Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Yaḥyā al-Naqqāsh al-Zarqālī al-Tujibi; (Arabic: إبراهيم بن يحيى الزرقالي); also known as Al-Zarkali or Ibn Zarqala (1029–1087), was an Arab Muslim instrument maker, astrologer, and the most important astronomer from the western part of the Islamic world. Although his name is…
Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn al-‘Abbās al-Zahrāwī al-Ansari; (Arabic: أبو القاسم خلف بن العباس الزهراوي; 936–1013), popularly known as Al-Zahrawi (الزهراوي), Latinised as Abulcasis (from Arabic Abū al-Qāsim), was an Arab Muslim physician, surgeon and chemist who lived in Al-Andalus. Considered the greatest surgeon of the Middle Ages, he has been described as the father of surgery.…
Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-‘Abdullāh al-Rūmī al-Hamawī; (1179–1229) (Arabic: ياقوت الحموي الرومي) is famous for his great “geography”, Mu’jam ul-Buldān, an encyclopedia of Islam written in the late Abbāsid era and as much a work of biography, history and literature as…
Abu al-Tayyib Sanad ibn Ali al-Yahudi; (died c. 864 C.E.), was an eighth-century Iraqi Jewish astronomer, translator, mathematician and engineer employed at the court of the Abbasid caliph Al-Ma’mun. A later convert to Islam, Sanad’s father was a learned Jewish astronomer who lived and worked in Baghdad. He is known…
Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723); London, United Kingdom; architect, astronomer, and mathematician. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan; (Arabic: الوليد بن عبد الملك ابن مروان, romanized: al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān; circa 674 – 23 February 715), commonly known as al-Walid I (Arabic: الوليد الأول), was the sixth Umayyad caliph, ruling from October 705…
Vitruvius, Marcus Pollio (ca 70-ca 25 BCE); Rome, Italy; architect and engineer. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Uthman ibn Affan, ibn Abi Al-’As ibn Umayyah (577-656); companion of Prophet Muhammad and third caliph (644-656). Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC.…
Umar ibn al-Khattab, ibn Nufayl ibn ’Abd al-’Uzza ibn Rayyah (ca 581-644); companion of Prophet Muhammad and second caliph, ruling from Medina, Saudi Arabia (634-644). Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization:…
Omar Khayyam; (/kaɪˈjɑːm/; Persian: عمر خیّام [oˈmæɾ xæjˈjɒːm]; 18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. He was born in Nishabur, in northeastern Iran, and spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid and Seljuq rulers in the period which…
Mīrzā Muhammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrukh; (Chagatay: میرزا محمد طارق بن شاہ رخ, Persian: میرزا محمد تراغای بن شاہ رخ), better known as Ulugh Beg (الغ بیگ) (22 March 1394 – 27 October 1449), was a Timurid sultan, as well as an astronomer and mathematician. Ulugh…
Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tūsī; (Persian: محمد بن محمد بن حسن طوسی 18 February 1201 – 26 June 1274), better known as Nasir al-Din Tusi (Persian: نصیر الدین طوسی; or simply Tusi /ˈtuːsi/ in the West), was a Persian polymath, architect, philosopher, physician, scientist, and theologian. He is often…
Al-Ṣābiʾ Thābit ibn Qurrah al-Ḥarrānī; (Arabic: ثابت بن قره, Latin: Thebit/Thebith/Tebit; 826 – February 18, 901) was a Sabian mathematician, physician, astronomer, and translator who lived in Baghdad in the second half of the ninth century during the time of Abbasid Caliphate. Thābit ibn Qurrah made important discoveries in algebra, geometry,…
Taqi al-Din al-Rasid, Muhammad ibn Ma’rouf al-Shami al-Asadi (ca 1526-1585); Damascus, Syria; astronomer, engineer, and mechanic. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle…
Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī.; (800/805-870) also known as Alfraganus in the West, was an astronomer in the Abbasid court in Baghdad, and one of the most famous astronomers in the 9th century. The lunar…
Pope Sylvester II; or Silvester II (c. 946–12 May 1003) was Pope from 2 April 999 to his death in 1003. Originally known as Gerbert of Aurillac (Latin: Gerbertus Aureliacensis or de Aurillac; French: Gerbert d’Aurillac), he was a prolific scholar and teacher. He endorsed and promoted…
‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi; (Persian: عبدالرحمن صوفی (December 7, 903 in Rey, Iran – May 25, 986 in Shiraz, Iran) was a Persian astronomer also known as ‘Abd ar-Rahman as-Sufi, ‘Abd al-Rahman Abu al-Husayn, ‘Abdul Rahman Sufi, or ‘Abdurrahman Sufi and, historically, in the West as Azophi and Azophi…
Ibrahim ibn Sinan; (Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān ibn Thābit ibn Qurra, ابراهيم بن سنان بن ثابت بن قرة; born 295-296 AH/908 AD in Baghdad, died: 334-335 AH/946 AD in Baghdad, aged 38) was an Arab Muslim scholar from Harran in northern Mesopotamia/Assyria, the…
Koca Mi’mâr Sinân Âğâ; (Ottoman Turkish: معمار سينان, “Sinan Agha the Grand Architect”; Modern Turkish: Mimar Sinan, pronounced [miːˈmaːɾ siˈnan], “Sinan the Architect”; c. 1488/1490 – July 17, 1588) was the chief Ottoman architect (Turkish: mimar) and civil engineer for sultans Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II, and Murad III. He…
Sibawayh; (Arabic: سِيبَوَيْه; c. 760–796), whose full name is Abu Bishr Amr ibn Uthman ibn Qanbar al-Basri (أَبُو بِشْر عَمْروْ ٱبْن عُثْمَان ٱبْن قَنْبَر ٱلْبَصْرِيّ, ʿAbū Bishr ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qanbar al-Baṣrīy), was a Persian leading grammarian of Basra and author of…
Michael Scott (ca 1175–ca 1236); Scotland; physician, astrologer, and translator. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Al-Samawʾal ibn Yaḥyā al-Maghribī; (Arabic: السموأل بن يحيى المغربي, Hebrew: שלמה בן יחיא אלמוגרבי; c. 1130 – c. 1180), commonly known as Samau’al al-Maghribi, was a mathematician, astronomer and physician. Born to a Jewish family, he concealed his conversion to Islam for many years in fear of…
ʿAlī ibn ʾAbū l-Hayjāʾ ʿAbdallāh ibn Ḥamdān ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taghlibī; (Arabic: علي بن أبو الهيجاء عبد الله بن حمدان بن الحارث التغلبي), more commonly known simply by his laqab (honorific epithet) of Sayf al-Dawla (سيف الدولة, “Sword of the Dynasty”),…
Sābūr ibn Sahl; (شاپور بن سهل گندیشاپوری; d. 869 CE) was a 9th-century Persian Christian physician from the Academy of Gundishapur. Among other medical works, he wrote one of the first medical books on antidotes called Aqrabadhin (القراباذين), which was divided into 22…
Roger II; (22 December 1095 – 26 February 1154) was King of Sicily and Africa, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, became Duke of Apulia and Calabria in 1127, then King…
Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī; (Persian: ابوبكر محمّد زکرياى رازى Abūbakr Mohammad-e Zakariyyā-ye Rāzī, also known by his Latinized name Rhazes (/ˈrɑːziːz/) or Rasis; 854–925 CE), was a Persian polymath, physician, alchemist, philosopher, and important figure in the history of medicine. He also wrote on logic, astronomy and grammar. A…
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino; (Italian: [raffaˈɛllo ˈsantsjo da urˈbiːno]; March 28 or April 6, 1483 – April 6, 1520), known as Raphael (/ˈræfeɪəl/, US: /ˈræfiəl, ˈreɪf-, ˌrɑːfaɪˈɛl, ˌrɑːfiˈɛl/), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease…
Qotb al-Din Mahmoud b. Zia al-Din Mas’ud b. Mosleh Shirazi; (1236–1311) (Persian: قطب‌الدین محمود بن ضیاالدین مسعود بن مصلح شیرازی) was a 13th-century Iranian polymath and poet who made contributions to astronomy, mathematics, medicine, physics, music theory, philosophy and Sufism. He was born in Kazerun in October 1236 to…
Baylak al-Qibjaqi (ca 1282); Istanbul, Turkey; explorer, seafarer, and geographer. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Abu Yahya Zakariya’ ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini; (Arabic: أبو یحیی زکریاء بن محمد القزویني) (1203–1283) was a physician, astronomer, geographer and writer of Arab descent. He belonged to a family of jurists who had long before settled in Qazwin. He drew his origin from an Arab family…
Qalāwūn aṣ-Ṣāliḥī; (Arabic: قلاوون الصالحي, c. 1222 – November 10, 1290) was the seventh Bahri Mamluk sultan; he ruled Egypt from 1279 to 1290.n. Qalawun was a Kipchak who became a mamluk (slave soldier) in the 1240s after being sold to a member of…
Claudius Ptolemy; (Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος, Klaúdios Ptolemaîos [kláwdios ptolɛmɛ́os]; Latin: Claudius Ptolemaeus; c AD 100 – c 170) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt, under the rule of the Roman Empire, had a Latin name,…
Plato; (Greek: Πλάτων Plátōn, pronounced [plá.tɔːn] in Classical Attic; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BCE) was an Athenian philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, founder of the Platonist school of thought, and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. *Source
Ahmed Muhiddin Piri; (1465/70 – 1553), better known as Piri Reis (Turkish: Pîrî Reis or Hacı Ahmet Muhittin Pîrî Bey), was an Ottoman admiral, navigator, geographer and cartographer. He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Navigation), a book that contains detailed…
Andrea Palladio; (Italian: [anˈdrɛːa palˈlaːdjo]; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in the history of…
Al-Nuwayrī; full name Shihāb al-Dīn Ahmad bin ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Nuwayri (Arabic: شهاب الدين أحمد بن عبد الوهاب النويري, born April 5, 1279 in Akhmim, present-day Egypt – died June 5, 1333 in Cairo) was an Egyptian Muslim historian and civil servant of…
Nūr ad-Dīn Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn ʿImād ad-Dīn Zengī; (February 1118 – 15 May 1174), often shortened to his laqab Nur ad-Din (Arabic: نور الدين, “Light of the Faith”), was a member of the Oghuz Turkish Zengid dynasty which ruled the Syrian province of…
Abu Mansur Muvaffak Harawi; (Persian: ابو منصور موفق هروی) was a 10th-century Persian physician. He flourished in Herat (modern-day Afghanistan), under the Samanid prince Mansur I, who ruled from 961 to 976. He was apparently the first to think of compiling a treatise…
Abu al-Faḍl Jaʽfar ibn Muḥammad al-Muʽtaṣim billāh; (Arabic: جعفر بن محمد المعتصم بالله; March 822 – 11 December 861), better known by his regnal name al-Mutawakkil ʽalà Allāh (المتوكل على الله, “He who relies on God”) was an Abbasid caliph who…
Moses ben Maimon, commonly known as Maimonides (/maɪˈmɒnɪdiːz/ my-MON-i-deez) and also referred to by the acronym Rambam, was a medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician. Born…
Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Maqdisī; (Arabic: شَمْس ٱلدِّيْن أَبُو عَبْد ٱلله مُحَمَّد ابْن أَحْمَد ابْن أَبِي بَكْر ٱلْمَقْدِسِي), better known as al-Maqdisī (Arabic: ٱلْمَقْدِسِي) or al-Muqaddasī (Arabic: ٱلْمُقَدَّسِي), (c. 945/946 – 991) was a medieval Arab geographer,…
Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad; (Arabic: أبو محمد علي بن أحمد; 877/8 – 13 August 908), better known by his regional name al-Muktafī bi-llāh (Arabic: المكتفي بالله, lit. ‘Content with God Alone’), was the Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate from 902 to 908. More liberal and…
Abu Tamim Ma’ad al-Muizz li-Din Allah; (Arabic: ابو تميم معد المعزّ لدين الله, romanized: Abū Tamīm Maʿad al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, lit. ‘Glorifier of the Religion of God’; 26 September 932 – 19 December 975) was the fourth Fatimid Caliph and 14th Ismaili imam, reigning…
Abu al-Qasim Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili; was an important eleventh-century Arab Muslim ophthalmologist. Despite little being known about his life or education, he has been described as the most original of all Arab oculists. As his nisba indicates, Ammar was born in Mosul,…
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; (née Pierrepont; baptised 26 May 1689 – 21 August 1762) was an English aristocrat, letter writer, and poet. Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from travels to the Ottoman…
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni; (Italian: [mikeˈlandʒelo di lodoˈviːko ˌbwɔnarˈrɔːti siˈmoːni]; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known best as simply Michelangelo (English: /ˌmaɪkəlˈændʒəloʊ, ˌmɪk-/), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance born in the Republic of Florence, who exerted…
Al-Mas’udi (Arabic: أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, ʾAbū al-Ḥasan ʿAlīy ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlīy al-Masʿūdīy; c. 896–956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the “Herodotus of the Arabs”. A polymath and prolific author of over twenty works on…
Masha’Allah ’Ali ibn ’Isa’ (d. 815); Cairo, Egypt; astronomer and mathematician. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Yahya ibn Masawayh, Abu Zakariah (776-857); Baghdad, Iraq; physician, pharmacologist, earth scientist, and translator. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Al-Maqrīzī or Makrīzī; (Arabic: المقريزي), he was Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-‘Abbās Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī ibn ‘Abd al-Qādir ibn Muḥammad al-Maqrīzī (Arabic: تقي الدين أحمد بن علي بن عبد القادر بن محمد المقريزي) (1364–1442) was a prominent medieval Egyptian historian during the Mamluk-era, remarkable in this…
Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf ibn Abd al-Muʾmin al-Manṣūr; (Arabic: أبو يوسف يعقوب بن يوسف بن عبد المؤمن المنصور; c. 1160 Morocco – 23 January 1199 Marrakesh, Morocco), commonly known as Jacob Almanzor (Arabic: يعقوب المنصور) or Moulay Yacoub (مولاي يعقوب), was the third Almohad Muslim Caliph. Succeeding…
