Eminent Persian Scientists

Eminent Persian Scientists

Ibn e Sina

Abu Ali al Huseyn Ibn Sina (980-1037 AD) commonly known in the West as Avicenna, was a polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic Golden Age and the father of early modern medicine.

Of the 450 works he is believed to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine.

Philosophical thoughts:

1. Avicenna made an argument for the existence of God which is known as “Proof of the Truthful” (Arabic: Burhan al-Siddiqin). Avicenna argued that there must be a “necessary existent” (Arabic: Wajib al-wujud), an entity that cannot not exist and through a series of arguments, he identified it with the Islamic conception of God. Present-day historian of philosophy Peter Adamson called this argument one of the most influential medieval arguments for God’s existence, and Avicenna’s biggest contribution to the history of philosophy.

2. Avicenna believed his “Floating Man” thought experiment demonstrated that the soul is a substance, and claimed humans cannot doubt their own consciousness, even in a situation that prevents all sensory data input.

3. Avicenna endorsed the law of non-contradiction proposed by Aristotle, that a fact could not be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense of the terminology used. He stated, “Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.”

Scientific achievements:

1. He developed a theory of motion, in which he made a distinction between the inclination (tendency to motion) and force of a projectile, and concluded that motion was a result of an inclination transferred to the projectile by the thrower, and that projectile motion in a vacuum would not cease. He viewed inclination as a permanent force whose effect is dissipated by external forces such as air resistance.

2. In optics, Avicenna was among those who argued that light had a speed, observing that “if the perception of light is due to the emission of some sort of particles by a luminous source, the speed of light must be finite.”

3. He believed that each planet had some influence on the earth, but argued against astrologers being able to determine the exact effects. One important feature of his writing is that he considers mathematical astronomy as a separate discipline to astrology.

4. He criticized Aristotle’s view of the stars receiving their light from the Sun, stating that the stars are self-luminous, but erroneously also believed that the planets are also self-luminous.

5. Ibn Sina was the first person to derive the attar of flowers from distillation and used steam distillation to produce essential oils such as rose essence, which he used as aromatherapeutic treatments for heart conditions.

Books:

Al-Qanun fi’t-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine):

It is a five-volume medical encyclopedia. It was used as the standard medical textbook in the Islamic world and Europe up to the 18th century.

Kitab al-shifa (The Book of Healing):

In the Al-Burhan (On Demonstration) section Ibn e Sina discussed the philosophy of science and described an early scientific method of inquiry. He discussed Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and significantly diverged from it on several points. In its place, he developed a “method of experimentation as a means for scientific inquiry.

He also wrote on Earth sciences such as geology in this book. While discussing the formation of mountains, he explained:

“Either they are the effects of upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as might occur during a violent earthquake, or they are the effect of water, which, cutting itself a new route, has denuded the valleys, the strata being of different kinds, some soft, some hard … It would require a long period of time for all such changes to be accomplished, during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat diminished in size.”

Kitab al-najat (The Book of Deliverance):

In this book, Ibn e Sina developed what is called the Flying Man argument in the Psychology.

Salient facts of life:

Ibn e Sina was born in in the village of Afshana to Persian parents. The village was near Bukhara, which was his mother’s hometown. His father Abd Allah was a native of the city of Balkh. A few years later, the family settled in Bukhara, a center of learning, which attracted many scholars. It was there that Avicenna was educated, which early on was seemingly administered by his father.

Avicenna was first schooled in the Quran and literature, and by the age of 10, he had memorized the entire Quran. By the time Avicenna was eighteen, he was well-educated in Greek sciences.

At the age of seventeen, Avicenna was made a physician of Nuh II. By the time Avicenna was at least 21 years old, his father died. He was subsequently given an administrative post, possibly succeeding his father as the governor of Harmaytan. Avicenna later moved to Gurganj, the capital of Khwarazm, which he reports that he did due to “necessity”.

His Book of Healing became available in Europe in partial Latin translation some fifty years after its composition, under the title Sufficientia.

Legacy:

1. Ibn e Sina has been recognized by both East and West as one of the great figures in intellectual history. George Sarton, the author of The History of Science, described him as “one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history” and called him “the most famous scientist of Islam and one of the most famous of all races, places, and times”. He was one of the Islamic world’s leading writers in the field of medicine.

3. His influence following translation of Al-Qanun fi’t-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine) was such that from the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries he was ranked with Hippocrates and Galen as one of the acknowledged authorities, princeps medicorum (“prince of physicians”).
4. Institutions in a variety of counties have been named after Avicenna in honour of his scientific accomplishments, including the Avicenna Mausoleum and Museum, Bu-Ali Sina University, Avicenna Research Institute and Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences. There is also a crater on the Moon named Avicenna.

