Ibn Yahyā al-Maghribī al-Samaw'al

مغربي، السموءل بن يحي، also known as Samau'al al-Maghribi (c. 1130 in Baghdad, Iraq – c. 1180 in Maragha, Iran) was an Arab Muslim mathematician and astronomer of Jewish descent. His father was a Jewish Rabbi from Morocco, but al-Samawʾal converted to Islam.

Mathematics

Al-Samaw'al wrote the mathematical treatise al-Bahir fi'l-jabr, meaning "The brilliant in algebra", at the young age of nineteen.

He also developed the concept of proof by mathematical induction, which he used to extend the proof of the binomial theorem and Pascal's triangle previously given by al-Karaji. Al-Samaw'al's inductive argument was only a short step from the full inductive proof of the general binomial theorem.

Polemics

He also wrote the famous polemic book debating Judaism known as Silencing the Jews (Refutation of the Jews) or in Spanish Epistola Samuelis Maroccani and later known in English as The blessed jew of Morocco.

Notes

References

• Samau'al al-Maghribi: Ifham Al-Yahud: Silencing the Jews / placeholder for Arabic language transliteration 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: 63514265
• 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-Bahir en Algebre d'As-Samaw'al translation by Salah Ahmad, Roshdi Rashed, Author(s) of Review: David A. King, Isis, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Jun., 1976), pp. 307-308
• Al-Asturlabi and as-Samaw'al on Scientific Progress, Osiris, Vol. 9, 1950 (1950), by Franz Rothenthal, pp. 555-566
• Arab Mathematics