Ibn Shaddad, Abu Muhammad
Ibn Shaddad, Abu Muhammad (Abu Muhammad ibn Shaddad). Twelfth century chronicler of Zirid descent. His history of the Maghrib, now lost, was used by well-known Arab historians.
Abu Muhammad ibn Shaddad see Ibn Shaddad, Abu Muhammad
Abu Muhammad ibn Shaddad see Ibn Shaddad, Abu Muhammad
Ibn Shaddad, Baha‘al-Din
Ibn Shaddad, Baha‘al-Din (Baha‘al-Din ibn Shaddad) (Bahā' ad-Dīn Yusuf ibn Rafi ibn Shaddād) (March 7, 1145 - November 8, 1234). Biographer of Saladin. From 1188 until Saladin’s death in 1193, he was in constant attendance of the Ayyubid ruler. His Biography of Saladin is considered to be without parallel in the historical literature of medieval Islam.
Bahā' ad-Dīn Yusuf ibn Rafi ibn Shaddād (the honorific title "Bahā' al-Dīn" means "splendour of the faith") was a 12th-century Muslim jurist and scholar, an Arabian historian of great note, notable for writing a biography of Saladin whom he knew well.
Ibn Shaddād was born in Mosul on March 7, 1145. In Mosul, he studied the Qur'an, hadith, and Muslim law before moving to the Nizamiyya madrasa in Baghdad where he rapidly became mu'id ("assistant professor"). About 1173, he returned to Mosul as mudarris ("professor"). In 1188, returning from Hajj, ibn Shaddād was summoned by Saladin who had read and been impressed by his writings. He was "permanently enrolled" in the service of Saladin, who appointed him qadi al-'askar ("judge of the army"). In this capacity, he was an eye witness at the Siege of Acre and the Battle of Arsuf and provided "a vivid chronicle of the Third Crusade". Saladin and ibn Shaddād soon became close friends and the sultan appointed him to several high administrative and judicial offices. Ibn Shaddād remained an intimate and trusted friend of Saladin, "seldom absent for any length of time", as well as one of his main advisers for the rest of the sultan's life. After Saladin's death, ibn Shaddād was appointed qadi ("judge") of Aleppo. He died in Aleppo on November 8, 1234.
Ibn Shaddād's best-known work is his biography of Saladin, which is based for the most part on personal observation and provides a complete portrait as Muslims saw Saladin. Published in English as The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, the Arab title (al-Nawādir al-Sultaniyya wa'l-Maḥāsin al-Yūsufiyya) translates as "Sultany Anecdotes and Josephly Virtues". Ibn Shaddād also wrote several works on the practical application of Islamic law: The Refuge of Judges from the Ambiguity of Judgements, The Proofs of Judgments, and The Epitome, as well as a monograph entitled The Virtues of the Jihad. Much of the information known about Ibn Shaddād derives from Ibn Khallikan's contemporary Biographical Dictionary (Wafāyāt al-a'yān, literally "Obituaries of Eminent Men").
Ibn Shaddād was contemporary to the events he writes and it makes his history particularly valuable.
Baha'al-Din ibn Shaddad see Ibn Shaddad, Baha‘al-Din
Bahā' ad-Dīn Yusuf ibn Rafi ibn Shaddād see Ibn Shaddad, Baha‘al-Din
Ibn Shaddad, Baha‘al-Din (Baha‘al-Din ibn Shaddad) (Bahā' ad-Dīn Yusuf ibn Rafi ibn Shaddād) (March 7, 1145 - November 8, 1234). Biographer of Saladin. From 1188 until Saladin’s death in 1193, he was in constant attendance of the Ayyubid ruler. His Biography of Saladin is considered to be without parallel in the historical literature of medieval Islam.
Bahā' ad-Dīn Yusuf ibn Rafi ibn Shaddād (the honorific title "Bahā' al-Dīn" means "splendour of the faith") was a 12th-century Muslim jurist and scholar, an Arabian historian of great note, notable for writing a biography of Saladin whom he knew well.
Ibn Shaddād was born in Mosul on March 7, 1145. In Mosul, he studied the Qur'an, hadith, and Muslim law before moving to the Nizamiyya madrasa in Baghdad where he rapidly became mu'id ("assistant professor"). About 1173, he returned to Mosul as mudarris ("professor"). In 1188, returning from Hajj, ibn Shaddād was summoned by Saladin who had read and been impressed by his writings. He was "permanently enrolled" in the service of Saladin, who appointed him qadi al-'askar ("judge of the army"). In this capacity, he was an eye witness at the Siege of Acre and the Battle of Arsuf and provided "a vivid chronicle of the Third Crusade". Saladin and ibn Shaddād soon became close friends and the sultan appointed him to several high administrative and judicial offices. Ibn Shaddād remained an intimate and trusted friend of Saladin, "seldom absent for any length of time", as well as one of his main advisers for the rest of the sultan's life. After Saladin's death, ibn Shaddād was appointed qadi ("judge") of Aleppo. He died in Aleppo on November 8, 1234.
Ibn Shaddād's best-known work is his biography of Saladin, which is based for the most part on personal observation and provides a complete portrait as Muslims saw Saladin. Published in English as The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, the Arab title (al-Nawādir al-Sultaniyya wa'l-Maḥāsin al-Yūsufiyya) translates as "Sultany Anecdotes and Josephly Virtues". Ibn Shaddād also wrote several works on the practical application of Islamic law: The Refuge of Judges from the Ambiguity of Judgements, The Proofs of Judgments, and The Epitome, as well as a monograph entitled The Virtues of the Jihad. Much of the information known about Ibn Shaddād derives from Ibn Khallikan's contemporary Biographical Dictionary (Wafāyāt al-a'yān, literally "Obituaries of Eminent Men").
Ibn Shaddād was contemporary to the events he writes and it makes his history particularly valuable.
Baha'al-Din ibn Shaddad see Ibn Shaddad, Baha‘al-Din
Bahā' ad-Dīn Yusuf ibn Rafi ibn Shaddād see Ibn Shaddad, Baha‘al-Din
Ibn Shaddad, ‘Izz al-Din
Ibn Shaddad, ‘Izz al-Din (‘Izz al-Din ibn Shaddad) (1217-1285). Geographer and historian from Aleppo. He wrote a historical topography of Syria and the Jazira.
'Izz al-Din ibn Shaddad see Ibn Shaddad, ‘Izz al-Din
'Izz al-Din ibn Shaddad see Ibn Shaddad, ‘Izz al-Din
Ibn Shahin al-Zahiri
Ibn Shahin al-Zahiri. High official at the court of the Mameluke sultans Barsbay and Jaqmaq of the fifteenth century. He left a vivid picture of Egypt under the Mamelukes and also wrote an oneirocritical (dream interpretation) treatise which was widely circulated.
Ibn Shahin al-Zahiri. High official at the court of the Mameluke sultans Barsbay and Jaqmaq of the fifteenth century. He left a vivid picture of Egypt under the Mamelukes and also wrote an oneirocritical (dream interpretation) treatise which was widely circulated.
Ibn Shahrashub
Ibn Shahrashub (Zayn al-Din). Imami theologian, preacher and jurist of Mazandaran in Persia. He had the reputation of being the greatest Shi‘a scholar of his time and was highly thought of even by the Sunnis.
Zayn al-Din see Ibn Shahrashub
Ibn Shahrashub (Zayn al-Din). Imami theologian, preacher and jurist of Mazandaran in Persia. He had the reputation of being the greatest Shi‘a scholar of his time and was highly thought of even by the Sunnis.
Zayn al-Din see Ibn Shahrashub
Ibn Shanabudh
Ibn Shanabudh (d. 939). “Reader” of the Qur‘an. The vizier Ibn Muqla had him flogged because he had introduced in the public prayer Qur‘anic readings which varied from the recension (the revised text) of Caliph ‘Uthman.
Ibn Shanabudh (d. 939). “Reader” of the Qur‘an. The vizier Ibn Muqla had him flogged because he had introduced in the public prayer Qur‘anic readings which varied from the recension (the revised text) of Caliph ‘Uthman.
Ibn Sharaf
Ibn Sharaf (d. 1068). Arab poet.
Ibn Sharaf (d. 1068). Arab poet.
Ibn Sina
Ibn Sina (Abu 'Ali al-Hussain ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina) (Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina) (Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā') (Abū Alī Sīnā) (Avicenna) (c. 980 - 1037). Persian polymath and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time. Known in the West as Avicenna, he was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, logician, paleontologist, mathematician, physicist, poet, psychologist, scientist and teacher.
Ibn Sīnā studied medicine under a physician named Koushyar. Ibn Sina wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities. The Canon of Medicine was used as a text-book in the universities of Montpellier and Louvain as late as 1650.
Ibn Sina was born near Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan), which was then the capital of the Persian Samanid dynasty. The son of a government official, Ibn Sina studied medicine and philosophy in Bukhara. Endowed with extraordinary intelligence and intellectual independence, he was largely self-taught and by the age of eighteen had mastered all the then known sciences.
At the age of 18, Ibn Sina was rewarded for his medical abilities with the post of court physician to the Samanid ruler of Bukhara. He remained in this position until the fall of the Samanid Empire in 999. After that, Ibn Sina traveled extensively. He spent the last fourteen years of his life as the scientific adviser and physician to the rulers of Isfahan, first with Shams al-Dawla, and later with Sama’ al-Dawla. In these last years of his life, Ibn Sina made astronomical investigations.
Ibn Sina died at Hamadhan, where a monument was later erected to celebrate the millennium of his birth.
Regarded by Muslims as one of the greatest Islamic philosophers, Avicenna is an important figure in the fields of medicine and philosophy. Ibn Sina’s work The Canon of Medicine was long pre-eminent in Southwest Asia and North Africa and was used in Europe as a textbook. It is significant as a systematic classification and summary of medical and pharmaceutical knowledge up to and including Ibn Sina’s time. The first Latin translation of the work was made in the 12th century of the Christian calendar, the Hebrew version appeared in 1491, and the Arabic text in 1593, the second text ever printed in Arabic.
Ibn Sina’s best known philosophical work is Kitab al-Shifa (“Book of Healing”), a collection of treatises on Aristotelian logic, metaphysics, psychology, the natural sciences, and other subjects. Ibn Sina’s own philosophy was based on a combination of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Contrary to orthodox Islamic thought, Ibn Sina denied personal immortality, the existence of any individual soul, that God has an interest in individuals, and that there had been any creation of the world in time. Ibn Sina believed that there was a dualism of mind and matter, where matter was passive, and creation had been an act of instilling existence into the passive substance. For Ibn Sina, the only place where there was no such dualism was in God. Because of his views, Ibn Sina became the main target of an attack on philosophy by the Islamic philosopher al-Ghazzali. Nevertheless, Ibn Sina’s philosophy remained influential throughout the Middle Ages.
Ibn Sina’s Kitab al-Najat (“Book of Salvation”) is a compendium of his work in metaphysics. In spite of Ibn Sina’s interest in metaphysics, he remained an orthodox Muslim, and wrote a number of books on theology. In his later years, Ibn Sina also wrote some allegorical mystical works. These works were important in the development of Sufism.
Most scholars agree that Ibn Sina was the most renowned and influential philosopher of medieval Islam. Ibn Sina’s works united philosophy with the study of nature. Over a hundred of Ibn Sina’s works have survived. His texts cover such subjects as philosophy and science as well as religious, linguistic and literary matters. Ibn Sina’s works are not the product of a man who simply lived in books, since most of his energies were taken up with the day-to-day affairs of state.
In 1954, 131 authentic and 110 doubtful works were listed in his bibliography. Known primarily as a philosopher and physician, Ibn Sina contributed also to all the sciences that were accessible in his day: natural history, physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics and music. He wrote on economics, politics, moral and religious questions, Qur’anic exegesis, and poetry. Ibn Sina’s influence on medieval European philosophers such as Michael Scot, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas is undeniable.
Ibn Sina was born in August or September of 980, in Afshena, Transoxiana Province of Bukhara to Abd-Allah of Balkh (now in Afghanistan). Abd-Allah was the well-to-do governor of Transoxiana Province under the Samanid ruler Nuh II ibn Mansur. Ibn Sina may have descended from a Turkish family on his father’s side, but his mother, Sitara, was clearly Persian.
After his brother, Mahmud, was born five years later, the family moved to Bukhara, one of the principal cities of Transoxiana and capital of the Samanid emirs from 819 to 1005. Exhibiting an early interest in learning, young Ibn Sina had read the entire Qur’an by age ten. His father was attracted to Isma‘ili Shi‘ite doctrines, preached locally by Egyptian missionaries, but Ibn Sina resisted his father’s influence. There was much discussion in his home regarding geometry, philosophy, theology, and even accounting methods. Ibn Sina was sent to study with an Indian vegetable seller who was also a surveyor. It was from him that Ibn Sina became acquainted with the Indian system of calculation, making use of the zero in computations.
