| From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 474-475 |
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Hārūn al‐Rashīd
Sonja Brentjes
Born Rayy, (Iran),
February 766 or March 763
Died Ṭūs, (Iran), 24 March 809
Hārūn
al‐Rashīd, who reigned from 786 to 809, was the third son of Caliph
al‐Mahdī (died: 785) and the second son of a Yemeni slave girl
called Khayzurān, freed and married by his father in 775/776. His education
lay in the hands of the Barmakid Yaḥyā
ibn Khālid (died: 805, Baghdad; killed on the caliph's order). In 782,
Harun was appointed governor of the northern African, Egyptian, Syrian, Armenian,
and Azerbaijanian territories of the ʿAbbāsid Empire,
and declared second in succession. The powers behind this move were his mother
and Yaḥyā ibn
Khālid, who became the head of administration in these territories. In
786, in his early 20s, Hārūn became caliph after both his father
and his brother died under suspicious circumstances. He chose as his Supreme
Vizier Yaḥyā ibn
Khālid who, together with his two sons Faḍl and Jaʿfar, ruled the empire for 17 years. Hārūn
subsequently replaced them with groups entirely loyal to himself, mostly eunuchs
and clients. Hārūn's reign was characterized by many serious uprisings
against the caliphal power, although in A Thousand and One Nights it
is portrayed as a period of glamour and splendor.
With regard to the arts and sciences, Hārūn continued the
policies of his predecessors, although according to Arabic sources such as
Ibn al‐Nadīm's Fihrist these policies seem rather to have
been instigated by his Barmakid vizier. During Hārūn's reign, a
library was founded at the court with a director and several collaborators.
Its scope and profile have been the subject of considerable debate in the
literature. It apparently was closely related to the process of translating
ancient texts into Arabic. D. Gutas has pointed out that the available evidence
for this relationship privileges translations of Persian texts. He emphasizes
that Ibn al‐Nadīm's report about a translation of the Almagest
linked to this library is the only explicit reference to a possible contribution
of the library to translations of Greek texts. Ibn al‐Nadīm claims
that the director of the library, a certain Salm, and a second person known
only as Abū Ḥassān, were called to court
by the vizier in order to explain Ptolemy's
book. This event caused Salm and Abū Ḥassān to employ the best‐known
translators to translate Ptolemy's Almagest, check their translation,
and make sure of its good literary style and accuracy (Ibn al‐Nadīm,
2: 639). Unfortunately, we today know next to nothing about these translators
or this translation; in any event this translation was most likely superseded
by several others in the 9th century that may well have depended on it to
some degree.
Selected References
Gutas, Dimitri (1998). Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco‐Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early
ʿAbbāsid Society
(2nd–4th/8th–10th centuries). London: Routledge.
Ibn
al‐Nadīm (1970). The
Fihrist of al‐Nadīm:
A Tenth‐Century Survey of Muslim Culture,
edited and translated by Bayard Dodge. 2 Vols. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Omar, F.
(1971). “Hārūn al‐Rashīd.” In Encyclopaedia
of Islam. 2nd ed. Vol. 3, pp. 232–234. Leiden:
E. J. Brill.