Born Samarqand, (Uzbekistan)
Died 1302
Shams al‐Dīn al‐Samarqandī, who lived in the 13th century, wrote books on kalām (theology), logic, mathematics, and astronomy; his works were taught for many centuries in the madrasas (schools) throughout the Islamic world.
Little is known about his life. After studying the standard curriculum in the basic religious sciences, Samarqandī mastered kalām, (logic, and geometry). His works in these fields cover the standard material of Hellenistic and Islamic knowledge, but they also contain contributions that are original both in content and method. One of the most striking features of his works is that they set forth the idea of a universe based upon geometrical forms. In this sense, he can be regarded as the founder of the movement that might be named “geometrical” kalām in the Islamic world.
In the field of theoretical astronomy, Samarqandī wrote a (commentaroy) sharḥ on Naṣīr al‐Dīn al‐ Ṭūsī's taḥrīr (Recension) of Ptolemy's Almagest. He also...
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Selected References
Al‐Samarqandī, Shams al‐Dīn (1985). al‐Saha'if al‐ilāhiyya, edited by Ahmad ҁAbd al‐Rahmān al‐Sharīf. Kuwait: Moktabaṯ al‐Fatāh. pp. 13–28.
Bağdadlı İsmail Paşa (1955). Hadiyyat al‐ ҁ ārifīn. Vol. 2, p. 106. Istanbul: Milli Egition Bahaanlīge Yayinlare.
Bingöl, Abdulkuddüs (1991). “Shams al‐Din Muhammad b. Ashraf al‐Samarqandi ve Qistas al‐Afkar'ı.” Edebiyat Bilimleri Arastırma Dergisi 19: 173–182.
Brockelmann, Carl. Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur. 2nd ed. Vol. 1 (1943): 615–617; Suppl. 1 (1937): 849–850. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Dilgan, H. (1960). “Démonstration du Ve postulat d'Euclide par Shams‐ed‐Din Samarqandi.” Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications 13: 191–196.
——— (1975). “Al‐Samarqandī.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 12, p. 91. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Kātib Čelebī. Kashf al‐zunūn ҁ an asāmī al‐kutub wa‐'l‐funūn. Vol. 1 (1941), cols. 39–40, 105; Vol. 2 (1943), cols. 1074, 1075, 1326. Istanbul: Milli Egition Bahaanlīge Yayinlare.
Qurbānī, Abū al‐Qāsim (1986/1987). Zindagī‐nāmah‐i riyādī'dānān dawrah‐i Islāmī. Tehran: Markaz‐i Nasr‐i Danişgah, pp. 275–288.
Suwaysī, Muhammad (ed.) (1984). Ashkāl al‐ta'sīs li‐'l‐Samarqandī (with the Sharh of Qādīzāde al‐Rūmī). Tunis: al‐Dār al‐Tunîsiyya, pp. 23–26.
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Fazlıoğlu, İ. (2007). Samarqandī: Shams al‐Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ashraf al‐Ḥusaynī al‐Samarqandī. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_1212
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