A well-known philosopher came to live with the family for a few years and had an extraordinary influence on the young scholar. Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Natili stimulated Ibn Sina’s love of theoretical disputation, and the youth’s earlier readings in jurisprudence enabled him to tax al-Natili’s powers of logic daily. The tutor convinced Abd-Allah that Ibn Sina’s career should be an academic one. Ibn Sina was studying Aristotelian logic and Euclidean geometry when the teacher decided to move to a different home. Undaunted, Ibn Sina soon mastered texts in natural sciences and metaphysics, then medicine, which he did not consider very difficult. He taught physicians, even practicing medicine for a short time. At the age of sixteen, he was also engaging in disputations on Muslim law.
For the next year and a half, Ibn Sina returned to the study of logic and all aspects of philosophy, keeping files of syllogisms and praying daily at the mosque for guidance in his work. So obsessed did he become with philosophical problems and so anxious to know all that he hardly took time for sleep. Aristotle’s Metaphysica (Metaphysics) became an intellectual stumbling block until his reading of a work by Abu Nasr al-Farabi clarified many ideas for him. Soon all of Aristotle became understandable, and Ibn Sina gave alms to the poor in gratitude.
When Sultan Nuh ibn Mansur of Bukhara became ill, he sent for Ibn Sina, upon the advice of his team of physicians. Because of his help in curing the ruler, Ibn Sina gained access to the palace library, thus acquainting himself with many new books. When not studying, Ibn Sina was given to drinking wine and satisfying a large sexual appetite which he retained to the end of his life. Ibn Sina claimed that after the age of eighteen he learned nothing new, only gained greater wisdom. When the palace library was destroyed in a fire, critics blamed Ibn Sina, who, they said, wished to remove the sources of his ideas. There is no proof of that charge.
Ibn Sina’s writing career began in earnest at the age of twenty-one with al-Majmu (1001), a comprehensive book on learning for Abu al-Hasan, a prosodist. Then he wrote al-Hasil wa al-mahsul (“The Sun and Substance” -- c. 1002), a twenty-volume commentary on jurisprudence, the Qur’an, and asceticism. There soon followed a work on ethics called al-Birr wa al-ithm (“Good Works and Evil” -- c. 1002). However, the sponsors made no copies of them.
Ibn Sina's father died in 1002, and Ibn Sina was forced to enter government service. He reluctantly left Bukhara for Gurganj, the capital of Khwarazm, where he met Emir 'Ali ibn Ma’mun. From Gurganj, he moved to Fasa, Baward, Tus, Samanqan, and thence to Jajarm on the extreme end of Khurasan. He served Emir Qabus ibn Wushmagir until a military coup forced Ibn Sina to leave for Dihistan, where he became ill. After recovering, he moved to Jurjan.
In Jurjan, Ibn Sina met his pupil and biographer, Abu ‘Ubaid al-Juzjani, who stayed with him throughout much of the remainder of his life. Juzjani thought him exceptionally handsome and wrote that when Ibn Sina went to the mosque on Friday to pray, people would gather to observe at first hand “his perfection and beauty.” While in Jurjan, Ibn Sina wrote al-Mukhtasar al-awsat (The Middle Summary on Logic), al-Mabda’ wa al-ma‘ad (The Origin and the Return), and al-Arsad al-kulliya (Comprehensive Observations). There also Ibn Sina wrote the first part of al-Qanun fi al-tibb (Canon of Medicine), Mukhtasar al-Majisti (Summary of the Almagest), and other treatises. One modern scholar lists one hundred books attributed to Ibn Sina. Another says that the list of Ibn Sina’s works includes several hundred in Arabic and twenty-three in Persian.
From Jurjan, Ibn Sina next moved to al-Rayy, joining the service of al-Saiyyida and her son, Majd al-Dawlah. Civil strife forced him to flee to Qazwin. From there he moved to Hamadhan, where he managed the affairs of Kadhabanuyah. He was called to the court of Emir Shams al-Dawlah to treat the ruler for colic, after which Ibn Sina was made the vizier of his emirate. Because of a mutiny in the army, however, the emir was forced to discharge him. After matters calmed down, Ibn Sina was called back and reinstated as vizier. During this period, public affairs occupied his daytime hours, and he spent evenings teaching and writing. When the emir died, Ibn Sina went into hiding, finishing work on his Kitab al-shifa (Book of Healing). He was arrested for corresponding with a rival ruler, but when Emir ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah attacked Hamadhan four months later, Ibn Sina was set free.
Ibn Sina left Hamadhan for Isfahan with his brother, two slaves, and al-Juzjani to serve Emir ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah. The emir designated every Friday evening for learned discussions with many other masters. However, excluded from the gatherings was a famous scholar and rival of Ibn Sina, Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni, with whom he carried on a rather bitter correspondence. They had been clients at many of the same courts, but never at the same time. At Isfahan, Ibn Sina completed many of his writings on arithmetic and music. He was made an official member of the court and accompanied the emir on a military expedition to Hamadhan.
When he was rebuked by the emir’s cousin, Abu Mansur, for feigning expertise in philology, Ibn Sina was so stung by the criticism that he studied this subject frantically, compiling his discoveries in a book entitled Lisan al-‘Arab (The Arab Language). During these years, he also continued other experiments in medicine and astronomy. He introduced the use of medicinal herbs and devised an instrument to repair injured vertebrae. He understood that some illnesses arose from psychosomatic causes, and he wrote extensively on the pulse, preventive medicine, and the effects of climate on health. On May 24, 1032, he observed the rare phenomenon of Venus passing through the solar disk.
When he became ill in Isfahan, one of his slaves filled his meal with opium, hoping for his death and an opportunity to steal his money. But Ibn Sina managed to recover under self-treatment. Soon, however, he had a relapse. He died in 1037. Most authorities say that he died and was buried in Hamadhan.
Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine remained a principal source for medical research for six centuries, perhaps second only to the Christian Bible in the number of copies produced. Between 1470 and 1500, it went through thirty editions in Latin and one in Hebrew; a celebrated edition was published on a Gutenberg press in Rome in 1593. Ibn Sina’s principal literary contribution was the invention of the Rubaiyat form, quatrains in iambic pentameter, later made famous by Omar Khayyam. Most important of all, Ibn Sina’s philosophical system helped to stimulate a genuine intellectual renaissance in Islam that had enormous influence not only in his own culture but in Western Europe as well. Thomas Aquinas, Averroes (Ibn Rushd), John Duns Scotus, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon learned much from Ibn Sina, even though they disagreed on some particulars.
Most intriguing to the medieval Scholastics were Ibn Sina’s insistence upon essences in everything, the distinction between essence and existence (a notion derived from al-Farabi), the absence of essence in God (whose existence is unique), and the immortality of the soul (which animates the body but is independent of it).
According to some scholars, Ibn Sina’s insistence upon observation and experimentation helped to turn Western thought in the direction of the modern scientific revolution. His theories on the sources of infectious diseases, his explanation of sight, his invention of longitude, and his other scientific conclusions have a truly remarkable congruence with modern explanations. The application of geometrical forms in Islamic art, his use of the astrolabe in astronomical experiments, and his disputations on the immortality of the soul demonstrate Ibn Sina’s universal genius.
Abu 'Ali al-Hussain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina see Ibn Sina
Abu 'Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina see Ibn Sina
Avicenna see Ibn Sina
Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā' see Ibn Sina
Abū Alī Sīnā see Ibn Sina
Ibn Sina (Abu 'Ali al-Hussain ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina) (Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina) (Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā') (Abū Alī Sīnā) (Avicenna) (c. 980 - 1037). Persian polymath and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time. Known in the West as Avicenna, he was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, logician, paleontologist, mathematician, physicist, poet, psychologist, scientist and teacher.
Ibn Sīnā studied medicine under a physician named Koushyar. Ibn Sina wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities. The Canon of Medicine was used as a text-book in the universities of Montpellier and Louvain as late as 1650.
Ibn Sina was born near Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan), which was then the capital of the Persian Samanid dynasty. The son of a government official, Ibn Sina studied medicine and philosophy in Bukhara. Endowed with extraordinary intelligence and intellectual independence, he was largely self-taught and by the age of eighteen had mastered all the then known sciences.
At the age of 18, Ibn Sina was rewarded for his medical abilities with the post of court physician to the Samanid ruler of Bukhara. He remained in this position until the fall of the Samanid Empire in 999. After that, Ibn Sina traveled extensively. He spent the last fourteen years of his life as the scientific adviser and physician to the rulers of Isfahan, first with Shams al-Dawla, and later with Sama’ al-Dawla. In these last years of his life, Ibn Sina made astronomical investigations.
Ibn Sina died at Hamadhan, where a monument was later erected to celebrate the millennium of his birth.
Regarded by Muslims as one of the greatest Islamic philosophers, Avicenna is an important figure in the fields of medicine and philosophy. Ibn Sina’s work The Canon of Medicine was long pre-eminent in Southwest Asia and North Africa and was used in Europe as a textbook. It is significant as a systematic classification and summary of medical and pharmaceutical knowledge up to and including Ibn Sina’s time. The first Latin translation of the work was made in the 12th century of the Christian calendar, the Hebrew version appeared in 1491, and the Arabic text in 1593, the second text ever printed in Arabic.
Ibn Sina’s best known philosophical work is Kitab al-Shifa (“Book of Healing”), a collection of treatises on Aristotelian logic, metaphysics, psychology, the natural sciences, and other subjects. Ibn Sina’s own philosophy was based on a combination of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Contrary to orthodox Islamic thought, Ibn Sina denied personal immortality, the existence of any individual soul, that God has an interest in individuals, and that there had been any creation of the world in time. Ibn Sina believed that there was a dualism of mind and matter, where matter was passive, and creation had been an act of instilling existence into the passive substance. For Ibn Sina, the only place where there was no such dualism was in God. Because of his views, Ibn Sina became the main target of an attack on philosophy by the Islamic philosopher al-Ghazzali. Nevertheless, Ibn Sina’s philosophy remained influential throughout the Middle Ages.
Ibn Sina’s Kitab al-Najat (“Book of Salvation”) is a compendium of his work in metaphysics. In spite of Ibn Sina’s interest in metaphysics, he remained an orthodox Muslim, and wrote a number of books on theology. In his later years, Ibn Sina also wrote some allegorical mystical works. These works were important in the development of Sufism.
Most scholars agree that Ibn Sina was the most renowned and influential philosopher of medieval Islam. Ibn Sina’s works united philosophy with the study of nature. Over a hundred of Ibn Sina’s works have survived. His texts cover such subjects as philosophy and science as well as religious, linguistic and literary matters. Ibn Sina’s works are not the product of a man who simply lived in books, since most of his energies were taken up with the day-to-day affairs of state.
In 1954, 131 authentic and 110 doubtful works were listed in his bibliography. Known primarily as a philosopher and physician, Ibn Sina contributed also to all the sciences that were accessible in his day: natural history, physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics and music. He wrote on economics, politics, moral and religious questions, Qur’anic exegesis, and poetry. Ibn Sina’s influence on medieval European philosophers such as Michael Scot, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas is undeniable.
Ibn Sina was born in August or September of 980, in Afshena, Transoxiana Province of Bukhara to Abd-Allah of Balkh (now in Afghanistan). Abd-Allah was the well-to-do governor of Transoxiana Province under the Samanid ruler Nuh II ibn Mansur. Ibn Sina may have descended from a Turkish family on his father’s side, but his mother, Sitara, was clearly Persian.
After his brother, Mahmud, was born five years later, the family moved to Bukhara, one of the principal cities of Transoxiana and capital of the Samanid emirs from 819 to 1005. Exhibiting an early interest in learning, young Ibn Sina had read the entire Qur’an by age ten. His father was attracted to Isma‘ili Shi‘ite doctrines, preached locally by Egyptian missionaries, but Ibn Sina resisted his father’s influence. There was much discussion in his home regarding geometry, philosophy, theology, and even accounting methods. Ibn Sina was sent to study with an Indian vegetable seller who was also a surveyor. It was from him that Ibn Sina became acquainted with the Indian system of calculation, making use of the zero in computations.
A well-known philosopher came to live with the family for a few years and had an extraordinary influence on the young scholar. Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Natili stimulated Ibn Sina’s love of theoretical disputation, and the youth’s earlier readings in jurisprudence enabled him to tax al-Natili’s powers of logic daily. The tutor convinced Abd-Allah that Ibn Sina’s career should be an academic one. Ibn Sina was studying Aristotelian logic and Euclidean geometry when the teacher decided to move to a different home. Undaunted, Ibn Sina soon mastered texts in natural sciences and metaphysics, then medicine, which he did not consider very difficult. He taught physicians, even practicing medicine for a short time. At the age of sixteen, he was also engaging in disputations on Muslim law.
For the next year and a half, Ibn Sina returned to the study of logic and all aspects of philosophy, keeping files of syllogisms and praying daily at the mosque for guidance in his work. So obsessed did he become with philosophical problems and so anxious to know all that he hardly took time for sleep. Aristotle’s Metaphysica (Metaphysics) became an intellectual stumbling block until his reading of a work by Abu Nasr al-Farabi clarified many ideas for him. Soon all of Aristotle became understandable, and Ibn Sina gave alms to the poor in gratitude.
