The Century: (185-256 AH / 805-873 AD)
Why is Al - Kandi considred as an encyclopedic?
Because he was, like most scholars of his time, an encyclopedic, as he is a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and philosopher in addition to being a musician.
Physics
and chemistry
and medicine
and mathematics
and astronomy
and music
and psychology
And reasoning
He worked hard to introduce Arabs and Muslims to ancient Greek philosophy
The Full name
Abu Yusuf Yaqoub bin Ishaq bin Al-Sabbah bin Imran bin Ismail bin Muhammad bin Al-Ash’ath bin Qais Al-Kindi
The Nicknames
Arab philosopher
Al-Kindi is considered the first Muslim Itinerant philosopher
The Jobs
The founder of Arab Islamic philosophy, as many say about him
Doctor
Scientist
philosopher
Music
Owner of a school in translation from the Syriac and Greek languages (the origins of the rolls for science at the time) into the Arabic language
His relationship with the caliphs of his time
He was close to the Abbasid caliphs who were contemporary with them, especially al-Mu’tasim: who invited him to be a tutor for his son. Al-Ma’mun (the Abbasid caliph at that time) appointed al-Kindi, accompanied by al-Khwarizmi, at the House of Wisdom Institute, His main task was to translate the most important Greek philosophical books into Arabic. In the year 833, Caliph al-Ma'mun died and Caliph al-Mu'tasim came, who in turn admired al-Kindi, And summoned him to be an educator for his son, Ahmed. And the scholar's relationship remained good with the caliphs until the advent of the caliph al-Mutawakkil in 847.
The Nationality
Iraqi
The place of birth
Iraq - Kufa - He was born in Kufa in the house of the sheikhs of the Yemeni Kinda tribe
the father
His father, Ishaq Ibn al-Sabah, was the ruler of Kufa during the era of the Mahdi and Rashid caliphate. At the beginning of the ninth century, Jacob al-Kindi was born, who grew up in the city of Kufa, He received his initial education there. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother to the city of Basra, where he completed his education until he decided to leave for Baghdad to complete his education.
his life
When he was living in Kufa with his rich family after the death of his father, the governor of Kufa, who left him and his brothers a lot of money.
The education
It is said that he completed memorizing the Qur’an and many of the noble hadiths of the Prophet when he was fifteen years old.
His mother's role in his life
He traveled with his mother to Basra
Jacob wanted to learn more of the sciences that existed in his time, so he decided to travel with his mother to Basra to learn the science of speech, and this science among the Arabs was comparable to the science of philosophy among the Greeks. Al-Kindi spent three years in Basra, during which he learned everything he needed to know about theology, Then he moved with his mother to a house in Baghdad to increase his culture and knowledge, for Baghdad in the Abbasid era was a sea of various different sciences.
His scientific life in Baghdad
- He began by going to the (Bayt al-Hikma Library) which was established by Harun al-Rashid and flourished during the reign of al-Ma'mun's daughter, and he spent whole days there reading translated books from Greek, Persian and Hindi, Then he began to study the Syriac and Greek languages under the hands of two teachers who used to come to his house to teach him in order (so that he could read books that had not been translated in their original languages).
- He was able to master these two languages after two years, and he began to achieve his dream, forming a team of his own, and became the owner of a school in translation that relies on the beautiful method that does not change the translated idea, but makes it easy to understand and free from looseness and weakness.
- He established in his house a library comparable in size to the Al-Hikma Library, so people began to go to his house for learning and his library for reading, and he became famous in the country when he was only twenty-five years old, Caliph al-Ma'mun invited him to him, and they became friends from then on.
Al-Kindi developed a new curriculum for sciences, in which he reconciled religious sciences with secular sciences, developing a curriculum that establishes the use of mathematics in many sciences, as mathematics is a basic science that includes geometry, logic, arithmetic, and even music, our genius philosopher used mathematics and the Greek musical scale invented by Pythagoras to set the first scale for Arabic music called the musical notes.
Why was his era fraught with ideological tension?
