Abulfeda

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For the lunar crater, see Abulfeda (crater).

Abulfeda
BornNovember 1273
Damascus, Mamluk Sultanate
Died27 October 1331(1331-10-27) (aged 57)
Hama, Mamluk Sultanate
ChildrenAl-Afdal Muhammad

Ismāʿīl bin ʿAlī bin Maḥmūd bin Muḥammad bin ʿUmar bin Shāhanshāh bin Ayyūb bin Shādī bin Marwān

Ayyubid prince and local governor of Hama.[3]

Life

Abu'l-Fida was born in

Ayyubid prince of Kurdish origin.[5]

In his boyhood he devoted himself to the study of the

Crusaders.[6]

In 1285 he was present at the attack on a stronghold of the

Malik al-Nasir and after twelve years was invested by him with the governorship of Hama. In 1312 he became prince with the title Malik us-Salhn, and in 1320 received the hereditary rank of sultan with the title Malik ul-Mu'ayyad.[6]

He died in 1331.[6]

Works

Geography

Taqwim al-Buldan ("A Sketch of the Countries") is, like much of the history, founded on the works of his predecessors, including the works of Ptolemy and Muhammad al-Idrisi. A long introduction on various geographical matters is followed by twenty-eight sections dealing in tabular form with the chief towns of the world. After each name are given the longitude, latitude, climate, spelling, and then observations generally taken from earlier authors. Parts of the work were published and translated as early as 1650 in Europe.[6] In his works Abu'l-Fida correctly mentions the latitude and longitude of the city of Quanzhou in China.[7]

The book also contains the first known explanation of the circumnavigator's paradox. Abu'l-Fida wrote that a person who completed a westward circumnavigation of the world would count one fewer day than a stationary observer, since he was traveling in the same direction as the apparent motion of the sun in the sky. A person traveling eastward would count one more day than a stationary observer.[8] This phenomenon was confirmed two centuries later, when the Magellan–Elcano expedition (1519–1522) completed the first circumnavigation. After sailing westward around the world from Spain, the expedition called at Cape Verde for supplies on Wednesday, 9 July 1522 (ship's time). However, the locals told them that it was actually Thursday, 10 July 1522.[9]

History

His Concise History of Humanity (

Ali ibn al-Athir (c. 1231). It is in the form of annals extending from the creation of the world to the year 1329.[10]

It is divided into two parts, one covering the history of

Jean Gagnier (1670–1740) and Johann Jakob Reiske
(1754).

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Encyclopaedia Islamica. 16 October 2015.
  2. ^ Gibbs (1986), p. 119
  3. ^ Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, (edited by) Helaine Selin, pp. 7–8, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands, 1997 Identifiants et Référentiels Sudoc Pour L'Enseignement Supérieur et la Recherche – Abū al-Fidā (1273–1331) (in French)
  4. ISBN 0-550-18022-2
    , page 5
  5. ^ The Moslem World. Nile Mission Press. 1922. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  6. ^ a b c d  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abulfeda". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 80.
  7. ^ The Travels of Ibn Batūta: With Notes, Illustrative of the History, p. 211, at Google Books
  8. ISBN 9781498590143
    .
  9. ISBN 978-1-4757-3484-3
    .
  10. ^ Helaine Selin, Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Westen Cultures (1997), p. 7.
  11. ^ Henricus Orthobius Fleischer, Abulfedae historia anteislamica, arabice: E duobus codicibus bibliothecae regiae Parisiensis, 101 et 615, F.C.W. Vogel (1831).

General sources

Further reading

External links

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