Al-Samawal al-Maghribi
Samauʼal Al-Maghribī | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1130 |
| Died | c. 1180 |
| Academic background | |
| Influences | Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī |
| Academic work | |
| Era | Islamic Golden Age |
| Main interests | Mathematics, Medicine |
Al-Samawʾal ibn Yaḥyā al-Maghribī (Arabic: السموأل بن يحيى المغربي, c. 1130 – c. 1180), commonly known as Samawʾal al-Maghribi, was a mathematician, astronomer and physician.[1] Born to a Jewish family of Moroccan origin, he concealed his conversion to Islam for many years for fear of offending his father, then openly embraced Islam in 1163 after he had a dream telling him to do so.[2] His father was a rabbi from Morocco named Yehuda ibn Abūn.[3][4]
Mathematics
[edit | edit source]Al-Samaw'al wrote the mathematical treatise al-Bahir fi'l-jabr, meaning "The brilliant in algebra", at the age of nineteen.
He also used the two basic concepts of mathematical induction, though without stating them explicitly. He used this to extend results for the binomial theorem up to n=12 and Pascal's triangle previously given by al-Karaji.[5]
Polemics
[edit | edit source]
He also wrote a famous polemic book in Arabic debating Judaism known as Ifḥām al-Yahūd (Confutation of the Jews). A Latin tract translated from Arabic and later translated into many Western languages, titled Epistola Samuelis Marrocani ad R. Isaacum contra errores Judaeorum, claims to be authored by a certain R. Samuel of Fez "about the year 1072" and is erroneously connected with him.[6][7][8]
Notes
[edit | edit source]- ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
- ^ UIMATH: Islamic Mathematics (Algebra)
- ^ Medieval Cultures in Contact, By Richard Gyug, pg. 123
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Katz (1992), p. 242:
"Like the proofs of al-Karaji and ibn al-Haytham, al-Samaw'al's argument contains the two basic components of an inductive proof. He begins with a value for which the result is known, here n = 2, and then uses the result for a given integer to derive the result for the next. Since al-Samaw'al did not have any way of stating the general binomial theorem, however, he cannot be said to have proved it, by induction or otherwise. What he had done was provide a method acceptable to his readers for expanding binomials up to the twelfth power..."
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Samau'al al-Maghribi: Ifham Al-Yahud: Silencing the Jews by Moshe Perlmann, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 32, Samau'al Al-Maghribi Ifham Al-Yahud: Silencing the Jews (1964)
References
[edit | edit source]- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- Samau'al al-Maghribi: Ifham Al-Yahud: Silencing the Jews by Moshe Perlmann, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 32, Samau'al Al-Maghribi Ifham Al-Yahud: Silencing the Jews (1964)
- Samaw'al al-Maghribi: Ifham al-yahud, The early recension, by مغربي، السموءل بن يحي، d. ca. 1174. al-Samawʼal ibn Yaḥyá Maghribī; Ibrahim Marazka; Reza Pourjavady; Sabine Schmidtke Publisher: Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 2006. OCLC 63514265
- Perlmann, Moshe, "Eleventh-Century Andalusian Authors on the Jews of Granada" Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 18 (1948–49):269-90.
External links
[edit | edit source]- Al-Bahir en Algebre d'As-Samaw'al translation by Salah Ahmad, Roshdi Rashed, Author(s) of Review: David A. King, Isis, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Jun., 1976), pp. 307-308
- Al-Asturlabi and as-Samaw'al on Scientific Progress, Osiris, Vol. 9, 1950 (1950), by Franz Rosenthal, pp. 555–566
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (PDF version)
Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 153: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Astronomers of the medieval Islamic world
- Physicians of the medieval Islamic world
- Medieval Jewish astronomers
- 12th-century mathematicians
- Mathematicians of the medieval Islamic world
- Converts to Islam from Judaism
- People from Baghdad
- Medieval Iranian Jews
- 12th-century physicians
- Medieval Jewish physicians
- Jews from the Abbasid Caliphate
- 12th-century births
- 12th-century deaths
- 12th-century astronomers
- Iraqi people of Moroccan descent
- 12th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate
- 12th-century Jews from the Abbasid Caliphate