4. The Avicenna Prize, established in 2003, is awarded every two years by UNESCO and rewards individuals and groups for their achievements in the field of ethics in science.

5. The Avicenna Directories (2008–15; now the World Directory of Medical Schools) list universities and schools where doctors, public health practitioners, pharmacists and others, are educated. The original project team stated: “Why Avicenna? Avicenna … was … noted for his synthesis of knowledge from both east and west. He has had a lasting influence on the development of medicine and health sciences. The use of Avicenna’s name symbolises the worldwide partnership that is needed for the promotion of health services of high quality.”

6. In June 2009, Iran donated a “Persian Scholars Pavilion” to the United Nations Office in Vienna. It included statues of Ibn Sina, Al Biruni, Al Razi and Omar Khayam. It is placed in the Vienna International Center.

7. The 1982 Soviet film Youth of Genius by Elyor Ishmukhamedov recounts Avicenna’s younger years. The film is set in Bukhara at the turn of the millennium.

8. In Louis L’Amour’s 1985 historical novel The Walking Drum, Kerbouchard studies and discusses Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine.

9. In his book The Physician (1988) Noah Gordon tells the story of a young English medical apprentice who disguises himself as a Jew to travel from England to Persia and learn from Avicenna, the great master of his time. The novel was adapted into a feature film, The Physician, in 2013. Avicenna was played by Ben Kingsley.

 

Al Biruni

Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the “founder of Indology”, “Father of Comparative Religion”,”Father of modern geodesy”, and the first anthropologist.

Scientific achievements:

1. Al-Biruni devised a novel method of determining the Earth’s radius by means of the observation of the height of a mountain. He carried his experiments at Nandana in Pind Dadan Khan (Pakistan). He used trigonometry to calculate the radius of the Earth using measurements of the height of a hill and measurement of the dip in the horizon from the top of that hill. His calculated radius for the Earth of 3928.77 miles, which is only 2% higher than the actual mean radius of 3847.80 miles.

2. He theorized the existence of a landmass along the vast ocean between Asia and Europe, or what is today known as the Americas. He argued for its existence on the basis of his accurate estimations of the Earth’s circumference and Afro-Eurasia’s size.

3. Al-Biruni classified gems by what he considered their primary physical properties, such as specific gravity and hardness, rather than the common practice of the time of classifying them by color.

4. He developed experimental methods to determine density, using a particular type of hydrostatic balance.
5. Biruni observed that, contrary to Ptolemy, the Sun’s apogee (highest point in the heavens) was mobile, not fixed.

6. In 1749 AD, Biruni’s eclipse data was used by Dunthorne to help determine the acceleration of the moon, and his data on equinox times and eclipses was used as part of a study of Earth’s past rotation.

7. By simple experimentation, he argued that the vacuum state must exist in the Universe.

8. He was the first person to make the distinction between astronomy and astrology.

Salient facts of life:

Al-Biruni spent the first twenty-five years of his life in Khwarezm. He left his homeland for Bukhara. There he corresponded with Ibn e Sina on different scientific issues.

In 1017, Mahmud Ghaznvi conquered Rey. Most scholars, including al-Biruni, were taken to Ghazni, the capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty. Biruni was made court astrologer and accompanied Mahmud on his invasions into India, living there for a few years. He was 44 when he went on the journeys with Mahmud of Ghazni.

Books and articles:

1. Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind (A Critical Study of What India Says, Whether Accepted by Reason or Refused), popuarly called Kitāb al-Hind (The Book on India). Written in Arabic; English translations are named Indica or Alberuni’s India. The work is a study of India’s religion and philosophy.

2. Kitab al-tafhim li-awa’il sina‘at al-tanjim (Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology) written in Persian.

3. Al aasar ul baqiyat a nal qaroon ul khaliyat (The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries): A comparative study of calendars of cultures and civilizations, (including several chapters on Christian cults), which contains mathematical, astronomical, and historical information.

4. Qanoon e Masudi (The Mas’udi Law): an encyclopaedia of astronomy, geography, and engineering, dedicated to Mas’ud, son of the Ghaznavid sultan Mahmud of Ghazni.

5. Al Tafhim ul sanaat ul tajneem (Understanding Astrology): A question and answer style book about mathematics and astronomy, in Arabic and Persian.