When Sultan Nuh ibn Mansur of Bukhara became ill, he sent for Ibn Sina, upon the advice of his team of physicians. Because of his help in curing the ruler, Ibn Sina gained access to the palace library, thus acquainting himself with many new books. When not studying, Ibn Sina was given to drinking wine and satisfying a large sexual appetite which he retained to the end of his life. Ibn Sina claimed that after the age of eighteen he learned nothing new, only gained greater wisdom. When the palace library was destroyed in a fire, critics blamed Ibn Sina, who, they said, wished to remove the sources of his ideas. There is no proof of that charge.
Ibn Sina’s writing career began in earnest at the age of twenty-one with al-Majmu (1001), a comprehensive book on learning for Abu al-Hasan, a prosodist. Then he wrote al-Hasil wa al-mahsul (“The Sun and Substance” -- c. 1002), a twenty-volume commentary on jurisprudence, the Qur’an, and asceticism. There soon followed a work on ethics called al-Birr wa al-ithm (“Good Works and Evil” -- c. 1002). However, the sponsors made no copies of them.
Ibn Sina's father died in 1002, and Ibn Sina was forced to enter government service. He reluctantly left Bukhara for Gurganj, the capital of Khwarazm, where he met Emir 'Ali ibn Ma’mun. From Gurganj, he moved to Fasa, Baward, Tus, Samanqan, and thence to Jajarm on the extreme end of Khurasan. He served Emir Qabus ibn Wushmagir until a military coup forced Ibn Sina to leave for Dihistan, where he became ill. After recovering, he moved to Jurjan.
In Jurjan, Ibn Sina met his pupil and biographer, Abu ‘Ubaid al-Juzjani, who stayed with him throughout much of the remainder of his life. Juzjani thought him exceptionally handsome and wrote that when Ibn Sina went to the mosque on Friday to pray, people would gather to observe at first hand “his perfection and beauty.” While in Jurjan, Ibn Sina wrote al-Mukhtasar al-awsat (The Middle Summary on Logic), al-Mabda’ wa al-ma‘ad (The Origin and the Return), and al-Arsad al-kulliya (Comprehensive Observations). There also Ibn Sina wrote the first part of al-Qanun fi al-tibb (Canon of Medicine), Mukhtasar al-Majisti (Summary of the Almagest), and other treatises. One modern scholar lists one hundred books attributed to Ibn Sina. Another says that the list of Ibn Sina’s works includes several hundred in Arabic and twenty-three in Persian.
From Jurjan, Ibn Sina next moved to al-Rayy, joining the service of al-Saiyyida and her son, Majd al-Dawlah. Civil strife forced him to flee to Qazwin. From there he moved to Hamadhan, where he managed the affairs of Kadhabanuyah. He was called to the court of Emir Shams al-Dawlah to treat the ruler for colic, after which Ibn Sina was made the vizier of his emirate. Because of a mutiny in the army, however, the emir was forced to discharge him. After matters calmed down, Ibn Sina was called back and reinstated as vizier. During this period, public affairs occupied his daytime hours, and he spent evenings teaching and writing. When the emir died, Ibn Sina went into hiding, finishing work on his Kitab al-shifa (Book of Healing). He was arrested for corresponding with a rival ruler, but when Emir ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah attacked Hamadhan four months later, Ibn Sina was set free.
Ibn Sina left Hamadhan for Isfahan with his brother, two slaves, and al-Juzjani to serve Emir ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah. The emir designated every Friday evening for learned discussions with many other masters. However, excluded from the gatherings was a famous scholar and rival of Ibn Sina, Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni, with whom he carried on a rather bitter correspondence. They had been clients at many of the same courts, but never at the same time. At Isfahan, Ibn Sina completed many of his writings on arithmetic and music. He was made an official member of the court and accompanied the emir on a military expedition to Hamadhan.
When he was rebuked by the emir’s cousin, Abu Mansur, for feigning expertise in philology, Ibn Sina was so stung by the criticism that he studied this subject frantically, compiling his discoveries in a book entitled Lisan al-‘Arab (The Arab Language). During these years, he also continued other experiments in medicine and astronomy. He introduced the use of medicinal herbs and devised an instrument to repair injured vertebrae. He understood that some illnesses arose from psychosomatic causes, and he wrote extensively on the pulse, preventive medicine, and the effects of climate on health. On May 24, 1032, he observed the rare phenomenon of Venus passing through the solar disk.
When he became ill in Isfahan, one of his slaves filled his meal with opium, hoping for his death and an opportunity to steal his money. But Ibn Sina managed to recover under self-treatment. Soon, however, he had a relapse. He died in 1037. Most authorities say that he died and was buried in Hamadhan.
Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine remained a principal source for medical research for six centuries, perhaps second only to the Christian Bible in the number of copies produced. Between 1470 and 1500, it went through thirty editions in Latin and one in Hebrew; a celebrated edition was published on a Gutenberg press in Rome in 1593. Ibn Sina’s principal literary contribution was the invention of the Rubaiyat form, quatrains in iambic pentameter, later made famous by Omar Khayyam. Most important of all, Ibn Sina’s philosophical system helped to stimulate a genuine intellectual renaissance in Islam that had enormous influence not only in his own culture but in Western Europe as well. Thomas Aquinas, Averroes (Ibn Rushd), John Duns Scotus, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon learned much from Ibn Sina, even though they disagreed on some particulars.
Most intriguing to the medieval Scholastics were Ibn Sina’s insistence upon essences in everything, the distinction between essence and existence (a notion derived from al-Farabi), the absence of essence in God (whose existence is unique), and the immortality of the soul (which animates the body but is independent of it).
According to some scholars, Ibn Sina’s insistence upon observation and experimentation helped to turn Western thought in the direction of the modern scientific revolution. His theories on the sources of infectious diseases, his explanation of sight, his invention of longitude, and his other scientific conclusions have a truly remarkable congruence with modern explanations. The application of geometrical forms in Islamic art, his use of the astrolabe in astronomical experiments, and his disputations on the immortality of the soul demonstrate Ibn Sina’s universal genius.
Abu 'Ali al-Hussain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina see Ibn Sina
Abu 'Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina see Ibn Sina
Avicenna see Ibn Sina
Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā' see Ibn Sina
Abū Alī Sīnā see Ibn Sina
Ibn Sirin
Ibn Sirin (Muhammad ibn Sirin) (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Sirin al-Ansari) (653/654-728). Muslim interpreter of dreams. He was also a traditionist, renowned for his piety and for the reliability of the information which he transmitted.
Muhammad ibn Sirin was born in Basra, Iraq. He was a Muslim interpreter of dreams who lived in the 8th century. He was a contemporary of Anas ibn Malik.
Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Sirin Al-Ansari was born in Basra in the 33rd year after Muhammad's migration from Makkah to the Yathrib, now Al-Madina. His birth came two years before the end of the rule of Caliph Óthman ibn Áffan. Muhammad's father (the name Abu Bakr was seldom used) was one of the many captives taken by the great Muslim warrior Khaled ibn Al-Walid when he embarked on his campaign to conquer Al-Sham (the area comprising Syria, Lebanon and Palestine), under the caliphate (rule) of Ómar ibn Al-Khattab (583–684). He was a coppersmith from a town called Jirjaya, settled and working in a place called 'Ain Al-Tamr, where a decisive battle took place in Hijra (migration) year 12.
Muhammad worked as an ambulant cloth merchant, or peddler, in Al-Basra. The fact that he was deaf or quick-of-hearing did not prevent him from becoming one of the most fabulous storytellers of his time about Muhammad, quoting such prominent personalities as Abu Hurayrah, 'Abdullah ibn 'Omar, and Anas ibn Malek. Known as Ibn Sirin, Muhammad was one of the first ascetics of Al-Basra. He became the prime imam in religion and an erudite in the Qur'an. He was described by one of his contemporaries (Abu Ná'eem) as wise, heeding God and perspicacious, sharing food with his brethren and travelers, strongly interceding in favor of the lonely and those who were punished for one reason or another. He was alert, cautious, honest and properly maintaining whatever was entrusted to him. He used to weep at night and smile and rove around all day. And he fasted every other day. No one was as religious or as knowledgeable as him in his art. His family was so generous that they would not hesitate to offer to their visitor the last loaf of bread in their house. He used to savor and recite poetry.
He was particularly renowned for his extraordinary skill in interpreting dreams as attested by the Arabs' greatest intellectuals, such as Al-Gaheth, Ibn Qutaybah and Ibn Khaldun, who considered his work as crucial in this field.
The most notable of the books attributed to Ibn Sirin is Dreams and Interpretations.
Muhammad Ibn Sirin see Ibn Sirin
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Sirin al-Ansari see Ibn Sirin
Ibn Sirin (Muhammad ibn Sirin) (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Sirin al-Ansari) (653/654-728). Muslim interpreter of dreams. He was also a traditionist, renowned for his piety and for the reliability of the information which he transmitted.
Muhammad ibn Sirin was born in Basra, Iraq. He was a Muslim interpreter of dreams who lived in the 8th century. He was a contemporary of Anas ibn Malik.
Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Sirin Al-Ansari was born in Basra in the 33rd year after Muhammad's migration from Makkah to the Yathrib, now Al-Madina. His birth came two years before the end of the rule of Caliph Óthman ibn Áffan. Muhammad's father (the name Abu Bakr was seldom used) was one of the many captives taken by the great Muslim warrior Khaled ibn Al-Walid when he embarked on his campaign to conquer Al-Sham (the area comprising Syria, Lebanon and Palestine), under the caliphate (rule) of Ómar ibn Al-Khattab (583–684). He was a coppersmith from a town called Jirjaya, settled and working in a place called 'Ain Al-Tamr, where a decisive battle took place in Hijra (migration) year 12.
Muhammad worked as an ambulant cloth merchant, or peddler, in Al-Basra. The fact that he was deaf or quick-of-hearing did not prevent him from becoming one of the most fabulous storytellers of his time about Muhammad, quoting such prominent personalities as Abu Hurayrah, 'Abdullah ibn 'Omar, and Anas ibn Malek. Known as Ibn Sirin, Muhammad was one of the first ascetics of Al-Basra. He became the prime imam in religion and an erudite in the Qur'an. He was described by one of his contemporaries (Abu Ná'eem) as wise, heeding God and perspicacious, sharing food with his brethren and travelers, strongly interceding in favor of the lonely and those who were punished for one reason or another. He was alert, cautious, honest and properly maintaining whatever was entrusted to him. He used to weep at night and smile and rove around all day. And he fasted every other day. No one was as religious or as knowledgeable as him in his art. His family was so generous that they would not hesitate to offer to their visitor the last loaf of bread in their house. He used to savor and recite poetry.
He was particularly renowned for his extraordinary skill in interpreting dreams as attested by the Arabs' greatest intellectuals, such as Al-Gaheth, Ibn Qutaybah and Ibn Khaldun, who considered his work as crucial in this field.
The most notable of the books attributed to Ibn Sirin is Dreams and Interpretations.
Muhammad Ibn Sirin see Ibn Sirin
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Sirin al-Ansari see Ibn Sirin
Ibn Suda
Ibn Suda (Sawda) (c. 1550-1903). Name of a number of Maliki scholars and judges of Fez (fl. c.1550-1903).
Mohammed ibn al-Talib al-Tawudi ibn Suda (1700-95) was one of the most influential scholars of the 18th century in Morocco, both politically and intellectually. He is described by the Egytian historian, Al-Jabarti, as the "crescent of the Maghrib". He went on the hajj in 1767-8 and studied in Medina with Mohammed ibn Abdel Karim al-Samman (1718-1775), founder of the Sammaniyya branch of the Khalwatiyya and in Cairo with the Indian scholar Mohammed Murtada al-Zabidi (d. 1791). In Cairo he also taught the Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas at the Al-Azhar. Ibn Suda was appointed by the sultan in 1788 to reform the curriculum at the Qarawiyin University of Fez, where he was installed as mufti and shaykh al-jamaa. Ibn Suda is also well known as the author of a commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari and as the teacher of Ahmed ibn Idris.
Sawda see Ibn Suda
Ibn Suda (Sawda) (c. 1550-1903). Name of a number of Maliki scholars and judges of Fez (fl. c.1550-1903).
Mohammed ibn al-Talib al-Tawudi ibn Suda (1700-95) was one of the most influential scholars of the 18th century in Morocco, both politically and intellectually. He is described by the Egytian historian, Al-Jabarti, as the "crescent of the Maghrib". He went on the hajj in 1767-8 and studied in Medina with Mohammed ibn Abdel Karim al-Samman (1718-1775), founder of the Sammaniyya branch of the Khalwatiyya and in Cairo with the Indian scholar Mohammed Murtada al-Zabidi (d. 1791). In Cairo he also taught the Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas at the Al-Azhar. Ibn Suda was appointed by the sultan in 1788 to reform the curriculum at the Qarawiyin University of Fez, where he was installed as mufti and shaykh al-jamaa. Ibn Suda is also well known as the author of a commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari and as the teacher of Ahmed ibn Idris.
Sawda see Ibn Suda
Ibn Sulaym al-Aswani
Ibn Sulaym al-Aswani. Fatimid propagandist of the tenth century. His work on Nubia is one of the principal medieval sources on the eastern Sudan.
Ibn Sulaym al-Aswani. Fatimid propagandist of the tenth century. His work on Nubia is one of the principal medieval sources on the eastern Sudan.
Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya) Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Taymiyyah) (1263, in Harran, Mesopotamia - September 26, 1328, in Cairo). Hanbalite theologian and jurist. Ibn Taymiyya was born in Harran to a family of Hanbali scholars (including his paternal grandfather, uncle, and father). Ibn Taymiyya was himself a Hanbali in many, though not all, juridical and theological matters, and a Salafi on a wider plane. He has had a strong influence on conservative Sunni circles and, in the modern period, on both liberals and conservatives.
Ibn Taymiyyah was one of Islam’s most forceful theologians who, as a member of the Pietist school founded by Ibn Ḥanbal, sought the return of the Islamic religion to its sources: the Qurʾān and the sunnah, revealed writing and the prophetic tradition. He is also the source of the Wahhābīyah, a mid-18th-century traditionalist movement of Islam.
Ibn Taymiyyah was born in Harran, Mesopotamia. Educated in Damascus, where he had been taken in 1268 as a refugee from the Mongol invasion, he later steeped himself in the teachings of the Pietist school. Though he remained faithful throughout his life to that school, of whose doctrines he had an unrivalled mastery, he also acquired an extensive knowledge of contemporary Islamic sources and disciplines: the Qurʾān (Islamic scripture), the Ḥadīth (sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad), jurisprudence (fiqh), dogmatic theology (kalām), philosophy, and Ṣūfī (Islamic mystical) theology.
The life of Ibn Taymiyyah was marked by persecutions. As early as 1293 Ibn Taymiyyah came into conflict with local authorities for protesting a sentence, pronounced under religious law, against a Christian accused of having insulted the Prophet. In 1298 he was accused of anthropomorphism (ascribing human characteristics to God) and for having criticized, contemptuously, the legitimacy of dogmatic theology.
During the great Mongol crisis of the years 1299 to 1303, and especially during the occupation of Damascus, he led the resistance party and denounced the suspect faith of the invaders and their accomplices. During the ensuing years, Ibn Taymiyyah was engaged in intensive polemic activity: either against the Kasrawān Shīʿah in Lebanon; the Rifāʿīyah, a Ṣūfī religious brotherhood; or the ittiḥādīyah school, which taught that the Creator and the created become one, a school that grew out of the teaching of Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240), whose monism he denounced.
In 1306, Ibn Taymiyyah was summoned to explain his beliefs to the governor’s council, which, although it did not condemn him, sent him to Cairo. There he appeared before a new council on the charge of anthropomorphism and was imprisoned in the citadel for 18 months. Soon after gaining his freedom, he was confined again in 1308 for several months in the prison of the qāḍīs (Muslim judges who exercise both civil and religious functions) for having denounced the worship of saints as being against religious law (Sharīʿah).
He was sent to Alexandria under house arrest in 1309, the day after the abdication of the sultan Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn and the advent of Baybars II al-Jāshnikīr, whom he regarded as a usurper and whose imminent end he predicted. Seven months later, on Ibn Qalāwūn’s return, he was able to return to Cairo. But in 1313 he left Cairo once more with the Sultan, on a campaign to recover Damascus, which was again being threatened by the Mongols.
Ibn Taymiyyah spent his last 15 years in Damascus. Promoted to the rank of schoolmaster, he gathered around him a circle of disciples from every social class. The most famous of these, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah (died 1350), was to share in Ibn Taymiyyah’s renewed persecutions. Accused of supporting a doctrine that would curtail the ease with which a Muslim could traditionally repudiate a wife and thus ease the ill effects of the practice, Ibn Taymiyyah was incarcerated on orders from Cairo in the citadel of Damascus from August 1320 to February 1321.
In July 1326, Cairo again ordered him confined to the citadel for having continued his condemnation of saint worship, in spite of the prohibition forbidding him to do so. He died in prison, deprived of his books and writing materials, and was buried in the Ṣūfī cemetery amid a great public gathering. His tomb still exists and is widely venerated.
Ibn Taymiyyah left a considerable body of work—often republished in Syria, Egypt, Arabia, and India—that extended and justified his religious and political involvements and was characterized by its rich documentation, sober style, and brilliant polemic. In addition to innumerable fatwās (legal opinions based on religious law) and several professions of faith, the most beautiful of which is the Wāsitīyah, two works merit particular attention. One is his As-Siyā-sat ash-sharʿīyah (“Treatise on Juridical Politics”), available in French and English translations. The other, Minhāj as-sunnah (“The Way of Tradition”), is the richest work of comparative theology surviving from medieval Islam.
Ibn Taymiyyah desired a return to the sources of the Muslim religion, which he felt had been altered too often, to one extent or another, by the different religious sects or schools. The sources were the Qurʾān and the sunnah: revealed writing and the prophetic tradition. The ijmāʿ, or community consensus, had no value in itself, he insisted, unless it rested on those two sources. His traditionalism, however, did not prevent Ibn Taymiyyah from allowing analogical reasoning (qiyās) and the argument of utility (maṣlaḥah) a large place in his thought, on the condition that both rested on the objective givens of revelation and tradition. Only such a return to sources, he felt, would permit the divided and disunited Muslim community to refind its unity.
In theodicy (the justification of God as good when evil is observable in the world), Ibn Taymiyyah wished to describe God as he is described in the Qurʾān and as the Prophet did in the sunnah, which led him to side with theological schools in disagreement with contemporary opinion. This position was the point of departure for a critique, often conducted with very subtle argument, of the ideas of such dogmatic theologians as al-Ashʿarī or Fakhr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī, such philosophers as Avicenna and Averroës, or such mystics as Ibn al-ʿArabī.
Concerning praxes (practices), Ibn Taymiyyah believed that one could only require, in worship, those practices inaugurated by God and his Prophet and that one could only forbid, in social relations, those things forbidden by the Qurʾān and the sunnah. Thus, on the one hand, he favored a revision of the system of religious obligations and a brushing aside of condemnable innovations (bidʿah), and, on the other, he constructed an economic ethic that was more flexible on many points than that espoused by the contemporary schools.
In politics, Ibn Taymiyyah recognized the legitimacy of the first four caliphs, but he rejected the necessity of having a single caliphate and allowed for the existence of many emirates. Within each emirate he demanded that the prince apply the religious law strictly and rely on it for his legal opinion, and Ibn Taymiyyah demanded from those under the prince’s jurisdiction that they obey the established authority except where it required disobedience to God, every Muslim being required to “will the good and forbid the bad” for the benefit of the common welfare.
Though Ibn Taymiyyah had numerous religious and political adversaries in his own time, he has strongly influenced modern Islam for the last two centuries. He is the source of the Wahhābīyah, a strictly traditionist movement founded by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1792), who took his ideas from Ibn Taymiyyah’s writings. Ibn Taymiyyah also influenced various reform movements that have posed the problem of reformulating traditional ideologies by a return to sources.
Ibn Taymiyyah left a considerable body of work (350 works listed by his student Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya and 500 by another student al-Dhahabi). His work extended and justified his religious and political involvements and was characterized by its rich content, sobriety, and skillful polemical style.
Extant books and essays written by Ibn Taymiyyah include:
* A Great Compilation of Fatwa — (Majmu al-Fatwa al-Kubra) This was collected centuries after his death, and contains several of the works mentioned below
* Minhaj as-Sunnah an-Nabawiyyah — (The Pathway of as-Sunnah an-Nabawiyyah) — Volumes 1–4
* Majmoo' al-Fatawa — (Compilation of Fatawa) Volumes 1–36
* al-Aqeedah Al-Hamawiyyah — (The Creed to the People of Hamawiyyah)
* al-Aqeedah Al-Waasittiyah — (The Creed to the People of Waasittiyah)
* al-Asma wa's-Sifaat — (Allah's Names and Attributes) Volumes 1–2
* 'al-Iman — (Faith)
* al-Jawab as Sahih li man Baddala Din al-Masih (Literally, "The Correct Response to those who have Corrupted the Deen (Religion) of the Messiah"; A Muslim theologian's response to Christianity)—seven volumes, over a thousand pages.
* as-Sarim al-Maslul ‘ala Shatim ar-Rasul—The Drawn Sword against those who insult the Messenger. Written in response to an incident in which Ibn Taymiyyah heard a Christian insulting Muhammad. The book is well-known because he wrote it entirely by memory, while in jail, and quoting more than hundreds of references.
* Fatawa al-Kubra
* Fatawa al-Misriyyah
* ar-Radd 'ala al-Mantiqiyyin (Refutation of Greek Logicians)
* Naqd at-Ta'sis
* al-Uboodiyyah — (Subjection to Allah)
* Iqtida' as-Sirat al-Mustaqim' — (Following The Straight Path)
* al-Siyasa al-shar'iyya
* at-Tawassul wal-Waseela
* Sharh Futuh al-Ghayb — (Commentary on Revelations of the Unseen by Abdul-Qadir Gilani)
Some of his other works have been translated to English. They include:
* The Friends of Allah and the Friends of Shaytan
* Kitab al Iman: The Book of Faith
* Diseases of the Hearts and their Cures
* The Relief from Distress
* Fundamentals of Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil
* The Concise Legacy
* The Goodly Word
* The Madinan Way
* Ibn Taymiyya against the Greek logicians
Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya see Ibn Taymiyya
Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Taymiyyah see Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya) Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Taymiyyah) (1263, in Harran, Mesopotamia - September 26, 1328, in Cairo). Hanbalite theologian and jurist. Ibn Taymiyya was born in Harran to a family of Hanbali scholars (including his paternal grandfather, uncle, and father). Ibn Taymiyya was himself a Hanbali in many, though not all, juridical and theological matters, and a Salafi on a wider plane. He has had a strong influence on conservative Sunni circles and, in the modern period, on both liberals and conservatives.
Ibn Taymiyyah was one of Islam’s most forceful theologians who, as a member of the Pietist school founded by Ibn Ḥanbal, sought the return of the Islamic religion to its sources: the Qurʾān and the sunnah, revealed writing and the prophetic tradition. He is also the source of the Wahhābīyah, a mid-18th-century traditionalist movement of Islam.
Ibn Taymiyyah was born in Harran, Mesopotamia. Educated in Damascus, where he had been taken in 1268 as a refugee from the Mongol invasion, he later steeped himself in the teachings of the Pietist school. Though he remained faithful throughout his life to that school, of whose doctrines he had an unrivalled mastery, he also acquired an extensive knowledge of contemporary Islamic sources and disciplines: the Qurʾān (Islamic scripture), the Ḥadīth (sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad), jurisprudence (fiqh), dogmatic theology (kalām), philosophy, and Ṣūfī (Islamic mystical) theology.
The life of Ibn Taymiyyah was marked by persecutions. As early as 1293 Ibn Taymiyyah came into conflict with local authorities for protesting a sentence, pronounced under religious law, against a Christian accused of having insulted the Prophet. In 1298 he was accused of anthropomorphism (ascribing human characteristics to God) and for having criticized, contemptuously, the legitimacy of dogmatic theology.
During the great Mongol crisis of the years 1299 to 1303, and especially during the occupation of Damascus, he led the resistance party and denounced the suspect faith of the invaders and their accomplices. During the ensuing years, Ibn Taymiyyah was engaged in intensive polemic activity: either against the Kasrawān Shīʿah in Lebanon; the Rifāʿīyah, a Ṣūfī religious brotherhood; or the ittiḥādīyah school, which taught that the Creator and the created become one, a school that grew out of the teaching of Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240), whose monism he denounced.
In 1306, Ibn Taymiyyah was summoned to explain his beliefs to the governor’s council, which, although it did not condemn him, sent him to Cairo. There he appeared before a new council on the charge of anthropomorphism and was imprisoned in the citadel for 18 months. Soon after gaining his freedom, he was confined again in 1308 for several months in the prison of the qāḍīs (Muslim judges who exercise both civil and religious functions) for having denounced the worship of saints as being against religious law (Sharīʿah).
He was sent to Alexandria under house arrest in 1309, the day after the abdication of the sultan Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn and the advent of Baybars II al-Jāshnikīr, whom he regarded as a usurper and whose imminent end he predicted. Seven months later, on Ibn Qalāwūn’s return, he was able to return to Cairo. But in 1313 he left Cairo once more with the Sultan, on a campaign to recover Damascus, which was again being threatened by the Mongols.
Ibn Taymiyyah spent his last 15 years in Damascus. Promoted to the rank of schoolmaster, he gathered around him a circle of disciples from every social class. The most famous of these, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah (died 1350), was to share in Ibn Taymiyyah’s renewed persecutions. Accused of supporting a doctrine that would curtail the ease with which a Muslim could traditionally repudiate a wife and thus ease the ill effects of the practice, Ibn Taymiyyah was incarcerated on orders from Cairo in the citadel of Damascus from August 1320 to February 1321.
In July 1326, Cairo again ordered him confined to the citadel for having continued his condemnation of saint worship, in spite of the prohibition forbidding him to do so. He died in prison, deprived of his books and writing materials, and was buried in the Ṣūfī cemetery amid a great public gathering. His tomb still exists and is widely venerated.
Ibn Taymiyyah left a considerable body of work—often republished in Syria, Egypt, Arabia, and India—that extended and justified his religious and political involvements and was characterized by its rich documentation, sober style, and brilliant polemic. In addition to innumerable fatwās (legal opinions based on religious law) and several professions of faith, the most beautiful of which is the Wāsitīyah, two works merit particular attention. One is his As-Siyā-sat ash-sharʿīyah (“Treatise on Juridical Politics”), available in French and English translations. The other, Minhāj as-sunnah (“The Way of Tradition”), is the richest work of comparative theology surviving from medieval Islam.