Al-Mansur or Abu Ja’far Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur; (/ælmænˈsʊər/; Arabic: أبو جعفر عبدالله بن محمد المنصور; 95 AH – 158 AH (714 AD – 6 October 775 AD)) was the second Abbasid Caliph reigning from 136 AH to 158 AH (754 AD – 775 AD) and…
Al-Ma’mun, Abu Jafar al-Ma’mun ibn Harun (786-833); Abbasid caliph, who ruled from 813 until 833; he expanded the House of Wisdom. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated,…
‘Ali ibn al-‘Abbas al-Majusi; (Persian: علی بن عباس مجوسی; died 982–994), also known as Masoudi, or Latinized as Haly Abbas, was a Persian physician and psychologist from the Islamic Golden Age, most famous for the Kitab al-Maliki or Complete Book of the Medical Art, his textbook on medicine and psychology. He…
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci; (Italian: [leoˈnardo di ˌsɛr ˈpjɛːro da (v)ˈvintʃi] (listen); 14/15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), known as Leonardo da Vinci (English: /ˌliːəˈnɑːrdoʊ də ˈvɪntʃi, ˌliːoʊˈ-, ˌleɪoʊˈ-/ LEE-ə-NAR-doh də VIN-chee, LEE-oh-, LAY-oh-), was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance whose areas of interest included invention, drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, science, music, mathematics,…
Abū Sahl Wayjan ibn Rustam al-Qūhī; (al-Kūhī; Persian: ابوسهل بیژن کوهی Abusahl Bijan-e Koohi) was a Persian mathematician, physicist and astronomer. He was from Kuh (or Quh), an area in Tabaristan, Amol, and flourished in Baghdad in the 10th century. He is considered one of the greatest…
Abu Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī; (/ælˈkɪndi/; Arabic: أبو يوسف يعقوب بن إسحاق الصبّاح الكندي; Latin: Alkindus; c. 801–873 AD) was an Arab Muslim philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physician and musician. Al-Kindi was the first of the Islamic peripatetic philosophers, and is hailed as the “father of Arab philosophy”.…
Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī; (Persian: Muḥammad Khwārizmī محمد بن موسى خوارزمی; c. 780 – c. 850), Arabized as al-Khwarizmi with al- and formerly Latinized as Algorithmi, was a Persian scholar who produced works in mathematics, astronomy, and geography. Around 820 AD he was appointed as the astronomer and head of the library…
Abu Mahmud Hamid ibn Khidr Khojandi; (known as Abu Mahmood Khojandi, Alkhujandi or al-Khujandi, Persian: ابومحمود خجندی, c. 940 – 1000) was a Muslim Central Asian astronomer and mathematician who lived in the late 10th century and helped build an observatory, near the city…
Johannes Kepler; (/ˈkɛplər/; German: [joˈhanəs ˈkɛplɐ, -nɛs -]; December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. He is a key figure in the 17th-century scientific revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia…
Ghiyāth al-Dīn Jamshīd Masʿūd al-Kāshī; (or al-Kāshānī) (Persian: غیاث الدین جمشید کاشانی Ghiyās-ud-dīn Jamshīd Kāshānī) (c. 1380 Kashan, Iran – 22 June 1429 Samarkand, Transoxania) was a Persian astronomer and mathematician. Much of al-Kāshī’s work was not brought to Europe, and much, even the extant work, remains unpublished…
Mahmud ibn Hussayn ibn Muhammed al-Kashgari; (Arabic: محمود بن الحسين بن محمد الكاشغري Maḥmūd ibnu ‘l-Ḥussayn ibn Muḥammad al-Kāšġarī, Turkish: Kaşgarlı Mahmûd, Uyghur: مەھمۇد قەشقىرى, Mehmud Qeshqiri/Мәһмуд Қәшқири) was an 11th-century Kara-Khanid scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar. His father, Hussayn, was the mayor of Barsgan, a…
Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al Ḥasan al-Karajī; (Persian: ابو بکر محمد بن الحسن الکرجی; c. 953 – c. 1029) was a 10th-century Persian mathematician and engineer who flourished at Baghdad. He was born in Karaj, a city near Tehran. His three principal surviving works…
Kamal al-Din Hasan ibn Ali ibn Hasan al-Farisi; or Abu Hasan Muhammad ibn Hasan (1267– 12 January 1319, long assumed to be 1320)) (Persian: كمال‌الدين فارسی) was a Persian Muslim scientist. He made two major contributions to science, one on optics, the other…
Abu Ruh Muhammad ibn Mansur ibn abi Abdallah ibn Mansur Jamani (also Gorgani), nicknamed Zarrin-Dast was an eleventh-century Persian oculist. Zarrin Dast means the Golden Hand in Persian, a reputable name for an eye surgeon. He flourished under the Seljuq sultan Abu-l-Fath Malikshah ibn Muhammad,…
Badīʿ az-Zaman Abu l-ʿIzz Ismāʿīl ibn ar-Razāz al-Jazarī; (1136–1206, Arabic: بديع الزمان أَبُو اَلْعِزِ إسْماعِيلِ إبْنُ الرِّزاز الجزري, IPA: [ældʒæzæriː]) was an Arab Muslim polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, artisan, artist and mathematician. He is best known for writing The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Arabic: كتاب في معرفة…
Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī; (Arabic: أبو عثمان عمرو بن بحر الكناني البصري), commonly known as al-Jāḥiẓ (Arabic: الجاحظ; born 776; died December 868/January 869) was an Arab prose writer and author of works of literature, Mu’tazili theology, and politico-religious…
Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān; (Arabic/Persian جابر بن حيان, often given the nisbas, al-Azdi, al-Kufi, al-Tusi or al-Sufi; fl. c. 721 – c. 815), is the supposed author of an enormous number and variety of works in Arabic often called the…
Abū Muḥammad Jābir ibn Aflaḥ; (Arabic: أبو محمد جابر بن أفلح, Latin: Geber/Gebir; 1100–1150) was an Arab Muslim astronomer and mathematician from Seville, who was active in 12th century al-Andalus. His work Iṣlāḥ al-Majisṭi (Correction of the Almagest) influenced Islamic, Jewish, and Christian astronomers. *Source
Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Muhammad al-Qahiri al-Wafa’i; known as Ibn al-Aqba’i (1408–1471) was an Egyptian astronomer and mathematician in the 15th century. He was born in 811 H.E. (1408 AD) and died in 876 H.E (1471 AD). Some sources say…
Abū Ḥātim al-Muẓaffar al-Isfazārī; (fl. late 11th – early 12th century CE) was a Persian Muslim mathematician from Khurasan. According to Ibn al-Athir and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, he worked in the Seljuq observatory of Isfahan. Nezami Aruzi met him in Balkh in (in present‐day Afghanistan) in 1112 or 1113. He was…
The Brethren of Purity; (Arabic: إخوان الصفا, romanized: Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā; also The Brethren of Sincerity) were a secret society of Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 8th or 10th century CE. The structure of this mysterious organization and the identities of its members have never…
Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani as-Sabti; or simply al-Idrisi /ælɪˈdriːsiː/ (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد الإدريسي القرطبي الحسني السبتي; Latin: Dreses; 1100 – 1165), was a Moroccan Arab Muslim geographer, cartographer and Egyptologist who for some time lived in Palermo, Sicily at the court of King Roger II. Muhammed al-Idrisi was…
Ibn Zuhr; (Arabic: ابن زهر; 1094–1162), traditionally known by his Latinized name of Avenzoar, was an Arab physician, surgeon, and poet. He was born at Seville in medieval Andalusia (present-day Spain), was a contemporary of Averroes and Ibn Tufail, and was the most well-regarded physician of his era. He was particularly known…
Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Sadafi al-Misri; (Arabic: ابن يونس; c. 950 – 1009) was an important Egyptian Muslim astronomer and mathematician, whose works are noted for being ahead of their time, having been based…
Ibn Tufail; (c. 1105 – 1185) (full Arabic name: أبو بكر محمد بن عبد الملك بن محمد بن طفيل القيسي الأندلسي Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad ibn Tufail al-Qaisi al-Andalusi; Latinized form: Abubacer Aben Tofail; Anglicized form: Abubekar or Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail) was…
Ahmad ibn Tulun; (Arabic: أحمد بن طولون, romanized: Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn; ca. 20 September 835 – 10 May 884) was the founder of the Tulunid dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria between 868 and 905. Originally a Turkic slave-soldier, in 868 Ibn Tulun was sent to…
Ibn Sina; (Persian: ابن سینا), also known as Abu Ali Sina (ابوعلی سینا), Pur Sina (پورسینا), and often known in the west as Avicenna (/ˌævɪˈsɛnə, ˌɑːvɪ-/; c. 980 – June 1037) was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, thinkers and writers…
Yahya ibn Sarafyun; (9th century) a Syriac physician, known in Europe as Johannes Serapion, and commonly called Serapion the Elder to distinguish him from Serapion the Younger, with whom he was often confused. Nothing is known of the events of his…
Ibn Samajun (d. 1002); Andalusia, Spain; herbalist, botanist, and pharmacologist. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Mūsā ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī; (Arabic: علي بن موسى المغربي بن سعيد) (1213–1286), also known as Ibn Saʿīd al-Andalusī, was an Arab geographer, historian, poet, and the most important collector of poetry from al-Andalus in the 12th and 13th centuries.…
Ahmad ibn Rustah Isfahani; (Persian: احمد ابن رسته اصفهانی Aḥmad ibn Rusta Iṣfahānī), more commonly known as Ibn Rustah (ابن رسته, also spelled Ibn Rusta and Ibn Ruste), was a 10th-century Persian explorer and geographer born in Rosta district, Isfahan, Persia. He wrote a geographical compendium known as Book of…
Ibn Rushd; (Arabic: ابن رشد; full name in Arabic: أبو الوليد محمد ابن احمد ابن رشد, romanized: Abū l-Walīd Muḥammad Ibn ʾAḥmad Ibn Rušd; 1126 – 11 December 1198), often Latinized as Averroes (English pronunciation: /əˈvɛroʊiːz/), was a Muslim Andalusi philosopher and judge who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, Islamic jurisprudence and law, and linguistics. His philosophical…
Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Muqla; (Arabic: أبو علي محمد بن علي ابن مقلة, romanized: Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muqla; 885/6 – 20 July 940/1), commonly known as Ibn Muqla, was a Persian official of the Abbasid Caliphate who rose…
Ahmad ibn Mājid; (Arabic: أحمد بن ماجد), was an Arabian navigator and cartographer born in the 1430s in Julfar, present-day Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. He was raised in a family famous for seafaring; at the age of 17 he…
Ibn Khaldun; (/ˈɪbən kælˈduːn/; Arabic: أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, Abū Zayd ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406) was a leading Tunisian Arab historiographer and historian. He is widely considered as…
Ali ibn Khalaf al-Shakkaz (11th century); Toledo, Spain; an apothecary or herbalist, astronomer. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn Hassan Ibn Juljul; (Arabic: سليمان بن حسان ابن جلجل) (c. 944 Córdoba – c. 994) was an influential Andalusian Arab physician and pharmacologist of perhaps Spanish extraction. He wrote an important book on the history of medicine. His works…
Ibn Jubayr; (1 September 1145–29 November 1217; Arabic: ابن جبير), also written Ibn Jubair, Ibn Jobair, and Ibn Djubayr, was an Arab geographer, traveller and poet from al-Andalus. His travel chronicle describes the pilgrimage he made to Mecca from 1183…
ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Kahhal; (fl. 1010 AD), surnamed “the oculist” (al-kahhal) was the best known and most celebrated Arab ophthalmologist of medieval islam. He was known in medieval Europe as Jesu Occulist. He was the author of the influential Memorandum of the…
Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm; (Arabic: أبو محمد علي بن احمد بن سعيد بن حزم; also sometimes known as al-Andalusī aẓ-Ẓāhirī; 7 November 994 – 15 August 1064 (456 AH) was a medieval Muslim poet, polymath, historian, jurist, philosopher, and theologian, born…
Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal; (محمد أبو القاسم بن حوقل), also known as Abū al-Qāsim b. ʻAlī Ibn Ḥawqal al-Naṣībī, born in Nisibis, Upper Mesopotamia; was a 10th-century Arab Muslim writer, geographer, and chronicler who travelled 943-969 AD. His famous work, written in 977…
Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas al-Takurini; (809–887 A.D.), also known as Abbas ibn Firnas (Arabic: عباس بن فرناس), was an Andalusian polymath: an inventor, physician, chemist, engineer, Andalusian musician, and Arabic-language poet. Of Berber descent, he was born in Izn-Rand Onda, Al-Andalus (today’s Ronda, Spain), lived in the Emirate of Córdoba, and is reputed to…
Ibn Fadlan; (Arabic: أحمد بن فضلان بن العباس بن راشد بن حماد Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn Rāšid ibn Ḥammād, fl. 921–22) was a 10th-century Arab Muslim traveler, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy…
Ibn Battuta; (/ˌɪbənbætˈtuːtɑː/; Arabic: محمد ابن بطوطة; fully: Shams al-Dīn ʾAbū ʿAbd al-Lāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Lāh l-Lawātī ṭ-Ṭanǧī ibn Baṭūṭah; Arabic: شمس الدين أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله اللواتي الطنجي بن بطوطة; 24 February 1304 – 1368…
Ibn Bassal; (Arabic: ابن بصال1085 C.E.) was an Andalusian Arab botanist and agronomist in Toledo and Seville, Spain who wrote about horticulture and arboriculture. He is best known for his book on agronomy, the Dīwān al-filāha (An Anthology of Husbandry). Abu Abdullah Muhamed Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Bassal worked in the court of Al-Mutamid, for whom…
Ibn Bājja; Avempace (latin) (c. 1085 – 1138) (Arabic: ابن باجة), full name Abū Bakr Muḥammad Ibn Yaḥyà ibn aṣ-Ṣā’igh at-Tūjībī Ibn Bājja (أبو بكر محمد بن يحيى بن الصائغ التجيبي بن باجة), who was an Arab Andalusian polymath: his writings include works regarding astronomy, physics, and music, as…