6. Al Jamahar fi marfat ul Jawahir(الجماهر في معرفة الجواهر), a geology manual about minerals and gems. Dedicated to Mawdud, son of Mas’ud.[citation needed]

Legacy: 

1. Following Al-Biruni’s death, his work was neither built upon or referenced by scholars. Centuries later, his writings about India, which had become of interest to the British Raj, were revisited.

2. The lunar crater Al-Biruni and the asteroid 9936 Al-Biruni are named in his honour. Biruni Island in Antarctica is named after al-Biruni. In Iran, surveying engineers are celebrated on al-Biruni’s birthday.

3. In June 2009, Iran donated a pavilion to the United Nations Office in Vienna—placed in the central Memorial Plaza of the Vienna International Center. Named the Scholars Pavilion, it features the statues of four prominent Iranian scholars:Ibn Sina, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Zakariya Razi (Rhazes) and Omar Khayyam.

 

 

Al-Razi

Abu Bakr al-Razi (865–925 or 935 AD) was born in Iranian city of Ray. In Latin he is called Rhazes. He was a physician, philosopher and alchemist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of medicine. He  also wrote on logic, religion, astronomy and grammar.

Scientific achievements:

1. Al-Razi was one of the world’s first great medical experts. He is considered the father of psychology and psychotherapy.

2. Al-Razi’s “The Diseases of Children” was the first book to deal with pediatrics as an independent field of medicine.

3. He was the first person to clinically distinguish between smallpox and measles, and suggest sound treatment for the former.

4. He also described methods to make a distinction between curable and incurable diseases.

5. He criticized Galen’s theory that the body possessed four separate “humors” (liquid substances), whose balance are the key to health and a natural body-temperature, and proved it wrong.

6. He also challenged Aristotle’s theory of the four elements (fire, water, earth, and air) and suggested other qualities of matter, such as “oiliness” and “sulphurousness”, or inflammability and salinity.

Salient facts of life:

Al-Razi was born in the city of Ray and was a native speaker of Persian language. Ray was situated on the Great Silk Road.

In his youth, al-Razi moved to Baghdad where he studied and practiced at the local hospital. Later, he was invited back to Rey by Mansur ibn Ishaq, then the governor of Ray, and was appointed as Head of a hospital. When he became famous as a physician, al-Razi was invited to Baghdad and commissioned to build the largest hospital of the Abbasid Caliphate. To pick the future hospital’s location, al-Razi adopted what is nowadays known as an evidence-based approach suggesting having fresh meat hung in various places throughout the city and to build the hospital where meat took longest to rot.

He spent the last years of his life in his native Rey suffering from glaucoma which gradually progressed to total blindness. After his death, his fame spread beyond the Middle East to Medieval Europe, and lived on. In an undated catalog of the library at Peterborough Abbey, most likely from the 14th century, al-Razi is listed as a part author of ten books on medicine.

Books and articles:

Al-Kitab al Hawi

This 23-volume set medical textbooks contains the foundation of gynaecology, obstetrics and ophthalmic surgery. This monumental medical encyclopedia in nine volumes—known in Europe also as The Large Comprehensive or Continens Liber contains considerations and criticism on the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato, and expresses innovative views on many subjects. Because of this book alone, many scholars consider al-Razi the greatest medical doctor of the Middle Ages.

The al-Hawi is not a formal medical encyclopedia, but a posthumous compilation of al-Razi’s working notebooks, which included knowledge gathered from other books as well as original observations on diseases and therapies, based on his own clinical experience. It is significant since it contains a celebrated monograph on smallpox, the earliest one known. It was translated into Latin in 1279, after which it had a considerable influence in Europe.

For One Who Has No Physician to Attend Him

Al-Razi was possibly the first Persian doctor to deliberately write a home medical manual (remedial) directed at the general public. He dedicated it to the poor, the traveller, and the ordinary citizen who could consult it for treatment of common ailments when a doctor was not available.

Al-Razi described in its 36 chapters, diets and drug components that can be found in a market place, in well-equipped kitchens, or and in military camps. Thus, every intelligent person could follow its instructions and prepare the proper recipes with good results.

Book for al-Mansur

Al-Razi dedicated this work to his patron Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Manṣūr, the Samanid governor of Ray. A Latin translation of it was edited in the 16th century by the Dutch anatomist and physician Andreas Vesalius. Its focus was the comments and criticism of Galen’s theories.

The Diseases of Children

Al-Razi’s “The Diseases of Children” was the first book to deal with pediatrics as an independent field of medicine.

The Secret (Al-Asrar)

This book was written in response to a request from al-Razi’s close friend, colleague, and former student, Abu Muhammad ibn Yunis al-Bukhari, a Muslim mathematician, philosopher, and natural scientist.

