Abu Hanifa Dinawari

Abū Ḥanīfa Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd Dīnawarī (Template:Langx; died 895) was an Islamic Golden Age polymath: astronomer, agriculturist, botanist, metallurgist, geographer, mathematician, and historian.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Life

Of Persian stock,Template:Efn Dinawari was born in the (now ruined) town of Dinawar in modern-day western Iran. It had some importance due to its geographical location, serving as the entrance to the region of Jibal as well as a crossroad between the culture of Iran and that of the inhabitants on the other side of the Zagros Mountains. The birth date of Dinawari is uncertain; it is likely that he was born during the first or second decade of the 9th century.Template:Sfn He was instructed in the two main traditions of the Abbasid-era grammarians of al-Baṣrah and of al-Kūfah. His principal teachers were Ibn al-Sikkīt and his own father.Template:Refn He studied grammar, philology, geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy and was known to be a reliable traditionalist.<ref name="Al-F">Template:Cite book</ref> His most renowned contribution is the Book of Plants, for which he is considered the founder of Arabic botany.<ref name="Fahd-815" />

Dinawari's Kitāb al-akhbār al-ṭiwāl (General History), written from a Persian point of view,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> is possibly the earliest apparent effort to combine Iranian and Islamic history.Template:Sfn While historians such as al-Tabari and Bal'ami devoted the introduction of their work to long discourses on the duration of the world, Dinawari attempted to establish the importance of Iranshahr ("land of Iran") as the centre of the world.Template:Sfn In his work, Dinawari notably devoted much less space to the Islamic prophet Muhammad compared to that of Iran. Regardless, Dinawari was a devoted Muslim, as indicated by his commentary on the Qur'an. He concluded the history with the suppression of Babak Khorramdin's rebellion in 837, and the subsequent execution of the Iranian general Khaydhar ibn Kawus al-Afshin.Template:Sfn

Besides having access to early Arabic sources, Dinawari also made use of Persian sources, including pre-Islamic epic romances. Fully acquainted with the Persian language, Dinawari occasionally inserted phrases from the language into his work.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Dinawari's spiritual successor was Hamza al-Isfahani (died after 961).Template:Sfn

Works

The tenth century biographical encyclopaedia, al-Fihrist written by Al-Nadim, lists sixteen book titles by Dinawari:<ref name="Al-F" />

Mathematics and natural sciences

1. Kitâb al-kusuf ("Book of Solar Eclipses")Template:Refn
2. Kitāb an-nabāt yufadiluh al-‘ulamā' fī ta’līfih (Template:Lang), ‘Plants, valued by scholars for its composition'
3. Kitāb Al-Anwā (Template:Lang) 'Tempest' (weather)
4. Kitāb Al-qiblah wa'z-zawālTemplate:Refn (Template:Lang) "Book of Astral Orientations"
5. Kitāb ḥisāb ad-dūr (Template:Lang), "Arithmetic/Calculation of Cycles"
6. Kitāb ar-rud ‘alā raṣd al-Iṣbhānī (Template:Lang) Refutation of Lughdah al-IṣbhānīTemplate:Refn
7. Kitāb al-baḥth fī ḥusā al-Hind (Template:Lang), "Analysis of Indian Arithmetic"
8. Kitāb al-jam’ wa'l-tafrīq (Template:Lang); "Book of Arithmetic/Summation and Differentiation"
9. Kitāb al-jabr wa-l-muqabila (Template:Lang), "Algebra and Equation"
10. Kitāb nuwādr al-jabr (Template:Lang), "Rare Forms of Algebra"

Social sciences and humanities

1. Ansâb al-Akrâd ("Ancestry of the Kurds").Template:Refn
2. Kitāb Kabīr (Template:Lang) "Great Book" [in history of sciences]
3. Kitāb al-faṣāha (Template:Lang), "Book of Rhetoric"
4. Kitāb al-buldān (Template:Lang), "Book of Cities (Regions) (Geography)"
5. Kitāb ash-sh’ir wa-shu’arā’ (Template:Lang), "Poetry and the Poets"
6. Kitāb al-Waṣāyā (Template:Lang), Commandments (wills);
7. Kitāb ma yulahan fīh al’āmma (Template:Lang), How the Populace Errs in Speaking;
8. Islâh al-mantiq ("Improvement of Speech")Template:Refn
9. Kitāb al-akhbār al-ṭiwāl (Template:Lang), "General History"Template:RefnTemplate:Sfn

Editions & translations

Dinawari's General History (Al-Akhbar al-Tiwal) has been edited and published numerous times (Vladimir Guirgass, 1888; Muhammad Sa'id Rafi'i, 1911; Ignace Krachkovsky, 1912;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 'Abd al-Munim 'Amir & Jamal al-din Shayyal, 1960; Isam Muhammad al-Hajj 'Ali, 2001), but has not been translated in its entirety into a European language. Jackson Bonner has recently prepared an English translation of the pre-Islamic passages of al-Akhbar al-Tiwal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Book of Plants

Al-Dinawari is considered the founder of Arabic botany for his Kitab al-Nabat (Book of Plants), which consisted of six volumes. Only the third and fifth volumes have survived, though the sixth volume has partly been reconstructed based on citations from later works. In the surviving portions of his works, 637 plants are described from the letters sin to ya. He describes the phases of plant growth and the production of flowers and fruit.<ref name=Fahd-815>Template:Citation, in Template:Citation</ref>

The first part of the Book of Plants describes astronomical and meteorological concepts as they relate to plants, including the planets and constellations, the sun and moon, the lunar phases indicating seasons and rain, anwa, and atmospheric phenomena such as winds, thunder, lightning, snow, and floods. The book also describes different types of ground, indicating which types are more convenient for plants and the qualities and properties of good ground.<ref name=Fahd-815/>

Al-Dinawari quoted from other early Muslim botanical works that are now lost, such as those of al-Shaybani, Ibn al-Arabi, al-Bahili, and Ibn as-Sikkit.

See also

• List of Persian scientists and scholars
• Muslim Agricultural Revolution

Bibliography

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Encyclopaedia Islamica

External links

• Dinawari at Encyclopædia Britannica
• The Book of plants of Abu Hanifa ad-Dinawari
• Template:Usurped