Ibn Taymiyyah desired a return to the sources of the Muslim religion, which he felt had been altered too often, to one extent or another, by the different religious sects or schools. The sources were the Qurʾān and the sunnah: revealed writing and the prophetic tradition. The ijmāʿ, or community consensus, had no value in itself, he insisted, unless it rested on those two sources. His traditionalism, however, did not prevent Ibn Taymiyyah from allowing analogical reasoning (qiyās) and the argument of utility (maṣlaḥah) a large place in his thought, on the condition that both rested on the objective givens of revelation and tradition. Only such a return to sources, he felt, would permit the divided and disunited Muslim community to refind its unity.
In theodicy (the justification of God as good when evil is observable in the world), Ibn Taymiyyah wished to describe God as he is described in the Qurʾān and as the Prophet did in the sunnah, which led him to side with theological schools in disagreement with contemporary opinion. This position was the point of departure for a critique, often conducted with very subtle argument, of the ideas of such dogmatic theologians as al-Ashʿarī or Fakhr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī, such philosophers as Avicenna and Averroës, or such mystics as Ibn al-ʿArabī.
Concerning praxes (practices), Ibn Taymiyyah believed that one could only require, in worship, those practices inaugurated by God and his Prophet and that one could only forbid, in social relations, those things forbidden by the Qurʾān and the sunnah. Thus, on the one hand, he favored a revision of the system of religious obligations and a brushing aside of condemnable innovations (bidʿah), and, on the other, he constructed an economic ethic that was more flexible on many points than that espoused by the contemporary schools.
In politics, Ibn Taymiyyah recognized the legitimacy of the first four caliphs, but he rejected the necessity of having a single caliphate and allowed for the existence of many emirates. Within each emirate he demanded that the prince apply the religious law strictly and rely on it for his legal opinion, and Ibn Taymiyyah demanded from those under the prince’s jurisdiction that they obey the established authority except where it required disobedience to God, every Muslim being required to “will the good and forbid the bad” for the benefit of the common welfare.
Though Ibn Taymiyyah had numerous religious and political adversaries in his own time, he has strongly influenced modern Islam for the last two centuries. He is the source of the Wahhābīyah, a strictly traditionist movement founded by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1792), who took his ideas from Ibn Taymiyyah’s writings. Ibn Taymiyyah also influenced various reform movements that have posed the problem of reformulating traditional ideologies by a return to sources.
Ibn Taymiyyah left a considerable body of work (350 works listed by his student Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya and 500 by another student al-Dhahabi). His work extended and justified his religious and political involvements and was characterized by its rich content, sobriety, and skillful polemical style.
Extant books and essays written by Ibn Taymiyyah include:
* A Great Compilation of Fatwa — (Majmu al-Fatwa al-Kubra) This was collected centuries after his death, and contains several of the works mentioned below
* Minhaj as-Sunnah an-Nabawiyyah — (The Pathway of as-Sunnah an-Nabawiyyah) — Volumes 1–4
* Majmoo' al-Fatawa — (Compilation of Fatawa) Volumes 1–36
* al-Aqeedah Al-Hamawiyyah — (The Creed to the People of Hamawiyyah)
* al-Aqeedah Al-Waasittiyah — (The Creed to the People of Waasittiyah)
* al-Asma wa's-Sifaat — (Allah's Names and Attributes) Volumes 1–2
* 'al-Iman — (Faith)
* al-Jawab as Sahih li man Baddala Din al-Masih (Literally, "The Correct Response to those who have Corrupted the Deen (Religion) of the Messiah"; A Muslim theologian's response to Christianity)—seven volumes, over a thousand pages.
* as-Sarim al-Maslul ‘ala Shatim ar-Rasul—The Drawn Sword against those who insult the Messenger. Written in response to an incident in which Ibn Taymiyyah heard a Christian insulting Muhammad. The book is well-known because he wrote it entirely by memory, while in jail, and quoting more than hundreds of references.
* Fatawa al-Kubra
* Fatawa al-Misriyyah
* ar-Radd 'ala al-Mantiqiyyin (Refutation of Greek Logicians)
* Naqd at-Ta'sis
* al-Uboodiyyah — (Subjection to Allah)
* Iqtida' as-Sirat al-Mustaqim' — (Following The Straight Path)
* al-Siyasa al-shar'iyya
* at-Tawassul wal-Waseela
* Sharh Futuh al-Ghayb — (Commentary on Revelations of the Unseen by Abdul-Qadir Gilani)
Some of his other works have been translated to English. They include:
* The Friends of Allah and the Friends of Shaytan
* Kitab al Iman: The Book of Faith
* Diseases of the Hearts and their Cures
* The Relief from Distress
* Fundamentals of Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil
* The Concise Legacy
* The Goodly Word
* The Madinan Way
* Ibn Taymiyya against the Greek logicians
Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya see Ibn Taymiyya
Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Taymiyyah see Ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Tilmidh
Ibn Tilmidh (Amin al-Dawla) (1073-1165). Christian Arab physician from Baghdad. He was gifted for languages, skilled in poetry and music, and was also an excellent calligrapher. Although a priest, he enjoyed the favor of the caliphs.
Amin al-Dawla see Ibn Tilmidh
Ibn Tilmidh (Amin al-Dawla) (1073-1165). Christian Arab physician from Baghdad. He was gifted for languages, skilled in poetry and music, and was also an excellent calligrapher. Although a priest, he enjoyed the favor of the caliphs.
Amin al-Dawla see Ibn Tilmidh
Ibn Tufayl
Ibn Tufayl (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Tufayl) (Abubacer) (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad ibn Tufail al-Qaisi al-Andalusia) (Abubacer Aben Tofail) (Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail) (Ibn Tufail) (c. 1105, Guadix, Spain – 1185). Known in the West as Abubacer. He was a noted Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath: an Arabic writer, novelist, Islamic philosopher, theologian, physician, vizier, and court official.
As a philosopher and novelist, Ibn Tufayl is most famous for writing the first philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, also known as Philosophus Autodidactus in the Western world. As a physician, he was an early supporter of dissection and autopsy, which was expressed in his novel.
He was born in Wadi Ash (today Guadix), near Granada, in Spain, he was educated by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace). He served as a secretary for the ruler of Granada, and later as vizier and physician for Abu Yaqub Yusuf, the Almohad ruler of Al Andalus, to whom he recommended Ibn Rushd (Averroes) as his own future successor in 1169.
Ibn Rushd became Ibn Tufayl's successor after he retired in 1182. He died several years later in Morocco in 1185. The astronomer Nur Ed-Din al-Betrugi was also a disciple of Ibn Tufayl.
Ibn Tufayl’s mystical philosophy was presented in his novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan (Hayya ibn yaqzhan) (Walk on, you bright boy) where a boy (called Hayy {walk on!}) was brought up in isolation on an island. All by himself, the boy investigates the universe, and he passes through several stages, each lasting seven years. At the highest level the boy came to understand the ultimate nature of the universe; the emanations coming from the One that goes from level to level, how spirit takes material form, and how the spirit strives to reach up to the One. The boy finally meets another human being, and when returning to the world of people, he understands that his ultimate understanding is the same as the revealed religion, but that not all can reach this highest form of understanding. Moreover, Man is divided into three groups: (1) Those who can understand the highest truth by reason alone (very few); (2) those who can understand by the help of symbols of the religious revelation; and (3) those who accept the laws coming from the symbols of the religious revelation. Hayy tries to enlighten people, but fails, and returns to his island. The moral seems to be that each of these groups of people should accept their standing, and not strive for more.
Ibn Tufayl drew the name of the book and most of its characters from an earlier work by Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Ibn Tufayl's book was neither a commentary on nor a mere retelling of Ibn Sina's work, but rather a new and innovative work in its own right. It reflects one of the main concerns of Muslim philosophers (later also of Christian thinkers), that of reconciling philosophy with revelation. At the same time, the narrative anticipates in some ways both Robinson Crusoe and Rousseau's Emile. It tells of a child who is nurtured by a gazelle and grows up in total isolation from humans. In seven phases of seven years each, solely by the exercise of his faculties, Hayy goes through all the gradations of knowledge. The story of Hayy ibn Yaqzan is similar to the later story of Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book in that a baby is abandoned on a deserted tropical island where he is taken care of and fed by a mother wolf.
Iby Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqzan (Philosophus Autodidactus) was written as a response to al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers. In the 13th century, Ibn al-Nafis later wrote the Al-Risalah al-Kamiliyyah fil Siera al-Nabawiyyah (known as Theologus Autodidactus in the West) as a response to Ibn Tufayl's Philosophus Autodidactus.
Hayy ibn Yaqzan (Philosophus Autodidactus) had a significant influence on both Arabic literature and European literature, and it went on to become an influential best-seller throughout Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The work also had a "profound influence" on both classical Islamic philosophy and modern Western philosophy. It became "one of the most important books that heralded the Scientific Revolution" and European Enlightenment, and the thoughts expressed in the novel can be found
in different variations and to different degrees in the books of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant.
A Latin translation of the work, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus first appeared in 1671, prepared by Edward Pococke the Younger. The first English translation (by Simon Ockley) was published in 1708. These translations later inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe, which also featured a desert island narrative and was the first novel in English. Ibn Tufayl's novel also inspired the concept of "tabula rasa" developed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) by John Locke, who was a student of Pococke.
Ibn Tufayl's work went on to become one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern Western philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley. Hayy's ideas on materialism in the novel also have some similarities to Karl Marx's historical materialism. Other European writers influenced by Ibn Tufayl include William Molyneaux, Gottfried Liebniz, Melchisedech Thevenot, John Wallis, Christiaan Huygens, George Keith, Robert Barclay, the Quakers, Samuel Hartlib, and Voltaire.
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Tufayl see Ibn Tufayl
Abubacer see Ibn Tufayl
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad ibn Tufail al-Qaisi al-Andalusia see Ibn Tufayl
Abubacer Aben Tofail see Ibn Tufayl
Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail see Ibn Tufayl
Ibn Tufail see Ibn Tufayl
A Latin translation of the work, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus first appeared in 1671, prepared by Edward Pococke the Younger. The first English translation (by Simon Ockley) was published in 1708. These translations later inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe, which also featured a desert island narrative and was the first novel in English. Ibn Tufayl's novel also inspired the concept of "tabula rasa" developed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) by John Locke, who was a student of Pococke.
Ibn Tufayl's work went on to become one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern Western philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley. Hayy's ideas on materialism in the novel also have some similarities to Karl Marx's historical materialism. Other European writers influenced by Ibn Tufayl include William Molyneaux, Gottfried Liebniz, Melchisedech Thevenot, John Wallis, Christiaan Huygens, George Keith, Robert Barclay, the Quakers, Samuel Hartlib, and Voltaire.
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Tufayl see Ibn Tufayl
Abubacer see Ibn Tufayl
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad ibn Tufail al-Qaisi al-Andalusia see Ibn Tufayl
Abubacer Aben Tofail see Ibn Tufayl
Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail see Ibn Tufayl
Ibn Tufail see Ibn Tufayl
Ibn Tulun, Shams al-Din
Ibn Tulun, Shams al-Din (Shams al-Din ibn Tulun) (1473-1546). Scholar and prolific writer from Damascus. His historical writings, among them an autobiography, deal with the end of the Mameluke rule and the beginning of Ottoman domination of Syria.
Shams al-Din ibn Tulun see Ibn Tulun, Shams al-Din
Ibn Tulun, Shams al-Din (Shams al-Din ibn Tulun) (1473-1546). Scholar and prolific writer from Damascus. His historical writings, among them an autobiography, deal with the end of the Mameluke rule and the beginning of Ottoman domination of Syria.
Shams al-Din ibn Tulun see Ibn Tulun, Shams al-Din
Ibn Tumart
Ibn Tumart (Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Tumart) (Ibnu Tuwmart) (Amghār ibn Tumrt) (c. 1078 - c. 1130). Berber religious scholar, teacher and later a political leader from the Masmuda tribe who spiritually founded the Berber Almohad dynasty. He is also known as El-Mahdi in reference to his prophesied redeeming. In 1125 he began open revolt against Almoravid rule.
Ibn Tumart was a Muslim reformer of Morocco who was called the Mahdi of the Almohads. Ibn Tumart was born In Ijili-n-Warghan in Morocco. Having visited Cordoba, Alexandria, Mecca and Baghdad, he returned in 1116 to the Maghrib. His uncompromising insistence on the punctilious observance of religious obligations, his piety and learning won him many followers. In 1121, he openly revolted against the Almoravid ‘Ali ibn Yusuf ibn Tashfin and had himself proclaimed as the Mahdi or restorer of religion and justice. The siege of Marrakesh by the Almohads in 1130 failed, but did not in fact much hinder the progress of the movement.
The name Ibn Tumart is Berber and means “son of little Umar.” Ibn Tumart was a man with strong conviction who possessed a conservative view of Islam. His persistence resulted in success, and he was the man behind the group that later came to be known as the Almohads, which became the successors of the Almoravids.