Al- Muʻizz ibn Bādīs; (Arabic: المعز بن باديس); 1008–1062) was the fourth ruler of the Zirids in Ifriqiya, reigning from 1016 to 1062. He is usually thought to be the author of the famous Kitab `umdat al-kuttab wa `uddat dhawi al-albab (Staff…
Ali Ibn al-Husain Ibn al-Wafid al-Lakhmi; (c. 997 – 1074), known in Latin Europe as Abenguefit, was an Arab pharmacologist and physician from Toledo. He was the vizier of Al-Mamun of Toledo. His main work is Kitāb al-adwiya al-mufrada (كتاب الأدوية المفردة, translated into Latin…
Abu Mohammed Abdellah Ibn Mohammed Al-Azdi; (Arabic: ابو محمد عبدالله بن محمد الأزدي) (ca. ? – 1033 CE), known also as Ibn Al-Thahabi, was an Arab physician, famous for writing the first known alphabetical encyclopedia of medicine. He was born…
Abu al‐Qasim Ahmad ibn Abd Allah ibn Umar al‐Ghafiqī ibn al-Saffar al‐Andalusi; (born in Cordoba, died in the year 1035 at Denia), also known as Ibn al-Saffar (literally: son of the brass worker), was a Spanish-Arab astronomer in Al-Andalus. He worked at the…
Amīn-ad-Daula Abu-‘l-Faraǧ ibn Yaʻqūb ibn Isḥāq Ibn al-Quff al-Karaki; (Arabic: أمين الدولة أبو الفرج بن يعقوب بن إسحاق بن القف الكركي; 1233 AD – 1286 AD) was an Arab physician and surgeon and author of the earliest medieval Arabic treatise intended…
Ala-al-Ddin abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Abi-Hazm al-Qarshi al-Dimashqi; (Arabic: علاء الدين أبو الحسن عليّ بن أبي حزم القرشي الدمشقي), known as Ibn al-Nafis (Arabic: ابن النفيس), was an Arab physician from Damascus mostly famous for being the first to describe the pulmonary circulation of…
Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Ishāq al-Nadīm; (Arabic: ابو الفرج محمد بن إسحاق النديم) – nasab (patronymic); ibn Abī Ya’qūb Ishāq ibn Muḥammad ibn Ishāq al-Warrāq and erroneously known as Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 17 Sept 995 or 998). Ishāq al-Nadīm was a 10th-century Arab Muslim bibliographer biographer of Baghdad who compiled…
Ahmed Bin Jaafar Bin Brahim Ibn Al Jazzar Al-Qayrawani (895 – 979) (Arabic: أبو جعفر أحمد بن أبي خالد بن الجزار القيرواني), was an influential 10th-century Muslim Arab physician who became famous for his writings on Islamic medicine. He was born in Qayrawan in…
Moḥammed ibn al-Hajj al-Abdari al-Fasi; (or Mohammed Ibn Mohammed ibn Mohammed Abu Abdallah Ibn al-Hajj al-Abdari al-Maliki al-Fassi; Arabic: إبن الحاج العبدري الفسي) also known simply as Ibn al-Haj or Ibn al-Hajj was an Egyptian Moroccan Maliki fiqh scholar and theologian writer. Originally from Fes, he…
Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham; (Latinized as Alhazen /ælˈhæzən/; full name Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham أبو علي، الحسن بن الحسن بن الهيثم; c. 965 – c. 1040) was an Arab mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age. Also sometimes referred to as “the father of modern optics”, he made significant…
Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadani; (Persian: احمد بن محمد ابن الفقيه الهمذانی) (fl. 902) was a 10th-century Persian historian and geographer, famous for his Mukhtasar Kitab al-Buldan (“Concise Book of Lands”) written in Arabic. In the 1870s the dutch orientalist Michael Jan de…
Ḍiyāʾ Al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdllāh Ibn Aḥmad al-Mālaqī; commonly known as Ibn al-Bayṭār (1197–1248 AD) was an Andalusian pharmacist, botanist, physician and scientist. His main contribution was to systematically record the additions made by Islamic physicians in the Middle Ages,…
Ibn al-Awwam; (Arabic: ابن العوام), also called Abu Zakariya Ibn al-Awwam (Arabic: أبو زكريا بن العوام), was an Andalusian Arab agriculturist who flourished at Seville in southern Spain in the later 12th century. He wrote a lengthy handbook on agriculture entitled in Arabic Kitāb al-Filāḥa (English: Book on Agriculture), which is the…
Abu al-Wafa Ali Ibn Aqil ibn Ahmad al-Baghdadi; (1040–1119) was an Islamic theologian from Baghdad, Iraq. He was trained in the tenets of the Hanbali school (madhab) for eleven years under scholars such as the Qadi Abu Ya’la. Despite this, Ibn Aqil was forced into…
Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa Muʾaffaq al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Ibn Al-Qāsim Ibn Khalīfa al-Khazrajī; (Arabic: ابن أبي أصيبعة; 1203–1270), commonly referred to as Ibn Abi Usaibia, was a Syrian Arab physician of the 13th century CE. He compiled a biographical…
Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi; (also Hunain or Hunein) ( Arabic: أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; ʾAbū Zayd Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq al-ʿIbādī, Latin: Iohannitius, Syriac: ܚܢܝܢ ܒܪ ܐܝܣܚܩ) (809–873) was an influential Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the…
Hippocrates (ca 460–377 BCE); Kos Island, Greece; physician. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi; was a legendary Ottoman aviator of Constantinople (present day Istanbul), reported in the writings of traveler Evliya Çelebi to have achieved sustained unpowered flight. *Source
Harun al-Rashid; (/hɑːˈruːn ɑːlrɑːˈʃiːd/; Arabic: هَارُون الرَشِيد Hārūn Ar-Rašīd; “Aaron the Orthodox” or “Aaron the Rightly-Guided”, 17 March 763 or February 766 – 24 March 809 (148–193 Hijri)) was the fifth Abbasid Caliph. His birth date is debated, with various sources giving dates…
Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Harbi (d. 285); Baghdad, Iraq; prominent companion and theologian of the Hanbali School of Thought. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text…
Al-Hanbali, Taqi al-Din (1236-1328); Harran, Turkey; theologian; Quranic exegesis (tafsir); hadith and jurisprudence. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Abu Bakr ibn al-Sarraj al-Hamawi (d. 1328/9); Hama, Syria; geometer, astronomer, and engineer. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Ahmad al-Halabi (d. 1455); Aleppo, Syria; astronomer. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Al-Hakam II; (أَبُو الْعَاصٍ الْمُسْتَنْصِرِ بِاللهِ الْحُكْمِ بْن عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ); January 13, 915 – October 16, 976) was an Arab Caliph of Córdoba. He was the second Umayyad Caliph of Córdoba in Al-Andalus, and son of Abd-ar-Rahman III and Murjan. He ruled from 961…
Al-Ghazali; (full name أَبُو حَامِدٍ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ ٱلطُّوسِيُّ ٱلْغَزَالِيُّ or ٱلْغَزَّالِيُّ, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad aṭ-Ṭūsiyy al-Ġaz(z)ālīy; Latinized Algazelus or Algazel; c. 1058 – 19 December 1111) was one of the most prominent and influential Muslim philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics, of Sunni Islam. He was of Persian origin.…
Muhammad ibn Aslam Al-Ghafiqi; (d. 1165 CE) was a 12th-century Andalusian-Arab oculist and author of The Right Guide to Ophthalmology (Al-Murshid fi ’l-Kuhhl). The book shows that the physicians of the time had a complex understanding of the conditions…
Gerard of Cremona (ca 1114-1187); Lombardy, Italy; translator. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Galen, Claudius (ca 131–206); Pergamum/Bergama, Turkey; physician. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Frederick II (1194-1250); king of Sicily (1198-1250); emperor, Holy Roman Empire (1220-1250). Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi; (Persian: ابوالقاسم فردوسی طوسی; c. 940–1020), or just Ferdowsi was a Persian poet and the author of Shahnameh (“Book of Kings”), which is one of the world’s longest epic poem created by a single poet, and the national epic of Greater Iran. Ferdowsi is…
Fibonacci; (c 1170 – c 1240–50), also known as Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo of Pisa, or Leonardo Bigollo Pisano (“Leonardo the Traveller from Pisa”), was an Italian mathematician from the Republic of Pisa, considered to be “the most talented Western mathematician of the Middle Ages”. The name he…
Ibrahim al-Fazari; (died 777 CE) was an 8th-century Muslim mathematician and astronomer at the Abbasid court of the Caliph Al-Mansur (r. 754–775). He should not to be confused with his son Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī, also an astronomer. He composed various…
Mehmed II; (Ottoman Turkish: محمد ثانى, romanized: Meḥmed-i sānī; Modern Turkish: II. Mehmet Turkish pronunciation: [ˈikindʒi mehmet]; 30 March 1432 – 3 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (Turkish: Fatih Sultan Mehmet), was an Ottoman Sultan who ruled from August 1444 to September 1446, and then…
Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī; (800/805-870) also known as Alfraganus in the West, was an astronomer in the Abbasid court in Baghdad, and one of the most famous astronomers in the 9th century. The lunar crater Alfraganus is…
Al-Farabi; (/ˌælfəˈrɑːbi/; Persian: ابو نصر محمد بن محمد فارابي Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al Fārābī; known in the West as Alpharabius; c. 872 – between 14 December, 950 and 12 January, 951) was a renowned philosopher and jurist who wrote in the fields of political philosophy, metaphysics, ethics and logic. He was also…
Euclid (325-265 BCE); Alexandria, Egypt; Greek mathematician, and scholar of optics. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Edward I (1239-1307); king of England (1272-1309); went on Crusades to Acres (1271-1272); on his return he built castles according to Muslim designs. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th)…
Abū Ḥanīfah Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd Dīnawarī; (815–896 CE, Arabic: أبو حنيفة الدينوري) was an Islamic Golden Age polymath, astronomer, agriculturist, botanist, metallurgist, geographer, mathematician, and historian. His ancestry came from the region of Dinawar, in Kermanshah in modern-day western Iran. He was instructed in the two main traditions of the Abbasid-era grammarians…
Shams al-Din al-Ansari al-Dimashqi; or simply al-Dimashqi (Arabic: شمس الدين الأنصاري الدمشقي) (1256–1327) was a medieval Arab geographer, completing his main work in 1300. Born in Damascus—as his name “Dimashqi” implies—he mostly wrote of his native land, the Greater Syria (Bilad ash-Sham), upon…
Nicolaus Copernicus; (Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik; German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; Niklas Koppernigk; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance-era polymath whose theory of the universe placed the Sun rather than Earth at the center of the universe, in all likelihood independently of Aristarchus of…
Robert Boyle; (25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist (a title some give to 8th century Islamic scholar Jabir ibn Hayyan),…
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601); Skane, Denmark; astronomer and engineer. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Nur ad-Din al-Bitruji; (also spelled Nur al-Din Ibn Ishaq Al-Betrugi and Abu Ishâk ibn al-Bitrogi; another spelling is al Bidrudschi) (known in the West by the Latinized name of Alpetragius) (died c. 1204) was a Spanish-Arab astronomer and a Qadi in al-Andalus. Al-Biṭrūjī was the first astronomer to…
Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Al-Bīrūnī; (Persian: ابوریحان محمد بن احمد البیرونی Abū Rayḥān Bērōnī; New Persian: Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī) (973–after 1050), known as Biruni (Persian: بیرونی) or Al-Biruni (Arabic: البيروني) in English language, was an Iranian scholar and polymath. He was from Khwarazm – a region which…
al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baibars al-Bunduqdari; (Arabic: الملك الظاهر ركن الدين بيبرس البندقداري, al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Rukn al-Dīn Baybars al-Bunduqdārī) (1223/1228 – 1 July 1277), of Turkic Kipchak origin, commonly known as Baibars (Arabic: بيبرس, Baybars) – nicknamed Abu al-Futuh (أبو الفتوح; English: Father of Conquest, referring to…
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Jābir ibn Sinān al-Raqqī al-Ḥarrānī aṣ-Ṣābiʾ al-Battānī; (Arabic: محمد بن جابر بن سنان البتاني) (Latinized as Albategnius, Albategni or Albatenius) (c. 858 – 929) was an Arab astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician. He introduced a number of trigonometric relations, and his Kitāb…
The Banū Mūsā brothers; (“Sons of Moses”), namely Abū Jaʿfar, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (before 803 – February 873), Abū al‐Qāsim, Aḥmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (d. 9th century) and Al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (d. 9th century), were three 9th-century Persian scholars…
Abū Manṣūr ʿAbd al-Qāhir ibn Ṭāhir bin Muḥammad bin ʿAbd Allāh al-Tamīmī al-Shāfiʿī al-Baghdādī; (Arabic: أبو منصور عبدالقاهر ابن طاهر بن محمد بن عبدالله التميمي الشافعي البغدادي) was an Arab Shafi’i scholar, Usul Imam, heresiologist and mathematician. ‘Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi was born and raised in Baghdad. He…
Roger Bacon; (/ˈbeɪkən/; Latin: Rogerus or Rogerius Baconus, Baconis, also Frater Rogerus; c. 1219/20 – c. 1292), also known by the scholastic accolade Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiricism. In the early modern era, he was regarded as a wizard and particularly famed for…
Aristotle (383-322 BCE); Stagirus, Greece; philosopher, scientist. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Archimedes (287-212 BCE); Syracuse, Sicily; astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Alfonso X, also known as Alfonso the Wise (1221-1284); Spanish king of Castile and León (1252-1284); son and successor of Ferdinand III. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition…
Albertus Magnus, also known as Albert the Great (1206-1280); Bavaria; scientist, philosopher, and theologian. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only. . FSTC. Kindle Edition.
