| From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 1005-1006 |
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Ṣāʿid al‐Andalusī: Abū al‐Qāsim Ṣāʿid ibn abī al‐Walīd Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al‐Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṣāʿid al‐Taghlibī al‐Qurṭubī
Lutz Richter‐Bernburg
Born Almería, (Spain),
1029
Died Toledo, (Spain),
July or August 1070
Ṣāʿid al‐Andalusī was a Muslim historian, historian of science
and thought, and mathematical scientist with an especial interest in astronomy.
Given the near‐total loss of his astronomical writings, his claim to
recognition in science largely rests on his encouragement and possibly patronage
– in his capacity as a well‐placed functionary at the Toledan court
– of a group of young, precision instrument makers and scientists, the most
renowned of whom was Azarquiel (i. e., Zarqālī).
The precise extent of his involvement in the compilation of the Toledan
Tables – widely disseminated in Latin Europe during subsequent centuries
– remains uncertain, owing to the Tables' deficient manuscript tradition
and to the fragmentariness of biobibliographic data.
Following
in the footsteps of his paternal family, Ṣāʿid
pursued the career of a legal official, having received a solid education
in the Islamic religious disciplines; in 1068, the Dhannūnid Berber amīr
of Toledo, al‐Maʾmūn Yaḥyā
(reigned: 1043–1075), appointed Ṣāʿid
chief religious judge (qāḍī)
of Toledo, an office his father had held earlier and that he himself was to
fill until his death. His civil life thus did not stand out from among many
of his contemporaries of similar background. What set him apart was his interest
in history, history of science, and science itself, especially astronomy;
here it may be recalled that in the present context “science” refers to what
in premodern Islam often was termed “the ancient disciplines,” viz.
the syllabus of Aristotelian philosophy, logic, medicine, the mathematical
sciences (including astronomy), and the occult disciplines, i. e.,
alchemy, astrology, and magic.
The only
work of Ṣāʿid's to
survive intact is what has often been called his “history of science”: Al‐taʿrīf
bi‐ṭabaqāt al‐umam
(Exposition of the generations of nations) of 1068. The “nations” here intended
are those said to have had a disposition toward the cultivation of learning,
such as, Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks, al‐Rūm
(“Byzantines” and other Christians), Arabs, and Jews (in contrast to the others
not so disposed, i. e., Chinese, Turks, and Berbers). Of his other
three nonextant works, he cites two there: Jawāmiʿ akhbār
al‐umam min al‐ʿArab wa‐ʾl‐ʿAjam (Compendious history
of nations – Arab and non‐Arab) and Maqālāt ahl al‐milal
wa‐ʾl‐niḥal
(Doctrines of the adherents of sects and schools). These appear to have treated
historical subjects, whereas the third one, Iṣlāḥ ḥarakāt al‐kawākib
wa‐ʾl‐taʿrīf bi‐khaṭaʾ
al‐rāṣidīn (Rectification of planetary
motions and exposition of observers' errors) adumbrated the astronomical activity
of the remaining 2 years of his life, after completion of Generations.
In Generations, Ṣāʿid's
view of history and of the progress of scholarship and science from their
earliest appearance among (or revelation to?) humankind up to his own country
of al‐Andalus (Muslim Iberia) and generation has drawn considerable
scholarly attention during the last decade‐and‐a‐half, without
the issue of his actual beliefs having been convincingly settled. In particular,
Ṣāʿid's
seeming “pessimism” concerning the cultivation of learning and science among
his fellow countrymen has called for comment, given the fact that by that
time he and Azarquiel must have been engaged in observations for a number
of years and the apparent quickening of astronomical activities in his very
hometown of Toledo immediately after the completion of Generations,
for which the name Azarquiel has taken on nearly emblematic status.
As indicated
earlier, extant sources provide but disappointingly fragmentary testimony
on astronomical activity in Toledo between 1068, the date of Ṣāʿid's Generations,
and Azarquiel's less than voluntary move to Cordova circa 1080 because
of unsettled conditions under al‐Maʾmūn's dissolute grandson
Yaḥyā al‐Qādir.
Thus Ṣāʿid's
personal contribution to the observations and research as represented by sections
of the Toledan Tables cannot be determined exactly except in the cases
of planetary motions (including the length of the solar year) and the theory
of trepidation; one may not stray far from reality in assuming that the title
of his treatise Rectification of Planetary Motions and Exposition of Observers'
Errors suggests the focus of his astronomical interests and of his contribution
to the Toledan Tables. Relative ignorance of current relevant scholarship
in the Islamic East was a shared Andalusī feature in Ṣāʿid's lifetime,
as evidenced not merely in Generations but as demonstrated far more
graphically by the Toledan Tables themselves.
Selected References
Llavero Ruiz, Eloísa (1987). “Panorama cultural de Al'Andalus
según Abū l‐Qāsim Ṣāʿid b.
Aḥmad, cadí de Toledo.” Boletín de la Asociación Española de Orientalistas
23: 79–100.
———
(trans.) (2000). Historia de la filosofía y de las ciencias o libro de
las categorías de las naciones (Kitāb tabaqāt al‐umam).
Madrid:
Trotta.
Martinez‐Gros,
Gabriel (1985). “La clôture du temps chez le cadi Ṣāʿid, une conception implicite de l'histoire.” Revue de l'Occident
musulman et de la Méditerranée 40: 147–153.
——— (1995). “Ṣāʿid
al‐Andalusī.”In Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Vol. 8,
pp. 867–868. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Pedersen, Fritz Saaby
(2002). The Toledan Tables: A Review of the Manuscripts and the Textual
Versions. Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab.
Richter‐Bernburg,
Lutz (1987). “Ṣāʿid,
the Toledan Tables, and Andalusī Science.” In From Deferent
to Equant: A Volume of Studies in the History of Science in the Ancient and
Medieval Near East in Honor of E. S. Kennedy, edited by David A. King
and George Saliba, pp. 373–401. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
Vol. 500. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Ṣāʿid
al‐Andalusī (1912). Kitāb Tabaqāt al‐umam,
edited by P. Louis Cheikho. Beirut:
Imprimerie Catholique. French translation with notes by Régis Blachère as
Livre des catégories des nations. Paris: Larose, 1935.
——— (1985). Kitāb
Ṭabaqāt
al‐umam,
edited by Ḥayāt
Bū ʿAlwān.
Beirut.
Salem, Semaʿan I. and Alok
Kumar (trans. and eds.) (1991). Science in the Medieval World: “Book of
the Categories of Nations,” by Ṣāʿid
al‐Andalusī. Austin: University of Texas Press. Pb. ed. 1996. (English
translation, to be used with caution.)
Samsó,
Julio (1992). Las ciencias de los antiguos en al‐Andalus. Madrid:
Mapfre, pp. 148–150.
——— (1994). Islamic Astronomy and Medieval Spain. Aldershot:
Variorum.