Ibn Tumart began his career in a period which, it is said, was characterized by moral decay and declining intellectual achievement. The studies that were performed were confined to the books called furu‘, and not the Qur‘an or the hadith. Ibn Tumart met the teachings of Ibn Hazm during a longer stay in Spain. Later in his life, he became influenced by the teachings of al-Ghazzali, but he never met him, even though it was rumored that he did. Ibn Tumart went off to Mecca to perform the hajj. Later he studied in Baghdad and in Damascus. As he returned to Tunisia by ship, Ibn Tumart started preaching to the sailors and passengers, who responded by reciting the Qur‘an and by offering prayers. While preaching around Tunisia, Ibn Tumart soon came to formulate the core of his reform program, which included the central tenet: "The one who sees anything wrong, should act to change it by his hand. If he cannot do it with his hand, he shall do it with his tongue. If he cannot do it with his tongue, he shall do it in his own heart. This is what the religion demands you to do."
Ibn Tumart did not win many converts with this doctrine. Indeed, the local rulers felt their authority threatened, and Ibn Tumart had to seek refuge with a Berber tribe of the region. While hiding, Ibn Tumart met the man who came to be his foremost disciple, Abdu al-Mu‘min. After Tunisia, Ibn Tumart traveled back to Morocco overland, and he managed to be banished by the governor of Tlemcen along up in Marrakech, where he lifted his voice against the moral standards of the women.
Ibn Tumart was called upon to meet with the learned men of Marrakech, who belonged to the court of the Almoravid emir. The learned wanted him executed, but his life was spared by the emir.
Away from Marrakech, and finding a new audience, Ibn Tumart soon began both preaching Koranic doctrines as well as his own ideas. At the time, the ideas of Ibn Tumart were a mixture of Ash‘ari theology and Shi‘a Islam. Ibn Tumart attacked the dynasty for living according to untrue doctrines. He went so far in his teaching that he declared jihad on all who disagreed with him, and he proclaimed himself Mahdi, and had constructed a genealogy originating in Ali.
Ibn Tumart’s power was extended through military actions, like when defeating the people of Tin Mal in the High Atlas Mountains, where 15,000 were massacred. In 1123, he sent an army under the leadership of Abdu al-Mu‘min against the Almoravids, but they lost, and Ibn Tumart had to seek refuge in Tin Mal. The number of his followers continued to grow, and this coincided with a weakening position for the Almoravids. But it was not until after his death, that the Almohads (as his followers were to be known) could really defeat the Almoravids.
Ibn Tumart published a number of works in the Berber language. His Tawhid survives but only in Arabic translation.
Mahdi of the Almohads see Ibn Tumart
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Tumart see Ibn Tumart
Ibnu Tuwmart see Ibn Tumart
Amghār ibn Tumrt see Ibn Tumart
Ibn Tumart (Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Tumart) (Ibnu Tuwmart) (Amghār ibn Tumrt) (c. 1078 - c. 1130). Berber religious scholar, teacher and later a political leader from the Masmuda tribe who spiritually founded the Berber Almohad dynasty. He is also known as El-Mahdi in reference to his prophesied redeeming. In 1125 he began open revolt against Almoravid rule.
Ibn Tumart was a Muslim reformer of Morocco who was called the Mahdi of the Almohads. Ibn Tumart was born In Ijili-n-Warghan in Morocco. Having visited Cordoba, Alexandria, Mecca and Baghdad, he returned in 1116 to the Maghrib. His uncompromising insistence on the punctilious observance of religious obligations, his piety and learning won him many followers. In 1121, he openly revolted against the Almoravid ‘Ali ibn Yusuf ibn Tashfin and had himself proclaimed as the Mahdi or restorer of religion and justice. The siege of Marrakesh by the Almohads in 1130 failed, but did not in fact much hinder the progress of the movement.
The name Ibn Tumart is Berber and means “son of little Umar.” Ibn Tumart was a man with strong conviction who possessed a conservative view of Islam. His persistence resulted in success, and he was the man behind the group that later came to be known as the Almohads, which became the successors of the Almoravids.
Ibn Tumart began his career in a period which, it is said, was characterized by moral decay and declining intellectual achievement. The studies that were performed were confined to the books called furu‘, and not the Qur‘an or the hadith. Ibn Tumart met the teachings of Ibn Hazm during a longer stay in Spain. Later in his life, he became influenced by the teachings of al-Ghazzali, but he never met him, even though it was rumored that he did. Ibn Tumart went off to Mecca to perform the hajj. Later he studied in Baghdad and in Damascus. As he returned to Tunisia by ship, Ibn Tumart started preaching to the sailors and passengers, who responded by reciting the Qur‘an and by offering prayers. While preaching around Tunisia, Ibn Tumart soon came to formulate the core of his reform program, which included the central tenet: "The one who sees anything wrong, should act to change it by his hand. If he cannot do it with his hand, he shall do it with his tongue. If he cannot do it with his tongue, he shall do it in his own heart. This is what the religion demands you to do."
Ibn Tumart did not win many converts with this doctrine. Indeed, the local rulers felt their authority threatened, and Ibn Tumart had to seek refuge with a Berber tribe of the region. While hiding, Ibn Tumart met the man who came to be his foremost disciple, Abdu al-Mu‘min. After Tunisia, Ibn Tumart traveled back to Morocco overland, and he managed to be banished by the governor of Tlemcen along up in Marrakech, where he lifted his voice against the moral standards of the women.
Ibn Tumart was called upon to meet with the learned men of Marrakech, who belonged to the court of the Almoravid emir. The learned wanted him executed, but his life was spared by the emir.
Away from Marrakech, and finding a new audience, Ibn Tumart soon began both preaching Koranic doctrines as well as his own ideas. At the time, the ideas of Ibn Tumart were a mixture of Ash‘ari theology and Shi‘a Islam. Ibn Tumart attacked the dynasty for living according to untrue doctrines. He went so far in his teaching that he declared jihad on all who disagreed with him, and he proclaimed himself Mahdi, and had constructed a genealogy originating in Ali.
Ibn Tumart’s power was extended through military actions, like when defeating the people of Tin Mal in the High Atlas Mountains, where 15,000 were massacred. In 1123, he sent an army under the leadership of Abdu al-Mu‘min against the Almoravids, but they lost, and Ibn Tumart had to seek refuge in Tin Mal. The number of his followers continued to grow, and this coincided with a weakening position for the Almoravids. But it was not until after his death, that the Almohads (as his followers were to be known) could really defeat the Almoravids.
Ibn Tumart published a number of works in the Berber language. His Tawhid survives but only in Arabic translation.
Mahdi of the Almohads see Ibn Tumart
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Tumart see Ibn Tumart
Ibnu Tuwmart see Ibn Tumart
Amghār ibn Tumrt see Ibn Tumart
Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj (Abu‘l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus) (Abu-l-Hayyay ibn Tumlus) (Abén Tomlús) (Abem Tomlús) (1164 - 1223) . Muslim physician of Spain, known in the West as Alhagiag bin Thalmus.
Abu'l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Alhagiag bin Thalmus see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Abu-l-Hayyay ibn Tumlus see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Abén Tomlús see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Abem Tomlús see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj (Abu‘l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus) (Abu-l-Hayyay ibn Tumlus) (Abén Tomlús) (Abem Tomlús) (1164 - 1223) . Muslim physician of Spain, known in the West as Alhagiag bin Thalmus.
Abu'l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Alhagiag bin Thalmus see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Abu-l-Hayyay ibn Tumlus see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Abén Tomlús see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Abem Tomlús see Ibn Tumlus, Abu‘l-Hajjaj
Ibn Umayl, al-Hakim al-Sadiq
Ibn Umayl, al-Hakim al-Sadiq (al-Hakim al-Sadiq ibn Umayl). One of the exponents of the allegorical and mystagogical (inerpretation of religious mysteries) type of alchemy during the tenth century. He had a special interest in the old Egyptian temples and their wall paintings and actually visited an ancient temple at Busir al-Sidr in the province of al-Jiza, where he saw a statue of Imhotep.
Hakim al-Sadiq ibn Umayl, al- see Ibn Umayl, al-Hakim al-Sadiq
Ibn Umayl, al-Hakim al-Sadiq (al-Hakim al-Sadiq ibn Umayl). One of the exponents of the allegorical and mystagogical (inerpretation of religious mysteries) type of alchemy during the tenth century. He had a special interest in the old Egyptian temples and their wall paintings and actually visited an ancient temple at Busir al-Sidr in the province of al-Jiza, where he saw a statue of Imhotep.
Hakim al-Sadiq ibn Umayl, al- see Ibn Umayl, al-Hakim al-Sadiq
Ibn Wafid, Abu‘l-Mutarrif
Ibn Wafid, Abu‘l-Mutarrif (Abu'l-Mutarrif ibn Wafid) (Ali Ibn al-Husain Ibn al-Wafid) (997-ca.1074). Andalusian author, known in the West as Abenguefith.
Ali Ibn al-Husain Ibn al-Wafid, known in Latin Europe as Abenguefith, was a pharmacologist and physician from Toledo. He was the vizier of Al-Mamun of Toledo. His main work is Kitab al-adwiya al-mufrada (translated into Latin as De medicamentis simplicibus).
Abenguefith see Ibn Wafid, Abu‘l-Mutarrif
Abu'l-Mutarrif ibn Wafid see Ibn Wafid, Abu‘l-Mutarrif
Ali Ibn al-Husain Ibn al-Wafid see Ibn Wafid, Abu‘l-Mutarrif
Ibn Wafid, Abu‘l-Mutarrif (Abu'l-Mutarrif ibn Wafid) (Ali Ibn al-Husain Ibn al-Wafid) (997-ca.1074). Andalusian author, known in the West as Abenguefith.
Ali Ibn al-Husain Ibn al-Wafid, known in Latin Europe as Abenguefith, was a pharmacologist and physician from Toledo. He was the vizier of Al-Mamun of Toledo. His main work is Kitab al-adwiya al-mufrada (translated into Latin as De medicamentis simplicibus).
Abenguefith see Ibn Wafid, Abu‘l-Mutarrif
Abu'l-Mutarrif ibn Wafid see Ibn Wafid, Abu‘l-Mutarrif
Ali Ibn al-Husain Ibn al-Wafid see Ibn Wafid, Abu‘l-Mutarrif
Ibn Wahshiyya
Ibn Wahshiyya (Ibn Wahshiyah) (Abu Bakr Ahmed ibn 'Ali ibn Qays al-Wahshiyah al-Kasdani al-Qusayni al-Nabati al-Sufi) (Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih) (fl. 9th century/10th century). Nabataean and Assyrian writer, alchemist, agriculturalist, Egyptologist and historian. Among the many works attributed to him is the Book of the Nabataean Agriculture, which is the subject of vigorous debate among Asian scholars.
Ibn Wahshiyah was a Nabataean and Assyrian writer, alchemist, agriculturalist, Egyptologist and historian born at Qusayn near Kufa in Iraq. He was known in early modern Europe as Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih.
Ibn al-Nadim (in Kitab al-Fihrist) lists a large number of books on magic, statues, offerings, agriculture, alchemy, physics and medicine, that were either written, or translated from older books, by Ibn Wahshiyah.
In agriculture, the Filahât al-Nabâtiyyah (Nabataean Agriculture) of Ibn Wahshîyya is the most influental of all Muslim works on the subject, even though Wahshiyya was not a Muslim. Written in the ninth century of the Christian calendar and drawn mostly from Chaldean and Babylonian sources, the book deals not only with agriculture but also with the esoteric sciences, especially magic and sorcery, and has always been considered to be one of the important books in Arabic on the occult sciences.
Ibn Wahshiyya translated a book called Nabataean Agriculture (Kitab al-falaha al-nabatiya) (c. 904), a major treatise on the subject, which was said to be based on ancient Babylonian sources. The book extols Babylonian-Aramean-Syrian civilization against that of the conquering Arabs. It contains valuable information on agriculture and superstitions, and in particular discusses beliefs attributed to the Sabeans that there were people before Adam, that Adam had parents and that he came from India. These ideas were discussed by the Jewish philosophers Judah ben Samuel Halevi and Maimonides, through which they became an influence on the seventeenth century French Millenarian Isaac La Peyrère.
Ibn Wahshiyya was one of the first historians to be able to at least partly decipher what was written in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, by relating them to the contemporary Coptic language used by Coptic priests in his time. An Arabic manuscript of Ibn Wahshiyya's book Kitab Shawq al-Mustaham, a work that discusses a number of ancient alphabets, in which he deciphered a number of Egyptian hieroglyphs, was later read by Athanasius Kircher in the 17th century, and then translated and published in English by Joseph Hammer in 1806 as Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained; with an Account of the Egyptian Priests, their Classes, Initiation, and Sacrifices in the Arabic Language by Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih, sixteen years before Jean-François Champollion's complete decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. This book was known to Silvestre de Sacy, a colleague of Jean-François Champollion. Dr Okasha El Daly, at University College London's Institute of Archaeology, claims that some hieroglyphs had been decoded by Ibn Wahshiyah, eight centuries earlier than Champollion deciphered the Rosetta stone.