Adelard of Bath (ca 1080–ca 1160); Bath, England; mathematician, astronomer, who championed the use of reason and Arabic learning. Ltd, FSTC. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Reference (4th) Edition Annotated, Text only.…
Muhadhdhabuddin Abd al-Rahim bin Ali bin Hamid al-Dimashqi; (Arabic: مهذب الدين عبد الرحيم بن علي بن حامد الدمشقي) known as al-Dakhwar (Arabic: الدخوار) (1170–1230) was a leading Arab physician in the 13th century where he served various rulers of the Ayyubid dynasty. He…
Abū al-Wafāʾ, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Ismāʿīl ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Būzjānī or Abū al-Wafā Būzhjānī; (Persian: ابوالوفا بوزجانی or بوژگانی) (10 June 940 – 15 July 998) was a Persian mathematician and astronomer who worked in Baghdad. He made important innovations in spherical trigonometry,…
Abu al-Fida; (Arabic: أبو الفداء; November 1273 – October 27, 1331), fully Al-Malik Al-Mu’ayyad Imād-ad-Dīn Abu Al-Fida’ Isma’il Ibn ‘Ali ibn Mahmud and better known in English as Abulfeda, was a Kurdish historian, geographer and local governor of Hama. He was a prince of the Ayyubid dynasty The crater Abulfeda on…
Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī; (Arabic: أبو عبيد عبد الله بن عبد العزيز بن محمد بن أيوب بن عمرو البكري), or simply al-Bakrī (c. 1040–1094) was an Andalusian Muslim historian and the greatest geographer…
Yahya ibn Abi Mansur; (Arabic: یحیی ابن ابی منصور), was a senior Persian official from the Banu al-Munajjim family, who served as an astronomer/astrologer at the court of Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun. His Persian name was Bizist, son of Firuzan (بزیست فیروزان). Since his father Abu Mansur Aban…
Abd al-Raḥmān III; he was ′Abd al-Rahmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ′Abd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ′Abd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥakam al-Rabdī ibn Hishām ibn ′Abd al-Raḥmān al-Dākhil; (عبدالرحمن بن محمد بن عبداللہ بن محمد بن عبدالرحمن بن…
Abū al-Faḍl Jaʻfar ibn ʻAlī al-Dimashqī; (Arabic: أبو الفضل جعفر بن علي الدمشقي; fl. 12th-century) was a prosperous Muslim merchant from Damascus. He is best known for being the author of Kitab al-Isharah ila Mahasin at-Tijarah wa Marifat Jayyid al-Aʼrad…
Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad aṣ-Ṣādiq; (Arabic: جَعْفَرُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ ٱلصَّادِقُ; 700 or 702–765 CE), commonly known as Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq or simply as-Sadiq (The Truthful), was an 8th-century Muslim scholar and scientist. He is considered as an Imam and founder of the Ja’fari school of jurisprudence by Twelver and Isma’ili Shi’as, and…
Ibn al-Lubudi was a physician, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, born in Aleppo in 1210; died after 1267. He studied medicine in Damascus under the famed al-Dakhwar, then Ibn al-Lubudi entered the services of Mansur Ibrahim…
Ibn Asakir; (Arabic: ابن عساكر, romanized: Ibn ‘Asākir; 1105–1175) was a Sunni Islamic scholar, a historian and a disciple of the Sufi mystic Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi. Born in Damascus, during the reign of atabeg Toghtekin, Ibn Asakir received an extensive education, as befitting someone from…
Qāḍī Zāda al-Rūmī; (1364 in Bursa, Ottoman Empire – 1436 in Samarqand, Timurid Empire), whose actual name was Salah al-Din Musa Pasha (qāḍī zāda means “son of the judge”, al-rūmī “the Roman” indicating he came from Asia Minor, which was once Roman), was a Turkish astronomer and mathematician who worked at the observatory…
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Abu ’l-ʿAbbās S̲h̲ams al-Dīn al-Barmakī al-Irbilī al-S̲h̲āfiʿī; ibn Khallikān (أحمد بن محمد بن إبراهيم أبو العباس شمس الدين البرمكي الأربيلي الشافعي، ابن خلكان) (1211 – 1282) was a 13th-century Shafi’i Islamic scholar who…
Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Mizzi lived in Damascus and worked there as a muwaqqit (time keeper) of the rabwa, and then of the Umayyad Mosque. He is the author of several works on astrolabes and quadrants.…
Majd ad-Dīn Usāma ibn Murshid ibn ʿAlī ibn Munqidh al-Kināni al-Kalbi; (also Usamah, Ousama, etc.; Arabic: أسامة بن منقذ) (July 4, 1095 – November 17, 1188[2]) was a medieval Muslim poet, author, faris (knight), and diplomat from the Banu Munqidh dynasty of Shaizar in northern Syria. His life…
Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. ʿAlī al-Miṣrī al-Ḥanafī; (1334–1405 CE), better known as Ibn al-Furāt, was an Egyptian historian, best known for his universal history, generally known as Taʾrīkh al-duwal wa ’l-mulūk (“History of the Dynasties and Kingdoms”), though…
Ibn Abd al-Zahir; (Muḥyī d-Dīn ibn ʿAbd aẓ-Ẓāhir محيي الدين بن عبد الظاهر, 1223–1293) was an Egyptian chancery scribe, poet and historian during the Mamluk period. Several of his works survive, including three biographies of the early…
Ibn Abi Al-Hawafar wrote a treatise on ophthalmology, Natijat al-Fikar`alaj Amrad al Bassar (The Thoughtful Conclusions on the Treatment of the Diseases of Visions). For more detail click here.
Ibn Mammati Abul Makarim Assad ibn Khatir ibn Mammati; wrote an account of the Egyptian government under the Ayyubid Sultan Salah Al-Din, the Kitâb Qawanin al-Dawawin (Statutes of the Councils of State). For more detail…
Rashid Al-Din was a well-recognised botanist and his passion and knowledge of the subject places him amongst the greatest botanists. For more detail click here.
Muwaffaq Al-Din Yaqub Ben Saklan was a Christian doctor of Jerusalem (d. 1229). He was an Oriental Christian who served as a manager of the hospital of Jerusalem under Muaddam the Ayyubid ruler. Muaddam took…
Shihab Al-din Ahmed ibn Abi Bakr as-Sarraj al-Hamawi was the author of several books on scientific instruments and geometrical problems. For more detail click here.
Sutayta did not specialize in just one subject but excelled in many fields such as Arabic literature, hadith, and jurisprudence as well as mathematics. It is said that she was an expert in hisab (arithmetics)…
Zubaidah bint Ja`far ibn Mansur; (Arabic: زبيدة بنت جعفر ابن المنصور) (died 26 Jumada I 216 AH / 10 July 831 AD) was the best known of the Abbasid princesses. She is particularly remembered for the series of wells, reservoirs and…
Fatima bint Muhammad Al-Fihriya Al-Qurashiya; (Arabic: فاطمة بنت محمد الفهرية القرشية) was an Arab Muslim woman who is credited with founding the oldest existing, continually operating and first degree-awarding university in the world, the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco in 859 CE,…
ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr; (Arabic: عائشة بنت أبي بكر [ˈʕaːʔɪʃa], c. 613/614 – c. 678 CE), also transcribed as Aisha (/ˈɑːiːʃɑː/, also US: /-ʃə, aɪˈiːʃə/, UK: /ɑːˈ(j)iːʃə/) or variants, was Muhammad’s third and youngest wife. In Islamic writings, her name is thus often prefixed by the title “Mother of the Believers” (Arabic: أمّ المؤمنين, romanized: ʾumm al-muʾminīn),…
Wallada bint al-Mustakfi; (Arabic: ولادة بنت المستكفي) (born in Córdoba in 1001 – died March 26, 1091) was an Andalusian poet. Wallada was the daughter of Muhammad III of Córdoba, one of the last Umayyad Cordoban caliphs, who came to power in 1024 after assassinating…
Rufaida Al-Aslamia; (also transliterated Rufaida Al-Aslamiya or Rufaydah bint Sa`ad) (Arabic: رفيدة الأسلمية) (born approx. 620 AD; 2 BH) was an Islamic medical and social worker recognized as the first female Muslim nurse and the first female…
Umm Matawe’ Al-Aslamiyya, who volunteered to be a nurse in the army after the opening of Khaybar.
Umm Waraqa Bint Hareth, who participated in gathering the Quran and providing her nursing services to the warriors at the battle of Badr.
Sitt al-Mulk; (Arabic: ست الملك, lit. ‘Lady of the Kingdom‘ ; 970–1023), was a Fatimid princess. After the disappearance of her half-brother, the caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, in 1021, she was instrumental in securing the succession of her nephew Ali az-Zahir, and…
Shajar al-Durr; (Arabic: شجر الدر, lit. ‘Tree of Pearls’), also Shajarat al-Durr (شجرة الدر), whose royal name was al-Malika ʿAṣmat ad-Dīn ʾUmm-Khalīl Shajar ad-Durr (الملكة عصمة الدين أم خليل شجر الدر; from her nickname أم خليل ʾUmm Khalīl, ‘mother of Khalil’; ? – 28 April 1257),…
Raziya al-Din; (r. 1236–15 October 1240), popularly known as Razia Sultana, was a ruler of the Delhi Sultanate in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. She is notable for being the first female ruler of South Asia. A daughter…
In chemistry, historical sources quote the name of Maryam Al-Zinyani. Some scholars suggested that Maryam Al-Zinyani is Maryam bint Abdullah al-Hawary who died in year 758 CE in Kairouan. In addition to writing poetry, Maryam…
Toledo was the residence of a great number of able architects. Fath B. Ibrahim (Fl. 934; d. 1013) was known as al-Qashari, a scholar, pious man and architect who, although flourishing in the Caliph court…
Abu ali Yahya ibn Isa Ibn Jazla Al Baghdadi; or Ibn Jazlah (Arabic,أبو يحيى ابن عيسى بن جزله), Latinized as Buhahylyha Bingezla, was an 11th-century Arab physician of Baghdad and author of an influential treatise on regimen that was translated into Latin in 1280 AD by…
Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Abd Allah, Al-Hamdani Al-Hamawi, Shihab Al-Din was born in Hama in 1187-8, where he flourished and where he died in 1244-5. He is a Shafiite Qadi (judge) historian who wrote Tarikh…
Abul Hasan Al-Misrî, was a physician and author of many medical writings of which the most popular was his commentary on Galen’s Ars Parva which was translated by Gherardo Cremonese. For more detail click here.
Ibrahim al-Fazari; (died 777 CE) was an 8th-century Muslim mathematician and astronomer at the Abbasid court of the Caliph Al-Mansur (r. 754–775). He should not to be confused with his son Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī, also an astronomer. He composed various…
Ibrahim al-Fazari; (died 777 CE) was an 8th-century Muslim mathematician and astronomer at the Abbasid court of the Caliph Al-Mansur (r. 754–775). He should not to be confused with his son Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī, also an astronomer. He composed various…
Muḥyī al‐Milla wa al‐Dīn Yaḥyā Abū ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al‐Shukr al‐Maghribī al‐Andalusī; (Arabic: محيي الدين المغربي; died 1283 CE) was an Andalusī astronomer, astrologer and mathematician of the Islamic Golden Age. He belonged to the group of astronomers associated with…
Ahmad Rida; (also transliterated as Ahmad Reda) (1872–1953) (Arabic: الشيخ أحمد رضا) was a Levantine Arab linguist, writer and politician. A key figure of the Arab Renaissance (known as al-Nahda), he created the first modern monolingual dictionary of the Arabic language, Matn al-Lugha, commissioned by…
Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Farisi; (d. 1278/1279), an Iranian Islamic astronomer and astrologer born in Aden. He is the author of al-Tuḥfa, which includes a treatise containing important information for the history of Islamic astronomy and its connection with the religion of Islam.…
Masawaih al-Mardini; (Yahyā ibn Masawaih al-Mardini; known as Mesue the Younger) was a Syrian physician. He was born in Mardin, Upper Mesopotamia. After working in Baghdad, he entered to the service of the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. He died in 1015 in Cairo at…
Sibt al-Maridini; full name Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ghazal (1423 – 1506 AD), was an Egyptian-born astronomer and mathematician. His father came from Damascus. The word “Sibt al-Maridini” means “the son of Al-Mardini’s daughter”. His…
Sayyed Mahmoud Hessabi; (or Hessaby, Persian: سید محمود حسابی, February 23, 1903 – September 3, 1992) was an Iranian nuclear physicist and senator. He was the Minister of Education for Iran in the cabinet of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh from 1951 to 1952. *Source
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ashraf al-Ḥusaynī al-Samarqandī; (c. 1250 – c. 1310) was a 13th-century astronomer and mathematician from Samarkand. Nothing is known of al-Samarqandi’s life except that he composed his most important works in the last two decades of…
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī; (Persian: جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī (جلال‌الدین محمد بلخى), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā (مولانا, “our master”), Mevlevî/Mawlawī (مولوی, “my master”), and more popularly simply as Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, faqih, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater…
Shihāb al-Dīn Abū ‘l-Abbās Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad ‘Abd Allāh al-Qalqashandī al-Fazari or al-Qalqashandī; (1355 or 1356 – 1418), was a medieval Egyptian encyclopedist, polymath and mathematician. A native of the Nile Delta, he became a Scribe of the Scroll (Katib…
Farouk El-Baz is an Egyptian American scientist who worked with NASA to assist in the planning of scientific exploration of the Moon, including the selection of landing sites for the Apollo missions and the training…
Pierre Morad Omidyar; (Persian: پیر مراد امیدیار, Persian pronunciation: [piːjeɾ muɾɑːd umiːdjɑːɾ] born June 21, 1967) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, computer scientist and philanthropist. He is the founder of eBay where he served as chairman from 1998 to 2015. He became a billionaire…
In electrochemistry, Iranian scientist Ali Eftekhari is regarded as a founder of electrochemical nanotechnology, particularly for his development of carbon nanotubes. He also carries out scientific research on the field of fractal geometry and applies it to…
Abu Yahya Zakariya’ ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini; (Arabic: أبو یحیی زکریاء بن محمد القزویني) (1203–1283) was a physician, astronomer, geographer and writer of Arab descent. He belonged to a family of jurists who had long before settled in Qazwin. He drew his origin from an Arab family…
Abu al-Tayyib Sanad ibn Ali al-Yahudi; (died c. 864 C.E.), was an eighth-century Iraqi Jewish astronomer, translator, mathematician and engineer employed at the court of the Abbasid caliph Al-Ma’mun. A later convert to Islam, Sanad’s father was a learned Jewish astronomer who lived and worked in Baghdad. He is known…
Sābūr ibn Sahl; (شاپور بن سهل گندیشاپوری; d. 869 CE) was a 9th-century Persian Christian physician from the Academy of Gundishapur. Among other medical works, he wrote one of the first medical books on antidotes called Aqrabadhin (القراباذين), which was divided into 22…
Sulaiman Al Mahri ibn Ahmad ibn Sulayman; (Arabic: سليمان المهري ابن أحمد ابن سليمان) (1480–1550) was a 16th-century Arab navigator. He was called “Al-Mahri” because he was a descendant of the Arabic tribe of Mahara. He was a student…
Ahmed Efendi Brusi from Bursa was a theologian, astronomer and mathematician.
