Abu Hanifa Dinawari | |
|---|---|
| Personal life | |
| Born | Early 9th-century |
| Died | 895 Dinawar, Jibal, Abbasid Caliphate |
| Era | Islamic Golden Age |
| Main interest(s) | botanist,historian,geographer,metallurgy,astronomer andmathematician |
| Occupation | Muslimscholar |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Islam |
Abū Ḥanīfa Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd Dīnawarī (Arabic:أبو حنيفة أحمد بن داود الدينوري; died 895) was anIslamic Golden Age polymath:astronomer,agriculturist,botanist,metallurgist,geographer,mathematician, andhistorian.[1][2]
OfPersian stock,[a] Dinawari was born in the (now ruined) town ofDinawar in modern-day westernIran. It had some importance due to its geographical location, serving as the entrance to the region ofJibal as well as a crossroad between the culture of Iran and that of the inhabitants on the other side of theZagros Mountains. The birth date of Dinawari is uncertain; it is likely that he was born during the first or second decade of the 9th century.[11] He was instructed in the two main traditions of theAbbasid-eragrammarians of al-Baṣrah andof al-Kūfah. His principal teachers wereIbn al-Sikkīt and his own father.[n 1] He studiedgrammar,philology,geometry,arithmetic, andastronomy and was known to be a reliable traditionalist.[12] His most renowned contribution is theBook of Plants, for which he is considered the founder of Arabicbotany.[13]
Dinawari'sKitāb al-akhbār al-ṭiwāl (General History), written from a Persian point of view,[14] is possibly the earliest apparent effort to combine Iranian and Islamic history.[15] While historians such asal-Tabari andBal'ami devoted the introduction of their work to long discourses on the duration of the world, Dinawari attempted to establish the importance ofIranshahr ("land of Iran") as the centre of the world.[16] In his work, Dinawari notably devoted much less space to the Islamic prophetMuhammad compared to that of Iran. Regardless, Dinawari was a devoted Muslim, as indicated by his commentary on the Qur'an. He concluded the history with the suppression ofBabak Khorramdin's rebellion in 837, and the subsequent execution of the Iranian generalKhaydhar ibn Kawus al-Afshin.[17]
Besides having access to early Arabic sources, Dinawari also made use of Persian sources, including pre-Islamic epic romances. Fully acquainted with the Persian language, Dinawari occasionally inserted phrases from the language into his work.[18]
Dinawari'sspiritual successor wasHamza al-Isfahani (died after 961).[17]
The tenth centurybiographical encyclopaedia,al-Fihrist written byAl-Nadim, lists sixteen book titles by Dinawari:[12]
Dinawari'sGeneral History (Al-Akhbar al-Tiwal) has been edited and published numerous times (Vladimir Guirgass, 1888; Muhammad Sa'id Rafi'i, 1911;Ignace Krachkovsky, 1912;[21] 'Abd al-Munim 'Amir & Jamal al-din Shayyal, 1960; Isam Muhammad al-Hajj 'Ali, 2001), but has not been translated in its entirety into a European language. Jackson Bonner has recently prepared an English translation of the pre-Islamic passages of al-Akhbar al-Tiwal.[22]
Al-Dinawari is considered the founder of Arabic botany for hisKitab al-Nabat (Book of Plants), which consisted of six volumes. Only the third and fifth volumes have survived, though the sixth volume has partly been reconstructed based on citations from later works. In the surviving portions of his works, 637 plants are described from the letterssin toya. He describes the phases ofplant growth and the production of flowers and fruit.[13]
The first part of theBook of Plants describes astronomical and meteorological concepts as they relate to plants, including theplanets andconstellations, thesun andmoon, thelunar phases indicatingseasons andrain,anwa, and atmospheric phenomena such as winds, thunder, lightning, snow, and floods. The book also describes different types of ground, indicating which types are more convenient for plants and the qualities and properties of good ground.[13]
Al-Dinawari quoted from other early Muslim botanical works that are now lost, such as those ofal-Shaybani, Ibn al-Arabi, al-Bahili, andIbn as-Sikkit.
Abu Hanlfah al-DInawarl was a Persian of liberal outlook, who took an interest in botany among other sciences.
At the same time, these treatises were being translated, the Persian botanist Abu Hanifa al-Dinawari (ca. 815-95) was compiling his botanical lexicon Kitab al-Nabat (The book of plants), which represented the culmination of a tradition in which autonomous botanical writings were part of the sciences of the Arabic language.