A reference to Ibn Wahshiyah is made in the archaeological mystery Labyrinth by Kate Mosse.
Ibn Wahshiyah see Ibn Wahshiyya
Abu Bakr Ahmed ibn 'Ali ibn Qays al-Wahshiyah al-Kasdani al-Qusayni al-Nabati al-Sufi see Ibn Wahshiyya
Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih see Ibn Wahshiyya
Ibn Wahshiyya (Ibn Wahshiyah) (Abu Bakr Ahmed ibn 'Ali ibn Qays al-Wahshiyah al-Kasdani al-Qusayni al-Nabati al-Sufi) (Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih) (fl. 9th century/10th century). Nabataean and Assyrian writer, alchemist, agriculturalist, Egyptologist and historian. Among the many works attributed to him is the Book of the Nabataean Agriculture, which is the subject of vigorous debate among Asian scholars.
Ibn Wahshiyah was a Nabataean and Assyrian writer, alchemist, agriculturalist, Egyptologist and historian born at Qusayn near Kufa in Iraq. He was known in early modern Europe as Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih.
Ibn al-Nadim (in Kitab al-Fihrist) lists a large number of books on magic, statues, offerings, agriculture, alchemy, physics and medicine, that were either written, or translated from older books, by Ibn Wahshiyah.
In agriculture, the Filahât al-Nabâtiyyah (Nabataean Agriculture) of Ibn Wahshîyya is the most influental of all Muslim works on the subject, even though Wahshiyya was not a Muslim. Written in the ninth century of the Christian calendar and drawn mostly from Chaldean and Babylonian sources, the book deals not only with agriculture but also with the esoteric sciences, especially magic and sorcery, and has always been considered to be one of the important books in Arabic on the occult sciences.
Ibn Wahshiyya translated a book called Nabataean Agriculture (Kitab al-falaha al-nabatiya) (c. 904), a major treatise on the subject, which was said to be based on ancient Babylonian sources. The book extols Babylonian-Aramean-Syrian civilization against that of the conquering Arabs. It contains valuable information on agriculture and superstitions, and in particular discusses beliefs attributed to the Sabeans that there were people before Adam, that Adam had parents and that he came from India. These ideas were discussed by the Jewish philosophers Judah ben Samuel Halevi and Maimonides, through which they became an influence on the seventeenth century French Millenarian Isaac La Peyrère.
Ibn Wahshiyya was one of the first historians to be able to at least partly decipher what was written in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, by relating them to the contemporary Coptic language used by Coptic priests in his time. An Arabic manuscript of Ibn Wahshiyya's book Kitab Shawq al-Mustaham, a work that discusses a number of ancient alphabets, in which he deciphered a number of Egyptian hieroglyphs, was later read by Athanasius Kircher in the 17th century, and then translated and published in English by Joseph Hammer in 1806 as Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained; with an Account of the Egyptian Priests, their Classes, Initiation, and Sacrifices in the Arabic Language by Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih, sixteen years before Jean-François Champollion's complete decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. This book was known to Silvestre de Sacy, a colleague of Jean-François Champollion. Dr Okasha El Daly, at University College London's Institute of Archaeology, claims that some hieroglyphs had been decoded by Ibn Wahshiyah, eight centuries earlier than Champollion deciphered the Rosetta stone.
A reference to Ibn Wahshiyah is made in the archaeological mystery Labyrinth by Kate Mosse.
Ibn Wahshiyah see Ibn Wahshiyya
Abu Bakr Ahmed ibn 'Ali ibn Qays al-Wahshiyah al-Kasdani al-Qusayni al-Nabati al-Sufi see Ibn Wahshiyya
Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih see Ibn Wahshiyya
Ibn Wasil
Ibn Wasil (Ibn Wasil Gamal ad-Din) (1207/1208, in Hama - 1298, in Hama). Historian, judge and man of letters of Hamat. One of his works, which reaches the year 1263, is a valuable source for the history of the Ayyubids.
Ibn Wasil Gamal ad-Din was an Arab politician, diplomat and historian. He held, under the Ayyubid dynasty (dynasty of Saladin), and among the Mamelukes, various offices. Großquadi his hometown. He also worked on various farms in Syria and Egypt.
In 1261, he traveled with Baybars as ambassadors of the Sultan to the South of Italy to negotiate with the Emperor Manfred. He stayed on there, especially in the Apulian town of Barletta. During his stay in Italy, he became acquainted with the political situation in Europe. In particular, he presented the Hohenstaufen dynasty in a very positive light.
Ibn Wasil's reputation as a historian owes much to his work "The diffusers of the fears about the history of the Ayyubid dynasty" (Mufarrij kurub fi al-Ahbar Bani Ayyub). This work is a history of the dynasty of Saladin, which constitutes an important source of the Fifth Crusade, the journey of Frederick II and the Crusade of St. Louis.
Ibn Wasil Gamal ad-Din see Ibn Wasil
Ibn Wasil (Ibn Wasil Gamal ad-Din) (1207/1208, in Hama - 1298, in Hama). Historian, judge and man of letters of Hamat. One of his works, which reaches the year 1263, is a valuable source for the history of the Ayyubids.
Ibn Wasil Gamal ad-Din was an Arab politician, diplomat and historian. He held, under the Ayyubid dynasty (dynasty of Saladin), and among the Mamelukes, various offices. Großquadi his hometown. He also worked on various farms in Syria and Egypt.
In 1261, he traveled with Baybars as ambassadors of the Sultan to the South of Italy to negotiate with the Emperor Manfred. He stayed on there, especially in the Apulian town of Barletta. During his stay in Italy, he became acquainted with the political situation in Europe. In particular, he presented the Hohenstaufen dynasty in a very positive light.
Ibn Wasil's reputation as a historian owes much to his work "The diffusers of the fears about the history of the Ayyubid dynasty" (Mufarrij kurub fi al-Ahbar Bani Ayyub). This work is a history of the dynasty of Saladin, which constitutes an important source of the Fifth Crusade, the journey of Frederick II and the Crusade of St. Louis.
Ibn Wasil Gamal ad-Din see Ibn Wasil
Ibn Yunus
Ibn Yunus (Yunus) (Abu al-Hasan 'Ali abi Sa'id 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Sadafi al-Misri) (c. 950-1009). One of the most prominent Muslim astronomers. His sets of astronomical tables have been relied on by modern scholars.
Ibn Yunus was an important Egyptian Muslim astronomer and mathematician, whose works are noted for being ahead of their time, having been based on almost modern-like meticulous calculations and attention to detail.
Information regarding his early life and education is uncertain. He was born in Egypt between 950 and 952 and came from a respected family in Fustat. His father was a historian, biographer and scholar of hadith, who wrote two volumes about the history of Egypt—one about the Egyptians and one based on traveler commentary on Egypt. A prolific writer, Ibn Yunus' father has been described as "Egypt's most celebrated early historian and first known compiler of a biographical dictionary devoted exclusively to Egyptians". His great grandfather had been an associate of the noted legal scholar al-Shafi.
Early in the life of Ibn Yunus, the Fatimid dynasty came to power and the new city of Cairo was founded. In Cairo, he worked as an astronomer for the Fatimid dynasty for twenty-six years, first for the Caliph al-Aziz and then for al-Hakim. Ibn Yunus dedicated his most famous astronomical work, al-Zij al-Kabir al-Hakimi, to the latter.
In astrology, noted for making predictions and having written the Kitab bulugh al-umniyya ("On the Attainment of Desire"), a work concerning the heliacal risings of Sirius, and on predictions concerning what day of the week the Coptic year will start on.
Ibn Yunus' most famous work in Islamic astronomy, al-Zij al-Kabir al-Hakimi (c. 1000), was a handbook of astronomical tables which contained very accurate observations, many of which may have been obtained with very large astronomical instruments.
Ibn Yunus described 40 planetary conjunctions and 30 lunar eclipses. In the 19th century, Simon Newcomb found Ibn Yunus' observations on conjunctions and eclipses reliable enough to use them in his lunar theory to determine the secular acceleration of the moon. Ibn Yunus also observed more than 10,000 entries for the sun's position for many years using a large monumental astrolabe with a diameter of nearly 1.4 meters.
The crater Ibn Yunus on the Moon is named after him.
Yunus see Ibn Yunus
Abu al-Hasan 'Ali abi Sa'id 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Sadafi al-Misri see Ibn Yunus
Ibn Yunus (Yunus) (Abu al-Hasan 'Ali abi Sa'id 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Sadafi al-Misri) (c. 950-1009). One of the most prominent Muslim astronomers. His sets of astronomical tables have been relied on by modern scholars.
Ibn Yunus was an important Egyptian Muslim astronomer and mathematician, whose works are noted for being ahead of their time, having been based on almost modern-like meticulous calculations and attention to detail.
Information regarding his early life and education is uncertain. He was born in Egypt between 950 and 952 and came from a respected family in Fustat. His father was a historian, biographer and scholar of hadith, who wrote two volumes about the history of Egypt—one about the Egyptians and one based on traveler commentary on Egypt. A prolific writer, Ibn Yunus' father has been described as "Egypt's most celebrated early historian and first known compiler of a biographical dictionary devoted exclusively to Egyptians". His great grandfather had been an associate of the noted legal scholar al-Shafi.
Early in the life of Ibn Yunus, the Fatimid dynasty came to power and the new city of Cairo was founded. In Cairo, he worked as an astronomer for the Fatimid dynasty for twenty-six years, first for the Caliph al-Aziz and then for al-Hakim. Ibn Yunus dedicated his most famous astronomical work, al-Zij al-Kabir al-Hakimi, to the latter.
In astrology, noted for making predictions and having written the Kitab bulugh al-umniyya ("On the Attainment of Desire"), a work concerning the heliacal risings of Sirius, and on predictions concerning what day of the week the Coptic year will start on.
Ibn Yunus' most famous work in Islamic astronomy, al-Zij al-Kabir al-Hakimi (c. 1000), was a handbook of astronomical tables which contained very accurate observations, many of which may have been obtained with very large astronomical instruments.
Ibn Yunus described 40 planetary conjunctions and 30 lunar eclipses. In the 19th century, Simon Newcomb found Ibn Yunus' observations on conjunctions and eclipses reliable enough to use them in his lunar theory to determine the secular acceleration of the moon. Ibn Yunus also observed more than 10,000 entries for the sun's position for many years using a large monumental astrolabe with a diameter of nearly 1.4 meters.
The crater Ibn Yunus on the Moon is named after him.
Yunus see Ibn Yunus
Abu al-Hasan 'Ali abi Sa'id 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Sadafi al-Misri see Ibn Yunus
Ibn Zafar
Ibn Zafar (1104-1170). Arab scholar and polygraph from Sicily. His biography of illustrious individuals was translated into Italian, English and Turkish.
Ibn Zafar (1104-1170). Arab scholar and polygraph from Sicily. His biography of illustrious individuals was translated into Italian, English and Turkish.
Ibn Zamrak
Ibn Zamrak (Ibn Zumruk) (Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Surayhi) (1333-1393). Poet and statesman from Granada. In his panegyrics (his writings of praise), he celebrates the beauty of Granada’s gardens and palaces.
Ibn Zamrak was a poet and statesman from Granada, Al-Andalus. Some his poems still decorate the fountains and palaces of Alhambra in Granada.
Ibn Zamrak was of humble origin but thanks to his teacher Ibn al-Khatib he was introduced at the court of the Nasrids. He accompanied Sultan Abu Abd Allah Mohammed V to Morocco and when Mohammed was reinstated on the throne in Granada in 1361 he was appointed as his private secretary and a court poet. When Ibn al-Khatib was dismissed as vizier in 1371, Ibn Zamrak succeeded him and hired a group of assassins to kill Ibn al-Khatib in prison after his arrest in Fez. Later, Ibn Zamrak himself was imprisoned for nearly two years by Yusuf II and was assassinated on the orders of Sultan Muhammad VII while he was reading the Qur'an at home in 1393.
Ibn Zumruk see Ibn Zamrak
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Surayhi see Ibn Zamrak
Ibn Zamrak (Ibn Zumruk) (Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Surayhi) (1333-1393). Poet and statesman from Granada. In his panegyrics (his writings of praise), he celebrates the beauty of Granada’s gardens and palaces.
Ibn Zamrak was a poet and statesman from Granada, Al-Andalus. Some his poems still decorate the fountains and palaces of Alhambra in Granada.
Ibn Zamrak was of humble origin but thanks to his teacher Ibn al-Khatib he was introduced at the court of the Nasrids. He accompanied Sultan Abu Abd Allah Mohammed V to Morocco and when Mohammed was reinstated on the throne in Granada in 1361 he was appointed as his private secretary and a court poet. When Ibn al-Khatib was dismissed as vizier in 1371, Ibn Zamrak succeeded him and hired a group of assassins to kill Ibn al-Khatib in prison after his arrest in Fez. Later, Ibn Zamrak himself was imprisoned for nearly two years by Yusuf II and was assassinated on the orders of Sultan Muhammad VII while he was reading the Qur'an at home in 1393.
Ibn Zumruk see Ibn Zamrak
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Surayhi see Ibn Zamrak
Ibn Zaydan
Ibn Zaydan (Abd al-Rahman ibn Zaydan) (1873/1878-1946). Moroccan official and historian of Meknes. His works may be considered as a good source for the history of Meknes and of the Sharifs of Morocco.