Hoca Ishak Efendi; (c. 1774 in Arta – 1835 in Suez) was an Ottoman mathematician and engineer. Ishak Efendi was born in Arta (now in Greece), probably in 1774, to a Jewish family. His father had converted to Islam. After his father died, he…
Thomas Bradwardine was an English cleric, scholar, mathematician, physicist, courtier and, very briefly, Archbishop of Canterbury. As a celebrated scholastic philosopher and doctor of theology, he is often called Doctor Profundus, (medieval epithet, meaning “the…
Zheng He; (Chinese: 鄭和; 1371 – 1433 or 1435) was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China’s early Ming dynasty. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family, and later adopted the surname Zheng conferred by Emperor…
Jabril ibn Bukhtishu; (Jibril ibn Bakhtisha) also written as Bakhtyshu, was an 8th-9th century physician from the Bukhtishu family of Assyrian Nestorian physicians from the Academy of Gundishapur. He was a Nestorian and spoke the Syriac language. Grandson of Jirjis ibn Jibril, he lived in the…
Solomon ibn Gabirol; (also Solomon ben Judah; Hebrew: שלמה בן יהודה אבן גבירול Shlomo Ben Yehuda ibn Gabirol, pronounced [ʃe.loˈmo bɛn jɛ.huˈdaː ˈɪ.bn ˌga.bi.ˈrɒːl]; Arabic: أبو أيوب سليمان بن يحيى بن جبيرول Abu Ayyub Sulayman bin Yahya bin Jabirul, pronounced [æ.ˈbuː æj.juːb ˌsu.læj.ˈmæːnɪ bnɪ ˌjæ’ħjæː bnɪ…
Moses ben Hanoch; or Moses ben Enoch (in Hebrew: משה בן חנוך, Moshe ben Hanoch) was a medieval rabbi who inadvertently became the preeminent Talmudic scholar of Spain. He died about 965. Moses was one of the four scholars who went from Sura, the seat of…
Abū al‐Ṣalt Umayya ibn ʿAbd al‐ʿAzīz ibn Abī al‐Ṣalt al‐Dānī al‐Andalusī; (c. 1068—October 23, 1134), known in Latin as Albuzale, was an Andalusian-Arab polymath who wrote about pharmacology, geometry, Aristotelian physics, and astronomy. His works on astronomical instruments were read both in the Islamic world and Europe.…
‘Abd Al-Rhaman Ibn Nasr ibn ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Nabarawi al-Shafi’i (al-Adawi al-Shairazi); is an Egyptian scholar who flourished probably in the time of Salahuddin (sultan 1169-1193). He wrote a handbook for the use of police…
Abraham bar Ḥiyya ha-Nasi; (Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם בַּר חִיָּיא הַנָשִׂיא; c. 1070 – 1136 or 1145), also known as Abraham Savasorda, Abraham Albargeloni, and Abraham Judaeus, was a Jewish mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who resided in Barcelona. Bar Ḥiyya was active in translating the works of Islamic science into Latin, and was likely…
Abraham ibn Daud; (Hebrew: אברהם בן דוד; Arabic: ابراهيم بن داود) was a Spanish-Jewish astronomer, historian, and philosopher; born at Cordoba, Spain about 1110; died in Toledo, Spain, according to common report, a martyr about 1180. He is sometimes known by the abbreviation Rabad I or Ravad I. His mother…
Abu Kamil Al-Hâsib Al-Misrî was a mathematician who perfected al-Khwarizmi’s work on algebra and whose mathematics included a number of subjects such as determination and construction of both roots of quadratic equations, multiplication and division…
ʿAbū ʿAlī al‐Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al‐Ādamī; (flourished in Baghdad, c. 925) was a maker of scientific instruments who wrote an extant work on vertical sundials. According to al-Biruni, al-Adami was the first to construct a “disc of eclipses“, an instrument…
Abu Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Bāqillānī; (Arabic: أبو بكر محمد بن الطيب الباقلاني; c. 940 – 5 June 1013), often known as al-Bāqillānī for short, or reverentially as Imam al-Bāqillānī by Sunni Muslims, was a famous Sunni Islamic theologian, jurist, and logician who spent much of his…
Abd Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Husayn Birjandi; (Persian: عبدعلی محمد بن حسین بیرجندی) (died 1528) was a prominent 16th-century Persian astronomer, mathematician and physicist who lived in Birjand. *Source
Ali ibn Sulayman al-Hashimi; was a Muslim scholar. His exact date of birth is unknown, but it is known that he flourished in the year 890. Alī ibn Sulaymān al-Hāshimī flourished some time in the second half…
Al-Hassar or Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Ayyash al-Hassar; (Arabic: أبو بكر محمد ابن عياش الحصَار)was a Muslim mathematician from Morocco, living in the 12th century. He is the author of two books Kitab al-bayan wat-tadhkar (Book of Demonstration and Memorization), a…
ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā al-Balādhurī; (Arabic: أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري) was a 9th-century Muslim historian. One of the eminent Middle Eastern historians of his age, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and enjoyed great influence at the…
Bahya ben Joseph ibn Paquda; (also: Pakuda, Bakuda, Hebrew: בחיי אבן פקודה, Arabic: بهية بن باكودا), c. 1050-1120, was a Jewish philosopher and rabbi who lived at Zaragoza, Al-Andalus (now Spain). He was one of two people now known as Rabbeinu Behaye, the other being Bible commentator Bahya ben Asher.…
Gregory Bar Hebraeus; (1226 – 30 July 1286), also known by his Latin name Abulpharagius or Syriac name Mor Gregorios Bar Ebraya, was a maphrian-catholicos (Chief bishop of Persia) of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the 13th century. He is noted for his works…
Izz al-Din Aydamir al-Jildaki; (Arabic: عز الدين الجلدكي), also written al-Jaldaki (d. 1342/743 H) was an Egyptian alchemist from 14th century Mamluk Sultanate. Despite being one of the most important Islamic scholars of the 14th century, almost nothing is known about his…
‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Umar Zain al-Din al-Dimashqi; commonly known as Al-Jawbari (Arabic: الجوبري; fl. 619/1222) was a medieval Syrian Arab author and scholar known for his denunciation of alchemy. Born in Jawbar, Syria, Al-Jawbari traveled extensively throughout the Islamic Empire, including visits as far as India. Among…
Abū ‘Ubayd al-Jūzjānī; (d.1070), (ابو عبيد جوزجانی) was a Persian physician and chronicler from what is now Jowzjan Province in Afghanistan. He was the famous pupil of Avicenna, whom he first met in Gorgan. He spent many years with his master in Isfahan, becoming his…
Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Khalīlī; (Arabic: شمس الدين عبد الله محمد بن محمد الخليلي; 1320–1380) was a Mamluk-era Syrian astronomer who compiled extensive tables for astronomical use. He worked for most of his life as…
Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī; (Arabic: أبو العلاء المعري, full name أبو العلاء أحمد بن عبد الله بن سليمان التنوخي المعري Abū al-ʿAlāʾ Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sulaymān al-Tanūkhī al-Maʿarrī; December 973 – May 1057) was a blind Arab philosopher, poet, and writer. Despite holding…
Alī ibn Aḥmad al-Nasawī; (c. 1011 possibly in Khurasan – c. 1075 in Baghdad) was a Persian mathematician from Khurasan, Iran. He flourished under the Buwayhid sultan Majd al-dowleh, who died in 1029-30AD, and under his successor. He wrote a book on arithmetic in Persian, and then Arabic, entitled…
Abū al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Qalaṣādī; (Arabic: أبو الحسن علي بن محمد بن علي القرشي البسطي; 1412–1486) was a Muslim Arab mathematician from Al-Andalus specializing in Islamic inheritance jurisprudence. Al-Qalaṣādī is known for being one of the most influential voices…
The best known are Nihayat al-rutba fi talab al-hisba by ‘Abd-al-Rahman al-Shayzari (d. 589/1193), and Ma’alim al-qurba fi ahkam al-hisba, by Diyya’ al-Din al-Qurashi, known as Ibn al-Ukhuwwa (d. 729/1329). The manuals for the guidance…
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sakhāwi; (Arabic: شمس الدين محمد بن عبدالرحمن السخاوي, 1428/831 AH – 1497/902 AH) was a reputable Shafi‘i Muslim hadith scholar and historian who was born in Cairo. Al-Sakhawi” refers to the village of Sakha in Egypt, where his…
Muhammad ibn Malik al-Tighnari, Al-Tighnari; (1073–1118), was an important Arab Agronomist, Botanist, Physician and author. Born into a family of noble Arab lineage in Tignar, a village a few kilometres north of Granada. He wrote a treatise on agronomy in 12 chapters entitled Zuhrat al-bustān…
Al-Urdi; (full name: Muʾayyad (al‐Milla wa‐) al‐Dīn (Muʾayyad ibn Barīk [Burayk]) al‐ʿUrḍī (al‐ʿĀmirī al‐Dimašqī) (مؤيد (الملة و) الدين (مؤيد ابن بريك) ألعرضي (العامري الدمشقي d. 1266) was a medieval Arab astronomer and geometer. Born circa 1200, presumably (from the nisba al‐ʿUrḍī) in the village…
Abu Al- ‘Ala’ studied at Cordova at the school of Abu Al-Aina, a doctor who came from the Orient to Spain. He was even more successful as a physician than his father. He was attached…
Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari; known widely as al-Zamakhshari (in Persian: محمود زمخشری), also called Jar Allah (Arabic for “God’s neighbour”) (18 March 1075 – 12 June 1144), was a medieval Muslim scholar of Persian origin, who subscribed to the Muʿtazilite theological doctrine but later repented and…
Alam al-Din Ibn-Abidin al-Hanafi; (Arabic: علم الدين تعاسيف; 1178 – 1251 ) was an Egyptian mathematician, astronomer and engineer during the Ayyubid period. Alam al-Din was born in Egypt, son of a well-known Egyptian scholar Abidin Ibn al-Hanafi. He later moved to Mosul and then…
ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Asṭurlābī; (Arabic: علي بن عيسى) was an Arab astronomer and geographer of the 9th century. He wrote a treatise on the astrolabe and was an opponent of astrology. During the reign of al-Ma’mun, and together with Khālid ibn ʿAbd al‐Malik al‐Marwarrūdhī, he…
Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed; (1403 – 16 December 1474), known as Ali Qushji (Ottoman Turkish/Persian language: علی قوشچی, kuşçu – falconer in Turkish; Latin: Ali Kushgii) was an astronomer, mathematician and physicist originally from Samarkand, who settled in the Ottoman Empire some time before 1472. As a disciple of Ulugh Beg, he is…
Amina; (also Aminatu; d. 1610) was a Hausa warrior queen of the city-state Zazzau (present-day city of Zaria in Kaduna State), in what is now in the north-west region of Nigeria. She ruled in the mid-sixteenth century. Her real biography has been somewhat obscured by subsequent…
Athīr al‐Dīn al‐Mufaḍḍal ibn ʿUmar ibn al‐Mufaḍḍal al‐Samarqandī al‐Abharī; also known as Athīr al‐Dīn al‐Munajjim (d. in 1265 or 1262 Shabestar, Iran) was a philosopher, astronomer, astrologer and mathematician. Other than his influential writings, he had many famous disciples. His birthplace is contested among sources.…
Bahāʾ al‐Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn al‐ʿĀmilī; (also known as Sheikh Baha’i, Persian: شیخ بهایی) (18 February 1547 – 1 September 1621) was an Arab Shia Islamic scholar, philosopher, architect, mathematician, astronomer and poet who lived in the late 16th and early 17th centuries in Safavid Iran. He…
Bardaisan; (Syriac: ܒܪ ܕܝܨܢ, Bardaiṣān), known in Arabic as Ibn Daisan (ابن ديصان) and in Latin as Bardesanes (A.D. 154–222), was a Syriac or Parthian gnostic and founder of the Bardaisanites. A scientist, scholar, astrologer, philosopher and poet, Bardaisan was also renowned for his knowledge of India, on which…
Historian who recorded history as a sequence of military engagements, such as the Mongol invasion of the Islamic Empire. Believed history had both religious and mundane value and that moral lessons could be drawn from…
ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Kahhal (fl. 1010 AD), surnamed “the oculist” (al-kahhal) was the best known and most celebrated Arab ophthalmologist of medieval islam. He was known in medieval Europe as Jesu Occulist. He was the author of the influential Memorandum of the Oculists,…
Badr al-Din al-‘Ayni; (Arabic: بدر الدين العيني) born 762 AH (1360 CE), died 855 AH (1453 CE) was a Sunni Islamic scholar of the Hanafi madh’hab. Al-‘Ayni is an abbreviation for al-‘Ayntābi, referring to his native city. He was born into a scholarly family in 762 AH (1360 CE)…
Dawud Ibn ‘Umar al-Antaki or David of Antioch; (Arabic: داود الأنطاكي ; Antioch – Makkah al-Mukarramah, 1599) was a blind Syrian Christian physician and pharmacist active in Cairo. After the hey-day of medicine in the medieval Islamic world and after the work of Ibn Al-Nafis (died 1288), Daud…
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī or Fakhruddin Razi; (Persian: فخر الدين رازي) was a Sunni Muslim theologian and philosopher from Khorasan. He was born in 1149 in Rey (in modern-day Iran), and died in 1209 in Herat (in modern-day Afghanistan). He also wrote on medicine, physics, astronomy, literature, history and law. He left a very rich corpus of philosophical…
Fatima bint Mundhir; (668-763) is 8th hadith scholar from Madinah, who belonged to the generation of tabi’un. Fatima bint Mundhir obtained her knowledge on hadiths from Asma bint Abu Bakr and Umm Salamah. As an evidence of the transmission of the knowledge…
Harbi al-Himyari; (Arabic: حربي الحميري Ḥarbī al-Ḥimyarī), was an Arab scholar from Yemen, who lived between the 7th and 8th century AD. He is the mentor for teaching Koran and mathematics to Jābir ibn Hayyān. According to Holmyard nothing else is known about him. *Source
Abu al-Fadl Abbas Ibn al-Ahnaf; (750 in Basra-809), Arabic, عباس بن الأحنف, was an Arab Abbasid poet from the clan of Hanifa. His work consists solely of love poems (ghazal). It is “primarily concerned with the hopelessness of love, and the personae…
Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Akfani, is mostly remembered by Arabic bibliographers as a physician and an encyclopedic mind. He was born in 1286 in the city of Sinjār (present-day northern Iraq) and spent most of…
ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Durayhim; (Arabic: علي بن محمد ابن الدريهم; 1312–1359/62 CE) was an Arab cryptologist who gave detailed descriptions of eight cipher systems that discussed substitution ciphers, leading to the earliest suggestion of a “tableau” of the kind…
The Nestorian Ibn al-Khammar, whose complete name is Abu l-Khayr al-Hassan ibn Suwar Ibn Baba Ibn al-Khammar, was born in 331/942 or 943 in Baghdad and died around 421/1030. He was a pupil of Yahy…
Abu l-Hasan ‘Ali Ibn Nafi‘; or Ziryab (789–857; Arabic: أبو الحسن علي ابن نافع, زریاب) was a singer, oud player, composer, poet, and teacher who lived and worked in Iraq, Northern Africa, and Andalusia of the medieval Islamic period. He was also known as a polymath,…
Hasdai (Abu Yusuf ben Yitzhak ben Ezra) ibn Shaprut; (Hebrew: חסדאי אבן שפרוט; Arabic: حسداي بن شبروط, Abu Yussuf ibn Shaprut) born about 915 at Jaén, Spain; died about 970 at Córdoba, Andalusia, was a Jewish scholar, physician, diplomat, and…
Ma Yize; (traditional: 馬依澤, simplified: 马依泽, ca. 910 – 1005) was a Muslim Hui Chinese astronomer and astronomer who worked as the chief official of the astronomical observatory for the Song dynasty. In the early 10th century, the Chinese emperor of…
Muhammad Baqir Yazdi was an Iranian mathematician who lived in the 16th century. He gave the pair of amicable numbers 9,363,584 and 9,437,056 many years before Euler’s contribution to amicable numbers. He was the last notable Islamic mathematician. His major book is Oyoun Alhesab (Arabic:عيون الحساب).…
Waddah al-Yaman; (Arabic: وضّاح اليمن), born Abdul Rahman bin Isma’il al-Khawlani (Arabic: عبدالرحمن بن اسماعيل الخولاني) (died 708), was an Arab poet. Al-Yaman was born in Yemen in the second half of the seventh century. He was famous for his erotic and…
Abū Zakarīyā’ Yaḥyá ibn ʿAdī; (John, father of Zachary, son of Adi) known as Yahya ibn Adi (893–974) was a Syriac Jacobite Christian philosopher, theologian and translator working in Arabic. Yahya ibn Adi was born in Tikrit (modern-day Iraq) to a family…
Abū ʿAbdallāh Yaʿīsh ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf ibn Simāk al-Andalusī al-Umawī; (1400? in Al-Andalus – 1489 in Damascus, Syria) was a 14th-century Spanish-Arab mathematician. *Source
Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq; (يعقوب بن طارق; died c. 796 AD) was an 8th-century Persian astronomer and mathematician who lived in Baghdad. *Source
Abu Yahya Ibn al-Batriq (working 796 – 806) was a Syrian scholar who pioneered the translation of ancient Greek texts into Arabic, a major early figure in the transmission of the Classics at the close of Late Antiquity. He translated for Al-Mansur the major medical…
Yahya of Antioch; full name Yaḥya ibn Saʿīd al-Anṭākī (Ar. يحيى بن سعيد الأنطاكي), was a Melkite Christian physician and historian of the 11th century. He was most likely born in Fatimid Egypt. He became a physician, but the anti-Christian…
Yuhanna Ibn Batriq, an Assyrian, who produced the Sirr al-asrar. Click here for more information.