Secret of Secrets (Sirr al-Asrar)

This is al-Razi’s most famous book. Here he gives systematic attention to basic chemical operations important to the history of pharmacy.

Legacy:

1. The modern-day Razi Institute in Karaj and Razi University in Kermanshah were named after him. A “Razi Day” (“Pharmacy Day”) is commemorated in Iran every 27 August.

2. In June 2009, Iran donated a “Scholars Pavilion” or Chartagi to the United Nations Office in Vienna, now placed in the central Memorial Plaza of the Vienna International Center. The pavilion features the statues of Al-Razi, Ibn Sina, Abu Rayhan Biruni, and Omar Khayyam.

 

Omar Khayyam

 

Abu’l Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyam (18 May 1048 AD – 4 December 1131 AD), commonly known as Omar Khayyam  is more famous as a poet but his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy are significant. His poetry (rubayiyat) was translated by Edward FitzGerald (1859). This translation made him a poet of global status.

Scientific achievements:

1. As a mathematician, Khayyam is most notable for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations, where he provided geometric solutions by the intersection of conics. Khayyam seems to have been the first to conceive a general theory of cubic equations and the first to geometrically solve every type of cubic equation, so far as positive roots are concerned.

2. He was also the first to consider the three distinct cases of acute, obtuse, and right angle for the summit angles of a Khayyam-Saccheri quadrilateral. His elaborate attempt to prove the parallel postulate was significant for the further development of geometry, as it clearly shows the possibility of non-Euclidean geometries.

3. Khayyam also contributed to the understanding of the parallel axiom.

4. As an astronomer, he calculated the duration of the solar year with remarkable precision and accuracy, and designed the Jalali calendar, a solar calendar with a very precise 33-year intercalation cycle that provided the basis for the Persian calendar (inaugurated on 15 March 1079) that is still in use after nearly a millennium. Omar Khayyam and his colleagues concluded their measurements of the length of the year, reporting it as 365.24219858156 days. Given that the length of the year is changing in the sixth decimal place over a person’s lifetime, this is outstandingly accurate. It is considered to be the most perfect calendar ever devised. The Jalali calendar is more accurate than the Gregorian calendar of 1582 with an error of one day accumulating over 5,000 years, compared to one day every 3,330 years in the Gregorian calendar.

Salient events of life:

He was born in Nishapur ( present day Iran) the initial capital of the Seljuk Empire. In medieval Persian texts he is usually simply called Omar Khayyam. It is assumed that his forebears followed the trade of tent-making, since Khayyam means tent-maker in Arabic.

After studying science, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy at Nishapur, he traveled to Bukhara in 1068, where he spent his time at the renowned library of the Ark. In 1070, he moved to Samarkand, where he started to compose his famous treatise on algebra under the patronage of Abu Tahir Abd al-Rahman ibn ʿAlaq, the governor and chief judge of the city. King Shams al-Mulk Nasr, who according to Bayhaqi, would “show him the greatest honour, so much so that he would seat [Omar] beside him on his throne”.

In 1074–5 King Malik-Shah commissioned him to set up an observatory in Isfahan and lead a group of scientists in carrying out precise astronomical observations aimed at the revision of the Persian calendar. The undertaking began probably in 1076 and ended in 1079.

Omar Khayyam died at the age of 83 in his hometown of Nishapur on 4 December 1131, and he is buried in what is now the Mausoleum of Omar Khayyam.

Books:

1. Risāla fī šarḥ mā aškala min muṣādarāt kitāb Uqlīdis ( A commentary on the difficulties concerning the postulates of Euclid’s Elements. 1077 AD

2. Risālah fī qismah rub‘ al-dā’irah (Division of a quadrant of a circle)

3. Maqāla fi l-jabr wa l-muqābala (On proofs for problems concerning Algebra) 1079 AD

Legacy:

1. In June 2009, Iran donated a “Persian Scholars Pavilion” to the United Nations Office in Vienna. It included statues of Ibn Sina, Al Biruni, Al Razi and Omar Khayam. It is placed in the Vienna International Center.

2. The title of the novel “The Moving Finger” written by Agatha Christie and published in 1942 was inspired by a Rubayi of Omar Khayyam.

3. Martin Luther King also cited his Rubaiyat in one of his speeches “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”.

4. The French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf based the first half of his historical fiction novel Samarkand on Khayyam’s life and the creation of his Rubaiyat.

5. The lunar crater Omar Khayyam was named in his honor in 1970.

6. A minor planet discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravlyova in 1980 was also named after him.