Abd al-Rahman ibn Zaydan was a Moroccan historian and literary author. He was a great-grandson of sultan Moulay Ismael and is considered one of the best sources on the history of his native city Meknes, but also on the Alaouite dynasty. After the installation of the French protectorate he accepted the function of vice-director of the military school of Dâr al-Bayda in Meknes, today's military academy of the city. The Ithaf, his main work of 8 volumes contains hundreds of biographies, like those of the sultans Abderrahman and Hassan I.
Ibn Zaydan (Abd al-Rahman ibn Zaydan) (1873/1878-1946). Moroccan official and historian of Meknes. His works may be considered as a good source for the history of Meknes and of the Sharifs of Morocco.
Abd al-Rahman ibn Zaydan was a Moroccan historian and literary author. He was a great-grandson of sultan Moulay Ismael and is considered one of the best sources on the history of his native city Meknes, but also on the Alaouite dynasty. After the installation of the French protectorate he accepted the function of vice-director of the military school of Dâr al-Bayda in Meknes, today's military academy of the city. The Ithaf, his main work of 8 volumes contains hundreds of biographies, like those of the sultans Abderrahman and Hassan I.
Ibn Zaydun
Ibn Zaydun (Abu al-Waleed Ahmad Ibn Zaydún al-Makhzumi) (1003-1071). Poet of Cordoba. His romantic and literary life was dominated by his stormy relations with the poetess Wallada, the daughter of the Spanish Umayyad Muhammad al-Mustakfi (r.1024-1025).
Ibn Zaydún was a famous Arab poet of Cordoba and Seville. His romantic and literary life was dominated by his relations with the poetess Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, the daughter of the Ummayad Caliph Muhammad III of Cordoba.
Ibn Zaydun was born in Cordoba to an aristocratic Arab family of the tribe of Makhzum. He grew up during the decline of the Umayyad caliphate and was involved in the political life of his age. He joined the court of the Jahwarid Abu al-Hazm of Cordoba and was imprisoned by him after he was accused of conspiring against him and his patrons.
His relationship with the Umayyad princess Wallada was quickly terminated by Wallada herself. Some attributed this change of heart to Ibn Zaydun's early anti-Umayyad activities, while others mention his rivalry with the rich minister Ibn Abdus, a former friend of Ibn Zaydun, who supposedly gained Wallada's favor and supported her. It is suggested that Ibn Abdus himself was the one who instigated Abu al-Hazm ibn Jahwar against Ibn Zaydun.
Ibn Zaydun sought refuge with Abbad II of Seville and his son al-Mu'tamid. He was able to return home for a period after the ruler of Seville conquered Cordoba. Much of his life was spent in exile and the themes of lost youth and nostalgia for his city are present in many of his poems.
Abu al-Waleed Ahmad Ibn Zaydún al-Makhzumi see Ibn Zaydun
Ibn Zaydun (Abu al-Waleed Ahmad Ibn Zaydún al-Makhzumi) (1003-1071). Poet of Cordoba. His romantic and literary life was dominated by his stormy relations with the poetess Wallada, the daughter of the Spanish Umayyad Muhammad al-Mustakfi (r.1024-1025).
Ibn Zaydún was a famous Arab poet of Cordoba and Seville. His romantic and literary life was dominated by his relations with the poetess Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, the daughter of the Ummayad Caliph Muhammad III of Cordoba.
Ibn Zaydun was born in Cordoba to an aristocratic Arab family of the tribe of Makhzum. He grew up during the decline of the Umayyad caliphate and was involved in the political life of his age. He joined the court of the Jahwarid Abu al-Hazm of Cordoba and was imprisoned by him after he was accused of conspiring against him and his patrons.
His relationship with the Umayyad princess Wallada was quickly terminated by Wallada herself. Some attributed this change of heart to Ibn Zaydun's early anti-Umayyad activities, while others mention his rivalry with the rich minister Ibn Abdus, a former friend of Ibn Zaydun, who supposedly gained Wallada's favor and supported her. It is suggested that Ibn Abdus himself was the one who instigated Abu al-Hazm ibn Jahwar against Ibn Zaydun.
Ibn Zaydun sought refuge with Abbad II of Seville and his son al-Mu'tamid. He was able to return home for a period after the ruler of Seville conquered Cordoba. Much of his life was spent in exile and the themes of lost youth and nostalgia for his city are present in many of his poems.
Abu al-Waleed Ahmad Ibn Zaydún al-Makhzumi see Ibn Zaydun
Ibn Zayla
Ibn Zayla (d. 1048). Pupil of Ibn Sina. He was a mathematician and an excellent musician.
Ibn Zayla (d. 1048). Pupil of Ibn Sina. He was a mathematician and an excellent musician.
Ibn Ziba‘ra
Ibn Ziba‘ra. Seventh century poet of the Quraysh who satirized the Prophet and his followers.
Ibn Ziba‘ra. Seventh century poet of the Quraysh who satirized the Prophet and his followers.
Ibn Zuhr
Ibn Zuhr. Patronymic of a family of scholars in Spain from the eleventh through twelfth centuries. The physician Abu‘l-‘Ala‘ ibn Zuhr (d. 1130) was known to medieval western scholars as Abulelizor or Albuleizor and was a famous physician of Seville. Some nine works of his are known, but he owed his reputation to his skill as a practising physician. Another physician of this family, Abu Marwan ibn Zuhr (1092-1161), was known as Abhomer or Avenzoar.
Abu'l-'Ala' ibn Zuhr see Ibn Zuhr.
Abulelizor see Ibn Zuhr.
Abuleizor see Ibn Zuhr.
Abu Marwan ibn Zuhr see Ibn Zuhr.
Abhomer see Ibn Zuhr.
Avenzoar see Ibn Zuhr.
Ibn Zuhr. Patronymic of a family of scholars in Spain from the eleventh through twelfth centuries. The physician Abu‘l-‘Ala‘ ibn Zuhr (d. 1130) was known to medieval western scholars as Abulelizor or Albuleizor and was a famous physician of Seville. Some nine works of his are known, but he owed his reputation to his skill as a practising physician. Another physician of this family, Abu Marwan ibn Zuhr (1092-1161), was known as Abhomer or Avenzoar.
Abu'l-'Ala' ibn Zuhr see Ibn Zuhr.
Abulelizor see Ibn Zuhr.
Abuleizor see Ibn Zuhr.
Abu Marwan ibn Zuhr see Ibn Zuhr.
Abhomer see Ibn Zuhr.
Avenzoar see Ibn Zuhr.
Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr (Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr) (Avenzoar) (Abū Merwān ’Abdal-Malik ibn Zuhr) (Abumeron) (Ibn-Zohr) (1091–1161). One of the greatest physicians, clinicians and parasitologists of the Middle Ages. Some historians of science have declared Ibn Zuhr to be the greatest among the Muslim physicians after Ar-Razi (Rhazes) of Baghdad. Some of his contemporaries called Ibn Zuhr the greatest physician since Galen.
Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr was born at Seville, Spain in 1091. He graduated from Cordova (in Arabic, Qurtuba) Medical University. After a brief stay in Baghdad and Cairo, he returned to Spain and worked as a physician. Later, Ibn Zuhr worked for ‘Abd al-Mu‘min, the first Muwahid ruler, both as physician and a minister. He worked his entire career in Seville and died in 1161.
Ibn Zuhr confined his work to medicine, contrary to the prevailing practice of his contemporary Muslim scientists who typically worked in several fields. By focusing on one field, Ibn Zuhr made many original and long-lasting contributions. He emphasized observation and experiment in his work. Ibn Zuhr was proficient in the art of dissecting dead human bodies and knew anatomy in detail. His operative technique was superb.
Ibn Zuhr made several breakthroughs as a physician. He was the first to test different medicines on animals before administering them to humans. Also, he was the first to describe in detail scabies, the itch mite, and is thus regarded as the first parasitologist. He was also the first to give a full description of the operation of tracheotomy and practiced feeding through the gullet in those cases where normal feeding was not possible. As a clinician, Ibn Zuhr provided clinical descriptions of intestinal phthisis (a progressive wasting disease), inflammation of the middle ear, pericarditis (inflammation of the membranous sac enclosing the heart), and mediastinal tumors (tumors between the two lungs) among others.
Ibn Zuhr wrote many monumental books for the medical specialist and for the common people. Several of his books were translated into Latin and Hebrew and were in great demand in Europe until the late eighteenth century. Only three of his great books have survived. Ibn Zuhr wrote Kitab al-Taisir fi al-Mudawat wa al-Tadbir at the request of Ibn Rushd (Averroes). In English, it is entitled The Book of Simplification Concerning Therapeutics and Diet. It contains many of his original contributions. This book discusses pathological conditions and therapy in detail. The second book Kitab al-Iqtisad fi Islah al-Anfus wa al-Ajsad (Book of the Middle Course Concerning the Reformation of Souls and Bodies) summarizes different diseases, therapeutics and the hygiene. It also discusses the role of psychology in treatment. The third book Kitab al- Aghziya (Book on Foodstuffs) discusses numerous drugs and the importance of food and nutrition.
Ibn Zuhr’s influence on the development of medical science was pronounced for several centuries throughout the world.
Abhomer see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Avenzoar see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Abumeron see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Ibn Zohr see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Abū Merwān ’Abdal-Malik ibn Zuhr see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr (Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr) (Avenzoar) (Abū Merwān ’Abdal-Malik ibn Zuhr) (Abumeron) (Ibn-Zohr) (1091–1161). One of the greatest physicians, clinicians and parasitologists of the Middle Ages. Some historians of science have declared Ibn Zuhr to be the greatest among the Muslim physicians after Ar-Razi (Rhazes) of Baghdad. Some of his contemporaries called Ibn Zuhr the greatest physician since Galen.
Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr was born at Seville, Spain in 1091. He graduated from Cordova (in Arabic, Qurtuba) Medical University. After a brief stay in Baghdad and Cairo, he returned to Spain and worked as a physician. Later, Ibn Zuhr worked for ‘Abd al-Mu‘min, the first Muwahid ruler, both as physician and a minister. He worked his entire career in Seville and died in 1161.
Ibn Zuhr confined his work to medicine, contrary to the prevailing practice of his contemporary Muslim scientists who typically worked in several fields. By focusing on one field, Ibn Zuhr made many original and long-lasting contributions. He emphasized observation and experiment in his work. Ibn Zuhr was proficient in the art of dissecting dead human bodies and knew anatomy in detail. His operative technique was superb.
Ibn Zuhr made several breakthroughs as a physician. He was the first to test different medicines on animals before administering them to humans. Also, he was the first to describe in detail scabies, the itch mite, and is thus regarded as the first parasitologist. He was also the first to give a full description of the operation of tracheotomy and practiced feeding through the gullet in those cases where normal feeding was not possible. As a clinician, Ibn Zuhr provided clinical descriptions of intestinal phthisis (a progressive wasting disease), inflammation of the middle ear, pericarditis (inflammation of the membranous sac enclosing the heart), and mediastinal tumors (tumors between the two lungs) among others.
Ibn Zuhr wrote many monumental books for the medical specialist and for the common people. Several of his books were translated into Latin and Hebrew and were in great demand in Europe until the late eighteenth century. Only three of his great books have survived. Ibn Zuhr wrote Kitab al-Taisir fi al-Mudawat wa al-Tadbir at the request of Ibn Rushd (Averroes). In English, it is entitled The Book of Simplification Concerning Therapeutics and Diet. It contains many of his original contributions. This book discusses pathological conditions and therapy in detail. The second book Kitab al-Iqtisad fi Islah al-Anfus wa al-Ajsad (Book of the Middle Course Concerning the Reformation of Souls and Bodies) summarizes different diseases, therapeutics and the hygiene. It also discusses the role of psychology in treatment. The third book Kitab al- Aghziya (Book on Foodstuffs) discusses numerous drugs and the importance of food and nutrition.
Ibn Zuhr’s influence on the development of medical science was pronounced for several centuries throughout the world.
Abhomer see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Avenzoar see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Abumeron see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Ibn Zohr see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Abū Merwān ’Abdal-Malik ibn Zuhr see Ibn Zuhr, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr
Ibn Zur‘a
Ibn Zur‘a (943-1008). Jacobite Christian philosopher, apologist and translator of Baghdad. Among other works of Aristotle, he translated the Historia Animalium.
Ibn Zur'a was born in 943 in Baghdad in a family of Christian Jacobites. He studied science, medicine and philosophy under the tutelage of his master, Yahya ibn Adi. Ibn Zur'a was also a merchant, but was accused of trafficking with Byzantium, he was arrested and tried. His property was seized and he died in Baghdad in 1008.
Ibn Zur‘a (943-1008). Jacobite Christian philosopher, apologist and translator of Baghdad. Among other works of Aristotle, he translated the Historia Animalium.
Ibn Zur'a was born in 943 in Baghdad in a family of Christian Jacobites. He studied science, medicine and philosophy under the tutelage of his master, Yahya ibn Adi. Ibn Zur'a was also a merchant, but was accused of trafficking with Byzantium, he was arrested and tried. His property was seized and he died in Baghdad in 1008.
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