Al-Samaw-al Polynomial. Illustration of the al-Bahir fi'l-Jabr "The Brilliant in Algebra" from the 12th century.

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. 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. His father was a rabbi from Morocco named Yehuda ibn Abūn.

Mathematics

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.

Polemics

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.

Notes

  • Anbouba, Adel (1970). . Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
  • O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., , MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  • 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
  • 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

  • Al-Asturlabi and as-Samaw'al on Scientific Progress, Osiris, Vol. 9, 1950 (1950), by Franz Rosenthal, pp. 555–566
  • Naderi, Negar (2007). . In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. p. 1009. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. ()