – 6 Shawwal, 462
AH); a qadi of Toledo in Muslim Spain, who
wrote on the history of science, philosophy and thought. He practised as a mathematical
scientist with a special interest in astronomy,
and compiled a
famous biographic encyclopedia of science that quickly became popular
in the empire and the Islamic East.
Life
Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī was
born in Almería in Al-Andalus during the Banu Dhiʼb-n-Nun dynasty and died in
Toledo. His Arab origins came from the tribe of Taghlib and his family had fled
Cordova to take refuge in Almería during the civil war. His grandfather had
been qadi (judge) of Sidonia and his father was qadi of Toledo until his death
in 1057 when Ṣāʿid succeeded him.
The early
biographers Ibn Bashkuwāl, Ibn Umaira
al-Dhabbi, Al-Safadi and Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari tell us
Ṣāʿid's teachers in Toledo were Abū Muḥammad ibn Hazm (أبو محمد بن حَزْم), Al-Fataḥ ibn al-Qāsim (الفَتْح بن القاسم), and Abū Walīd al-Waqshi (أبو الوليد الوَقّشِي). He was educated in fiqh (law) first in
Almería, then Córdoba, before graduating, it seems, in
Toledo in 1046, aged eighteen. Toledo was then a great centre of
learning and Ṣāʿid studied fiqh (law), tafsir (Qu'ranic
exegesis), Arabic language, and al-Adab al-'Arabī (Arabic literature). His
teacher, Abū Isḥaq Ibrāhīm ibn Idrīs al-Tajibī, directed him towards
mathematics and astronomy, in which he excelled. When on his appointment as
qāḍi of Toledo by the governor Yaḥyā al-Qādir, he continued this work and
produced several scholarly works that contributed to the Tables of Toledo.
He taught and directed astronomical research to a group of young scholars,
precision-instrument-makers, astronomers and scientists – including the
renowned Al-Zarqali – and encouraged them to invent. Their research contributed
to the Tables of Toledo.
Work
·
Iṣlāh Ḥarakāt an-Najūn on the correction
of earlier astronomical tables;
·
Jawāmiʿ akhbār al‐umam
min al‐Arab wa‐l Ajam ('Universal History of Nations – Arab and Non‐Arab')
·
Ṭabaqāt al-‘Umam, a classification of
the sciences and of the nations (The only extant work), written in 1068 two
years before his death.
·
Rectification of
Planetary Motions and Exposition of Observers' Errors; An astronomical
treatise.
·
Maqālāt ahl al‐milal
wa-l-nihal ('Doctrines of the Adherents of Sects and Schools'),
·
Kitāb al-Qāsī (كتاب القاصى), 'Book of Minor'
Ṭabaqāt
al-ʼUmam (Categories of Nations)
The Tabaqāt composed
in 1068 is an early "history of science" that comprises
biographies of the scientists and scientific achievements of eight nations. In
the field of nations are
the Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs and Jews (in
contrast to others not disposed, such
as Norsemen, Chinese, Africans, Russians, Alains and Turks).
Ṣāʿid offers an account of the individual contribution each nation makes to the
various sciences of arithmetic, astronomy, and medicine, etc.,
and of the earliest scientists and philosophers, from the
Greeks, – Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle –
to the Roman and Christian scholars of the 9th and 10th centuries in Baghdad.
The second half of the book contains Arab-Islamic contributions to the fields
of logic, philosophy, geometry, the development of Ptolemaic astronomy,
observational methods, calculations in trigonometry and mathematics
to determine the length of the year, the eccentricity of the sun's orbit, and
the construction of astronomical tables, etc.
The Ṭabaqāt
al-ʼUmam has been transcribed and translated into many different
languages in many periods and cultures. The original document is not extant and
discrepancies in the translations creates problems for historians, including
variations in the title of the book. Discrepancies in the content of the
editions appear with some versions omitting words, sentences, paragraphs or
entire sections. Some omissions or variations may have arisen through scribal
error, or difficulties of direct translation, while others arose, perhaps
deliberately, out of the political, religious, or nationalistic sensibilities
of the translators.
Sumber
Labels:
Mathematician
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