Because of the problem of creating the Qur'an
The domination of the doctrine of retirement
And the spread of Shiism
The areas in which he excelled
Books on logic
He presented and discussed the views of Ptolemy, which he mentioned in his book Almagest, He also spoke on logical proof and the five voices, and wrote a treatise on guarding against the deceptions of the sophists
Al-Kindi expanded in medicine
He wrote more than twenty-five theses in it, in which he talked about food, deadly medicine, medicines that cure harmful odors, hemoptysis, dog bites, and symptoms caused by phlegm, and in stomach ache and gout and the sections of fevers and treatment of the spleen, and he has a treatise on making food without its ingredients and another on how the brain works and a third on poisons and others, He has a book, "A Message in the Value of the Benefit of the Medical Industry," in which he explains how to use mathematics in medicine and pharmacy, and sets a scale that allows doctors to measure the effectiveness of medicine.
in the field of mathematics
Al-Kindi introduced the Indian numbers to the Middle East and wrote 12 books on arithmetic. He talked about the composition of numbers and unification in terms of number, added quantity, numerical tricks and the science of their inclusion.
He also wrote four volumes, entitled "A Book on the Use of Indian Numbers", which contributed significantly to the dissemination of the Indian numbering system in the Middle East and Europe. in engineering, Al-Kindi wrote about the axiom of parallelism, and in one of his mathematical works he tried to prove with the philosopher's thought the refutation of the idea of the eternity of the world, by proving that infinity is a mathematically and logically absurd idea.
As for the field of chemistry
Al-Kindi and Jabir bin Hayyan founded the perfume industry, and Al-Kindi conducted extensive research and experiments in combining plant scents by converting them into oils, Al-Kindi denied the possibility of extracting precious metals, such as gold, from base metals in a letter he called "A Book on Invalidating the Case of Those Who Claim the Workmanship of Gold and Silver.
in the field of music
Al-Kindi suggested adding the fifth string to the oud, and developed a musical scale that is still used in Arabic music, consisting of twelve notes. Al-Kindi has fifteen theses in music, There are only five of them left, and he is the first to introduce the word "music" into the Arabic language, and from there it moved to Persian and Turkish. He suggested adding the fifth string to the lute, He excelled the Greek musicians in the use of metres. He also recognized the therapeutic effect of music, and tried to cure a quadriplegic boy with music.
He was a pioneer in cryptanalysis and cryptography
and devising new methods of hacking using his mathematical and medical expertise, al-Kindi was a pioneer in cryptanalysis and cryptography, He is also credited with developing a method by which differences in the frequency of occurrence of letters can be analyzed and exploited for decoding, discovered in a manuscript recently found in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul, Entitled "Manuscript on Decoding Encryption Messages", in which he explained the methods of cipher analysis, encryption and statistical analysis of messages in Arabic.
The Supernatural
Al-Kindi believed that the goal of metaphysical concerns in studying the nature of existence and explaining the basic phenomena in nature, the levels of existence, the types of entities that exist in the world, and the relationship between them, is to know God. For this reason, al-Kindi distinguished between philosophy and theology, because they both discuss the same topic. Subsequent philosophers, notably Al-Farabi and Avicenna, strongly disagreed with him on this issue, arguing that metaphysics is concerned with the nature of existence and, therefore, is concerned with the nature of God, Al-Kindi's understanding of metaphysics centered around the absolute oneness of God, which he saw as a singular attribute of God alone. In this sense, everything described as "one" is, in fact, "one" and "many" at the same time, for example, the body is one, but it also consists of many different parts. A person may say “I see an elephant,” which means that he sees one elephant, but the term elephant refers to a type of animal that contains a number of this animal. Therefore, God alone, the One, is absolute oneness, with no plurality in it. This indicates a very deep understanding, and the denial of describing God in any description that can describe others.
Al Kandi writings
241 books distributed over 17 fields of knowledge
However, many of these works have been lost, and only 50 of his works remain
The philosopher wrote more than 20 philosophical books in which he talked about natural and supernatural, monotheism and the first sensible, active and passive things from the first naturals, and demonstrating the compatibility between natural theology and philosophy.
Why did al-Kindi leave work in the House of Wisdom (the huge Baghdad library)
When al-Mu'tasim succeeded his brother al-Ma'mun, al-Mu'tasim appointed him as his children's educator. But with the accession of Al-Wathiq and Al-Mutawakkil, Al-Kindi's star in the House of Wisdom fell. There are several theories, to explain why this happened, some have suggested that this is due to competition in the House of Wisdom, and some said that the reason was Al-Mutawakkil's strictness in religion, so that Al-Kindi was beaten, and his books were confiscated for a while.