Abu Amir Yusuf ibn Ahmad ibn Hud; (Arabic: أبو عامر يوسف إبن أحمد إبن هود, romanized: Abū ʿĀmir Yūsuf ibn Aḥmad ibn Hūd; died c. 1085), known by his regnal name al-Mu’taman Billah (Arabic: المؤتمن بالله, romanized: al-Mūʿtaman bi-‘llāh, lit. ‘Trustee through God’), was the third king of…
Cığalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha; (also known as Cağaloğlu Yusuf Sinan Pasha; c. 1545–1605), his epithet meaning “son of Cicala”, was an Ottoman Italian statesman who held the office of Grand Vizier for forty days between 27 October to 5 December 1596, during the…
Abu `Abdullah Muhammad Ibn ‘Omar Ibn Waqid al-Aslami; (Arabic أبو عبد الله محمد بن عمر بن واقد الاسلمي) (c. 130 – 207 AH; c. 747 – 823 AD) was a historian commonly referred to as al-Waqidi (Arabic: الواقدي). His surname is…
Ibn Wahshiyyah the Nabataean; (Arabic: ابن وحشية النبطي), also known as ʾAbū Bakr ʾAḥmad bin ʿAlī (Arabic: أبو بكر أحمد بن علي) (fl. 9th/10th centuries) was an Arab alchemist, agriculturalist, farm toxicologist, Egyptologist, and historian born at Qusayn near Kufa in Iraq. He was the first…
Qabus ibn Wushmagir; (full name: Abol-Hasan Qābūs ibn Wušmagīr ibn Ziyar Sams al-maʿālī, ابوالحسن قابوس بن وشمگیر بن زیار, شمس المعالی; (died 1012) (r. 977–981; 997–1012) was the Ziyarid ruler of Gurgan and Tabaristan in medieval Iran. His father was Vushmgir and his mother was a…
Abu’l Hasan Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Al-Uqlidisi; (Arabic: أبو الحسن أحمد بن ابراهيم الإقليدسي) was a Muslim Arab mathematician, who was active in Damascus and Baghdad. He wrote the earliest surviving book on the positional use of the Arabic numerals, Kitab al-Fusul fi al-Hisab al-Hindi (The Arithemetics…
Ali ibn Mohammed ibn Abbas; (923–1023) (Arabic: علي بن محمد بن عباس) also known as Abū Hayyān al-Tawhīdī (Arabic: أبو حيان التوحيدي) was one of the most influential intellectuals and thinkers of the 10th century. Yaqut Al-Hamawi described him as “the…
Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tabari; born in Amol, was a 10th-century Tabari(mazenderani) physician from Tabaristan. He was the physician of Rukn al-Dawla, a Buyid ruler. He was author of a compendium of medicine Kitab al-mu’alaja al-buqratiya (Hippocratic treatments), in ten books. It is…
Ahmad al-Tifashi; (or Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Tīfāchī), born in Tiffech, a village near Souk Ahras in Algeria (1184- died 1253 in Cairo) was a Berber poet, writer, and anthologist, best known for his work A Promenade of the Hearts. Little is…
Al-Tamimi was a Palestinian physician who conducted pharmaceutical experiments and wrote various medical works chiefly on Materia medica. For more detail click here.
Benjamin of Tudela; (Hebrew: בִּנְיָמִין מִטּוּדֶלָה, pronounced [binjaˈmin mituˈdela]; Arabic: بنيامين التطيلي Binyamin al-Tutayli; Tudela, Kingdom of Navarre, 1130 – Castile, 1173) was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, and Africa in the 12th century. His vivid descriptions of western Asia preceded those of Marco Polo by a hundred years. With…
Dunash ibn Tamim; (Hebrew: דונש אבן תמים) was a Jewish tenth century scholar, and a pioneer of scientific study among Arabic-speaking Jews. His Arabic name was أبو سهل Abu Sahl; his surname, according to an isolated statement of Moses ibn Ezra,…
Jacob ben Machir ibn Tibbon; (Hebrew: יעקב בן מכיר ׳ן תיבון), of the Ibn Tibbon family, also known as Prophatius. Provençal, Jewish astronomer; born, probably at Marseilles, about 1236; died at Montpellier about 1304. He was a grandson of Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon. His Provençal…
Mardi ibn Ali al-Tarsusi; was a 12th-century Ayyubid-era writer and expert on military matters. He wrote a number of treatises, including a military manual for Saladin in 1187. His writings have proved an invaluable resource for medieval and military historians. The…
Ibn Umayl, Senior Zadith, Muhammed ibn Umail al-Tamîmî; (Arabic: محمد بن أميل التميمي) was an alchemist of the tenth century. He can be dated to 900–960 AD (286-348 AH) on the basis of the names of acquaintances he mentioned. About…
Sharaf al-Dīn al-Muẓaffar ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Muẓaffar al-Ṭūsī; (Persian: شرف‌الدین مظفر بن محمد بن مظفر توسی; c. 1135 – c. 1213) was an Iranian mathematician and astronomer of the Islamic Golden Age (during the Middle Ages). Tusi was probably born in Tus, Iran. Little is…
Taqī ad-Dīn Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah; (Arabic: تقي الدين أحمد ابن تيمية, January 22, 1263 – September 26, 1328), known as ابن تيمية Ibn Taymiyyah for short, medieval Sunni Muslim theologian, jurisconsult, logician, and reformer. A member of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and…
ʿAbu al-Ḥasan Alāʾ al‐Dīn ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ansari; known as Ibn al-Shatir or Ibn ash-Shatir (Arabic: ابن الشاطر; 1304–1375) was a Syrian Arab astronomer, mathematician and engineer. He worked as muwaqqit (موقت, religious timekeeper) in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and constructed a sundial for its minaret in 1371/72. Ibn al-Shatir most important astronomical treatise was kitab…
Abu Sa’id Ahmed ibn Mohammed ibn Abd al-Jalil al-Sijzi; (c. 945 – c. 1020, also known as al-Sinjari and al-Sijazi; Persian: ابوسعید سجزی; Al-Sijzi is short for “Al-Sijistani”) was an Iranian Muslim astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. He is notable for his correspondence with al-Biruni and for proposing that…
Abū al‐Qāsim Aṣbagh ibn Muḥammad ibn al‐Samḥ al‐Gharnāṭī al-Mahri; (born 979, Córdoba; died 1035, Granada), also known as Ibn al‐Samḥ, was an Arab mathematician and astronomer in Al-Andalus. He worked at the school founded by Al-Majriti in Córdoba, until political unrest forced him to move to…
Ibn Sahl; (full name Abū Saʿd al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Sahl أبو سعد العلاء ابن سهل; c. 940–1000) was a Persian mathematician and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age, associated with the Buwayhid court of Baghdad. Nothing in his name allows us to glimpse his country of origin.…
Abu Dja‘far Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Khatima Al-Ansari, known as Ibn Khatima, is one of the most important intellectuals of the Medieval Moorish Spain. He wrote works in different fields, such as literature…
Although we are unsure of the date of his birth, due to his name, we know of his ethnicity and place of residence. He was from the Fulani people, the great herders of West Africa,…
Although it is unknown whether Abdul al-aziz al-Amawi was sixteen, or eighteen, what is established is that as a teenager, he was entrusted with a highly important position acting as judge of Kilwa. Kilwa was…
Due to his late 12th/early 13th century writings, known and read in Morocco, Ibrahim al-Kanemi, carries the distinction – as the first sub-Saharan scholar, to have written in Arabic. He was a grammarian, a poet…
“He was a source of blessing, a jurist, an accomplished scholar, a pious and ascetic man of God, who was amongst the finest of God’s righteous servants and practising scholars.” The above is an excerpt…
Abū al-Faḍl ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr ibn Muḥammad Jalāl al-Dīn al-Khuḍayrī al-Suyūṭī; (Arabic: جلال الدين عبد الرحمن بن أبي بكر بن محمد الخضيري السيوطي; c. 1445–1505 CE); aka Jalaluddin; an Egyptian of mixed Persian and Circassian origin. As an historian, biographer, jurist, teacher and…
Abu Ishak Ibrahim ibn Hilal al-Sijilmasi; (died circa 1497-1498) was a Moroccan legal scholar well known for his verdicts (fatwas). He is the author of al-Durr al-nathīr alá Ajwibat Abī al-Hasan al-Saghīr, Hādhihi ajwibat al-Imām ibn Hilāl and…
Menahem ben Saruq; (also known as Menahem ben Jacob ibn Saruq, Hebrew: מנחם בן סרוק) was a Spanish-Jewish philologist of the tenth century CE. He was a skilled poet and polyglot. He was born in Tortosa around 920 and died around 970.…
Sadr al-Din Muhammad b. Ibrahim b. Yahya Qawami Shirazi; (ca. 1571–1636) is arguably the most significant Islamic philosopher after Avicenna. Best known as Mulla Sadra, he was later given the title of Sadr al-Muta’allihin (Master…
Ahmad Baba al-Massufi al-Timbukti; full name Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Ahmad al-Takruri Al-Massufi al-Timbukti (October 26, 1556 – April 22, 1627), was a Sanhaja Berber writer, scholar, and political provocateur in the area then known as the Western Sudan. Throughout…
Baba Hassan Muhmud was an Imam, a master of jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, the biography of the Prophet and logic. He also acted as teacher and ensured that his students knew and understood his teachings to…
Kaatib Musa was a jurist, judge and imam (leader of prayers) of Malinke origin who held the post of scholar during the early 15th century. The title kaatib indicates that he was perhaps a scribe in his younger…
Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. Muḥammad b. Yūnus Qūnawī; [alternatively, Qūnavī, Qūnyawī], (Persian: صدر الدین قونوی), (Turkish: Sadreddin Konevî), (1207-1274 CE/605-673 AH), was a Persian philosopher, and one of the most influential thinkers in mystical or Sufi philosophy. He…
Abu Hamid Ahmed ibn Mohammed al-Saghani al-Asturlabi; (meaning the astrolabe maker of Saghan, near Merv) was a Persian astronomer and historian of science. He flourished in Baghdad, where he died in 379-380 A.H/ 990 A.D. *Source
Sahl ibn Bishr al-Israili; (c. 786–c. 845), also known as Rabban al-Tabari and Haya al-Yahudi (“the Jew”), was a Syriac Christian astrologer, astronomer and mathematician from Tabaristan. He was the father of Ali ibn Sahl the famous scientist and physician, who became a convert to Islam. He served…
Sake Dean Mahomed; (Bengali: শেখ দেয়েন মুহাম্মদ 1759–1851) was an Indian traveller, surgeon and entrepreneur who was one of the most notable early non-European immigrants to the Western World. Due to his foreign origin, his name is…
Samuel ibn Naghrillah; (Hebrew: שמואל הלוי בן יוסף הנגיד, Sh’muel HaLevi ben Yosef HaNagid; Arabic: أبو إسحاق إسماعيل بن النغريلة ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq ʾIsmāʿīl bin an-Naghrīlah), also known as Samuel HaNagid (Hebrew: שמואל הנגיד, Shmuel HaNagid, lit. Samuel the Prince) (born 993; died after 1056), was…
Severus Sebokht; (Classical Syriac: ܣܘܪܘܣ ܣܝܒܘܟܬ), also Seboukt of Nisibis, was a Syrian scholar and bishop who was born in Nisibis, Syria in 575 and died in 667. Although little is known about his early life, he was one of the…
Abū l-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Abī l-Rijāl; (Arabic: أبو الحسن علي ابن أبي الرجال) (commonly known as Haly, Hali, Albohazen Haly filii Abenragel or Haly Abenragel, from ibn Rijal) was an Arab astrologer of the late 10th and early 11th century, best known for his Kitāb al-bāri’…
Abu Sahl ‘Isa ibn Yahya al-Masihi al-Jurjani; (Persian: ابو سهل عيسى بن يحيى مسيحی گرگانی) was a Persian physician, from Gorgan, east of the Caspian Sea, in Iran. He was the teacher of Avicenna. He wrote an encyclopedic treatise on medicine of one…
Abū Sahl Wayjan ibn Rustam al-Qūhī; (al-Kūhī; Persian: ابوسهل بیژن کوهی Abusahl Bijan-e Koohi) was a Persian mathematician, physicist and astronomer. He was from Kuh (or Quh), an area in Tabaristan, Amol, and flourished in Baghdad in the 10th century. He is considered one of the greatest…
Al-ʿAbbās ibn Saʿid al-Jawharī; (c. 800 Baghdad? – c. 860 Baghdad?) was a geometer who worked at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and for in a short time in Damascus where he made astronomical observations. He was probably of Iranian origin. His most important work was…
Abū al-Ḥasan Sarī (al-Sirrī) b. al-Mughallis al-Saqaṭī; (867CE) also known as Sirri Saqti (Arabic:سری سقطی) was one of the early Muslim Sufi saints of Baghdad. He was one of the most influential students of Maruf Karkhi and one of the first to present Sufism in…
Al-Shifaa bint Abdullah; (Arabic: الشفاء بنت عبد الله), whose given name was Layla, was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. She was the daughter of Abdullah ibn Abdshams and Fatima bint Wahb and a member of the Adi clan of the Quraysh in Mecca. She married…
Salah Al-Din ibn Yusuf Al-Kahhal bi-Hama (i.e. the eye doctor of Hama) was a Syrian oculist who flourished in Hama in 1296. He wrote for his son a very elaborate treatise of ophthalmology entitled Nur…
Abu al-Tayyib Sanad ibn Ali al-Yahudi; (died c. 864 C.E.), was an eighth-century Iraqi Jewish astronomer, translator, mathematician and engineer employed at the court of the Abbasid caliph Al-Ma’mun. A later convert to Islam, Sanad’s father was a learned Jewish astronomer who lived and worked in Baghdad. He is…
Sinan ibn Thabit ibn Qurra; (Arabic: سنان بن ثابت بن قرة; 880; † 943) was an Arab Sabian physician, astronomer and mathematician who later converted to Islam. He was the son of Thabit ibn Qurra and the father of Ibrahim ibn Sinan. He is also a scientist…
Sinān ibn al-Fatḥ; was a mathematician from Ḥarrān, who probably lived in the first half of the 10th century. Ibn an-Nadīm lists the following works of his: Kitāb at-Taḫt fi l-ḥisāb al-hindī (“Book of the Table on the Indian Calculation”)…
Umm Sinan Al-Islami (known also as Umm Imara), would go out with the warriors to nurse the injured and provide water to the thirsty.