What he experienced in his life as well
The informants, including the two scholars Muhammad and Ahmed, were the sons of Musa bin Shaker, the astronomer, they tried to discredit Al-Kindi in front of the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, and when they succeeded in reaching their goal, After they managed to provoke the caliph al-Mutawakkil against al-Kindi, the caliph al-Kindi struck and legalized his huge library and gave his precious books to the sons of Moses. This condition of al-Kindi remained until the last days of the caliph al-Mutawakkil, then Musa's sons returned to Al-Kindi his books after the "Al-Jaafari River" incident. After that, Al-Kindi was isolated from the surroundings of the caliphs who succeeded in ruling.
his death
Al-Kindi died in 873 AD at the age of 70 in the city of Baghdad alone during the reign of Caliph Al-Mu'tamid.
They said about him
Henry Corbin, a researcher in Islamic studies, said:
Al-Kindi died alone in Baghdad in 259 AH / 873 AD, during the reign of Caliph Al-Mu'tamid
Felix Klein Franke points out
There are several reasons for the loss of Al-Kindi's works after his death. Apart from Al-Mutawakkil's religious extremism, countless books were destroyed by the Mongols when they invaded Baghdad. In addition to a more probable reason, which is that his writings are no longer accepted among the most famous later philosophers, such as Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina.
Guillaume Cardano
The Italian is among the twelve geniuses who are said to be the first-class people in intelligence and knowledge, and whom no one else has come out to people since the beginning of the world.
Al-Qafti hated in the news of the wise said
Abu Yusuf al-Kindi, who is famous in the Islamic community for his exploration of the arts of Greek, Persian and Indian wisdom, specializes in the rulings of the stars and the rulings of all sciences, the philosopher of the Arabs, and one of the sons of its kings, and Abu Ishaq bin Al-Sabah was a prince over Kufa for the Mahdi and Al-Rashid, and his grandfather, Al-Ash’ath bin Qais, was one of the companions of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace.
Ibn Abi Osaiba in the layers of doctors
Yaqoub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi was of noble origin, Basri. His grandfather was the ruler of the provinces of Banu Hashim, and he settled in Basra and his estate there. He moved to Baghdad and there he was polite, and he was a scholar of medicine, philosophy, arithmetic, logic, morphology, geometry, the nature of numbers, and the science of stars, and there was no philosopher in Islam other than him. In his compositions he followed the example of Aristotle, and he has many combinations in the arts of science. He clarified the problem, summarized the difficult, and simplified the difficult.
Related studies
What is polymath?
Even the definition of "polymath" is a matter of debate. The term has its roots in ancient Greek and was first used in the early 17th century to mean someone with “a lot of learning,” but there is no easy way to tell how advanced these teachings are and how many disciplines. Most researchers argue that to be a true polyglot you need some kind of formal acclaim in at least two seemingly unrelated areas.
We made some pauses
1 - As the Messenger of God - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - said - the best of the centuries (the first three) of his honorable mission, and these men on whose biography the greatness of Islam was born are the ones who give Islam a special flavor, They are not only specialized scholars, but also encyclopedic scholars. The word may be derived from the Greek civilization, but it was first transmitted to the Arabs, and al-Kindi is a model for the encyclopedic Arab world with an Islamic background.
2 - Life has never been smooth and comfortable for anyone, as it is said that you are happy at time, times are miserable, and this Kandi finds what he finds until he dies alone - may God have mercy on him - after this unique scientific momentum
3 - May God Almighty restore its glory and supremacy to Baghdad, along with all the countries conquered by Islam since the first centuries of the Muhammadan message.
4- A person has no choice in whether he is born rich or poor, but the greatest choice is whether he is important or not.
5 - Compensation by God - the Almighty - always and forever, for the calculated woman who has gone outside the framework of a life full of bounties to a life of struggle, not financially, but rather a struggle (Single mother) Heaven's dispatches come with gifts that the mind does not expect.
6- Note: He used the mathematical method in various fields, even using it in music. Today, some Western countries - I think Korea - give mathematics lessons in the evening, compulsory for all school years, and when they were asked why: they answered: Mathematics makes you know how to think.
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