Abd Al-Rahman ibn Faqi Mahmud; was appointed as Qadi (judge) in 1553 CE to the post of Imam (leader of prayer) and Dean of the University of Sankore, Timbuktu. Click here for more information.
Hasan al-Rammah; (died 1295) was an Arab chemist and engineer during the Mamluk Sultanate who studied gunpowders and explosives, and sketched prototype instruments of warfare, including the first torpedo. Al-Rammah called his early torpedo “an egg which moves itself and burns.” It was made of two sheet-pans…
Mohammed al-Rudani; (Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Sulayman (Muhammad) al-Fasi ibn Tahir al-Rudani al-Susī al-Maliki al-Maghribi ) (c. 1627 – 1683) was an astronomer born in Taroudannt, Morocco. Al-Rudani spent most of his life in Ottoman territories. He is especially well…
Rajaʾ ibn Ḥaywa ibn Khanzal al-Kindī; was a prominent Muslim theological and political adviser of the Umayyad caliphs Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), al-Walid I (r. 705–715), Sulayman (r. 715–717) and Umar II (r. 717–720). He was a staunch defender of the religious conduct of the caliphs against…
Rashidun al-Suri; (Arabic: Rashidudin as-Sury رشيد الدين الصوري, 1177–1241) was a leading physician and botanist in the Islamic world in the 13th century. He served the leading figures of the Ayyubid dynasty. Al-Suri was born and brought up in Tyre,…
Robert of Chester; (Latin: Robertus Castrensis) was an English Arabist of the 12th century. He translated several historically important books from Arabic to Latin, by authors such as Abu Musa Jabir Ibn Hayyan and Al-Khwarizmi including: Liber de compositione alchimiae, translated in 1144, the first…
Eutychius of Alexandria; (Arabic: Sa’id ibn Batriq or Bitriq; 10 September 877 – 12 May 940) was the Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria. He is known for being one of the first Christian Egyptian writers to use the Arabic language. His writings…
Abu Nasri Mansur ibn Ali ibn Iraq; (Persian: أبو نصر منصور بن علی بن عراق; c. 960 – 1036) was a Persian Muslim mathematician and astronomer. He is well known for his work with the spherical sine law. Abu Nasr Mansur…
Jordanus de Nemore; (fl. 13th century), also known as Jordanus Nemorarius and Giordano of Nemi, was a thirteenth-century European mathematician and scientist. The literal translation of Jordanus de Nemore (Giordano of Nemi) would indicate that he was an…
Nasreddin; or Nasreddin Hodja or Molla Nasreddin Hooja (/næsˈrɛdɪn/) was a Seljuq satirist, born in Hortu Village in Sivrihisar, Eskişehir Province, present-day Turkey and died in 13th century in Akşehir, near Konya, a capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, in today’s Turkey. He is considered a populist philosopher, Sufi and wise man, remembered…
Nazif ibn Yumn al-qass al-Rūmī al-Baghdādī; (died 990) was a Melkite Christian priest, philosopher and physician. He flourished under the Buyid emir Adud al-Dawla. He was also a translator of Greek into Arabic, translating the Tenth book of Euclid. (H. Suter: Mathematiker, 68, 1900). *Source
Nizam al-Din Hasan al-Nisaburi; (d. 1328/9) (in Persian: نظام الدین حسن نیشاپوری) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, jurist, exegete, and poet. His full name was Nizam al-Din Hasan ibn Mohammad ibn Hossein Qumi Nishapuri. As the genealogy…
Nusaybah bint Ka’ab; (Arabic: نسيبة بنت كعب; also ʾUmm ʿAmmarah) was one of the early women to convert to Islam. She was one of the companions of Muhammad. A member of the Banu Najjar tribe living in Medina, Nusaybah was the sister of Abdullah…
Al-Nuwayrī; full name Shihāb al-Dīn Ahmad bin ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Nuwayri (Arabic: شهاب الدين أحمد بن عبد الوهاب النويري, born April 5, 1279 in Akhmim, present-day Egypt – died June 5, 1333 in Cairo) was an Egyptian Muslim historian and civil servant of…
Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus al-Qunnāʾī; (Arabic: ﺍﺑﻮ ﺑﺸﺮ ﻣﺘﺎ ﺑﻦ ﻳﻮﻧﺲ ﺍﻟﻘﻨﺎﻱء; c. 870-20 June 940) was a Christian philosopher who played an important role in the transmission of the works of Aristotle to the Islamic world.…
Abu Muhammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaqub al-Hamdani; (279/280-333/334 A.H. / 893-945 A.D; Arabic: أبو محمد الحسن بن أحمد بن يعقوب الهمداني) was an Arab Muslim geographer, chemist, poet, grammarian, historian, and astronomer, from the tribe of Banu Hamdan, western ‘Amran, Yemen. He was one of the best representatives of…
Abu Muqri (or Miqra) Mohammed ibn Ali al-Battiwi; (fl. 1331) was a Moroccan astronomer who wrote a poem (urzaja) on the calendar, astronomy and the determination of the hours of prayer. It has been commented upon…
Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn Maṭar; (786–833 CE) was a mathematician and translator. Almost nothing is known about his life, except that he was active in Baghdad, then the capital of the ʿAbbāsid Empire. He was the first author who translated Euclid’s Elements from Greek into Arabic.…
Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Īsa Māhānī; (ابوعبدالله محمد بن عیسی ماهانی, flourished c. 860 and died c. 880) was a Persian mathematician and astronomer born in Mahan, (in today Kermān, Iran) and active in Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate. His known mathematical works included his…
Ibn Khalaf al-Murādī (Arabic: ابن خلف المرادي; 11th century) was an Andalusian engineer who possibly dwelled in Toledo and Cordova (Córdoba, Spain). He was the author of the technological manuscript entitled Kitāb al-asrār fī natā’ij al-afkār (The…
Ahmad ibn ‘Abdallah Habash Hasib Marwazi (766 – d. after 869 in Samarra, Iraq ) was a Persian astronomer, geographer, and mathematician from Merv in Khorasan who for the first time described the trigonometric ratios: sine, cosine, tangent and cotangent. He flourished in Baghdad, and died a centenarian after 869. He worked under the Abbasid…
Ḥamdallāh Mustawfī Qazvīnī; (1281–1349; Persian: حمدالله مستوفى قزوینی) was a Persian historian, geographer and epic poet who was descended from a family of Arab origin. Mustawfi is the author of Nuzhat Al Qulub (نزهه القلوب), Zafar-Nameh (ظفرنامه), and the Tarikh e Gozideh (تاريخ گزيده). His tomb is…
R. Hanoch ben Moses; (Hebrew: רבנו חנוך ב”ר משה) (d. 1014 CE or 1024 CE) was a Spanish rabbi. Almost all of the information we have about him comes from the Sefer ha-Qabbalah by R. Abraham ibn Daud. Along with his…
Ibn al-Banna, whose full name was Abu ‘l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Azdi, was born in 1256 in Marrakech. There is a claim that Ibn al-Banna was born in Grenada in Spain and moved…
Abu Abdallah Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Muhammad Ibn Ghazi al-‘Utmani al-Miknasi; (1437–1513) was a Moroccan scholar in the field of history, Islamic law, Arabic philology and mathematics. He was born in Meknes from banu uthman, a clan in the Berber kutama tribe, but spent his life in Fez. Ibn Ghazi wrote…
Ibn Miskawayh; (Persian: مُسْکُـوْيَه Muskūyah, 932–1030), full name Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Miskawayh was a Persian chancery official of the Buyid era, and philosopher and historian from Parandak, Iran. As a Neoplatonist, his influence on Islamic philosophy is primarily in the area of ethics. He was…
Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ali ibn Munim al-Abdari; (Arabic: أحمد بن ابراهيم بن علي بن منعم الأبداري; died 1228) was a mathematician, originally from Dénia in Andalusia. He lived and taught in Marrakesh where he was known as one of the…
Maslama al-Majriti; or Abu al-Qasim al-Qurtubi al-Majriti (full name: Abu ’l-Qāsim Maslama ibn Aḥmad al-Faraḍī al-Ḥāsib al-Maj̲rīṭī al-Qurṭubī al-Andalusī; Arabic: أبو القاسم مسلمة بن أحمد المجريطي, Latin: Methilem) (c. 950 in Madrid – 1007 in Córdoba) was an Arab Muslim astronomer, chemist, mathematician, economist and Scholar in Islamic Spain, active during the reign…
Rabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra; known as Ha-Sallaḥ (“writer of penitential prayers”) (Arabic: أبو هارون موسى بن يعقوب ابن عزرا, Abu Harun Musa bin Ya’acub ibn Ezra, Hebrew: משה בן יעקב הסלח אבן עזרא) was a Jewish, Spanish philosopher, linguist, and poet. He…
Muwaffaq al-Din Muhammad ‘Abd al-Latif ibn Yusuf al-Baghdadi, ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi or ‘Abdallatif al-Baghdadi; موفق الدين محمد عبد اللطيف بن يوسف البغدادي, or عبداللطيف البغدادي Abd al-Latif travelled extensively and spent a large part of…
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Khair ibn ‘Umar ibn Khalifa al-Ishbili is a Hispano- Muslim scholar, born in Seville in 1108-1109, studied in Seville and Cordova, and died in Cordova in 1179. He compiled a bibliography…
Towards the middle of the 8th/14th century, a scholar of Almeria, Abū Uthmān Sa’d b. Abū Ja’far Ahmad Ibn Luyūn al-Tujjbī (d. 750/1349) wrote his Kitāb Ibdā’ al-malāha wa-inhā’ al-rajāha fī usūl sinā’at al-filāha. The work of…
Abul-Hasan Kūshyār ibn Labbān ibn Bashahri Gilani; (971–1029), also known as Kūshyār Gīlānī (Persian: کوشیار گیلانی), was an Iranian mathematician, geographer, and astronomer from Gilan, south of the Caspian Sea, Iran. His main work was probably done about the beginning of the eleventh century, and seems…
Lubna of Córdoba; was an Andalusian intellectual and mathematician of the second half of the 10th century famous for her knowledge of grammar and the quality of her poetry. Originally a slave girl of Spanish origin, she later became…
Lagâri Hasan Çelebi; was an Ottoman aviator who, according to a sole account written by traveller Evliya Çelebi, made a successful manned rocket flight. Evliya Çelebi reported that in 1633, Lagari Hasan Çelebi launched in a 7-winged rocket using 50 okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder from Sarayburnu,…
Qusta ibn Luqa; (820–912) (Costa ben Luca, Constabulus) was a Syrian Melkite Christian physician, philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and translator. He was born in Baalbek. Travelling to parts of the Byzantine Empire, he brought back Greek texts and translated them into Arabic. Qusta ibn Luqa al-Ba’albakki, i. e.…
Abu al-Hakam al-Kirmani; (Arabic: أبو الحكم الكرماني; d. 1066 CE) was a prominent philosopher and scholar from the Muslim al-Andalus. A student of Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti, he was a Neoplatonic advocate, and seen as an influence on Ibn ‘Arabi, but…
Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī; (Arabic: أبو عبدالرحمن الخليل بن أحمد الفراهيدي; 718 – 786 CE), known as Al-Farāhīdī, or Al-Khalīl, he was a philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra, Iraq. He produced the first dictionary of…
Abū al-Fath Abd al-Rahman Mansūr al-Khāzini; or simply al-Khāzini (أبوالفتح عبدالرحمن منصور الخازنی (Persian), flourished 1115–1130) was an astronomer of Greek origin from Seljuk Persia. His astronomical tables written under the patronage of Sultan Sanjar (Zīj al-Sanjarī, 1115) is considered to be one of the major works in mathematical…
Dhayfa Khatun, the powerful wife of the Ayyubid ruler of Aleppo al-Zahir Ghazi, was the Queen of Aleppo for six years. She was born in Aleppo in 1186 CE. Her father was King al-Adel, the…
Lisan Al-Din Ibn Al-Khatib; (Arabic: لسان الدين ابن الخطيب) (Born 16 November 1313, Loja– died 1374, Fes; full name in Arabic: محمد بن عبد الله بن سعيد بن عبد الله بن سعيد بن علي بن أحمدالسّلماني Muhammad ibn Abd Allah…
Muslim Abu Ahmad al-Husayn b. Ishak Ibn Karnib, a mutakallim (a scholar of the study of Kalam or Islamic scholastic theology) interested in natural philosophy (Fihrist, 263). Click here for more information.
Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat; (920-990) (Hebrew: דוֹנָש הלוי בֵּן לָבְרָט; Arabic: دناش بن لبراط) was a medieval Jewish commentator, poet, and grammarian of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. Dunash was, according to Moses ibn Ezra, born in Fes, the name Dunash being of Berber origin.…
Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Hasan Khazini; (Persian: ابوجعفر خازن خراسانی; 900–971), also called Al-Khazin, was an Iranian Muslim astronomer and mathematician from Khorasan. He worked on both astronomy and number theory. Al-Khazin was one of the scientists brought to the court in Ray, Iran by the ruler of…
Abu’l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh; (Persian: ابوالقاسم عبیدالله ابن خرداذبه) (c. 820 – 912 CE), better known as Ibn Khordadbeh or Ibn Khurradadhbih, was the author of the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography. He was a Persian geographer and bureaucrat of…
Ghiyāth al-Dīn Jamshīd Masʿūd al-Kāshī (or al-Kāshānī); (Persian: غیاث الدین جمشید کاشانی Ghiyās-ud-dīn Jamshīd Kāshānī) (c. 1380 Kashan, Iran – 22 June 1429 Samarkand, Transoxania) was a Persian astronomer and mathematician. Much of al-Kāshī’s work was not brought to Europe, and much, even the extant work, remains unpublished…
Kamal Eddin Ibn al-Adim (1192-1262) is the historian of his native city, Aleppo, most especially through his enormous biographical work, not yet published in modern times: Bughyat al-Talab (The student’s desire), which is a collection…
Muṣṭafa ibn ‘Abd Allāh; (مصطفى بن عبد الله), generally known as Kâtip Çelebi (كاتب جلبي, “Gentleman Scribe”; variants: Kātib Çelebi; Katib Tchélébi; ‘Abdallāh Kātib Jelebi; Chalabi; Muṣṭafa Ben Hājī Khalīfah; Hâcci Halfa (Turkish: Hacı Halife) (حاجي خليفة), Haji Khalifa, Hajji Khalifeh, Hazi Halife, Hadschi Chalfa, Khalfa and Kalfa), (*1017 AH/1609 AD – d.…
Khalifa Ben Abi Al-Mahassin (13th century) of Aleppo, who is the author of a large work of 564 pages in which he describes and gives drawings of various surgical instruments including 36 instruments for eye…
Fakhr al-Din Ridwan ibn Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Rustam al-Khurasani al-Sa’ati; better known as Fakhr al-Din ibn al-Sa’ati (died c. 1230), was an Arab physician and writer known for his knowledge of “philosophical disciplines” (especially logic) and clockmaking. Born and raised in Damascus,…
Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Khafri al-Kashi; (died 1550), known as Khafri, was a Persian religious scholar and astronomer at the beginning of the Safavid dynasty, during a period of mass conversion to Shia Islam. He wrote on philosophy, religion,…
Abu al-Fadl J‘far ibn ‘Ali al-Dimashqi; is the author of Kitab al-Isharah ila Mahasin at-Tijarah wa Marifat Jayyid al-A’rad wa Kadiiha wa Ghush-ush al-Mudallisin fiha (A Guide to the Merits of Commerce and to Recognition…
‘Ali ibn Muhammad Aidamir al-Jildaki Al-Jildaki was one of the most prolific writers on alchemy, practically nothing is known of his life save that he flourished during the eigth century A.H., wrote at Cairo and…
Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti; (1753-1825) (Arabic: عبد الرحمن الجبرتي), full name: Abd al-Rahman bin Hasan bin Burhan al-Din al-Jabarti (Arabic: عبد الرحمن بن حسن بن برهان الدين الجبرتي), often simply known as Al-Jabarti, was an Egyptian scholar of Somali descent and chronicler who…
Jacob of Edessa; (or James of Edessa) (Syriac: ܝܥܩܘܒ ܐܘܪܗܝܐ, romanized: Ya’qub Urhoy) (c. 640 – 5 June 708) was one of the most distinguished of Syriac writers. Jacob of Edessa was born in Aindaba (Arabic: عيندابا) at 50 km west…
Mahmūd ibn Muḥammad ibn Umar al-Jaghmini; or ‘al-Chaghmīnī’, or al-Jaghmini, was a 14th-century Persian physician, astronomer and author of the Qanunshah (The Canon of Medicine) a short epitome of by Avicenna in Persian, and Mulakhkhas (Summary), a work on astronomy completed in 808 AH – 1405/6 AD.…
Judah Halevi; (also Yehuda Halevi or ha-Levi; Hebrew: יהודה הלוי and Judah ben Shmuel Halevi יהודה בן שמואל הלוי; Arabic: يهوذا اللاوي; c. 1075 – 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in the…
Abu Muhammad ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Hajjaj ibn al-Yasmin al-Adrini al-Ishbili; (died 1204) more commonly known as ibn al-Yasmin, was Berber mathematician. His place of birth is unknown, but he received his education in Sevilla, Spain. Little is…
ʿAbd al-Hamīd ibn Turk (fl. 830); known also as ʿAbd al-Hamīd ibn Wase ibn Turk Jili was a ninth-century Turkic Muslim mathematician. Not much is known about his biography. The two records of him, one…
Ibn Zur’a; (Abu ‘Ali ‘Isā ibn Ishāq ibn Zur’a, 943–1008) was a medieval physician and philosopher. He was born in Abbasid Baghdad to a Syriac Jacobite Christian family. He was a student of Yahya ibn Adi. He was accused…
Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Iṣfahānī; (Arabic: أبو الفرج الأصفهاني), also known as Abul-Faraj (897–967 CE) was an historian of Arab-Quraysh origin, who is noted for collecting and preserving ancient Arabic lyrics and poems in his major work, the Kitāb al-Aghānī. Abu al-Faraj…
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ashʿath; (Arabic: عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن الأشعث), commonly known as Ibn al-Ashʿath after his grandfather was son of the nephew of the first Rashidun Caliph Abu Bakr, Muhammad ibn al-Ashath. He was a…
Mariam al-Asturlabiyy; (Arabic: مريم الأسطرلابي or al-ʻIjliyyah bint al-ʻIjliyy al-Asturlabiyy (Arabic: العجلية بنت العجلي الأسطرلابي), was a 10th-century female astronomer and maker of astrolabes in Aleppo, in what is now northern Syria. She was the daughter of an astrolabist known as al-ʻIjliyy al-Asturlabī. According to ibn al-Nadim, she…
Al-Asmaʿi; (أبو سعيد عبد الملك ابن قريب الأصمعي, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Qurayb al-Aṣmaʿī ; c. 740-828/833 CE), or Asmai; an early philologist and one of three leading Arabic grammarians of the Basra school. Celebrated at the court of the Abbasid caliph, Hārūn al-Rashīd, as polymath and prolific…
Djamal Eddin Ibn Al-Qifti was a vizier around whom much scholarship thrived in Aleppo. He was born in Egypt, in the year 1172. At a young age, his father took him to Cairo to learn…
ʿAbd-Allāh ibn Abī Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī; (Arabic, عبد الله بن أبي اسحاق الحضرمي), (died AD 735 / AH 117) is considered the first grammarian of the Arabic language. He compiled a prescriptive grammar by referring to the usage of the Bedouins, whose language was seen…
Abū Muhammad ʿAbd Allāh Rūzbih ibn Dādūya; (Arabic: ابو محمد عبدالله روزبه ابن دادويه), born Rōzbih pūr-i Dādōē (Persian: روزبه پور دادویه), more commonly known as Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (Arabic: ابن المقفع), (died c. 756/759), was a Persian translator, author and thinker who wrote in the Arabic…
Abu Muhammad Abd al-Haqq al‐Ghafiqi al‐Ishbili; (Arabic: ابن الهائم), known as Ibn al‐Hāʾim (fl. c. 1213) was a medieval Muslim astronomer and mathematician from Seville in Al-Andalus. He began his studies as a mathematician and studied the works of Al-Jayyani and Jabir ibn Aflah. He was the author…
Ibn Uthal or Ibn Athal; (Arabic: ابن أثال) was an Arab Christian who served as the personal physician of the caliph Mu’awiya I and was regarded as the most distinguished of the medical practitioners of the early Umayyad period. His medical knowledge…
Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Babawayh al-Qummi; (Arabic: أبو جعفر محمد بن علي بن بابويه القمي; c. 923–991 ), commonly referred to as Ibn Babawayh or al-Shaykh al-Saduq (the truthful scholar) was a Persian Shi’ite Islamic scholar whose work, entitled Man la yahduruhu al-Faqih, forms part…
Ibn Butlan; (Arabic: ابن بطلان; 1038, 1075) was an Arab Nestorian Christian physician who was active in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age. He wrote the Taqwim al-Sihhah (The Maintenance of Health). The work treated matters of hygiene, dietetics, and exercise. It emphasized the benefits of…
Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Duraid al-Azdī al-Baṣrī ad-Dawsī; (أبو بكر محمد بن الحسن بن دريد بن عتاهية الأزدي البصري الدوسي), or Ibn Duraid (بن دريد) (933-837 CE), a leading grammarian of Baṣrah, was described as “the most accomplished…
Abū Marwān ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb ibn Sulaymān ibn Hārūn/Marwān ibn Julhuma ibn ʿAbbās ibn Mirdās al-Sulamī ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb was born in kūrat Ilbīra, a small village near Granada, where he may have…
Muhadhdhib al-Dīn Abūʼl-Hasan ʻAlī ibn Ahmad Ibn Hubal; (Arabic: مهذب الدين أبي الحس علي بن أحمد ابن هبل) known as Ibn Hubal (Arabic: ابن هبل) (c. 1122 – 1213) was an Arab physician and scientist born in Baghdad. He was known primarily for…
Al-Biruni was so far ahead of his time that his most brilliant discoveries seemed incomprehensible to most of the scholars of his days...
Although some contemporary historians may argue otherwise, in the past, particularly in places such as West Africa, Muslims and non-Muslims lived together in relative harmony and prosperity. The positive impact of the spread of Islam…
Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Tusi (born in 18 February 1201 in Tus, Khorasan – died on 26 June 1274 in Baghdad), better known as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, was a Muslim Persian scholar and prolific…
In this article, some aspects of Kitab Nūr hadaqat al-ibsār wa-nūr haqīqat al-anzār (Book of the Light of the Pupil of Vision and the Light of the Truth of the Sights) of the renowned Ottoman…
Several Arabic treatises dating from the 9th through the 13th century deal with environmental pollution. They cover subjects like air and water contamination, solid waste mishandling and environmental assessments of certain localities. The authors of…
This article surveys the development of historical methodology in the works of some influent Muslim historians, observing their trends and scrutinizing everything related to narration of incidents, political, social, and sectarian currents.
This article includes the Latinized names of Muslim scholars.
Yâqût al-Hamawî was a Syrian biographer and geographer known for his encyclopaedia writings of the Muslim world. His Mujam al-Buldan, a geographical dictionary that includes much biographical, historical, and cultural data, is a primary source…
Muslim contributions in the field of mathematics have been both varied and far reaching. This article by Mahbub Ghani (from the Department of Electronic Engineering at King's College, London University) considers some Muslim contributions in…
Aydin Sayili is one of the first eminent figures of the history of science in Islam to pursue an academic career in this discipline. He was fortunate to earn the first PhD from the history…
The ethics or philosophy of science has in more recent times become an increasingly important subject. This article discusses and compares modern day scientific ethics with the ethics or morality underpinning Islamic Science.
Seville was also a centre Medical expertise in Islamic civilisation. Continuing the Muslim scientific tradition of critical works that advance knowledge in Medicine, many books were written here by leaders of the field.
In Seville, scholars led the science of astronomy, criticising earlier works on the basis of new observations and poetry was used to help people memorise the principles of algebra.
Seville was a key centre of Islamic Civilisation in Spain. Here you can read about the architect of the famous Giralda tower of Seville's cathedral, which is originally the main tower of the mosque. Also…
Malaga was a great centre for agriculture and trade and was a part of Islamic Spain for nearly 800 years. Its scholars briefly looked at here included experts on trade and public regulations and arguably…
Toledo was the first major contact of Christian Europe with Islamic civilisation and it was the beginning of a transformation that would transform barbaric Europe into the leading civilisation in the world. In this short…
The scholarship within Cairo was one which flourished with great vibrancy. The schoalrs contributed to the fields of mathematics, science, astronomy, philosophy, medicine and numerous other areas which are notable and worthy of study.
Al-Razi was "a writer of rare and incredible productiveness as well as the greatest clinician of Islam." The great works of Al-Razi are of immense significance in the study of medicine.
Jerusalem prior to the crusades was a place filled with a thriving trade, scholars and magnificant architectural works. This is notably significant in any study of Muslims contribution to the advancement of Jerusalem.
Hama is famed for its huge water wheels and it produced great scholars in geography, mathematics, medicine and much more. Here we look at a few of them.
Scholars of Damascus specialised in numerous fields including medicine, economics and astronomy. Their vast knowledge, discoveries and developments in their fields contributed to the advancement of Damascus.
The works of three prominent scholars are highlighted: Al- Farabi who was keenly interested in the relation between logic and language, Al-Qifti's vast scholarship, ranging from lexicography to medicine and finally al-Adim's historical works are…
The article describes the works of the following scholars: Al Mahassin: an eminent writer in the field of eye surgery, Al Urdi: the first astronomer associated with Maragha, Al-Lubudi: a physician, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher…
A courageous scholar of Islamic law Izz al-Din wrote several important books. He played an key role in giving firm advice to divided Muslim rulers during a time when the Islamic world was under attack…
Samarkand contributed in particular to the progress of science in astronomy through its observatory. Some of its directors and their achievements are highlighted here.
Imam El-Shafie established the specialised branch of Islamic studies in Jurisprudence called Usool ul Fiqh, i.e. the methodology of Islamic law. His work founded one of the four main schools of Islamic law.
Imam Abu Haneefah developed a science of Islamic law through systematic study of textual evidence and methodic reasoning and his approach had a far reaching impact on the Islamic world and beyond.
The word ulema, which is widely used in the Islamic world, is used to refer to community based scholars. Ottoman ulema had been a basic element of the state and the society, presenting progressive visions…
Scholars from all Christian lands rushed to translate Muslim science, and thus start the scientific awakening of Europe. Many of course were Spaniards: John of Seville, Hugh of Santalla, and those working under the patronage…
Muslim scholars also realised that understanding the complexities of the universe, its order, harmony, perfection and functioning, brought people close to God and His message.
Discover the golden
age of Muslim civilisation.
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